Tea timed out

The interview had gone well. I’d instantly liked the three panel members and now, standing at the edge of the butt-strewn pavement for a gap in the traffic big enough to weave through, even the minute circling eye of my inner critic couldn’t find too many unravelled stitches to pick at. No loose ends, no dropped threads, no blind alleys chased up, no foot-in-mouth moments.

I’d been a little nervous beforehand, always am. In fact I’d go as far as to say that a little pre-emptive dose of adrenaline is the polish that my interview performance needs to shine. But those butterflies had flown early on without leaving their trace on the panel’s notes and – for better or for worse – I knew I’d done as well as I could. If I didn’t get the job, if the panel offered it to another, then it would be because that someone else was better, more suitable than me in some way, and not because I’d performed badly.

But all of that, like the ceaseless flow of vans and lorries into Croydon, was out of my hands. I fished around in my black leather interview handbag to find my cigarettes, cupped my hands to light one, exhaled a plume of smoke into the thick dieseled air, and smiled. Relax. Two double decker red buses simultaneously pulled up on opposite sides of the road with the unfathomable choreography of inner-city mass transit systems the world over. Enough collective bulk to halt the traffic. Enough time for me to scuttle across in my high heeled shoes and interview suit.

The car park was only just around the corner so I dawdled a while in the sunshine looking in shop windows as I finished my cigarette. And that was when I saw it. Nestled among the opaque windowed high rise office blocks, the steaming truckers' cafes, the newsagents, the litter strewn whitewashed blank eyed faces of empty units, was a yoga shop. I'd not long been doing yoga at that time and had never before seen such a thing. What on earth I wondered, even as my hand was pushing the door open, could be on sale in a yoga shop?

The air inside was thick with the smell of incense and rainbow bright with the shattering reflections of light refracted through a hundred hanging prisms. The walls were lined with shelves of glossy paperbacks on meditation, Buddhism, yoga. Joss sticks, candles, prayer beads, yoga mats, blocks. A few loose fitting cotton garments of various sizes hung on a rail. Posters advertising classes - for beginners, intermediates, advanced, children, older people, pregnant women - were pinned to the cork board. I looked all around the shop. Lots of things to see. Not one that I wanted to buy.

A young man wearing a thick green jumper and a beard sat reading at the pale ash counter. He hadn't looked up when I came in but even I appreciated that he was probably aware I was there. I was, after all, at that moment, the only customer. A slight pang of anxiety gripped my stomach. It's daft I know, but when I'm in a small, personally-run shop like this I always find it excruciatingly difficult to leave without buying something. Anything. I looked wildly around. Joss sticks? No, won't use them. Books on the pathway of meditation? Ditto. Crystals? Not my thing.

And then, hallelujah, I spotted them. A small display of fat-bellied china mugs with cheerful rainbow stripes on the side. As ideal for my tea as for my small shop guilt purchase. Done. I lifted one off the shelf and took it to the counter to pay. The young man put down his book and smiled at me earnestly as he wrapped it up in tissue paper. I thanked him, paid with the stash of pound coins I'd saved for the car park, pulled the door open and stepped from the aromatic cocoon of the shop onto the dusty pavement.

I was drinking tea from my new mug the following morning when I got the phone call and accepted the job. As the days passed, I grew very attached to the cup and soon promoted it to the exalted rank of my special morning tea mug, making sure I'd washed it up every night before bed so it was fresh and ready to help jump-start my sluggish brain into action. And then a couple of months ago disaster struck. My beautiful cheerful mug rolled off the drying rack and into the dog's bowl. When I picked it up, two huge chips of china were left winking behind in Kaos's water dish.

I contemplated the possibility of drilling a hole in it to convert it into a flower pot; used it for a while as a scoop to ladle dog meal out of the giant paper sack. It has sat for the past week on the kitchen draining board as I tried to work out what to do with it next. And in the end, last night, I dropped it in the bin. Sometimes, one has to recognise the moment has passed and it's time to say goodbye.