it, of course, I was just enjoying myself while I could. Had enough of relationships for the time being, enjoying being single, all of that bullshit. Maybe it was time to start calming down a little. Maybe it was time to start thinking of the future.
As I dried myself off, the locker room empty, a sudden thought occurred to me—I can’t have looked that bad, or he wouldn’t have recognized me. The last time he’d seen me, I had been dressed in a scarlet satin dress, my hair loose over my shoulders. Today I was dressed in sweaty gym gear, with no makeup and with my hair tied back—quite different. And yet he’d recognized me the instant I looked up—I saw it in his eyes.
And he’d said, “Hello again.”
I hadn’t been back to the River since, although I’d been out several times each week. Last weekend I was visiting friends in Scotland, an exhausting weekend with very little sleep—but that hadn’t stopped me going out for drinks after work. On Friday we ended up in the Roadhouse, a new bar that had opened in the Market Square. It was heaving with people thanks to their opening weekend drinks promotions, and Sylvia and Claire had both run off with guys within the first half hour of arriving. For a while, I’d danced and drunk, drunk and danced, happy on my own, seeing people I know and chatting with them, shouting into people’s ears to be heard above the noise. There were some pretty tasty men in there, but there weren’t many single ones. The ones who were left were men I knew, either because I’d been out with them before, or they’d been out with one or other of my friends.
Now I was already looking forward to next weekend. Friday night I was planning to go out with Claire, Louise and her sister Emma, and then after that the weekend was mine. Smiling to myself, I sauntered back to the car, thinking that maybe we could find our way to the River.
Monday 5 November 2007
By leaving work late I miss the worst of the crush on the Tube. When I first moved here I made the mistake of fighting my way through the rush hour, and every day the panic got worse. There were too many faces to scan, too many bodies pressing in from all sides. There were too many hiding places, and not enough room for me to run. So I leave work late, which makes up for me getting in late. I keep moving, up and down stairs, along the platform, until the last possible moment and the doors are just closing, before I jump on the train. That way I know for sure who I’m traveling with.
Tonight I took a while to decide which way to go home. Every day I take different routes on the Tube, getting off a stop later or a stop earlier, walking a mile or so, then onto a bus, or back onto the Tube.
Usually I walk the last mile, taking different streets. It’s been two years since I moved here from Lancaster, and already I know the London Transport system as well as a native. It takes a long time and it wears me out, but it’s not as though I have to rush home. And it’s safer.
Once I got off the bus at Steward Gardens my walk home was punctuated by fireworks, the smell of them sour in the cold, damp air. I walked across High Street, skirting the edge of the park. Doubled back down Lorimer Road. Through the alleyway—I hate the alleyway, but at least it’s well lit—and back behind the garages. I checked over the wall—the light was on in my dining room, the curtains half-closed. I counted the sixteen panes, eight on each door, which showed up as yellow rectangles, with neat edges where the curtains fell straight down on either side. No extra bits of light showed through. No one had touched the curtains while I’d been away from the flat. I repeated this over and over again as I kept on walking. The flat is safe, nobody has been in there.
At the end of the alleyway, a sharp turn left and I was nearly home—Talbot Street. I resisted the urge to walk to the end of the street at least once before turning back; tonight I managed to get inside at the first attempt. I looked back while turning the key, which had been