We bumped into each other a few weeks later. He was doing his rounds with a watering can, and had stopped to refill it in the little staff refreshment room on my floor. I decided to take a tea break and followed him in. 'You're here again.'
'I'm helping out. Your usual man is away this week.'
'But you have been in to tend the plants before?'
'Yes, I've been in a couple of times.' He smiled, lifted the watering can from the sink and stood looking at me, not sure what to say.
'How do you find us?'
'To be honest with you this is not a very friendly place. I expect most people here are pretty high up, too much on their minds. No offence like.'
I could not resist flouting office etiquette by offering him a cup of tea or coffee. Surprised, he became charmingly coy and looked down. 'You don't need to do that for me, gov.'
'I'm getting myself one, so it's no trouble to get one for you. At least it will prove we're not all unfriendly.' While the tea was brewing I asked, 'Do you have other calls in this part of London?'
'My firm does a few contracts around here, a bank and a couple of other companies. The main problem is parking, and finding somewhere decent for lunch.'
'There are a couple of sandwich bars, and a pub across the road. They're not bad.'
'Sandwich bars, might try one of them next time I'm up this way.' He paused and bit his lip. 'There's a good pub, the Beckford Arms, near the garden centre where I'm based.'
Although I was unfamiliar with that part of London, the Beckford Arms was well known and listed in the gay papers and magazines. 'I've heard of it. Never been there, it's not my area.'
'It's friendly, more somewhere people go to talk and have a quiet drink, not a place where they've all got one thing on their minds. More like a local pub. Friday evenings is good, lively but not too crowded. It's a good evening out if you've got a few mates with you.'
'Next time I'm down that way I'll have to look in. I'm Mark, by the way.'
'Tom. I go most weekends. Saturdays it gets crowded quite early, Fridays are easier if you want to talk, until the last hour or so when everyone comes in.'
My weekend was free apart from the weekly shopping and cleaning the flat. The effort of trying to pick someone up, deciding where to go, getting myself ready, all the awkward tentative manoeuvres that looking for a partner for the night requires, had seemed too daunting since my return from France, and all my nights had been solitary. Frustration would drive me to end this period of celibacy somehow or other before much longer, and the vague invitation to the Beckford Arms spurred me to act. Even if nothing developed with Tom the pub was worth investigating. Other men there might be of interest, if only to chat to, and if necessary more familiar territory in the West End was only an Underground ride away.