by Amy Miller
Heidi blinked and whispered, ‘Why?’
‘I shouldn’t say,’ the waitress said, ‘but he was spending too much time on “breaks” in the bookies, when he should have been in here. I think he has a bit of a problem.’
Heidi’s face burned. ‘Oh right,’ she said, wiping the prickly sweat from her forehead. ‘Poor him.’
The waitress shrugged, obviously unsure if she felt any sympathy towards him, which made Heidi feel highly defensive.
‘Perhaps you shouldn’t go around telling everyone about what happened,’ Heidi snapped. ‘It’s hardly fair.’
‘You asked!’ said the waitress, suddenly sullen.
Heidi sighed and shook her head.
‘Sorry,’ she said hurriedly, chastising herself because this girl might be the only link she had to finding out where he lived. ‘I’m sorry. I was worried for him. Am worried for him. I’m a… new friend of his. Do you know where he lives?’
‘No clue!’ the waitress said. ‘In the bookies!’
Heidi frowned, but before she could ask another question, the waitress was called over to serve another customer. Heidi didn’t drink the coffee. She left too much money on the table and slipped out of the café. She didn’t want the waitress’s words to be true – perhaps they weren’t true. Was William a gambler? Johnny had given him money and she’d agreed to lend him money too. Was he using it to gamble, or did he owe money to someone? What was going on in his life? Hideous scenarios unfolded in her head. William involved with loan sharks, bailiffs – and worse. Beaten up and alone in the gutter. Held up at knifepoint outside his front door. Perhaps William had lost his way. Her body burned with the desire to track him down and help him.
She walked past the betting shop next door – and her heart sank into her boots.
‘Oh, William,’ she whispered as she looked in through the window, at the ‘beast of a bet’ and ‘place your bets’ signage. She peered through the door. There were two men inside, neither of them William.
Heidi walked along the street, with no direction or clue what to do next. She knew how gambling could destroy people. Temptation was everywhere: on TV, on mobile phones, on the Internet, on the high street, in the corner shops.
Entering a One Stop shop, Heidi chose a sandwich and waited in a queue to pay, staring at the displays of scratch cards, her mind whirring. A trickle of sweat ran down her spine.
Checking a phone message from Zoe, she was only half aware of a commotion at the checkout, when a man behind her raised his voice and shouted: ‘Get a ruddy move on, will you?’
Almost cricking her neck as she turned to check he wasn’t talking to her, she side-stepped out of the queue and saw a man at the till, wearing a black sweatshirt, with his hood up, digging his hands into his pocket, clearly trying to find his wallet. Heidi glanced at his basket: a pack of cornflakes. A pint of milk. A tin of beans. One banana. You’d think they’d let him off.
‘Have you forgotten your wallet, love?’ she heard the cashier say. ‘Or don’t you have enough on you? Maybe you could come back? Only there’s a bit of a queue, love.’
Heidi’s cheeks blazed. She hated situations like this, when a simple act of kindness would defuse the situation completely. She moved towards the cashier, pulling her purse from her bag.
‘Excuse me,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ll get this shopping if you’ve forgotten your wallet.’
The man was looking in the opposite direction but turned to face her. Heidi stumbled backwards, her hand over her mouth.
‘William?’ she gasped. ‘I had no idea it was you. Sorry. Look, can I pay for this?’
‘Hurry up, will you?’ someone in the queue shouted, while Heidi fumbled in her purse and pulled out a £10 note. The cashier quickly gave her change.
‘For God’s sake!’ said someone else from behind her, while another said, ‘Bless you, dear.’ But Heidi was oblivious. She didn’t look at anyone as she followed William out of the shop and onto the pavement, her heart banging. He walked quickly, his hood up, and for one dreadful moment she thought he was going to carry on walking and not turn around at all, so she called out his name. He stopped and waited for her, as she half jogged to join him.
‘Why did you follow me to the supermarket?’ he said. She tried to conceal her pain.
‘William,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t following you. I honestly didn’t know that was you. I went into the café and they said you’d left, so I was walking around here, trying to work out what to do and then, there you were in the shop. Serendipity.’
She smiled and handed him the bag of shopping.
‘I… just forgot my wallet in there,’ he said. ‘I don’t need you to rescue me. I would have gone back later.’
She tried not to stare at the wallet poking out of his pocket.
‘Oh, I know that,’ she said. ‘But I would have done the same for anyone in the hope that someone would help me out when I’m in a tight spot because we all get in them at one time or another.’
‘I’m not in a tight…’ he said, his sentence drifting into a sigh.
He clenched his jaw.
‘Are you alright?’ Heidi cut in, gently touching his arm, before letting her hand fall away again. ‘I emailed you. You seem, I mean… why did you leave your job?’
‘I don’t want to serve coffee for the rest of my life,’ he said angrily. ‘I actually wanted to be a photographer. I was working as a freelancer, but it’s difficult to get really established without all the latest digital equipment and my ex – she’s not helping. I had a small room in our house as a place to work, but now, well, that’s a distant memory.’
Photography. He had that in common with Johnny. She remembered now that he’d mentioned it during their first meeting, and despite the bleak situation, this common interest delighted her.
They stood in silence for a moment and rain began to fall. Gently at first and then ferociously, drenching Heidi and William in a matter of seconds. But neither of them moved.
People in the street dashed into doorways or pulled umbrellas from their bags, but William stayed completely still, as if he didn’t even notice the rain. Though he was there in body, all six-foot-something of him, Heidi thought he seemed far away. She desperately wanted to know what was going through his mind. Heart thumping in concern, she felt at a loss to know what to say. Did she have any right to ask questions and delve into his life?
Finally plucking up her courage, she pulled the car keys from her pocket.
‘Can I give you a lift home?’ she asked. ‘I think it’s raining.’
Her attempt at humour fell flat.
‘No, no,’ he said. ‘I can walk. I’m not far from here. I’m already wet. The rain doesn’t bother me.’
He gave her a small, unconvincing smile, and the dimple appeared. Thunder rattled across the sky and the rain became hailstones.
‘Please?’ Heidi said, covering her eyes. ‘Please let me just give you a lift so we can talk for a few more moments.’
With a reluctant shrug, William followed Heidi to the Morris. Hardly daring to breathe in case he changed his mind, she opened the passenger door and ushered him inside.
‘Climb in,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to give me directions.’
In the car, William pointed ahead, then stared out of the window without making conversation other than to say left, right or straight on. Heidi glanced at him repeatedly, marvelling at how similar to Johnny he was physically, but also taking in how battered his clothes were and that his shoes – a pair of black-and-white-checked Vans, like the ones in the suitcase, had a big hole in them at the toe. Had Johnny bought them for William and intended to give them to him?
They drove past vast houses in well-maintained roads, and then moved into roads of terraced housing and blocks of flats, some of which were quite run-down.
‘I can get out here and walk the rest,’ he said when they turned into a long residential road mostly comprising blocks of flats. ‘Listen, I’m sorry about the othe
r day. I was rude to you. You didn’t deserve it at all. You’ve only just lost your husband. I’m not normally like that. That’s not me. This isn’t me.’
‘That’s okay,’ said Heidi gently. ‘But it’s still raining. Are you sure? Just let me find a place to pull over.’
She indicated to pull into a space and turned off the engine.
‘Cool car,’ he said suddenly, a light flickering in his eyes.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘It was Johnny’s. He loved vintage cars. Probably would have had a whole collection if he’d had the money. Do you live here then?’
She looked around, wondering which was his home. Nowhere looked very homely or inviting.
‘I’m staying with a friend,’ he said. ‘Just for a few weeks.’
‘You don’t have your own place?’ Heidi asked.
‘I did,’ he said. ‘But as I explained last time, my partner and I broke up. She wanted me to move out so we could have some breathing space. I’ve not been able to afford my own place as well as still paying for her stuff. It’s literally impossible.’
Heidi was bursting with questions, but she could see from William’s expression that he wanted her to stop asking them.
‘Can I come in for a cup of tea?’ she asked. She knew she was pushing it, but she couldn’t leave it like this.
William pressed the back of his head against the headrest and rubbed at an invisible mark on his forehead. She knew he was uncomfortable but crossed her fingers, hoping he’d say yes.
‘It’s a bit of a bachelor pad,’ he said. ‘You won’t like it. Maybe another time. I wasn’t expecting—’
‘I don’t care if it’s a dump,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ve stayed in my fair share. Please?’
He shrugged. ‘If you insist. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
The rain relented, and shafts of golden sunlight poured through cracks in the grey clouds. She wanted to comment on it to William but, registering his negative demeanour, she didn’t think he would be interested and think her superficial.
‘Look at that,’ he said, gesturing towards the break in the clouds. Heidi grinned.
‘Reminds me of that children’s story where the wind and the sun compete in trying to get a child to take off his coat. The wind blows and blows and exhausts itself trying, but the child just holds his coat tighter to him. The sun comes out and he instantly takes his coat off.’
He smiled, in a lopsided way that took her straight back to Johnny.
They walked a few hundred yards before reaching a block of flats. There was a patch of grass in front it, a communal area for bins and a shared entrance, with a panel of labelled buzzers. Some had names written on in pen; others were blank. A bicycle with no wheels was locked to a post. He unlocked the front door and held it open for Heidi.
‘Eighth floor,’ he said. ‘Shall we get the lift?’
Heidi entered the lift, her eyes scanning a poster which said: ‘Are you being held against your will?’ above a picture of a young woman in the corner of a room, with her hands over her head. Someone had obviously emptied their bladder in there too. She tried not to appear disgusted.
When they jolted to a halt, William showed her into his friend’s flat and gave her a quick tour, which lasted seconds.
‘Living room and kitchenette,’ he said. ‘Toilet, Ian’s bedroom. As you can see, it’s on the cramped side.’
He waved her into the living room and it was immediately clear to Heidi that William was sleeping on the sofa. There was a sleeping bag there, and a rucksack on the floor, with a picture of a little boy balanced up against it, a teddy bear in the crook of his arm. Freddy?
‘Tea?’ he asked.
‘Yes please,’ she said, following William into the kitchen. She did her best not to react with despair as her eyes passed the beans on toast mouldering on a plate, a teacup full to the brim with cigarette ends and a black bin bag of rubbish that had at least been extracted from the dustbin but had not been taken out of the flat and smelled awful. There were empty beer cans all over the place too.
‘Christ, sorry,’ William said, quickly tying up the bin bag and putting it outside the front door, before hurling an armful of cans into another bag. Heidi focused all her efforts on finding something to celebrate.
‘I like the windows,’ she said stiffly. ‘There’s a lot of light.’
William went over to the window and flung one of them open. He grabbed a can of spray deodorant from a shelf and sprayed for ten seconds, before flapping his hand around in the air and apologising.
‘I’ve made it worse,’ he said. ‘Sorry about this. Ian likes to party. He invites his mates back and, well, the place gets into a state. I’ve tried to tidy it up, but I can’t be cleaning up after him. I try to stay out as much as possible, working, and just crash here at night. Well I did.’
‘It’s okay…’ she started. ‘I’ve brought up teenagers. I was young once.’
She immediately regretted her words. Clearing her throat and blushing madly, she finished her sentence. ‘It wouldn’t take long to sort this out. A pair of marigolds and a couple of hours.’
‘It’s since I lost my job,’ he said. ‘I can’t find the motivation. Let me clear this for you.’
Frantically, he moved the sleeping bag and some clothes off the sofa, pushing them into a corner. He returned to the kitchen, opened the fridge, sniffed the milk, poured a splash into her cup and handed her the tea, didn’t have one himself and sat down. He gestured for her to take a seat next to him on the sofa. Smiling, she sat, trying not to notice the dust balls on the carpet. He jogged his knee up and down, tapping his foot.
‘So,’ Heidi said. ‘What happened about your job? The waitress said there was an argument.’
‘She shouldn’t be going around telling everyone everything!’ he said, too loud. ‘But yes, I got the sack. I had nipped out for my lunch break and was too long.’
He glanced at his phone.
‘I need to go,’ he said, suddenly leaping up. ‘I’m picking up my son from school today.’
‘Are you bringing him here?’ she said, trying to hide the concern in her tone.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘I take him to his mum’s and I sit there for an hour before she gets back from work. I’d love to be able to take him out, but she prefers I stay at home… so, I better go. Sorry.’
He stuffed a few things into a bag – some bars of chocolate and a stuffed rabbit.
‘Right,’ she said, placing down her cup of tea and standing, her mind fizzing with questions. ‘Can I… can I come again? There’s so much to talk about. I could help you out a bit too maybe. If you’d let me. I’ve got marigolds.’
He stared at her for a long moment, seemed confused, half shrugged and then was distracted by another message appearing on his mobile. She noticed a change in his body language – that he’d retreated again into a private world of whatever preoccupied him. She watched him move around the kitchen and discreetly take a small bottle from the cupboard which he put into his pocket. She opened her mouth to speak but thought better of it. She picked up a digital camera from the side. Johnny had had one similar. She turned it over in her hands.
‘Johnny had one like this,’ she said gently.
‘It’s his,’ William said. ‘He lent it to me, but the battery’s gone. He didn’t lend me the charger. He said he’d bring it next time we met, but that never happened. There never was a next time.’
Heidi smiled at the thought of Johnny lending William his favourite camera.
‘I can take it home and charge it,’ she said.
‘I better go or I’m going to be late,’ William said, agitated. ‘Yes, thanks.’
Heidi slipped the camera into her bag and followed him towards the front door. When he nipped into the bathroom, she quickly slipped a £20 note under his sleeping bag. Outside, she was relieved to be released from the claustrophobic atmosphere of the flat and the lift.
‘Can I drive you?’ she asked, but he shook h
is head and said it was quicker on foot.
William said goodbye and walked quickly in the opposite direction to where she was parked. She raised a hand in farewell, wondering if he might turn around again, but he didn’t. She waited until he was almost out of view when suddenly, he half turned to face in her direction. He lifted his hand. Her heart leaped. She waved madly in return, her body moving with the effort, earning a curious glare from a woman walking past, dragging two tiny children with her.
‘Sorry,’ Heidi said to the woman, ‘just waving to my son.’
Son. My son. She repeated the words over and over in her head as she walked down the road. My son. My son. My son.
Nineteen
‘Mum!’ shouted Zoe as soon as Heidi walked into the house. ‘Where on earth have you been? I’ve been trying to get hold of you!’
Heidi dropped her bag to the floor and took off her coat, grabbing her phone from the pocket. There were eight missed calls. Zoe’s face was pink with anxiety and Leo lurked behind her, his hands shoved into his pockets, long fringe obscuring his eyes.
‘What’s wrong?’ Heidi said, resting a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. ‘Is it Scarlet? Your grandma? I’m so sorry, my ringtone was on silent. I went for a walk and lost track of time. I’m hopeless with this phone!’
Zoe grabbed Heidi by the hand and pulled her into the kitchen, where she quickly pushed the door shut behind them. The kitchen was littered with snack debris: a bag of sliced bread was open near the toaster, alongside a tub of butter and a jar of Marmite, lid off. Immediately, she started putting things away.
‘Something really weird has just happened,’ said Zoe, gesticulating wildly. ‘This woman came to the door and said she wanted to see you. She was peering over my shoulder into the house as if she wanted to get inside and search it!’
Heidi frowned, thinking that maybe one of her customers was disgruntled because she was late with a job.
‘Was it one of the customers?’ said Heidi. ‘They’re not supposed to come to the house; that’s why I have the workshop, but it could be someone who’s waited too long and…’