Down to Sleep

by M K Farrar

  “You’re lucky it didn’t hit one of the other cars.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Or roll right into the River Avon.”

  The man looked as though he was doing okay for himself—a smart suit and good haircut, and the designer stubble, of course. She wondered what he was doing in a budget supermarket car park, and she experienced a flash of embarrassment as he glanced down into her grocery bags. She’d bought all the shops’ basic brands, not wanting to splash out on any luxury she could live without. Money was tight, and she’d be lucky to afford her rent that month. She could have gone into a shared flat, but she was twenty-five now and felt like someone her age should be able to live on her own, even if it was in a place barely big enough to fit a bed and a sofa. The flat had a damp problem, too, though the landlord insisted it was because she dried her clothes on the radiator and didn’t open the windows enough. She’d pointed out many times that the windows were always open, and it wasn’t as though the flat had enough room for her to fit in a tumble dryer. She wasn’t about to go dragging a whole heap of soaking wet clothes down to the laundrette just to dry them, and besides, she couldn’t afford to do that anyway.

  Everyone else her age seemed to have their lives sorted, but she was the opposite. Natalie had jumped from one thing to another, starting up college courses, only to abandon them a term or two later, and picking up a job, which she then also left. Now she was working in a pub and coming home to an empty flat night after night.

  “I’m Kyle.” The man stepped forward and offered his hand. “Kyle Detcher.”

  She had little choice but to shake it. “Natalie,” she replied. “Anders. Natalie Anders.”

  “It’s good to meet you, Natalie.”

  “Thanks.” Her cheeks heated. “You, too.”

  “Can I help you with your shopping?”

  The offer surprised her. “Oh, no. It’s fine, really.”

  “It didn’t look fine when I caught your trolley.”

  “I was just trying to get the door open. The central locking is broken, so I have to use the key.” She made a deliberate show of opening the back door of her car to prove she’d done it. “But I’ve got it from here.”

  He shrugged and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Of course. I mean, if you’re sure.” He lingered, not making any move to turn and walk away.

  Did she need to worry? It was the middle of the day, and there were plenty of other people around them. Couples and mothers with small children wheeled their trolleys back to their cars, and other vehicles drove around, searching for spaces. There was even a bored-looking teenager in uniform, wearing a high-vis vest, wandering around collecting trolleys that people had abandoned in the car park instead of taking them back to their proper place. This didn’t seem like the usual sort of spot for a man to abduct a woman.

  Kyle suddenly let out a sigh and threw both hands up in the air. “Okay, I’m coming clean. I literally just moved to Bristol, and I know absolutely no one here. You and your runaway trolley seemed kind of interesting, and so I wanted to strike up a conversation with you. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I had an actual conversation with someone that wasn’t done either on the phone or by email.”

  He’d thought she seemed interesting? A part of her wanted to ask him if he was either lost or needed glasses. How could someone like her, in the car park of a crappy supermarket, possibly seem interesting?

  She had always been awkward, with her wild hair, and currently sported a fringe that had been cut too short and made her hair appear even crazier. Clothes never seemed to sit right on her body, and even when she copied an entire outfit out of a magazine, everything still seemed to be wrong. What would a well-dressed, handsome man see in her?

  Natalie experienced a flash of claustrophobia, a feeling of being backed into a corner, of being trapped.

  “Oh, umm, I...”

  He chuckled and motioned to her shopping. “I mean, it doesn’t have to be right now. I can see you need to get your food home. But I’d love to take you for a coffee sometime. Or even lunch, perhaps?”

  He looked so hopeful, blue eyes wide, and she felt like if she said no, she might as well be kicking a stray puppy. Besides, why would she even be saying no? He was attractive, and she guessed he was employed. It wasn’t as though she was inundated with offers of coffee from handsome men in supermarket car parks.

  “I guess that would be okay,” she relented.

  His shoulders dropped with relief. “Oh, brilliant. I’ll look forward to it. Do you have a mobile phone? If you give me your number, I can text you to arrange something. Unless you want to put something in place now, of course.”

  No, that was too on-the-spot. At least if he just took her number, she could muse on it, back out if she needed to.

  “Yeah, I can never remember it, though.”

  He grinned again. “Me neither. Never had that problem when it was just landlines. One number to memorise was quite enough.”

  She found herself smiling. “Yes, it was.”

  Natalie rummaged back around in her handbag and took out her Nokia. She had her number saved under ‘contacts’, so she hit the button enough times to bring it up and then showed it to him. He produced one of those new flip phones from his pocket and flicked open the top to show the screen.

  “Snazzy,” she commented, surprising herself again by teasing him.

  He laughed. “Yeah, it is. Will probably break the first time I drop it.” He jerked his chin towards her Nokia. “Those things will outlast a car running over them, though.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  Kyle moved in closer, and the hint of aftershave filled her nostrils. What was that? She recognised it—Jean Paul Gaultier.

  He nodded towards her trolley. “We could always test out the theory on a supermarket trolley and build from there.”

  “I’m not sure I want to use my only phone as an experiment,” she commented, though she was still smiling. She didn’t add that if something were to happen to it, she wouldn’t be able to afford another one.

  “Anyway,” he said. “If we broke your phone, how would you be able to reply to my text to tell me how much you’re looking forward to our coffee?”

  Her cheeks heated again. He was definitely flirting with her, and it was something she wasn’t used to. Not that she didn’t attract men—she did—but they were normally student types, or men who’d graduated but had no idea what they were actually going to do with their art degrees. Not men like this who were well-dressed and smooth and charming.

  She nodded. “That’s an excellent point.”

  He held her gaze, and her insides danced.

  “So, you’ll be keeping an eye out for my text then?” he asked, one eyebrow arched.

  He’d won her over.

  “Absolutely.” Her lips tweaked with a smile. “I’ll keep an eye out for it.”

  He gestured to her bags. “And you’re still sure you don’t want me to help out with your shopping?”

  The last thing she wanted was for him to pay any more attention than normal to her own-brand Weetabix and instant noodles. “I’m sure.”

  “Well, it was nice meeting you, Natalie Anders. I hope I’ll see you again soon.”

  “You, too.”

  He flashed her one final charming smile before stuffing his hands in his pockets and turning and sauntering away.

  She tilted her head slightly to one side. “I’ll watch out for that text,” she called after him.

  He glanced over his shoulder at her. “You’d better reply. Don’t leave me hanging.”

  And then he kept going, and she admired how his broad shoulders moved beneath the well-cut suit, appreciating the view.

  She turned to load her shopping on the back seat, suppressing a smile between her lips and shaking her head in disbelief.

  “What on earth was that all about?” she said, half to herself, and half to her shopping.

  Chapter Two

  Amazingly, N
atalie was able to find a parking spot right outside of her flat.

  The front doors of the row of terraced houses opened right onto the pavement, so they didn’t have front gardens that could be turned into a driveway, and no one had a garage. Natalie thought if there even was a garage, some developer would most likely try to turn it into a bedsit and rent it out.

  Each property would once upon a time have only housed one family, so only needed one correlating parking space. Now, each of the buildings had all been divided into as many as three flats, often with there being at least one car attached to each flat, so there were never any spaces, and certainly not one outside her front door.

  Remembering the handsome man in the supermarket car park, she smiled to herself. Today must be her lucky day.

  Her flat was on the ground floor, and a young couple lived in the flat above her. They were from Iran and were always friendly when they saw her. The man was training to be a plumber, and Natalie hadn’t quite figured out what the woman did, though she left the house and returned at the same time each day, so Natalie assumed she was either working or studying.

  Natalie hauled her shopping bags out of the back of the car, through the shared entrance hall, and then opened her front door. Stooping to pick the bags up again, determined to make it in one go, she carried her shopping into the kitchen. The space was tiny, having been formed out of what was supposed to have been a two-storey house. The developers had turned what had originally been the living room into her bedroom. The kitchen had become the living room, and what was now the kitchen had most likely been just a store cupboard when the property had been in its original layout.

  Still with her encounter in the supermarket car park on her mind, she set about placing items into the fridge and cupboards.

  “At least there isn’t far to walk to put stuff away,” she mused. She could literally stand in one spot and reach the fridge, oven, and sink from there.

  She had to get ready for work. The pub where she worked was situated on the high street, about fifteen minutes’ walk from her flat. It wasn’t a job she enjoyed, but that wasn’t unusual. She hadn’t actually enjoyed any of her jobs. She envied people who grew up intrinsically knowing what it was they wanted to do with their lives, as though they’d been blessed with some magical gene that had somehow evaded her. She’d never felt as though she had time to imagine a fantasy career when she’d been a child. Before the Anders had adopted her, all she remembered was feeling scared and lonely, and then afterwards, when she’d believed everything would be better, she’d found all of her time and energy had gone into trying to avoid her adoptive brother, Anthony. Survival had been her modus operandi, and even now, at twenty-five, she still felt caught in that cycle.

  At least she was mostly left alone at work. She wasn’t attractive enough to get hassled by most of the punters when it got late and they’d had a few too many, but when she was walking home in the early hours of the morning, she always felt vulnerable. She could drive to and from work, but really, it was just around the corner, and when she got back, all the parking spaces would be gone, and she’d have to park so far away, it was as though she’d walked anyway.

  She only owned the car so she could drive down to her parents’ at the weekend. There wasn’t a train station that served their small village, and by the time she changed various trains and buses, it ended up being far easier to just drive.

  Natalie was the dutiful daughter, doing her hardest to be the best any parent could hope for. She had so much to make up for—too much—more than a lifetime’s worth. But still, she tried, making visits back to Devon every weekend she could, taking with her home-baked dishes and treats for them she could never afford. But no amount of home cooking or gifts could ever replace what she’d taken from them.

  She felt like some evil demon they’d accidentally brought into their home. They’d only ever offered her love and kindness, a home and a family. But, unbeknownst to them, they’d brought a murderer into their family, and that same person had removed the competition, the one relative they’d loved unconditionally. There were birds that did the same. The adult cuckoo laid an egg in the unsuspecting adoptive parents’ nest, and, when the intruder chick was born, it killed all the true offspring, and the parents raised the killer chick instead. That was how Natalie felt—like that murderous chick.

  The passage of time was a strange thing. It had the ability to warp and soften memories, to change them into something more palatable. There were moments over the years where she’d wondered if she’d overexaggerated Anthony’s treatment of her in her head. She questioned herself if it had really been that bad—bad enough to warrant Anthony dying for. But then she remembered his threat to her right before he’d died, how he’d told her that if she didn’t have sex with him, he’d go and tell her parents that she was forcing herself on him, and make it look as though she was the bad one.

  In her bedroom, she changed into her pub uniform of jeans and black fitted t-shirt and black boots. She made do with a couple of slices of toast and marmite for dinner, and then set out, locking her front door and then stepping onto the street.

  She almost collided with another person.

  “Oh, sorry!”

  Natalie recognised her upstairs neighbour, Mina.

  The other woman was pretty, around Natalie’s age, with thick black hair and dark eyes, and a mouth that was always quick to smile.

  “Natalie, how are you?” Mina asked, touching Natalie’s arm lightly with her fingertips. “Are you okay?”

  Instantly, Natalie felt trapped. She wanted to dart around Mina and keep going, but the other woman was blocking the way, and besides, Natalie was too self-conscious to do such a thing. Instead, she pasted on a smile and longed for the interaction to be over.

  “Yes, fine, thanks. I’m just heading off to work.”

  Unaware of Natalie’s inner turmoil, Mina beamed back. “You must come and have dinner with me and Sajad one evening. I would like to cook for you. You eat alone all the time.”

  “That’s very kind of you. I do normally eat at work, though, so I promise I’m not always on my own.”

  That was a lie.

  “My cooking is much better than at the pub,” she insisted. “You must come and join us. It’s not good to be alone.”

  Mina was in a foreign country, and she was the one trying to help Natalie feel as though she fitted in. Natalie was touched by her offer. “That’s really kind of you, thank you.”

  Had the other woman seen all the basic, own-brand packaging in their shared bins? Did she feel sorry for her?

  “I met someone today,” she blurted, not even realising she was going to tell her before the words came out of her mouth. “A man. He asked me for coffee.”

  Mina’s dark eyes lit with excitement. The other woman genuinely seemed happy for Natalie. Natalie wondered if she and her husband sat upstairs and discussed the mousy, quiet woman downstairs, who, despite living in her own country, didn’t seem to have any friends.

  “That is wonderful, Natalie. When are you having coffee?”

  “I’m not sure. He said he’d text to arrange it, but he hasn’t yet.” She shrugged. “Maybe he won’t bother.”

  But deep down, she felt as though he would. Unless it had been some strange dare to go and ask out the awkward-looking woman with the frizzy hair and mismatched clothes. He’d seemed genuine, though.

  “He will,” Mina said. “I’m sure he will.”

  “Anyway, I really need to get going. I’m going to be late.”

  “Okay. You must go. But then after you have coffee with this man, you must come and have dinner with me and Sajad and tell us about it.”

  Natalie found a smile tweaking her cheeks. “Okay. I can do that.”

  “I will let you get to work now. Have a good evening.”

  “You, too.”

  Natalie smiled and kept going, feeling lighter on her feet than she had in some time. She navigated the maze of the residential streets and h
it the main road.

  The high street seemed to be growing rougher by the day. Homeless people were sleeping in doorways, and groups of men clustered on street corners, drinking out of cans. She kept her head down, doing her best to seem invisible—something she was normally good at.

  Within fifteen minutes, she arrived at work. The place was typically quiet at this time of day, and today was no different. The stink of cigarettes and stale alcohol hit her and would be on her clothes and in her hair when she got home. One day, she thought perhaps the government might try to stop people smoking in pubs and restaurants and clubs, but then there would be uproar, and all those places would probably go out of business.

  Phil called out to her from behind the bar. “You’re late.”

  Her stomach sank at her boss’s accusation, and she glanced up at the clock. “It’s not even five yet.”

  “No, but you’re supposed to be behind the bar at five, and you just walked through the door, so there’s no way you can get downstairs to hang your stuff and then get back here for five.”

  She couldn’t help but glare at him. “Well, I would have been able to if you’d not kept me here talking. Wait until I am actually late before you start telling me off for it.”

  He’s in a good mood.

  Not that Phil was ever really a beam of sunshine.

  She had a locker downstairs, which contained her apron, and where she could leave her belongings while she worked.

  The staff had insisted on more security after there had been a spate of thefts of phones and wallets while they’d been working. No one knew if it was one of the staff who’d been doing the stealing or one of the customers, sneaking down here when no one was looking, but Phil had eventually given in and bought a set of lockers.

  She slipped her jacket into hers, followed by her handbag. Pausing quickly, she checked her phone. Phil had already told her off for being late, so she might as well actually be late now. She hadn’t been expecting anything, but a message showed up on the screen.