A handful of businessmen got on at Holborn and Kelly cast a practised eye over them. At first glance they looked identical, with their short hair, dark suits and briefcases. The devil was in the detail, Kelly thought. She searched out the faint pinstripe; the title of a book pushed carelessly into a bag; wire-framed glasses with a kink in one arm; a brown leather watch strap beneath a white cotton shirtsleeve. The idiosyncrasies and appearance tics that made them stand out in a line-up of near-identical men. Kelly watched them openly, dispassionately. She was just practising, she told herself, not caring when one of them looked up and found her cool gaze on him. She thought he might look away, but instead he winked, his mouth moving into a confident smile. Kelly’s eyes flicked to his left hand. Married. White, well-built, around six foot tall, with a shadow around his jaw that probably wasn’t there a few hours ago. The yellow flash of a forgotten dry-cleaning tag on the inside of his overcoat. Standing so straight she’d put money on ex-military. Nondescript in appearance, but Kelly would know him if they met again.
Satisfied, she turned her attention to the latest influx of passengers, getting on at Bank and filtering through the carriage to find the remaining few seats. Almost everyone had a phone in their hand; playing games, listening to music, or simply clutching it as though grafted to their palm. At the other end of the carriage someone lifted their phone in front of them and Kelly instinctively turned away. Tourists, getting an iconic shot of the London Underground to show back home, but she found the idea of being background scenery in someone’s holiday snaps too weird to contemplate.
Her shoulder ached where she’d slammed into a wall, taking the corner too tight as she ran down the escalators and on to the platform at Marble Arch. She’d been seconds too late, and it annoyed her that the blooming bruise on her upper arm was in vain. She’d be quicker next time.
The train pulled in to Liverpool Street; a throng of people waiting on the platform, impatient for the doors to open.
Kelly’s pulse quickened.
There, in the centre of the crowd, half-hidden beneath oversized jeans, a hooded top and a baseball cap, was Carl. Instantly recognisable and – desperate though Kelly was to get home – impossible to walk away from. It was clear from the way he melted into the crowd that Carl had seen Kelly a split second before she had seen him, and was equally unenthusiastic about the encounter. She was going to have to move fast.
Kelly jumped off the train just as the doors hissed behind her. She thought at first she’d lost him, then she caught sight of a baseball cap ten or so yards ahead; not running, but weaving swiftly through the throng of passengers leaving the platform.
If Kelly had learned one thing over the last ten years on the Underground, it was that politeness got you nowhere.
‘Mind your backs!’ she yelled, breaking into a run and shoving her way between two elderly tourists dragging suitcases. ‘Coming through!’ She might have lost him that morning, and copped a bruised shoulder as a result, but she wasn’t about to let him get away again. She thought fleetingly of the supper she had hoped would be waiting for her at home, and calculated this was going to add at least two hours on to her day. But needs must. She could always grab a kebab on the way home.
Carl was legging it up the escalator. Rookie error, Kelly knew, taking the steps instead. Fewer tourists to negotiate and easier on the thighs than the jerky, uneven motion of a moving stairway. Even so Kelly’s muscles were burning as she drew parallel with Carl. He threw a quick look over his left shoulder as they reached the top, then swerved right. For fuck’s sake, Carl, she thought. I should be booking off now.
With a final burst of speed she caught up with him as he was preparing to vault the ticket barrier, grabbing a handful of jacket with her left hand and twisting one arm up behind his back with her right. Carl made a half-hearted attempt to pull away, knocking her off balance and causing her hat to fall to the ground. Kelly was aware of someone picking it up and hoped they weren’t going to run off with it. She was already in the dog house with Stores for losing her baton in a scrap the other week – she could do without another telling off.
‘Warrants have got a Fail to Appear with your name on it, mate,’ Kelly said, her words punctuated with breaths that were hard to take within the confines of a stab vest. She reached for her belt and unclipped her cuffs, snapping them deftly on to Carl’s wrists and checking for tightness. ‘You’re nicked.’
I see you. But you don’t see me. You’re engrossed in your book; a paperback cover with a girl in a red dress. I can’t see the title but it doesn’t matter; they’re all the same. If it isn’t boy meets girl, it’s boy stalks girl. Boy kills girl.
The irony isn’t lost on me.
At the next stop I use the incoming swell of commuters as an excuse to move closer to you. You hang from the strap in the centre of the carriage, reading one-handed; turning the page with a well-practised thumb. We’re so close, now, that our coats are touching, and I can smell the vanilla base of your perfume; a scent that will have long since faded by the time you leave work. Some women disappear into the loos at lunchtime; touch up their make-up, add a spritz of fragrance. Not you. When I see you after work the dark grey make-up on your lids will have drifted into tired shadows beneath your eyes; the tint on your lips transferred to countless cups of coffee.
You’re pretty, though, even at the end of a long day. That counts for a lot. Not that it’s always about beauty; sometimes it’s exotic looks, or large breasts, or long legs. Sometimes it’s class and elegance – all tailored navy trousers and tan heels – and sometimes it’s brassy and cheap. Slutty, even. Variety is important. Even the finest steak becomes dull when you eat it all the time.
Your handbag is larger than average. You usually carry it over your shoulder, but when the train is busy – as it is at this stage of your commute – you put it on the floor, between your legs. It has slouched open, allowing me to see inside. A purse – soft brown calf leather with a gilt clasp. A hairbrush, blonde hairs trailing from its bristles. A reusable shopping bag, neatly rolled into a ball. A pair of leather gloves. Two or three brown envelopes, torn open then pushed into the bag along with their contents. Post snatched from the doormat after breakfast, opened on the platform while you wait for your first train. I crane my neck to read what is printed on the uppermost envelope.
So now I know your name.
Not that it matters: you and I aren’t going to have the sort of relationship that needs names.
I take out my phone and swipe up to reveal the camera. I turn towards you; use my thumb and forefinger to zoom in until only your face is in the frame. If anyone noticed me now, they’d just think I was uploading a record of my commute to Instagram, or Twitter. Hashtag selfie.
A silent click, and you’re mine.
As the train takes a bend you let go of the ceiling strap and lean down for your handbag, still intent on your book. If I didn’t know you better I’d think you’d caught me looking, and were moving your belongings out of view, but it isn’t that. The bend in the track simply means it’s nearly your stop.
You’re enjoying this book. Usually you’ll stop reading much earlier than this; when you reach the end of a chapter, and you slip between the pages the postcard you use as a bookmark. Today you’re still reading even as the train pulls into the station. Even as you shoulder your way through to the door, saying ‘Excuse me’ and ‘sorry’ a dozen times. You’re still reading even as you walk towards the exit, your eyes flicking upwards to make sure you don’t bump into anyone.
You’re still reading.
And I’m still watching.
3
Crystal Palace is where my train terminates. Had it not been, I might have stayed in my seat, staring at the advert in the hope of making sense of it. As it is, I’m the last to get off.
The rain has slowed to a drizzle, but I’ve barely left the Tube station before the newspaper in my hands is sodden, leaving traces of ink on my fingers. It’s already dark, but the str
eet lights are on, and the neon signs above Anerley Road’s myriad takeaways and mobile phone shops mean I can see clearly. Garish lights hang from each lamp-post, in preparation for this weekend’s Z-list celebrity switch-on, but it’s too mild – and too early – for me to start thinking about Christmas.
I stare at the advert as I walk home, oblivious to the rain plastering my fringe to my forehead. Perhaps it isn’t me at all. Perhaps I have a doppelgänger. I’m hardly the obvious choice to advertise a premium rate chatline: you’d think they’d go for someone younger, more attractive. Not a middle-aged woman with two grown children and a bit of a spare tyre. I almost laugh out loud. I know it takes all sorts, but that’s some niche market.
Between the Polish supermarket and the key-cutter is Melissa’s café. One of Melissa’s cafés, I remind myself. The other is in a side street off Covent Garden, where her lunchtime regulars know to phone ahead with their sandwich orders, to avoid queuing, and the tourists dither by the door, deciding if the panini will be worth the wait. You’d think Covent Garden would be a licence to print money, but the high rates mean that in the five years it’s been open it’s struggled to turn a profit. This one, on the other hand, with its tatty paintwork and unlikely neighbours, is a gold mine. It’s been here for years, raking in the cash long before Melissa took it over and put her name above the door; one of those hidden secrets that appear occasionally in city guides. The best breakfast in South London, says the photocopied article Sellotaped to the door.
I stay on the opposite side of the road for a while, so I can watch without being seen. The inside of the windows are steamed up around the edges, like a soft-focus photo from the 1980s. In the centre, behind the counter, a man is wiping the inside of the Perspex display. He wears an apron folded in half and tied – Parisian waiter style – around his waist, instead of looped over his head, and with his black T-shirt and dark, just-got-out-of-bed hair he looks far too cool to be working in a café. Good looking? I’m biased, I know, but I think so.
I cross the road, watching out for cycles as a bus driver waves me across in front of him. The bell above the café door jingles and Justin looks up.
‘All right, Mum.’
‘Hi, love.’ I look around for Melissa. ‘You here on your own?’
‘She’s in Covent Garden. The manager there’s gone off sick so she left me in charge.’ His tone is casual, so I try and mirror it in my response, but I feel a swell of pride. I’ve always known Justin was a good boy; he just needed someone to give him a break. ‘If you give me five minutes,’ he says, washing his cloth out in the stainless steel sink behind him, ‘I’ll come home with you.’
‘I was going to pick up a takeaway for tea. I suppose the fryer’s off now?’
‘I’ve only just turned it off. It won’t take long to do some chips. And there are some sausages that’ll be thrown out if they’re not eaten today. Melissa won’t mind if we take them home.’
‘I’ll pay for them,’ I say, not wanting Justin to get carried away with his temporary position of responsibility.
‘She won’t mind.’
‘I’ll pay,’ I say firmly, getting out my purse. I look up at the blackboard and calculate the price for four sausage and chips. He’s right that Melissa would have given them to us if she’d been here, but she isn’t here, and in this family we pay our way.
The shops and businesses peter out as we walk further from the station, giving way to terraced houses in rows of around a dozen. Several are boarded up with the grey metal shutters that mean a repossession; graffiti adding red and orange fireworks to their front doors. Our row is no different – the house three doors down has missing tiles and thick ply nailed across the windows – and you can spot the rented houses by the blocked gutters and stained brickwork. At the end of the row are two privately owned houses; Melissa’s and Neil’s, in the coveted end-of-terrace spot, and mine, right next door.
Justin’s fiddling in his rucksack for his keys, and I stand for a moment on the pavement by the railings that run around what might generously be called our front garden. Weeds poke up through the wet gravel; the only decoration a solar-powered lamp shaped like an old-fashioned lantern, which gives off a dull yellow glow. Melissa’s garden is gravelled, too, but there are no weeds to be seen, and either side of her front door sit two perfectly manicured box trees, shaped into spirals. Beneath the lounge window is a patch of brickwork a shade lighter than the rest; where Neil scrubbed off graffiti left by someone in South London still narrow-minded enough to object to a mixed-race marriage.
No one has bothered to pull the curtains in our own lounge, and I can see Katie painting her nails at the dining table. I used to insist we all sat at the table for meals; used to love the opportunity to catch up on what they’d done at school. In the early days, when we first moved in, it was the one time of day when I felt we were doing all right without Matt. There we were, a little family unit of three, all sitting down to a meal together at six o’clock.
Through the window – coated with the ever-present layer of grime that comes from living on a busy road – I notice that Katie has cleared a space for her nail kit among the magazines, the pile of bills, and washing basket, which has somehow chosen the table as its natural home. Occasionally I clear the mess so we can eat Sunday lunch together, but it isn’t long before a creeping tide of paperwork and abandoned carrier bags pushes us on to our laps again, in front of the telly.
Justin opens the door and I remember what it was like when the kids were little and they’d run to greet me when I came home, as though I’d been away for months, instead of stacking shelves at Tesco for eight hours. When they were older it would be next door I’d call on, thanking Melissa for the after-school care the kids claimed to be too old for, but secretly loved.
‘Hello?’ I call. Simon comes out of the kitchen with a glass of wine. He hands it to me and kisses me on the lips, his arm sliding around my waist to pull me closer. I hand him the plastic bag from Melissa’s café.
‘Get a room, you two.’ Katie comes out of the lounge, her fingers spread out and her hands in the air. ‘What’s for tea?’ Simon releases me and takes the bag into the kitchen.
‘Sausage and chips.’
She wrinkles her nose and I cut her off before she can start moaning about calories. ‘There’s some lettuce in the fridge – you can have yours with salad.’
‘It won’t get rid of your cankles,’ Justin says. Katie hits him on the arm as he ducks around her and runs up the stairs, two at a time.
‘Grow up, you two.’ Katie is nineteen and an easy size eight, with not a hint of the puppy fat she still had a few years ago. And there is nothing wrong with her ankles. I move to give her a hug, then remember her nails and kiss her cheek instead. ‘I’m sorry, love, but I’m knackered. The odd takeaway won’t do you any harm – everything in moderation, right?’
‘How was your day, honey?’ Simon asks. He follows me into the lounge and I sink into the sofa, shutting my eyes for a brief moment and sighing as I feel myself relax.
‘It was okay. Apart from Graham making me do the filing.’
‘That’s not your job,’ Katie says.
‘Neither is cleaning the loo, but guess what he had me doing yesterday?’
‘Ugh. That bloke is such an arsehole.’
‘You shouldn’t put up with it.’ Simon sits next to me. ‘You should complain.’
‘To who? He owns the place.’ Graham Hallow comes from the breed of men who inflate their egos by belittling the people around him. I know this, and so it doesn’t bother me. For the most part.
To change the subject I pick up the London Gazette from where I dumped it on the coffee table. It’s still damp and parts of the print are blurry, but I fold it in half so the chatline and escort ads are showing.
‘Mum! What are you doing looking up escort services?’ Katie says, laughing. She finishes applying a top coat to her nails and carefully screws the lid on, returning to the table to push her hands un
der an ultraviolet lamp to seal the varnish.
‘Maybe she’s thinking of trading Simon in for a newer model,’ Justin says, walking into the lounge. He’s changed out of the black T-shirt and jeans he was wearing for work, into grey joggers and a sweatshirt. His feet are bare. In one hand he carries his phone; in the other a plate heaped with sausage and chips.
‘That’s not funny,’ Simon says. He takes the paper from me. ‘But seriously, why are you looking at chatlines?’ His brow furrows and I see a shadow cross his face. I glare at Justin. Simon is fourteen years older than me, although sometimes I look in the mirror and think I’m catching him up. There are lines around my eyes I never had in my thirties, and the skin on my neck is beginning to crepe. I’ve never had a problem with the age difference between us, but Simon mentions it often enough for me to know he worries about it. Justin knows that, and takes every opportunity to stick the knife in. Whether he’s getting at Simon or at me, I can never be sure.
‘Don’t you think that looks like me?’ I point to the bottom advert, beneath Angel’s ‘mature’ services. Justin leans over Simon’s shoulder, and Katie removes her hands from the UV lamp so she can get a proper look. For a second we all stare at the advert in silence.