Chapter Six

2008

I tried not to look at Aly at my side as we walked quickly through the city centre. If I didn't look at her I could convince myself there was nothing at all extraordinary happening, that a new acquaintance and I were simply going for a drink. That was all that was happening, after all. It was only when I looked at her that I felt hot and as though my legs might not make it to her destination of choice. My physical reaction to her appearance was not something I was prepared to dwell on, it was bloody ridiculous. Besides, it reminded me of the time I had felt this way before. That had been nothing short of a fucking disaster. Going there again was not a good idea. Going where? I kept my eyes on the pavement in front of me and refused the temptation to look at her.

The place she took us to was in a small side street. It was a cafe bar, which had adopted a style reminiscent of the sort of place I imagined you might have found in Paris, rather than the industrial Midlands. It was quiet inside, with hushed conversations rather than a general hubbub of noise. The red painted walls were intentionally shabby and stained, and candles burned in the necks of empty wine bottles on every table. It didn't feel in keeping with the place to order a vodka and Coke, so I settled for half a French lager, which, in truth, I preferred. To my surprise, Aly ordered a glass of white wine. I bought the drinks, saying it was the least I could do.

We sat at a table in the corner made by the front window and the wall furthest from the bar, Aly on a bench seat against the wall, me in a hard-backed wooden chair with a red cushion opposite her. When we were settled, I smiled at her, feeling suddenly shy. She was almost glamorous to me, though she wore less make-up and certainly dressed more casually than I did. It was still impossible to pin down just what quality of hers it was that made my face flush, but there was something undefined that held me almost in her thrall. I felt like I had pulled off some kind of coup, securing this confident, intriguing woman as my friend. At least, I hoped I had. I was terribly afraid she would find me boring and a quick drink would be the end of our acquaintance.

She was looking back at me across the table, something contemplative in her expression. 'I hope you didn't mind my hijacking you like that,' I said, wanting to break the ice myself, before she had the chance to form any false impressions of me from my silence.

'No, happens all the time,' she replied with a smirk.

'Of course, I expect it does,' I agreed, laughing at myself as some of the tension dissolved. Being with her seemed to make me relaxed and uptight all in the same moment. I took a sip of my lager, and she mirrored my action with her wine. I noticed she held the glass by its stem only, as is correct with chilled white wine. It was an oddly delicate action. Refined was not one of the first words I thought of to describe Aly, in her jeans and black vest, the bundle of cheap silver bracelets and bangles weighing down her wrist. I watched her hand as it returned to the table and released the glass. Though her fingers were quite thick, she had small hands, and her short fingernails were impeccably neat. She wore one very small silver ring around her little finger on her left hand. I noticed there was no wedding ring, and I was glad. Married women intimidated me. Not that I had expected her to be married and I almost laughed at myself for looking in the first place. I was conscious that I expected something very different from her, based on her appearance, and hated myself for stereotyping. I also frightened myself with the clarity of the realization. What was I doing? I'd retreated from that danger years ago. But there was something so compelling about her, something that almost hurt me, somewhere deep inside. I tore my gaze away from her fingers and made myself think rationally. I was lacking in friends. It was her friendship I craved. I couldn't allow it to be anything else.

' So, how did you meet him?' she asked, breaking into my thoughts. For a moment, I wondered who she meant.

'Oh, er, it was at work,' I told her, as it dawned on me that she was referring to Owen. 'Which is why I'm worried I'll have to see him again.' It was almost inevitable actually. I tried to ignore the nagging in my stomach which suggested that abandoning him in the pub was probably not the wisest move. Fucking stupid really. The whole thing was turning out to be surreal. Now here I was with a woman I'd never laid eyes on before. A woman I found dangerously compelling in a way I recognized, despite my best efforts to suppress it. I wanted to laugh at the bizarre turn events had taken, but could not, quite.

'Where do you work?' she asked then. Her eyes were steady on my face and I felt as though she was weighing me up. I took her question as a good sign; if she wanted to get to know me she couldn't be judging me too harshly.

'At the Museum of Law and Justice. It's in the old Shire Hall and prison, up on High Pavement,' I answered her. I could see she'd never heard of it, and I wasn't surprised. 'I'm a Victorian prison warder,' I added, to make it sound more interesting.

She grinned, her eyes registering real curiosity. 'You mean you dress up?'

'Yep, all in black, and I get to wave a stick around and shout at people, and tell them I'm going to execute them.' It was this part of my work people were always interested in, not the history. I didn't mind, I suppose I would have been the same. I wanted her to think I did something fascinating for a living, not that I spent most of my time waiting around for visitors, preferring the company of buried murderers to the living world outside the walls.

'Sounds like fun,' she said.

'It is, at times,' I told her. 'So, what do you do?' I ventured tentatively.

'I'm a photographer,' she said. I was pleased she'd not said nurse or teacher or admin assistant. 'Or at least, I'm on my way to being,' she added. 'I'm saving up for my own studio. Right now I suppose you could say it's part-time. The rest of the time I work in my friend's music shop and help him do his books.'

'I've always found photography interesting,' I said, with some truth, though I'd probably have claimed an interest if she had told me she was a cleaner or a cashier in a bank. 'What sort of things do you photograph?'

'Well, the money's in weddings and all that. It's what I'm trying to get into. I do portraits too, of course. Anything really, as long as it pays.' She laughed wryly. 'Never thought I'd hear myself saying that when I was taking my art degree!'

I laughed gently with her. T know. I've got a history degree. I'm supposed to have a career by now, but I'm too busy playing let's pretend and shouting at people.' There was an empathy between us suddenly, some common ground.

'When did you graduate?' she asked. I knew she was trying to find out my age without asking bluntly. I used the same trick myself.

'Four years ago,' I informed her. 'You?'

'A little longer,' she grimaced comically, then looked up at the ceiling while she calculated. 'God, it's eleven years ago now,' she said finally. That meant she was somewhere around thirty-two. 'I'm getting fucking ancient!' she declared and I was glad to hear her swear. It relaxed the atmosphere between us.

'That's hardly ancient!' I returned, deciding that while she probably looked her age, she certainly looked good for it at the same time. Those few extra years she had on me only served to increase my fascination with her, though I disliked feeling so young and inexperienced in comparison to her. The revelation of my age didn't seem to have bothered her in the slightest. I wondered if anything I could say to her would faze her at all. It was apparent she took everything pretty much in her stride and that drew out my ability to talk to her. 'Where did you go to uni?' I asked.

'In London,' she told me. Well, that was another setback to my confidence; London always sounded vastly exotic to me, an exciting and sophisticated place, and she'd lived there, studied there. But while my confidence wavered, at the same time my interest in her deepened. There was no point telling myself I was envious of her now, despite her time in the capital. This sure as hell wasn't envy I was feeling. But what the fuck was it? 'How about you?' she enquired.

'Right here,' I said reluctantly. 'It was the best place for the course I wanted to do,' I added, to defend the fact that I had stayed in my hometown to study.

'Have you always lived here?' she asked, with no apparent condemnation in her tone, though I flinched at the question.

'Yep,' I told her, feeling the lack of adventure in my own life.

'Though I left home as soon as I could afford my own flat,' I explained, anxious that she wouldn't conjure up the picture of me as some little girl living at home.

'Yeah, I could never have gone back after I went to uni,' she said, agreeing. I wondered if she was judging me and hiding it well, or genuinely as accepting as she appeared to be. 'Me and my mum argue if we're left alone for two minutes!' she added. Her tone was unconcerned. She was so relaxed in her manner of speech, so casual in her bearing, I found it hard to imagine her arguing with anyone.

Her last words hung in the air, as we both took another drink. I watched as a rivulet of crimson wax dribbled from the pool around the wick of the candle, streaked its way to the neck of the bottle and ran over it, slower and slower until it finally solidified. I knew her eyes were on me, I could feel her gaze from the other side of the bright halo around the flame of the candle. I shifted slightly in my chair and kept my own eyes on the waxy trails on the body of the wine bottle holding the candle. I found I wanted her to look at me. Yet, even as I allowed it, it frightened me. I experienced my increasing temperature with alarm, as the silence between us grew heavier. I could not make myself look up and see her gaze leveled at me, and, with my eyes fixed to the bottle, it felt impossible to think about anything else. I needed to say something, shatter this tension. Was it all in my head, I wondered, or did she feel it too?

‘I like this place,' I said finally, my voice a little rough, glancing around me as if I was really interested in our surroundings.

'Yeah, I don't get out that much, but when I do, I can't stand noisy places and bright lights,' she replied. 'See, I'm old before my time.' If she had experienced the mounting tension I had, her demeanor showed no signs of it. For some reason, that disappointed me slightly.