Num8ers - By Rachel Ward Page 0,72

down the path, I fancied I could still feel the damp warmth of his hands through my jeans.

I was feeling edgy again now. People, gathered together, were dangerous. The odd one or two you could deal with, but crowds were something else. I tried to pick up the pace, but I didn’t have it in me. All day I’d felt the need to keep going, to get there, wherever there was. Now I was worn out and getting scared again. The sun was starting to drop behind the hills.

The landscape around me was changing as the light began to go. Pale buildings clung to the hillsides to left and right. Streetlights were popping on, giving the stone an orange glow, picking out the shape of the city’s fingers reaching out into the fields. Soon there were buildings closing in on both sides. I was almost in Bath. Today, I wanted the light to stay. I didn’t want to be alone in the dark.

I never used to be frightened of anything — figuring that life had already thrown about the worst it had at me by the time I was six — but the last few months had shaken all that up, the last few days, especially. All I wanted now was to find somewhere safe to bed down for the night, to curl up and sleep. I wanted to switch off, blank out the world for a while. A deep chill swept through me. Is that what my mum was doing when she was shooting up? Escaping for a few hours? Was it all too much for her? Looking after a kid on her own? Living in a grotty flat? Let down time after time? I’d never understood it before. Why she’d do that. But I was beginning to see how attractive a bit of oblivion could be — it was just that I didn’t want to find it the way she had….

There was something strange about this place. Where I come from, canals are dirty places, running along the backs of warehouses and factories. This was different. It was edged with white-painted metal gates and fancy bridges, with carvings in the stone.

Soon the path left the canal and led to a road. I was actually on a hill — weird when you’ve been walking on level ground all day. The road went up and down to the left and right of me, while the canal carried on flat, underneath it, on the other side. I crossed over and peered over the stone bridge. Couldn’t see a great deal now, but could make out the shapes of boats tied up. Not sure there’d be anywhere to kip down along there. I’d be better off if I could find a park, or the bottom of someone’s backyard. I set off up the road and then turned right into a quieter one. It was like something off the TV, a movie set, with a cobbled pavement and tall houses.

It was the time of day when people had their lights on but hadn’t yet drawn their curtains. Every second or third front window was like a little TV screen, bright in the gathering gloom, drawing your eye in. People on their computers or watching the telly, some sitting reading.

Made me feel lonely, seeing a snapshot of other people’s lives. They were warm, secure; there were cooking smells wafting out, soon be dinnertime; they had people, they belonged. I made myself move on — no good thinking what other people had. I needed to find somewhere to sleep.

On the other side of the road, the houses stopped. A fence ran along the edge of a field. I started looking for a place to get through; didn’t fancy getting caught up on more barbed wire. I was so tired, I felt like I was in a daze. A breeze whipped up, its icy edge cutting through my clothes. I needed to find somewhere to shelter or else be found frozen solid in the morning.

I crossed the road to follow the line of the fence. A few feet along, there was a stile and I climbed over — or rather hauled myself, my legs pretty much shot after a full day’s walking. As I clambered down the other side, first thing I did was put my foot in something. A big, slippery pool, stinking to high heaven. Oh, great, cows again, but not safely penned in this time.

The grass sloped upward into the blackness. I followed