These Dreams of You

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Outside the pub is another song from one of the city’s windows that are lit up like reverbed fireflies. Over, under, sideways down. Bob appraises the remnants of the midnight legion that cross the curbs and brush past; they wear lace and silver trench coats, brilliant-red braided Hussar coats and Moroccan boots. Their wide Edwardian ties have images of fish so radiated with color that all the people in the street appear to be aquariums. When will it end? Everyone in the world is young, suddenly.

Each road is a vortex. In the wet nighttown gleam, there drifts past the three of them on the sidewalk a Rolls Royce the color of a prism, the aurora borealis on wheels. The window is down on the passenger’s side and they have a clear glimpse of who’s in back. “See who that was?” Jasmine says to Reg.

“Bloody right,” Reg answers.

“Who was it?” says Bob.

“Who I’m not.”

“Elvis Presley?”

“Better.”

“These days,” says Bob, walking now, “London isn’t the way I remember.”

Jasmine says, “These days, London isn’t the way anyone remembers.”

“Are you a Beatle too?” he says to her as they stroll, only because it’s a time when such a thing can be believed.

“Assistant for the management of Reg’s band. Studying journalism at Kingston Hill.”

This seems to interest the Yank. “What kind of journalism? Politics?”

“Not politics,” she shakes her head. “Politics as it’s presently practiced doesn’t matter much these days, does it?” She’s aware this sounds pompous.

“My brother considered journalism when he was young.”

“What happened?”

“He went into politics,” Bob laughs almost bitterly.

“Sorry.”

“You’ve been to London before, then,” says Reg.

“I grew up in London,” says Bob.

“Seriously?” she says.

“Only a year or two. After the Blitz, before the war. I was twelve.” He shrugs. “The other war, of course. Not the one now, in Southeast Asia.”

“Your war,” says Jasmine, “not ours.”