I’m still getting that feeling. It’s like he’s breathing down my bloody neck now. I reckon he’s close enough to touch me, but I’m not looking round. Not giving him the satisfaction. As soon as I spot a gap in the traffic, I’m over that road and gone. That’ll get rid of him – he don’t move fast enough to come with me. I’d be gone by now if they’d put a crossing along this bit. Still, they don’t have to try and get across with this constant stream of cars though, do they? It was only luck that Mum never got knocked down on this bit. Had a near miss more than once, she did – with me screaming at her from the other side to get a bloody move on. I told her that road would be the death of her if she didn’t hurry herself up. And it was as well. Though it wasn’t this bit of course – it was down by the bus stop, not far from the shops.
Only just stepped off the bloody pavement, she had. Then bang – down she went. Looked like a whale laying in the gutter. And all the stuff under her coat was spread out on the road. Shower gel and shampoo, most of it was. We didn’t even have a bloody shower. And there was a couple of pairs of them support stockings she used to wear. I don’t know what else she had. I didn’t hang around to look. Ambulance man had a go at me for that later, but would he have stood there waiting to be caught, a bag full of stuff in his hand? I don’t think so. Anyway, I did a bit of a sprint round the back of the pay and display, put the stuff in a bin and went back. I was really wound up by then, ready to get Mum up and give her a piece of my mind. Only that wasn’t going to happen, knowhamean? They were pumping her chest and holding a mask on her face and all that. And there was a crowd of shoppers stood round watching. The head ambulance man came over to me, put his hand on my shoulder. I don’t like it when people touch you, knowhamean? But I tried not to pull away because he was only doing his job. He looked down at me, shaking his head.
‘Sorry, love,’ he said. ‘I think it was her heart.’
They offered to take me in the ambulance with her but what was the point? I wanted to get home and sort things out. Empty that ashtray. Get the ornaments nice and neat. Get myself one step ahead.I left the shower gel in the road.
Do you know, I think he’s gone. I can’t feel him behind me no more. I’m still going to cross over though. Just in case. I won’t look round. Don’t want him thinking I’m frightened. Some bloody nutter, if you ask me, nice coat or not. This bloody traffic is bad tonight. I’ll nip across in a minute, walk along the other side for a bit, then I’ll be straight in the front door. Hang on, there’s a gap coming up, after that bus. I’m sure they shouldn’t be going that fast. Felt the draught as it passed me, I did. Still, I’ve got rid of the stalker. I can’t even see him on the other side now. Probably turned off ages ago, after all that. Got myself worked up for nothing. If I see him again, I’ll say something. I will – it’s not right following people like that. Wouldn’t mind getting a look at his face anyway. You want to know who it is what’s been hovering along behind you, don’t you?
I’m striding along like normal now. Definitely one step ahead again, I am. There’s still no sign of the stalker either. I can’t wait to get indoors and get the tea in the oven. And I’m going to sort them shelves out tonight, after the news. Might change the ornaments round, just a little bit. Have them in a different order. Right, got my key ready. I can see the front door from here. Looks like the postman’s left a parcel. I don’t never get no parcels. I bet he’s left it by mistake. They never look properly, knowhamean? Just dump it any old where and leave someone else to sort it out. Well, I’m not wandering the streets tonight looking for the right address. And if it’s something useful, I’m keeping it myself. Had that nice food mixer earlier in the year. If they want to go leaving things on people’s doorstep that’s their problem. Come on, get a move on, I think to myself, let’s get indoors.
I’m holding this parcel, trying to get the key in the door at the same time and would you believe it? Here he is again, right behind me this time. Touching me, he is. And I’m trying to duck out of his way because I don’t like people touching me. But his duffle coat sleeve just stays there on my shoulder, and I think right that’s it, and I look round to have a go at him. But he’s still so far inside that bloody hood that I can’t see his face. I don’t like this, right here on my own doorstep and everything. It’s not right. I open my mouth to tell him to bugger off. But he holds his hand up, all slow. Then he points at the parcel. I look at it properly and it is for me, it has got my name and address on it. He keeps pointing and I reckon he can’t talk. He wants me to open it, I think. I haven’t got a bloody clue what’s going on here.But I’m opening this parcel and he’s standing over me watching, not saying nothing. It’s done up really well, lots of brown sticky tape. I’m tugging at it hard to get it undone. He don’t help or nothing. He just looks down at me all the time. Now I’ve got the paper off, I lift the lid up and all there is inside is this bit of card. Round it is, and glossy. I look up at him and he points again, inside the box. His coat sleeves are too long and you can’t see his hands or nothing. I fish about in the box to get this bit of card out – it’s not easy to pick it up. It’s done like a road sign. Red round the edge, and thick black writing in the middle. NO OVERTAKING, it says.
I want to turn round and unlock the door. I’ve got to get the tea ready. But I can’t move my hands. I can’t move nothing. All I can do is stare at this sign and him in the black coat. It is black, I can see that now – very smart. All I want is to get indoors and watch the news, sort the shelves out, catch up on the time I’ve lost on the way home. I’ve got too much to do to be standing here like this all night. It’s all right for him, looks like he’s got nothing to do except lurk about following people home. Hang on a minute though; he’s making a move. He’s pushing at my front door. What’s he think he’s playing at? I still can’t move so I just have to watch. He’s got the door open, I don’t know how, and he’s going indoors. He’s got some nerve, this one. He’s going up my stairs. I’m not having that. I’m going after him. This isn’t on, knowhamean? I follow him up, all slow just like him. I can’t get myself moving any faster, I don’t know why. I’m still holding this sign and I look at it again. NO OVERTAKING. Chance would be a fine thing I think, my legs are turning to stone. I’m walking just like Mum. I get to the top of the stairs and he’s standing on the landing pointing to Mum’s old bed. I’m not going on there, I think, I like my own bed. But he won’t stop pointing and I’m too tired to mess about so I go and lay on her bed. There’s a faint smell of her on the pillow. Cigarettes and that hairspray she always used. I can barely keep my eyes open, I’m that tired. I try to shake my head. This won’t get the dinner cooked, I think to myself. I’ve got to get myself sorted out. I look up at him in the coat, try to give him a piece of my mind, but it’s no good, I can’t talk. I can’t do nothing no more. As for him, he’s just standing there glaring down at me. He don’t move, he don’t say nothing, he just stares. Now what’s he doing? I haven’t got time for all this; I just want him out of my house so I can get on. He’s leaning over me, right close to the bed. I still can’t move. At last, I think to myself, I’ll get a butcher’s at his face. Have a look at this bloody nutter what’s been following me like a shadow, stopping me getting a move on all this time. I force my eyes to stay open and look into his deep black hood. Now I can see his face. It’s -
* Home from Home *
I went there every Friday. He thought I was going off to do my night-shift but that was just Mondays and Wednesdays. I took small things with me, from the flat – nothing he’d notice. A mug one week, pillow slips the next; an ornament, books. I moved in gradually over the months, and lived my bed-sit life once a week. I loved listening to the other residents; the smell of the musty damp walls and carpets; being anonymous.
In my real life I was a teenage wife; nineteen years old and already wearing an eternity ring. I was the unwilling owner of an ironing board, matching crockery, sheets and blankets, a second-hand washing machine. Colin, five years older
than me, had taken on the role of husband with ease, as if he’d been preparing for it all his young life. I, on the other hand, sat on my hand when I was on the bus, to hide my wedding ring. I played the role of wife indoors but when I was away from our rented flat, I behaved like a single young woman. It wasn’t so I could go out with other men, although I did that as well, it was more to escape the mistake of our wedding. And try to be myself again. Or discover who that might be.
I used to arrive at the bed-sit just after seven. I always had a feeling of deep contentment – a sense of coming home – but it was edged with the excitement of adventure. There was never anyone about, and I was grateful for that. I didn’t want to see them, I just loved listening. It was a sedate, even gloomy house – a large, high Victorian semi with faded paintwork and an overgrown front garden. I could hear the faint sounds of radios and televisions from behind closed doors on the way to my room, but I never saw the other residents. I only heard them moving about in the night, or going to one of the shared toilets. Everyone – including me – seemed to time their visits so they wouldn’t encounter each other on the landing. It was a house of choreographed movements and solitary lives. I loved it. For the first time in my eighteen-month marriage, I felt happy and settled. But only once a week.
The landlord collected the rent on Mondays. I used to leave my money on the rickety table in my tiny room. The first thing I did when I arrived on a Friday evening was check my rent book. Thin blue writing, neatly done, recorded my payments. I left the exact money, always cash, just before I went back to my other life on Saturday mornings.
Every week, I took a few more things to make the bed-sit my own; to put my personal stamp on it. I’d found an old framed picture in the back of a cupboard at the flat – the previous tenants must have left it behind. It was a dull landscape, and one corner of the glass was cracked. I didn’t even like it but at least it helped make a mark on the bare walls of my bed-sit. At least it was something I’d put there. I had this real need to turn the little space into my own tiny home; to make a claim on it. Lack of money and the restrictions of my other life meant I could only manage to do that by filling the room with second-hand belongings and a few things from the flat. It didn’t matter – I just needed to create a place that was mine. My confidence and sense of identity grew stronger as I surrounded myself with things that I’d taken there. It had a more familiar look each week, and became my hideaway, the cave I retreated to. It was my special place – away from my marriage, my duties as a pretend wife and my hollow loneliness. I found cups and plates in a charity shop and took them to my little home. I washed them and put them in the cupboard over the sink – this made me feel secure and prepared and that I truly belonged, I really lived there. I had cups in the cupboard. I was established and settled, had a proper life just like everyone else. The cupboard had a sliding door made of painted hardboard, with a cut-out hole for a handle. You had to slide the door carefully so it wouldn’t get stuck, or come off its warped plastic tracks.
I always had the same meal on Fridays; omelette and salad. Colin didn’t like omelettes. I preferred the little two-ring electric cooker to the full sized one at the flat. I imagined all the other single women making themselves supper, and it made me feel part of things; like I was doing things properly. The bed-sit quickly filled with the smell of onions so I used to keep the window open overnight. I didn’t want to leave traces of my life after I’d gone. Like dolls in a toyshop, I lived my life unseen by others. The rest of the time I didn’t exist. I left no clues other than the rent book.
There was a small black-and-white television in my room, on a dark wooden trolley. I never watched it – that’s all we did back at the flat. On the bottom shelf of the trolley there was a large dish, shaped like a seashell. It was pale blue and looked like heavy glass, but when you picked it up it was light and made of plastic. It was the only superfluous, ornamental thing in the room and I hated it. I daren’t put it away in case the landlord thought I’d broken or stolen it– I’d had to sign an inventory of all the cheap, worn ‘sundries’ they supplied; the cutlery, crockery and burnt, battered saucepans. I used to cover the blue dish while I was there. I put a tea-towel over it so I didn’t have to look at something that wasn’t mine, something so ugly. Under that white tea-towel, it looked like a magician’s trick, waiting to be done.
After I’d eaten, with my plate on my lap, I used to sit and listen to the house. That was my favourite part of the evening. There were just the two rooms on the top floor – mine and another one. I never heard anything at all from that room; no door opening in the night or floorboards creaking as someone passed on their way to the loo. I looked for a light shining under the door, but there was nothing. I used to make up stories about who lived in the different rooms and in that one I reckoned there must have been another person like me – another once-a-week visitor. They obviously came on a different day of the week, so we’d never get to hear each other. I wondered if they were trying to create a separate life like I was – if they were escaping the error of some real-life trap they’d got caught in. Perhaps the whole house was inhabited by pretenders; people with other lives elsewhere, but who needed to be themselves for at least a few hours every now and then.
Below, on the second floor, were three more bed-sit rooms, a bathroom and a separate toilet. There was no paper in the toilet – you had to take your own. I hadn’t known that the first time so it was a bit of a surprise. I quickly got used to it though – I’m good at adapting. I took a toilet roll with me whenever I made my carefully judged, tiptoed trips to that cold little lavatory. The lino floor was always sticky and the window rattled, but the worst part was the rusty, old-fashioned cistern, which used to give away our secretive visits to the loo by making clunking and screeching noises for ages after you’d pulled the chain. It was useful in a way though – you’d never go out on the landing until you’d waited long enough for the cistern to stop screeching. That way, there was less chance of an unwanted meeting with another resident. It worked for me – I never saw any of them. You soon get used to the way a place works.
In one of the rooms on the second floor, there was a man who used to call out in the night. He’d make this awful wailing noise, like he was in a lot of pain. When I heard him the first time, I leapt out of bed and rushed to my door. I waited, listening hard, but there was nothing; no sounds of anyone going to see if he was all right. Then he did it again and the rest of the house still stayed silent. I knew they were all in, had heard them moving about at different times. In the end I crept back to bed and lay there in the dark, listening to that old man calling out through the night. Eventually I fell asleep. After that I got used to it. He did it most nights when I was there. It was only when he didn’t groan and wail that I worried about him. I could always sleep better once I’d heard him.
Next to the wailing man, there was a young man who watched a lot of football. You could hear it on his telly as you passed his door. He didn’t have it on loud, so you had to lean close against the yellowing gloss paint of his door to hear it properly. He used to talk to himself as well. I could never hear what he was saying – just football talk I suppose. He used to stay up really late, that one. I’d seen the light under his door at one and two in the morning. The other room was along the corridor a bit. A woman lived in that one. She used to cry. It was only soft, but you could just make out this sad, weeping sound late at night. I heard her when I had a bath. That was part of my Friday ritual as well; soaking in that big old cast iron bath with rusty marks under the taps. The bathroom was damp, with big water stains on the ceiling and green mould between the tiles, but I didn’t mind. It was part of being on my own; at least I was in my own little place.
I wasn’t so sure about the people who lived on the ground floor. I only ever heard snatches of sound as I arrived, and again as I left every Saturday morning. One of them had a bicycle that stood in the hallway. It was always there and covered in dust. There was a heavy chain and padloc
k, and a handwritten note. Do not move. That note used to make me smile. How could it be moved? It was chained to the banisters. The other thing about the downstairs was that it stank of cat’s pee. The smell hit you as soon as you opened the door. There was a strict rule against having pets so I thought it was probably a stray, spraying outside the front door. I found out later that someone did have a cat in one of the rooms. I wondered why they didn’t let it out instead of letting it wee indoors. Maybe they were trying not to be seen by the other residents.
Grave Misgivings Page 20