Disclaimer

16. LATE SPRING 2013

I have her telephone number, I have her address, and I have seen her in the flesh. She is no longer just a figment on my laptop. I’ve taken to haunting the underground station where she changes trains on her journey to work. Right now, I’m standing behind her.

There are a few people between me and her, and she is taller than me, but I can see her between their shoulders, their necks. If I reach forward I’ll be able to touch her. Her hair is caught in the back of her collar and she flicks it out, and then shifts her shoulder to hitch her bag up. She’s twitchy. I like that. But her fingernails are painted. I don’t like that. They make me want to weep. They are a sign that she doesn’t care. That she is carrying on as if nothing has happened. I don’t want to see that. She must not be allowed the comfort of amnesia. That cannot happen. She should not be able to paint her nails, do her hair. She should not care about herself. She knows what she has done and yet she still thinks she is worth preserving. I want to see her nails chewed and bleeding. I want to see a sign that she feels something.

There’s a surge forward as the train pulls in and I allow myself to be carried behind her. I am walking on air. She is being pushed too, but not by me. I haven’t touched her. She glances round, but she misses me, I’m not in her sight line, she is head and shoulders above me. We’re not ready yet, Nancy and I. I’ve brought Nancy with me. Her arms are over mine, my chest is where hers was. I have taken to wearing her cardigan most days now. The doors open. She gets on. She doesn’t mind the gap, and trips on her way. Have I missed my moment? And then the doors close and I watch her move off. Does she heave a sigh of relief? I can’t be sure, but she ought to. Not this time. Not yet. But we know her route now. We know where and when to find her.

And I am capable of great patience. I was a fisherman years ago. Amateur of course. I fished from the rocks by the Martello tower. This is like fishing. I have thrown in the bait and now I must wait. Just wait. It will come. And Geoff is on standby too, to throw in more as soon as I give the word. There are two bookshops in her neck of the woods, and he will move in at my command. Good old obliging Geoff. And there will be a bite, I know it. And then I can haul in my catch, well, not haul exactly, it will hardly be a net full, so not a haul, one bite, that’s all I need, one bite from one slippery fish. I anticipate how my hand will tingle when I feel the tug on my line. I want to see the hook caught in the throat. To see my catch gasp for breath. Its fate in my hands. A simple crack on the head with a blunt instrument. Or will it be enough to have removed it from the depths and then watch it gasp for air, its eyes wide and staring in panic? There is something extremely satisfying in that idea. A fish out of water. A fish rudely introduced to a hostile environment. Will it survive? Unlikely. The sudden exposure will probably kill it. They drown, don’t they, fish. If they’re left too long out of water. Exposure first, and then perhaps I’ll put it out of its misery.