We laughed. I thanked him. I continued down Kensington Church Street. Turned off onto the High Street, where there was another postbox.
I dropped in the card.
The air was still clammy, though smatterings of rain offered some comfort. The grey sky merged with buildings. Rain came properly then. Heavy. Umbrellas went up around me like mass flowers in bloom. People ran or stayed still under shop canopies. But I stopped. Stood in the middle of the pavement, raised my head, closed my eyes. It felt good. Well, better. Like it was washing things away. And only I would ever have known it wasn’t just rain that poured down my face.
I remained there for a few seconds. I think. I don’t really know. When I returned to the world, I was so soaked that I pushed back my hair, flat to my head and down my neck like I did in the shower, and ran. Ran like everyone else.
Back at the surgery, my wet blouse was paper-thin, see-through. I stood in reception in what looked like only my bra. Linda was eager to get me out the back. Away from the view of patients, who were somehow all immaculate and dry.
‘But I need to give Dr Stevens his lunch.’
‘Dr Stevens has gone out on house calls. He won’t be coming back today.’
I dried myself in the loo and put on a jumper that a patient had left behind yonks ago. Then I ate my sandwich in the staffroom with Alison, not you. She relayed, word for word, the previous night’s episode of Emmerdale and complained that I’d actually picked up salmon instead of tuna.
After counting down the minutes to home time, when it was nearly five, Dr Harris asked if I’d stay on and do some overtime, to sort through Dr Williams’s paperwork. Reluctantly, I agreed.
Everyone else had gone. Harris remained in his office. I was alone in yours. It spooked me, being in there. The feeling was heightened by the heavy rain. Outside was dark, oppressive. A humongous black cloud hung over West London, like the spaceship in Independence Day. The precursor to an inevitable storm. And storms terrified me.
When little, I’d climb into bed with Mum. She’d tell me God was angry at me for some act of childhood I’d committed that day. I’d cling to her, silently praying for His forgiveness. Not stopping until He’d given it.
Except that last time.
It was different that time.
While shredding documents, I noticed you’d left your jacket behind. It was hanging on the back of the door. Expensive. Soft, muted linen. I wanted to touch it. My eyes fell onto the pockets. More shredding. As the noise drilled, I found myself walking across the room. My fingers gently running down the crinkled cotton. I lifted it to my face. Only for a second. Lemons again. My palm traced its pocket. There was something in there. I craved information about you. I wasn’t going to look. That would have been wrong. My fingertips stroked the top of the opening. Moved slightly inside. Then an almighty thunderclap shook through me. I stepped away from the door. Looked up, apologized to God and returned to the paperwork.
It was almost eight by the time we left. As Harris locked up, I attempted to open a brolly that had been resting in the corner of the stationery cupboard since I started working there. I waited for the offer of a lift. At least to the station. It never came. Because he was a wanker.
We said our goodbyes and walked in opposite directions.
The brolly was about as useful as a child’s skirt on a stick. Dipped at the front, not only did it fail to prevent me from getting wet, it created a guttering effect that directed the water straight into my face. However, a few seconds into the battle, I heard Harris calling. I stopped and turned. There was no way he’d really let me walk in this, and I was overcome with guilt at always thinking he was a wanker.
‘Don’t be late tomorrow – we’ve got a lot of stuff to get through.’
Heading towards the Tube, I tried to ignore the deafening thunder and electric sky. The streets were empty. Practically post-apocalyptic. It wasn’t just the storm. A girl had been attacked nearby a couple of weeks prior and my imagination was in overdrive.
Too nervous to contemplate the cemetery cut-through, I took the longer route to Kensington High Street. Desperate for civilization, I picked up speed, but it was still a ten-minute walk away.
As I passed a row of elongated town houses, a cagouled man appeared at one of the doors with a beautiful greyhound. The dog looked as nervous as I was. The man nodded his head in my direction but didn’t say hello or mention the monsoon. We were still in London, after all.
Although happy to encounter another human, one who didn’t appear to be a rapist or killer, my imagination didn’t quit. Instead, in my head, I played out the following day’s interview with that man. The last person to have seen me alive. I’d cast him as Anthony Hopkins. The policeman was Tom Hardy. I played myself, grey, open-eyed, slit throat. A red rose placed on my chest. The first victim of a serial killer seemed better somehow. The greyhound barked once in the distance, immediately followed by whimpers.
I abandoned the useless brolly in someone’s wheelie bin, then turned into the last side street before the main road, which was darker than the others. The downpour turned biblical. I could barely see ahead, so took shelter under the pillared entrance of the mansion block I was passing.
After flicking rain from my face, hands, hair, I lit a fag and watched the water bounce off the pavement, until a noise louder than the downpour made me jump.
A car was coming to a violent stop on the opposite side of the road. A hundred nails on a blackboard. I wasn’t sure what kind of car it was – I’m not a car person – but even I realized it was beautiful, classic.
Just as I made out the shape of a man and woman through the steamed windows, there was a scream. I shat myself and was about to grab my phone when I realized the woman was screaming the words ‘But I love you, I love you’ over and over. I patted my heart and pulled hard on my fag to soothe myself, then watched the show.
It was mainly angry muffles. No clarity at first other than the odd words such as ‘love’, ‘selfish’ and ‘bastard’ from her. And ‘done’, ‘mental’ and ‘calm down’ from him. This went on for some time until her explosive ‘You’re such a fucking shit.’ She got out. Her door remained open and light burst from inside, creating silhouettes. I couldn’t see her properly, but she was tall, elegant. She stepped away from the vehicle, then returned to it.
‘I’ve been such a bloody idiot.’ She was crying.
‘Well, go back to him, then. Nothing’s stopping you,’ said the man.
She dipped her head back into the car to shout, ‘I hate you.’ Door slammed. This shocked the rain into lessening.
She was walking up the road then, prouder than her words had made her seem. The rain ruining more and more of her perfect hair. The clip-clop of her heels echoed. Percussion to her whimpers. Whimpers not dissimilar to those of the greyhound.
Does this sound familiar to you?
With the downpour less torrential, I stepped into the open air and took the last pull of my fag before throwing it on the pavement to sizzle to its death. But then came another slam. The man was outside the car now. His arms outstretched on the roof like he was being frisked by an imaginary policeman. His head facing the ground. His body wet.
It was you.
Flustered, I returned to my shelter and watched as you viciously kicked the front wheel, yelling, ‘Fuck,’ before running up the steps and disappearing through a huge black door.