by LK Fox
Watching him was a hard habit to break. I thought of it as an anthropological study.
I suppose that to start with I was just curious to see what he would do next, but it soon became a fixation. One evening, I sat behind him in the Regent Street Picture House, watching a double-bill of documentaries about American political scandals. Afterwards, I sat behind a pillar in a nearby brasserie, eating a meal I couldn’t afford, glancing up at him in the mirror. He hardly ever lifted his eyes from his plate.
I waited outside his office, and sat a carefully judged distance away from him in pubs. He never met friends, always walked around the city alone, lost in thought. Well, not quite alone. I was there.
I never really felt comfortable unless I knew exactly where he was and what he was doing. Seeing Nick was enough to calm me down. He walked a lot, so I lost weight. I figured I wasn’t hurting anyone. It just felt like a strange hobby.
On the very last night we saw each other I watched Nick leaving his local pub, the Crown, feeling sure that he couldn’t see me. He was walking just a little way ahead, his shoulders hunched, hands stuck deep in his pockets. At first I kept my distance, as always. Then I started to close the gap between us.
Nick finally sensed that he was being followed. He raised his head and looked around, waiting apprehensively while I caught up. For a moment, I thought he’d failed to recognise me. But even from several feet away I felt sure he could see the small moon-shaped scar I still bore high on my forehead from the bottle Ryder’s singer Baby had thrown at me.
I had become myself. My hair hung loose now and I wore a little make-up, and shoes with low heels instead of dirty trainers. I had raised my jacket collar against the weather, but not against the stares of others. I no longer dropped my head shyly. I looked back. For the first time, I felt composed and calm and very nearly confident. I knew then that I was going to talk to him.
He was obviously surprised to see me. I could tell he wasn’t sure how close to get.
I gave a friendly shrug. ‘I honestly swear this was a complete coincidence. I was just heading to the station. I thought it might be you, coming out of the pub back there. Then I thought, No, too thin.’
‘I lost a bit of weight.’ He looked past me, along the empty road and into the distance, as if checking for someone. The bitter night air didn’t seem to bother him. I hadn’t dressed warmly enough. My leather jacket was summer-light.
I wasn’t sure what else to say.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t recognise you either. How are you?’
‘I’m fine, Nick, although I suppose I could have bled out and died. I should thank you for that. How’s your shoulder?’
‘I’m having therapy on it.’ He twisted it cautiously. ‘How’s your arm?’
‘It healed. I have another scar.’ I pushed back my fringe and looked up into the light-jaundiced sky.
I walked beside him and we made small talk. He seemed to grow more relaxed with me. Eventually, we reached the corner of his street. It was starting to rain again, a faint spray just enough to make the streets glisten. I think I said something like, ‘I’m really tired of always standing around outside.’
‘You don’t have to any more,’ he replied. ‘You must be frozen. Do you want to come in, just for a minute? At least let me call you an Uber or something.’
‘I’m sure I can find a regular taxi down there.’ I waved a vague hand at the end of the road, but there weren’t any cars at the traffic lights.
‘You’re not dressed warmly enough. I have loads of spare sweaters. Ben left them behind.’
‘So it’s over, then. Do you ever still see him?’
‘No. I think he’s here at the moment, but we don’t call each other any more.’
I hesitated, shivered a little.
‘Please. I’d feel really bad otherwise.’
I knew we were in front of the right house because his garden looked like a rubbish dump. I didn’t understand how such a tidy person – someone who healed the pain in others by teaching them to grow plants, for God’s sake ‒ could keep a garden like that, but it kind of gave me hope for him. It meant that he was still contradictory, and more human somehow.
A woman came out from the flats next door and put something in her recycling bin, one of those grey plastic boxes with no top. She nodded to Nick but had one of those upside-down mouths that couldn’t or wouldn’t smile.
‘That’s Shirley,’ he whispered conspiratorially. ‘We never got on well before, and of course now – forget it.’
We went into the communal hall and I waited while he unlocked the door to his ground-floor flat. It was set at an angle, which made for an awkward space with little pockets of shadow, not a good conversion. The bulb over the door was dead, and he had trouble fitting the key.
He finally got the lock open, turned on his hall lights and we stood just inside with the door left partly wide, as awkward as dinner guests taking too long to say goodbye. On a narrow table were three long-stemmed vases, each containing a perfect white orchid. Above them was a framed monochrome photograph by Henri-Carter Bresson, of an Arabic man standing half in shadow. In the room beyond I could see an expensive-looking white leather couch. It was a far cry from a filthy pub with a rotting sofa.
‘You know, I was thinking. Maybe, in time, we can be friends,’ he said, without much conviction. ‘Perhaps there’s something I could do to help – I know some people in the theatre who may be able to get you a job . . .’
I shook my head rather too violently. ‘I really don’t think that’s a good idea, Nick. I know you’d like to tidy everything up but I promise you, there’s nothing more to fix.’
‘Hang on.’ He ducked into one of the side rooms and reappeared with a heavy black cashmere sweater that looked warm and expensive. ‘At least take this. You don’t have to return it.’
‘Well, okay. But only because I’m really cold.’ I accepted the sweater and put it on. I caught sight of myself in the hall mirror. It was ridiculously huge, but sort of suited me. I barely recognized myself now ‒ I looked prettier than I expected, a bit like a young Audrey Hepburn. It was as if I had come into focus at last.
‘It was nice to see you again,’ I said.
We stood there for a moment longer, just looking at each other. This time, there really was nothing more to say. We’d reached a natural end. I turned and opened the front door to the communal hall, pushing it wider.
‘There’s one thing I meant to ask you,’ I said. ‘Why did you never blame Ben for any of this?’
He looked at me as if he had failed to understand the question. ‘I never wanted to blame anyone.’
‘That’s not true. You came after me.’
‘It wasn’t about blame or punishment, Ella. I just wanted to know the truth, that’s all.’
I could tell from his eyes that he meant it. ‘You’re not even angry, are you?’
‘No,’ he said, shrugging off the idea. ‘I think that’s the difference between me and you, Ella. I eventually forgave myself for what happened.’
‘You’re right, that is the difference,’ I replied. ‘I never forgave you.’
And I stuck the knife into him.
It went in very easily. It was cheap but sharp. I’d bought it in Tesco. His hand closed around the black plastic handle, as if he was going to pull it out, but he didn’t. When he let go, I saw that the price sticker had peeled off and was covered in blood. £5.99. Used only once.
His hip caught the edge of the table. One of the vases wobbled and fell over. I was surprised it didn’t break on the hardwood floor.
‘My God, Ella.’ He fell on to his knees with a thump. He stared at me without seeing. ‘Buckingham,’ he said.
‘No,’ I told him. ‘Buckingham never came back. This is me.’
As I walked away, I took one last look. He was lying face down now, his head turned to one side, staring at the skirting board.
I only have an imprecise impression of what happened after
that. A bony, ill-looking woman appeared on the stairs, peering over the bannisters, a blue silk dressing gown pulled around her. ‘Is everything all right down there?’ she asked, keeping her distance.
‘It’s fine, I’m just leaving,’ I told her.
‘Is somebody hurt?’ She came down a little further, timidly trying to see around the door. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m nobody,’ I replied.
I left the door open and kept up a steady pace as I walked away, concentrating on the pavement passing beneath my feet. The sweater smelled of Nick’s aftershave. Cedarwood and amber, homely and reassuring.
I thought my cheeks were wet because it had started to rain again.
I walked faster across the pavements, then faster still, under bridges and over junctions, past all the houses and lit kitchens and front gardens, past cars and trees and squares of warm light holding families and lives, but the tears just wouldn’t stop, so I started to run.
