“The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love.”
Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

People always ask where you were when someone important died. What you were doing when you heard the news.  As if the dying is a fixed point in time and space, immutable and immovable.  I’m drinking coffee and reading the paper when I learn about the death of Gabriel García Márquez.  It is a rainy wet morning in North London and the café is luminescent with many carefully chosen Danish lights.  There are six of them fixed over the counter, each one different in shape and style.  My favourite is formed like a bronze teardrop.  I imagine that it trickled slowly down from the cheek of an ogre, crying over the loss of love, “Because nothing in this world, after all, is more difficult than love.”

I’ve always wanted to learn Spanish. To experience the words how they came direct from Gabo’s mind.  I can never escape the feeling that something has been lost in translation, missing subtleties and nuances. That if I were to experience his words in their native format, it would somehow become transcendental.  But this is the perpetual challenge of the writer. Readers translate what is written according to their own experience.  Mostly through love; a mother’s love, first loves, lost loves.  Gabo would have loved these people here in this café. This place; these people, who are my own Macondo. Whilst I am resigned to my solitude, I will not be condemned to isolation.  Gabo would have understood why I sit here and observe. His pen would have captured their daily lives, fixing them on the page to live for eternity. He would have treated them with love, the universality of experience, that unifying bond that connects us all.

See that lady standing at the counter. Smartly dressed and clutching an oversized red bag; the kind of bag that can hide many a secret. Three weeks ago she dropped the bag as she was getting out her purse.  A tampon, a jumble of travel magazines and her passport scattered across the floor.  She’s here every Friday morning at the same time.  She orders the same thing. ‘Flat white and an almond croissant to go, please Steve’.  She looks just like another professional woman on her way to word.  Just like the other corporate ants, clutching their coffee cups, taking quick sips to measure the cooling rate of the enclosed liquid as they descend into the bowels underneath the City.  But I know different.  She brushed against my arm on the way out one day. A gentle touch, a whisper almost.  What hit me most was the feeling of suffocation, an asphyxiating, encompassing love; so strong, so overwhelming, I had to remind myself to breath. Seeing my distress, she’d rested her hand on my shoulder, checking I was ok.

‘I’m fine.’ I struggled to regain my composure.  It’s so hard; some people are so desperate to share their story.  Each person: so different; so unique. With some it’s like a comic strip, others it’s a storm of emotion, yet more send fragments of words. I never know what is coming. With her it’s a silent film, one of those black and white affairs with the tragic heroine.  A child’s bedroom: a young girl connected up to a machine, an endless succession of bathing, feeding and medicating, the arrival of a matronly lady. Leaving the house: a smart suit, an overcoat, red lipstick and a big red bag, a gash of colour in the monochromatic scene. A trip to the coffee shop: flat white and an almond croissant.  Down into the tube:  a journey to the end of the line. At the airport: the departures board, a woman sat on a bench, head in hands and a journey home; repeated over and over again in a Mobius strip of love.

‘Really, I’m fine.’ I smile apologetically. ‘I hope you have a good day.’  She’d looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. Ever since she hesitates as passes my table as if there is something she wants to say.

Now let’s look now at Steve, our friendly antipodean Barista and coffee shop owner. What would Gabo have to say about him?  See him there by the counter. He looks fairly every day in his white linen shirt and beige chinos. But look a little closer. Can you can see the flash of red lace, the smudge of blue eyeliner, the sprinkle of glitter? I’m pretty sure he won’t be ascending to heaven whilst hanging out his laundry, especially as he doesn’t really like to air it in public. I have to admit I always have a cheeky peep at him when he hands me my coffee each day.  He’s a real Diva and everything comes across from him in glorious Technicolor full toned cabaret.  Disney leading ladies are his forte, and he does a mean Shirley Bassey. His is a journey of self-love.  I feel him straining against his cage. Soon he will break free, until then he continues to sing, his love growing and swelling until he will be able to contain it no more.  Ah Gabo, did you not once say  ‘all human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret.’

The door bursts open letting in a rush of damp air and the noise of the street outside.  Everyone looks up expecting some bustling mother with her pram.  Instead they see an elegant lady dressed all in white.  White mackintosh belted at the waist, white heels, white jeans, white leather gloves and a white silk scarf knotted at her throat. Her hair, almost white, is cut in a Chanel chic bob. She stands framed in the doorway for a moment before gliding into the room. Small beads of sweat on her forehead suggest a recent mild exertion. She continues forward, eyes darting to and fro, scanning the room before her. Her hands are clasped in front, long fingers twirling and twisting in endless repeating patterns. She startles when a child runs past her. Funny little things children: full of germs. Recoiling backwards, she has a grace of movement, a natural elegance that allows her to bend around things. Gabo would have seen what others do not.  Look again more closely. Red raw skin peeping above the top of the gloves, the tap tap tap of a forefinger to temple. Look closer, can you see how her feet don’t touch the ground?

I sit back in my chair. What, did you think I was the only one? Gabo knew. There is extra-ordinary in the most ordinary. Look around you. A loud guffaw from the back of the room and I turn to see three young men in red t-shirts with hipster beards and beatnik hairstyles. I know them as Darkness, Chaos and Conflict, though that’s not what they are called locally.  Locally they are known as the three Tim’s.  It amuses them. They are not entirely ‘normal’ for want of a better word.  Mind you it takes one to know one. They’re standing as Labour councillors in the forthcoming local elections. They stop by my table.

‘How’s it going boys?’ I say.
‘When the hurly-burly’s done. When the battle’s lost and won.’ replies Tim.
‘Working hard in the run up to polling day then?’ I laugh. ‘Can’t be much fun door-stepping in this weather.’
‘Hover through fog and filthy air.’ says Tim. They always talk like this; the strange thing is no one seems to notice.  I guess people only ever hear what they want to. I think Gabo would have noticed.
‘Well I wish you luck; not like you need it.’ Tim smiles as they move away. They form a huddle by the door.
‘When shall we three meet again.’ says Tim.

At the counter a woman is preparing to pay.  The child now resplendent in sunshine yellow rain coat and cherry red boots is hopping from foot to foot, eager to be on her way.  Losing her balance she falls by my feet. The mother busy with her purse doesn’t react immediately and I’m forced to offer a helping hand.  As I grasp her I am transported to an earlier time and place.

It’s busy, crowds of people bustle around us. The air is thick with the scent of frying onions and you can hear the joyful melody of the carousel. Holding tight onto my mother’s hand, I’m comforted by the constant stream of sunshine yellow that trails into my mind.  When she is happy, I’m happy too.  I can’t read her thoughts – it doesn’t work like that, more like a one-way broadcast of kaleidoscopic emotion. Up ahead there is a man holding a large bunch of shiny helium balloons.  They are jostling and tugging at their strings like horses champing at the bit.  I tug at Mum’s hand. I want the red one. I tug harder.
‘Not now Abigail, we’ve somewhere to be.’

We continue past the bobbing balloons.  A little further another man is selling bags of candyfloss. It’s bubble gum pink and reminds me of Mum at bath time. Sitting on her lap she dries my hair, wrapping me in a soft fluffy towel. Cocooned and safe.
‘Mum – please can I have some? Please?’ my voice whining and insistent.
‘No, Abigail. It will spoil your dinner. Come on now, hurry we have to go.’ She squeezes my hand gently and steers me through the crowd. Sadness in my stomach as I turn and watch the retreating pink clouds nestled in their plastic jail.  We carry on. It’s getting busier and the crowds are closing in.

Then I see it.  Up ahead; just in front. A cornucopia of candy. A shining blazing mass of coloured gems stacked in piles so high I can’t see the top.  Entranced I drop Mum’s hand and move towards temptation.  Each step brings me closer and closer until I am stood, my nose barely touching the counter, the brilliance of the lights reflecting my sugary desire.

‘Please, Mum, please can I have some. Please. I promise I’ll save them for after dinner?’ Pleading my case I turn to her. But she’s gone replaced by a seething forest of people with no way through. I search for her, my eyes frantically darting to and fro.  I think I can I see her, the cherry red dress shining like a beacon. I start to run.  But I can’t reach her. I’m buffeted from every side, here a blast of song, there an action adventure movie, here a mist of scented lavender.  They crowd my head and I can’t breath.  I finally reach the red dress; grasping its skirt like a life buoy in deep water, ready to welcome the warm wash of yellow.  But instead I am assailed by a lion’s roar.  I step back confused and look at the woman in the red dress.  It’s not my Mum.  I turn round and round crying, spinning, eventually dropping to the ground sobbing, my tears falling to trampled dusty ground.  I feel a warm hand on my shoulder and look up.  There is a man with a beard.  I know he is kind because his story is like the song of birds in spring.
‘Hey little girl.  Are you ok?’ I shake my head.
‘I’ve lost my Mum.’ I feel empty.
‘Well then, let’s see what we can do to help. My stall is just over there. Let’s go, we can clean you up and then see if we can find her.’
He guides me back to the sweet stall, his hand touching my shoulder; I hear the sound of a nightingale.
‘Here have these.’ He hands me a cone filled with the objects of my recent infatuation and now forgotten desire.  They look dull, the sweets cloying and sickly.
‘Now then, little girl. Let’s see if we can find your mum and stop those tears. When did you last see her?’  I remember the pink candyfloss – so first we go there. He is holding my hand and all the while I can hear the birdsong. When we get there, the two men chat.  The candyfloss man looks sad, gesturing and shaking his head. He offers me one of the candyfloss prisons. I want to say no, but I can’t find the words.  He looks at me and chucks me under the chin.
‘Chin up little one.  Someone wiser than me once said, “never stop smiling not even when you’re sad, someone might fall in love with your smile.”’

Next we head towards the balloons.  They look different to now, lack lustre and garish.  When we get there the men talk.  The balloon man looks sad and hands me a single red balloon.  The cherry red of Mum’s dress, the red of her love.  I stand watching it bob around on the end of its string like a swelling beating heart. And I feel like I am going to break. Letting go of the string I watch the balloon rise up into the air.

And then it hits me.  A sluice of colour washing over and engulfing me. A shifting shining kaleidoscope of crimson, sunshine and indigo, fading slowly to soft candyfloss pink.

‘Pink, it’s your favourite colour?’
The girl looks at me, eyes wide with wonder. What did she feel from me?
‘Yes.’ she says.  ‘It makes me feel safe.’
‘See that’ I say. Pointing to the tear shaped bronze lamp. She follows my finger and nods. ‘That’s the tear of an ogre who once lost his mother.’  She looks back at me.
‘Did he find her again?’ her voice like the sound of birds in spring.
‘Yes.’

Small hand in big hand, they make their way out of the café.  I smile as I watch them go.