Читать книгу Closer Than You Think - Darren O’Sullivan - Страница 13

6th May 2018

St Ives, Cambridgeshire

An hour after deciding to go to the shops on my own, Geoff walked me home and checked the house. Once satisfied, he offered to come with me to the shops again, insisting it was no bother. I said I was OK, and he smiled, told me I was more than OK before kissing me on the head and leaving.

I prepared myself for the walk into town. I messaged Penny, telling her I was venturing out. She messaged back an emoji, the one with the bicep curling. I think she was telling me to be strong, but I didn’t really get emojis. Her message, although designed to be light was anything but, because it was obvious she was trying not to make a big deal out of something that was a huge deal. I wished I hadn’t messaged.

It took another two hours for me to leave the front door. It wasn’t often I went out my own. But today I felt bolstered, brave. I blamed the unexpected text from Paul and my even more unexpected reaction to it. I thought I would feel anxious at spending time with him, but far from it – I felt excited, nervous, but the kind that makes you smile.

I was only minutes from my front door, only minutes into my courageous day, and my smile was gone. The half-mile walk into the town centre was stressful, the footpaths busier than I would have liked. Mothers with glazed expressions through sleep deprivation pushed their babies in buggies; their children’s eyes shone in contrast as they drank in their new environments. Older people ambled as if they had all the time in the world – somehow defying its passing, as they gently walked for a morning shop. There were those who were on a day off or like me, unemployed. People. Lots, too many of them, all going about their day. Not one paying any attention to the small woman who scuttled through them.

And yet, I couldn’t help but feel I was being watched, a feeling I couldn’t shake despite the obvious truth. No one cared anymore. I was now just another face in the crowd. But I felt it, regardless. That was just how it was. A long time ago I had tried to combat the insecurity I felt in public, but it was a battle that wasn’t mine to win, so I learnt to make peace with feeling both watched and overlooked. The rational side of me knew there were worse problems to have, worse things going on. But still, the battle remained.

To help stop my fear from taking control and rendering me useless, I played with my necklace, fingering the four keys that hung from the chain. Front door, back door, downstairs windows, upstairs windows. As I repeated my mantra, I focused on the used chewing gum someone had trodden into the ground and counted each piece. I hoped once I made it into the supermarket, I would feel safe.

By the time I made it to Tesco Express I had counted forty-seven pieces of old gum and my hand ached from continually moving the keys back and forth. It was disgusting to think about, the amount of gum, all those germs, but counting helped. I thought I would feel better being indoors again, but I felt worse. Grabbing a basket, I walked down the aisles, acutely aware of the exit becoming further and further away. Each step became hard to take but I took them, regardless. I didn’t think I would ever remove the hand inside my chest which held me down and kept me afraid.

Heading into the back corner, the smell of fresh bread comforting me, I wrestled my headphones out of my bag. I put them in and pressed play, and as the sound of my music drowned out my own anxious thoughts, I moved on, grabbing the essentials, before heading towards the wine section to get a bottle of red, although I wasn’t sure if Paul drank wine. He wasn’t a drinker, that much I knew.

But as I turned towards the shelves of alcohol, my thoughts of enjoying an intimate glass of wine with Paul (both warming and nerve-wracking) were hijacked by thoughts of Owen, bringing me to a halt. A memory flashed of our honeymoon in a caravan near Tralee on the west coast of Ireland. It was all we could afford being so young and poor, but it was a magical five days. The wind kept us awake most of the night, the cold creeping in through the vents, and we drank wine, lots of it, to keep ourselves warm. But we wouldn’t have had it any other way. We would have lazy mornings in bed and then walk along the coastline, our hands interlinked.

Then my memories took me somewhere else, somewhere darker, and the warm feeling left as quickly as it came. The icy hand was back on my diaphragm, playing its tune. The same one it always played until I forced myself to move again. As I looked for a bottle of red wine I could afford, I felt I was being watched, but this time it felt different. This wasn’t me being controlled by my own fear. This was real. The air hung thickly around me, and my body reacted to it before I could think.

Looking to my right I locked eyes with a woman who was staring at me: short dark hair, pale skin. Maybe in her mid-twenties. Her expression was one I had seen countless times before, although not recently. I grabbed the nearest bottle and walked away. Just before turning the corner I looked back, and she was moving towards me, talking with a man who had joined her. He was confident and intimidating, and I felt a surge of terror, but I quickly quelled it. He was too young to be who my fractured mind told me it was. And I knew it couldn’t be him, because he, Tommy Kay, died in prison four years ago. Still, it didn’t stop me thinking the person following me was involved somehow, despite being told on countless occasions that Tommy Kay, the man who was widely believed to be the Black-Out Killer, was a lone wolf, a solo act. A loner.

I increased my pace, which made the ache in my right foot develop into a sharp pain. I tried to hide my limp. It was hard and painful to do, but I didn’t want anyone to notice. As I got to the till, I breathed a sigh of relief that there wasn’t a queue. I loaded my things onto the checkout belt quickly and looked over my shoulder as the couple attempted to discreetly watched me, pretending they were examining the contents of the tinned soup aisle, not fooling anyone.

‘Thirty-two pounds eighteen, please,’ said the cashier after scanning my items. I looked at her, realising I hadn’t until that moment. She was young, probably seventeen or eighteen with a ring in her nose and filled-in eyebrows. Her body language told me she didn’t want to be there any more than I did. I took out my headphones.

‘Sorry, how much?’

‘Thirty-two pounds eighteen,’ she replied like I was hard of hearing or stupid.

‘Are you sure, that seems like a lot?’

‘That’s what the till says.’

‘I see.’ I looked at the items sat crushed together, in the recess where they slide after being scanned, waiting to be bagged. ‘I’m sorry, can you tell me how much the wine is please?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Sorry, the wine, could you tell me how much it is, please?’

The young girl rolled her eyes and looked at the display. Quickly looking over my shoulder, I noticed the couple were inching closer. I needed to get out. I needed to go home.

‘Twenty-one pounds fifty.’

‘Oh.’

I didn’t have enough to pay for a bottle that much, but looked in my purse anyway, counting my money. Small coins included, I had around seventeen, maybe eighteen pounds at a stretch. I could feel my cheeks warm as panic began to set in. I could feel the young girl watching me, as were three people with baskets now queued behind me. Behind them, I couldn’t see the couple anymore. Perhaps the commotion had startled them away; they couldn’t follow me if I wasn’t moving. I took my bank card from my purse and mumbled an apology, hoping by some miracle it would go through. As expected, it declined.

‘Have you got another card?’ asked the girl, irritated by my delay. Another person had joined the queue. Impatience filled the air. I could almost hear their thoughts. ‘Come on dole dosser, move it along. Unlike you, we have places to go.’

‘Sorry. I’m sorry,’ I mumbled. ‘Let me count my cash.’

I don’t know why I said it; I knew I didn’t have enough. My hands shook, my breathing no longer something that was mine to control. I dropped my purse and coins clattered on the metal surface of the till scanner. A quick glance, another person in the queue. All eyes on me. Pity, annoyance, frustration. I could see it all on their faces. I tried to scramble back my money, counting as I did.

Is that three pounds or four? Concentrate, Claire. Concentrate.

‘I’m so sorry. I… um…’

‘If you haven’t got enough, I can take something off your bill?’

‘No, it’ll be OK,’ I said, again, not knowing why. The easiest thing would be to take the wine off, but my mind was swimming. With all the fallen coins back in my numbing hands I counted pointlessly, knowing I was well short. I couldn’t think. I wanted to leave. I wanted to abandon the shopping and get out of there as quickly as I could. My body moved, about to bolt for the door, and as I looked up the eyes of the pale woman and confident man were before me. Blocking my path.

The woman bagged my things, a small smile on her face. The man stepped past me to speak with the cashier, placing me between them both. Trapped.