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  “And this should mean something to me, because…?” I demand childishly.

  “Every Saturday we sit and watch out of that window. Dad doesn’t know why I still come even when he’s on holiday or laid up with a hangover, but every Saturday, I still turn up even on my own and I still put a bet on and then sit in that pub, right across the road.”

  I have the most foul language on the tip of my tongue and I want to lash out and prevent the revelations I know he wants to tell me. He has been spying on me. He must know things, then, and I sense he has an opinion of me I don’t like.

  “I do so because a girl, a lady, is always here on a Saturday. I don’t know why but she stands here for a time, sometimes a long time, before she marches off.”

  His voice is calm and monotone. I still haven’t looked up into his face. I stare at my infernal footwear and wish the ground would swallow me up. I wish I could run away in these damn wellies but I know any attempt to dash off in them will definitely result in me tripping and falling arse over tit.

  “What are you talking about?” My voice is still low and unwelcoming.

  “Today when I saw you, for the first time, I felt… compelled.”

  I am so angry, I need to know what he means. I raise my head and pull back my hood. My face is set in an irate frown as I lay my eyes on him. He’s a guy. Nothing extraordinary. Brown eyes and furrowed brows mirroring my own. I can’t read him. His hood has been tightened by drawstrings, allowing me sight of his features and nothing much more. I sense from the darkness of his eyebrows and non-designer, scruffy stubble, he is black-haired but all I can see is that unreadable, sad expression.

  “Are you a weird stalker or something? Do I need to call the police?”

  He blinks rapidly and I decide I really hate him. He’s infringing on my environment, on the world and the routines I have shrouded myself in. Instead of admitting I’ve ousted him as the stalker he really is, he chokes on a small laugh.

  “You wouldn’t have much luck, lady. I used to be one of them.”

  “You used to be, what?”

  “A copper, love. A pig. A plod. A fella what wears uniform. You know!”

  His exasperation rubs off on me and a tiny grin touches the corner of my mouth.

  “Oh…” I roll my eyes, “…well, you could still be bent.”

  “True,” he replies.

  I kick the pavement and notice some feeling returning to my bottom. I am re-warming after standing here for so long without the umbrella he’s now sheltering me with. I really should go home. Shall I just ask him to hug me now and get it over with?

  “What’s your name?”

  “Jules Simonovich,” I say with a snap.

  He could still be a stalker.

  “Warrick Jones,” he admits, showing me his ID, so I know he’s real. His plastic card reveals he works for social services and I hate him a little for it. If we were to get into the reasons why, I might be chewing his ear off forever…

  “Nice to meet you,” I say and shake his hand without thinking.

  “See, not a stalker. Just a friendly, community kind of person,” he tells me.

  I speak the only thing I think my mind will allow me to, “Quite frankly, I still think you are a stalker…”

  We break into fits of giggles, the pair of us, and he’s sniggering into his buttoned-up coat while I stare down at my wellies again. I am a lunatic, we both know it. He doesn’t seem to mind. It’s raining cats, dogs and pianos, after all.

  I guess he’s early thirties and I wonder why he left the Force. He certainly has the look of a plod about him. He’s domineering in stance. His clothing has been chosen for maximum practicality and dare I think it, ready for anything.

  In these initial few moments, I think of him as the protective older brother I never had and I don’t feel so uncomfortable any more.

  The laughter subsides and I gesture down the street. “Shall we walk? I am kind of freezing my sorry arse off here.”

  “Yes, can I take you home, Jules?”

  He sounds innocent but I query his motive inside my mind.

  “Just to my door, yeah?”

  “Absolutely. You’re not under arrest.”

  We begin walking in silence and I huddle my chin under my collar and bury my hands deep in my pockets. I am still so cold, I feel like my extremities might never recover. I stood outside that building for I don’t know how long.

  For some reason, I feel safe with Warrick. I don’t know him. He doesn’t know me. He may well be a prowling pervert seeking skirt. He may have lied about being a copper. I just don’t know. But I do feel safe.

  When he stops outside Sainsbury’s and talks to the homeless man, giving him a fiver and a pat on the shoulder, I wait awkwardly. The rain is drenching me again and I contemplate running off so I can get home quicker. But… the stupid wellies. Within seconds, he is back by my side, however, sheltering me and smiling.

  “Sorry, I just had to speak to Horatio. He’s a good bloke, really. The coppers round here keep him in clothes with a handout here and there. He keeps his ear to the ground, you see.”

  “If you’re not a copper, why do you still help him?”

  He turns to glance at me, before ducking out of the way of a pedestrian and her brood of kids. We separate and go round the crowd, then rejoin so that I may once again take safety under his brolly.

  “I also volunteer in the community,” he pauses, checking who might be listening to us, “I do lots for this community, actually. Lots you wouldn’t want to know about, Jules. There’s bad in every city, you know?”

  His countenance changes and I have no idea why. I don’t think I want to know.

  “What do you do for a living, Jules?” He changes tack.

  “English teacher. At St. Clare’s. Been there, what… five years now.” I wipe my snotty nose with my fingers and return them to my pocket. “Actually, I am Head of English.”

  “Blimey. You must be good.”

  He looks dumbfounded to hear of my profession.

  “The word is accomplished. That I am.”

  “Accomplished,” he replies, mirroring my authoritative correction. He has amusement plastered all over the tiny bit of his head I can see.

  “Yeah. Well, I just know how to get results. I am no saint, believe me. The kids just daren’t answer back to a woman as scary as me.”

  “I think you play yourself down, love. I mean, what, you can’t be more than twenty-five!?”

  I laugh heartily, from the pits of my gut. He’s laying it on thick now. He laughs too.

  “I am twenty-seven, though I was actually promoted to the post at twenty-six. I found a cheat, you see.”

  “Sneaky, sneaky,” he says, touching his nose with his index finger.

  “Yes. Whatever gets results, eh?”

  He maintains a perpetual smile and I realise we are nearly there, but I don’t want to part yet. He is a nice man, though I would rather walk hot coals than allow him into my house. Not today. Not after we have shared such intimate chit-chat.

  “Jules, we should exchange numbers, yeah? I would like to meet for a drink sometime, if that’s good with you?”

  His manners are impeccable and he’s not pushing himself on me, not staring, just glancing every now and again.

  “Erm, oh, yeah… okay.” What else can I say, really?

  We reach my doorstep and the old lady, as ever, is right behind me. We sidestep the entrance so she can make her way in.

  She struggles with her key and her heavy shopping bags. Warrick offers to help her but she shakes him off, snatching her things away from him.

  “No thank you, very much,” she scowls.

  Warrick gives me a questioning look.

  Once she’s inside, he asks, “What’s her problem? No coal for the fire?”

  I giggle. He is charming and friendly.

  “She just doesn’t like me. Not many people do, Warrick.”

  Saying his name for the first time seems na
tural enough but he seems to jerk at my use of it. He shrugs it off quickly, though he knows I spotted his little telltale sign of attraction. He definitely fancies me though I am still picturing him as the older brother I never had.

  I ring his phone so that we have each other’s numbers and he moves back to walk off to wherever he needs to go.

  “I will text you Jules, yeah? We shall get that drink?”

  “We shall,” I repeat.

  I actually believe we will. His tentative approach coupled with his serious gaze convince me he is not lying and he wouldn’t suggest something without having thought it through first.

  Once I’m upstairs and running a bath to help bring my extremities back to life, I consider that maybe he saved me from a dark fate that day. Who knows? Is he an angel in disguise? I didn’t get the hug I so crave but I did get his number and I did get a few words with someone who neither thinks of me as a sad, lonely depressed girl or a quick lay for the day. A sense of belonging overwhelms me but I overrule it.

  I sink myself into a piping hot bath and make my mental plan for the night: a dash to the shop for goodies, Strictly, and an internet search of Warrick Jones. He’ll be out there somewhere and I will discover his story. I know he has one because it was written all over his face. That’s what happens when you’ve got a story of your own – you can see other people’s too, even if they don’t know it.

  Chapter Four

  Warrick

  Five years ago, I woke up on a hospital bed. They had been forced to put me in an ambulance and on a drip. All I remember prior to that is that I was walking down the Upper Avenue towards my dealer’s house, when, crash! I saw a man get thrown thirty feet through the air after a car hit him head-on. A few seconds later, and that could have been me on that zebra crossing, getting smashed to smithereens.

  I remember feeling shameful as I saw that man’s lifeless body laid there on the ground. At the time, my life wasn’t very worthwhile and I felt it should have been me getting tossed like a rag doll to my death. The man died at the scene, too many fatal injuries to survive. I walked back home, not to my dealer’s, and I fell into a stupor as I began to wean myself off. I decided that day, I couldn’t go on like that anymore. I failed to turn up for work, failed to feed myself, and a few weeks later, woke up in hospital. Dad had called the doctor and they had kept me alive somehow, while I shivered and endured the cold turkey I still don’t like to think about. It is a foggy period in my life, a blip, a time I really cannot remember. Everything before then, all my life previous to that, is blurry too. It has been ever since.

  I reassessed my life as I recovered and I chose a different career, a different life, a new me. I had to cut all ties with everyone I knew before. They knew too much about the me of old.

  A year ago, I had my hand clasped around a beer bottle in the supermarket. I was feeling together by then, sorted, you know? I thought I could handle it. I really hoped it might be possible to have a little snifter now and again, and not risk falling back down that slippery slope once more. However, when I tried to pick it off the shelf, something deep inside me wouldn’t allow it! I couldn’t grip it hard enough to drag it off and put it into my shopping basket. I eventually gave up and stormed to the checkout, so fed up with myself. I remember at the self-serve kiosk, some bloke was laughing at all my purchases: brown bread, half-fat butter, pears, shredded wheat and heart-healthy bacon. This is what happens after you see a man die like that on the street – you realise how little time we have here. I relayed the story about the beer to my dad and he laughed like a hooligan. He asked me seriously, whether I thought I was ready for a drink, and I said yes, I could handle one and leave it there. So he bought me one at the pub and I supped it, and realised, one is now more than enough for me these days. I was partially drunk on that and knew to leave it there. To this day, I still can’t bring myself to buy a beer off a supermarket shelf. I trust myself to have one at the pub in company but nothing more. I never really could handle my drink and it seems a few years of being clean has taken me right back to what I used to be like.

  That’s not the only strange thing I noticed since I abandoned my former lifestyle. Nowadays, I don’t want women. I used to want them all the time. I also used to be big, I mean bruiser big, but now I hate the gym. I used to have slick hair but now I don’t care. I don’t even like clothes anymore. All these material desires were gone after the cleansing of that cold turkey. I had to learn to live with a different side of myself and it’s been educative, let’s say. I now have an overwhelming, unrelenting urge to help people and it’s making me constantly tired, drawn and haggard. My salary hardly gets touched every month because I don’t spend any money! I don’t know what I am doing, I honestly don’t! Obviously, I forgot how to enjoy life.

  Anyway, about this woman, Jules. I haven’t wanted women, it’s true. But this one, oh man.

  I’m walking away from her house and now I know where she lives, I feel a sense of responsibility. I have been watching her for some time. Perhaps months, even. I cannot exactly make a definite guess at how long. She slipped into my thoughts one day when I realised she is always there, on that corner, every Saturday. She crept into my world without me realising it. You know, you sit there on your stool every Saturday, week in week out, and you never expect anything different to take place. You embrace the routine and the humdrum and it makes sense. It gives you peace. Every Saturday I meet Dad and that is always something to look forward to. I love my father. It’s our little piece of bonding time and it’s good. It’s relief.

  I realise now that most of us go through life observing but not seeing. She was there all that time. Who knows how long? Why didn’t I notice her years ago? I don’t know. Who knows how long she has been standing there for? I berate myself for my questions. I have never been able to keep my beak out. Probably why I became I copper.

  Anyway, I got to watching her after I realised she is always there, and my Spidey Senses told me that there is something dark surrounding her. She waits around for something to happen. Life or death, a job or a purpose, that might drag her away from it all? Never allowing herself to admit what it is she really wants. Isn’t that the case for most of us? But she does it in plain sight on a street corner so she’s begging for a saviour but she doesn’t know it. It takes a nosey parker like me to see beyond the immaterial. It’s that eye that helps you spot a kid hiding abuse, a woman concealing her live-in spouse for the sake of getting benefits, the slightest hint of a hash den in someone’s roof or a kid carrying a pocket full of poppers to take home to his dependent mother. The pain and the corruption is rife. It got too much for me and I… we’ll get to that, later.

  Earlier on when I walked up to Jules, I had to modify my thoughts! The girl is not just pretty, she is supermodel standard. I am not biased, here. I am not even looking for a girl. Not even judging her for her looks. I am just saying that, flipping heck, the woman should be on the front cover of a magazine. She’s naturally beautiful. I mean that in the very literal sense. With barely any effort on her part, she still looked breathtaking. Clear complexion, dainty mouth, catlike grey eyes decorated by beautiful eyebrows and lashes, plus high cheekbones and gorgeous smile. Yet she seemed so sad and alone. I didn’t want to scare her off or make her feel bad about herself. Why did I approach her today and not before? Well, before today it had never been bucketing it down so badly at the very juncture she turned up for her usual staring session. Yet still, she was there, in the pouring rain. She was hiding her face and just standing in the street and none of it made sense to me.

  I got a look into her eyes for the first time and I felt dizzy, like the world spun the other way for a moment. Yes, I admit. I felt a bit of something. If I am truthful, I fought the urge to pin her against that wall and kiss her. Not just peck her, but grab her and devour her, her hair in my hands and my arms around her. She’s so beautiful. In the past I never would have given her a second glance! I’d have thought she was just another of those unattaina
ble women I had no chance with! When I saw her from the vantage point of across the street I saw legs, plenty of leg actually, and that long mane of hair. What I didn’t see was those eyes and how brilliant and sad they would look all at once.

  How do I tell her that I am a thirty-four-year-old divorcee with a kid and a failed career behind me? How do I tell her anything? There is so much to tell! I have her number, though, and I will call her for that drink. I’ll play it cool and see where this goes. I will give her a moment or two to reconsider and then, well, if she decides she hasn’t got time for a stupid scrote like me, I had better accept it, hadn’t I? Just get over her and forget about her. But, do I want to see her again? I really do.

  I get back to the three-bedroom house my ex-wife left me in alone, peel off my clothes and head for a piping hot shower. I let the rain of water warm my bones and I close my eyes.

  I see her eyes.

  I close mine and I can’t help it. I turn the dial to cold. I realise something that was dormant has been reborn with just that one, thirty-minute meeting with beautiful, leggy Jules.

  Chapter Five

  Jules

  Monday morning and I am walking to school when I get a text: Will you come for a drink at the pub this Saturday? No embarrassing dad, I promise. Warrick x

  He brings a smile to my lips and I text back: Why not?

  So the date is set and that’s it. If you can call it a date. I am not remotely attracted to Warrick nor do I want to be. I am fine with being alone. I have been for years. It’s fine, really. Fine.

  I shake my head and the devil on my shoulder ‒ she tells me I am a bloody shit liar ‒ I nod and agree with myself. Two kids see me and giggle, but I brush it off. I tell myself that they ought to wait and see what life is like. One day they might also discover themselves walking down the street muttering too. The school of hard knocks, that’s what life is really all about, after all? It sends you barmy and resorting to crazy shit to get you through the day.