Strangers

by Carla Banks

  ‘Is he all right?’ He reached out a hand to Shadow. ‘Here. Good boy.’ Shadow barked mistrustfully then fell silent as the man ruffled his fur. ‘You didn’t mean it, did you?’ He balanced carefully, keeping the weight off his leg. He was looking down at her and as he smiled, she could see the laughter lines round his eyes. ‘I may as well take the opportunity to introduce myself. I’m Joe.’ He held out his hand.

  ‘Roisin,’ she said.

  ‘Rosheen. I like that. Where does it come from?’

  ‘It’s Irish.’ She didn’t want to go into the complexity of her background, so she said quickly, ‘I’ve seen you here before.’

  He nodded. ‘I started work at the hospital a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been meaning to get acquainted, so it’s an ill wind, right, dog?’ He addressed this remark to Shadow, who hung back behind Roisin, observing the scene dubiously.

  ‘This is Shadow,’ Roisin said.

  His smile broadened. ‘I kind of thought it might be. Shit!’ He stumbled again as he put more weight on his leg. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You need to get that seen to. Come on, let me help you up to the road. We should be able to get a taxi.’

  ‘No need. If I can just get up here, I can make it to the tube at Camden Town.’

  She didn’t think he would be able to manage even that short distance. ‘I’ll walk with you. Shouldn’t you go to A & E?’

  ‘And spend the morning waiting to be told I’ve twisted my ankle? I’ll get it checked out at work.’

  But he accepted her help up the steps, resting his arm on her shoulder to keep his balance. Once they were at the top, he stopped, using the wall for support. ‘Look, I’ll be fine. You don’t need to hang around. You must have things to do.’

  ‘I feel responsible,’ she said.

  ‘Well, don’t. I should have been looking where I was going. Tell you what, let me buy you a drink later on, and I can give you an update. Give me your number.’

  ‘OK. I’d like that. But it’d better be me buying.’ She indicated the subdued dog.

  ‘Poor old lad.’ He reached down and tugged Shadow’s ear. He waited as she scribbled her number down, then glanced at the paper and put it in his pocket. ‘I’ll call you tonight,’ he said. She watched him as he hobbled away down the road towards the tube station, then she turned back to the canal. If she didn’t get a move on, she was going to be late.

  That was the good bit.

  When she got into the college where she taught English to overseas students, she was greeted by the news that one of her colleagues was off sick and she had to pick up two of his classes, groups of engineering students who combined a poor grasp of English with an insistence that they knew exactly how they should be taught, and who tested Roisin’s not very enduring patience for the next five hours. It was a comedown for someone who had come close–very close–to owning her own language school.

  But those plans had come to grief in the bitter war that Michel was fighting with his ex-wife. Their joint venture had somehow become entangled in the proceedings, and they had had no option but to sell, and sell at a loss. Michel had taken half of the money that was left. That was the law–the business assets were in their joint names. The fact that this had been Roisin’s money, and that very little of his money had yet been committed, was irrelevant. She had trusted him, and he had let her down.

  So now she was in London with a mortgage that she could barely afford on a run-down flat in the middle of a building site, keeping her head above water with part-time contracts, and trying to decide what to do next. Teaching English to disruptive young engineers hadn’t been part of her life plan, but just at the moment she had no choice.

  She left work in a bad temper and with a headache that wasn’t improved by long delays on the Northern Line. When she finally got home, she realized she’d missed the date for paying off her credit card and would incur a hefty interest payment.

  And, of course, the canal-side man didn’t phone.

  3

  Roisin wasn’t surprised when the man she’d met on the tow path didn’t call her. Nor was she surprised when she didn’t see him the next time she went running with Shadow. She was no expert, but it had looked to her like a more serious injury than a sprain and she assumed he was probably housebound and had had more time to think over the matter of her culpability.

  She mentioned the episode to friends over a drink at the weekend. They were intrigued, and then disappointed when the story fizzled out into ‘And I never heard from him again.’ Roisin hadn’t been involved with anyone since the disastrous end of her relationship with Michel, and they thought it was time she tested the waters. ‘Oh, come on,’ she said when they began speculating about ways she could contact the elusive Joe, ‘I tripped him up and probably broke his leg. No wonder he doesn’t want to see me. I’m more likely to get a letter from his solicitor.’ When pressed, she was prepared to admit that she found him attractive.

  Old George was just as bad, but for different reasons. ‘That bloke had the guts to call you yet?’ he asked her every time she went to collect Shadow or to join him for a cup of poisonous tea. She had told him about the episode when she returned the dog, and he’d made adverse comments about her lack of care and foresight. ‘Poor old lad,’ he’d said under his breath as he’d checked his dog anxiously for cuts and bruises. The man on the tow path was now ‘the man who kicked Shadow’ and who should have the courage to face the music. But the mysterious Joe seemed to have vanished.

  She put it out of her mind. She was busy at work, but the job was only temporary, a stop-gap that she had taken without too much thought under the pressing necessity of earning some money. She had to start making decisions about what to do next. Her career path had been leading up to the moment when she had the funds, the expertise and the credibility to start her own business, and the way the rug had been pulled from underneath her had left her floundering. She had to decide whether to start again, to see if she could get some more money together and raise some more loans, go through the web of bureaucracy that all the permissions required, or if she should resign herself to the admitted security but endless frustration of working for other people in large, unyielding institutions.

  Some of the options were attractive. The European universities were always eager for experienced language teachers and offered a whole field of academic work she’d barely explored. Beijing University was actively recruiting, as were universities in Korea and Japan. She’d never been to the Far East and was curious to travel there, but she had a life in Europe she wasn’t quite ready to give up. There was also the complication of her mother.

  Roisin was adopted, and all her life she had been aware of her mother’s fear that one day she would walk away and declare an allegiance to a different past. Since her father’s death, this anxiety seemed to have grown and become a factor that Roisin had to weave into all her plans and considerations. ‘Why don’t you come back to Newcastle, pet?’ had been the most recent theme. Roisin loved her mother and wanted to help her settle into a new life, but she wasn’t prepared to go back home and live with her.

  So she didn’t really have time to brood about a phone call that had not been forthcoming.

  Spring was late arriving. London pulled a grey blanket over its head and rained. The buildings seemed to grow darker and the streets were sodden and filthy. Her morning runs with Shadow became an ordeal rather than a pleasure–for her at least. For Shadow, there was no such thing as bad weather–there was just weather and it was all good.

  She was back in her flat one Saturday morning, rubbing her hair dry and warming her frozen hands round a cup of coffee, when her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and checked the number. No one she knew. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Roisin? You probably don’t remember me. It’s Joe. Joe Massey. I tripped over your dog and nearly ended up in the canal.’

  ‘Of course I remember. How are you?’ She felt ridiculously pleased.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry
I haven’t been in touch before. I lost your number. I thought I must have dropped it when I was sorting out my money on the tube. I wasn’t concentrating too much that day. I thought I was going to have to wait until I was fit enough to get back on the tow path, but I just found it.’

  ‘That’s OK. How’s your ankle?’

  ‘I tore a ligament–it’s not too bad now. Look, I owe you a drink. I probably owe you dinner by now. Could we meet? I don’t suppose you’re free tonight?’

  She was. She’d planned to spend the evening catching up with some of her outstanding work, but dinner with Joe Massey seemed a much more attractive option. They agreed to meet that evening.

  Roisin dressed carefully for their date. Most of her clothes were things she’d bought for work and they all looked too sober and businesslike. In the end, she opted for trousers–hip-hugging with a wide belt–and a green top that heightened the colour of her eyes. Her hair was blessed with being naturally curly and–with a bit of help–naturally blonde. She put on boots that added a couple of inches to her height. She could remember helping Joe up the steps by Camden Lock, her head barely reaching his shoulder.

  They’d agreed to meet in Camden Town–the scene of the crime. She wondered if he would look the way she remembered him, or if her eyes would pass over him, seeing only some stranger, but as she walked towards the station, she recognized him at once. He was standing under the canopy, reading a folded newspaper. He was wearing glasses, and his dark hair was damp from the fine drizzle that had been falling. When he glanced up and saw her, his smile lit up his face.

  ‘Roisin,’ he said. She could see the approval in his eyes as he studied her, and felt an answering warmth. He’d dressed up for the occasion as well, wearing a light mac over a suit that looked well cut to fit his tall, rangy frame.

  He was still moving with a slight limp, and she suggested that they go to a café bar she knew that was fairly close to the station, but he shook his head, putting his hand lightly on her arm. ‘I booked us a table,’ he said, flagging down a taxi. He directed the driver to Holborn and a small bistro that welcomed them with the yellow glow of lights and the buzz of conversation.

  Afterwards, she couldn’t remember much about the food that they’d eaten. What she could remember was that they’d talked. He came from Liverpool, he told her. He’d grown up there, but he couldn’t wait to get away. ‘It’s a good city now,’ he said, ‘but then…it was dying. I came south, to London, as soon as I could.’

  She told him about her childhood in the North East, about the beauty and the wildness of the countryside, and the city where she had grown up. ‘I still like to go back. My mother’s there, and, I don’t know, there’s something…’

  He was listening quietly, his eyes on her face. ‘It’s still home?’ he suggested.

  She laughed. ‘I suppose it is.’

  ‘I don’t feel like that about Liverpool,’ he said.

  She took the opportunity to turn the conversation round to him. ‘Does everyone call you Joe, or are you Joseph sometimes? I don’t know any…’ Her voice trailed away.

  His face had changed, gone cold and distant. Then he seemed to remember where he was and gave a rather forced laugh. ‘No. I’ve only ever been Joe.’

  He was a pathologist, he told her, with a research interest in foetal medicine and neo-natal development. ‘That’s when it all happens,’ he said. ‘In a way, the path of your life is mapped out for you in those few months. After that, it’s downhill all the way.’ He didn’t look too depressed about it. ‘It’s a bit like computer software. Leave a bug in there–most people have one or two–and it will probably kill you in the end.’

  ‘Like a predilection for tripping over dogs and falling in canals?’

  ‘Don’t knock it. Just because we haven’t found it yet…It could be there. But no, in that case the dog stops you from dying of what you’re programmed to die of.’ He was marking time while he decided what he wanted to do next. He’d spent the last year in the Gulf, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As he said that, the same, rather cold look flickered across his face.

  ‘Saudi Arabia,’ she said. ‘Tell me about it.’ She’d had a chance to work there a few years ago. The money had been excellent, but she’d decided she couldn’t face living under the restrictions the culture would impose on a single woman.

  He hesitated, then said, ‘It’s not an easy place. They call it the magic kingdom. A whole modern world has just sprung up out of the desert, but the people haven’t changed. It’s like one of those optical illusions. You look and you see a modern country, and then you look again, and you’re in the Middle Ages, and what you thought you were looking at, it isn’t there any more. Which one is the real Saudi Arabia…?’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe we don’t have the equipment to see it. I have the option of going back, but…’ He picked up a piece of bread and didn’t finish the sentence.

  ‘You don’t want to stay here?’

  He shook his head. ‘The NHS–it’s tied up in red tape and bureaucracy. I want something with a bit more of a challenge.’ He’d spent most of his working life overseas, and he planned to leave again as soon as he could. He’d applied for research posts in Canada and in Australia. ‘Those are places I want to be.’

  ‘That’s something I’ve got to decide,’ she said. ‘Where I want to be.’

  He raised an eyebrow in query, so she went on. ‘I had plans to open a language school, but it went wrong. Money problems,’ she said, to forestall any questions. ‘So I need to decide–do I start again, or do I go and work for someone else? And where.’

  ‘You don’t want to stay in the UK either?’

  She shook her head. She’d first started teaching English because it gave her an opportunity to travel. ‘Not really.’

  ‘So where?’

  ‘China. I’ve never been there and there are some interesting jobs in Beijing. Or Tokyo, maybe. I’m not sure if I fancy Japan. Patagonia.’

  ‘Patagonia?’

  ‘I just like the sound of it. Mountains and condors and more space than you know what to do with.’

  They arranged to meet again. He wanted to see her the next day, but she put him off. She had bruises from her relationship with Michel that could still hurt. She wasn’t ready to go through that experience again. Joe wasn’t going to be around for long. She wasn’t going to be around for long. Whatever happened, their lives were going to cross only briefly. The parameters were already set. It would be crazy to get too involved.

  Friends, she told herself. They could be friends.

  He called her a couple of days later with a suggestion that they explore the Bow Back Rivers that Saturday.

  ‘The what?’ she said.

  ‘I’ll show you.’

  He was waiting for her when she came out of Bromley-by-Bow station. He smiled when he saw her, and took her hand. The traffic roared by, heading for the Blackwall Tunnel. ‘Half of Londoners don’t know this exists,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

  She thought she knew this part of London–a derelict area of industrial wasteland tracked by busy roads that was best escaped from, not explored. She followed him away from the roads, down some steps and found herself in a wilderness where waterways tangled together through overgrown footpaths and abandoned locks and bridges. They walked for an hour along the waterways without touching the city.

  The rivers were choked with weed and the muddy banks were littered with rubbish, but there were swans on the water, and a heron rose lazily from the river ahead of them. He told her the names of the rivers as they walked–Pudding Mill, Bow Creek, Three Mills, Channelsea. The day was misty and cold.

  They left the silence of the old waterways and came out into the roar of the traffic. It started to rain, and he opened his umbrella, putting his arm round her to pull her into its shelter. He had the thin frame of a runner, and she was aware of the hardness of his arm through the sleeve of his coat as they walked together.

  They fell into a pattern of seeing each other
a couple of times a week, often just walking, discovering parts of the city they didn’t know, sometimes going for a drink. Their meetings were friendly and casual. She didn’t know who he saw or what he did when he didn’t see her. He didn’t talk about himself much.

  On an unseasonably cold day about six weeks after their first meeting they found themselves on the South Bank. They’d been to Tate Modern to see the Edward Hopper exhibition, and afterwards they’d wandered aimlessly back along the path. Joe had been quiet for most of the afternoon and Roisin was happy just to walk beside him and watch the river.

  The water was translucent green except where the light glinting off the eddies and flows turned it silver. A tour boat went past, lines of seats visible inside the cabin where people sheltered from the brisk wind that blew up the river. The seats on the upper deck were empty apart from a couple who hung over the rail, pointing out the sights of the river as the boat passed. Briefly the voice of the guide boomed across the water:…the Houses of Parliament, built in the…A woman on the top deck leaned out dangerously to take a photograph as the boat rocked on an eddy.

  ‘She’s going to fall,’ Roisin said.

  She felt him stiffen beside her. ‘She’s dead if she does. In this water you’ve got maybe two minutes before the cold paralyses you.’ They watched as the woman righted herself and the boat dwindled into the shadows under Waterloo Bridge. His voice was sombre when he spoke again. ‘I used to get the river deaths when I worked here before–a lot of them ended up in our mortuary. It’s a terrible way to die.’

  She took his hand. This was the first time he’d talked about the darker side of his work. ‘I don’t remember reading about deaths in the river.’

  He was still watching the water, his thoughts somewhere else. ‘There are so many they hardly bother reporting it now.’

  She thought about the dark waters closing above her, the cold eating into her until it drove all feeling away, knowing that her existence would be snuffed out and forgotten and when her body was pulled out of the river–if it ever was–no one would care. The sky was grey and the wind off the water had a cutting edge.