I looked over my shoulder. ‘It’s fine, I’ll be back in ten minutes.’
She looked on with a perplexed expression.
‘It’s fine,’ I assured her. ‘I need the walk to clear my head after the fall.’
‘You could be concussed!’
‘I’m fine.’ I batted away her comments with my hand. I stood for a second as she pulled out another tissue and let out an almighty sneeze.
‘Want me to pick you up some antihistamines?’
‘No, hate them. They make me drowsy.’
‘Okay then.’ I opened the door and walked down the steps and onto the street. A slight wave of calm washed over me, but before long the nagging sensation was back. I needed to perform some sort of compulsion; I wasn’t sure just walking would suffice. As I passed next-door’s house, I looked up at it. It was the same as ours, a three-storey Victorian building. I could see no sign of life through any of the windows.
I counted each step I took until I reached a hundred, which brought me almost to the end of the street.
I turned right and headed towards the mews, carefully avoiding all the cracks.
Inside the grocery shop, I rearranged three jars of pickled onions and two cans of tomato soup on the shelf, picked up two pints of semi-skimmed milk and headed to the counter. It was the same guy who had been serving me earlier, and he eyed me with some sort of recognition or curiosity. I barely managed a smile as by now the day’s events had caught up with me. The woman with the medicine this morning, the child next door and then my fall. I could feel my body slowing down for the day, and I was already thinking about my bed and how sleep came a little more easily now. In the beginning, when I was walking through each day like a zombie, sleep was a form of torture. I would exhaust myself in the day, only to nod off for twenty minutes at a time, waking in a blind panic. This would go on all night and for weeks at a time.
I thanked the shopkeeper and stepped outside into the mews. The light was starting to fade as the afternoon came to an end. I was just comforting myself with the knowledge that I had my bedtime routine to complete – put on clean bedsheets, shower, brush my teeth for thirty-four seconds – when I saw a glimpse of a figure out of the corner of my eye.
I recognised the frame immediately.
I began walking hurriedly towards home. I touched my wrist, where there was now a burning sensation, as though someone had been holding it tightly just a moment before. Flashes of a face to accompany the figure were suddenly in my mind’s eye and I became riddled with compulsive thoughts, all firing at me like bullets one after another. I hurried away from the mews, stopped and caught my breath. I took a moment to lean on a wall, and as I did, a man came out of his house and bent down to get a look at me.
‘You okay, love?’
I looked down the street, towards the mews where I had just come from. There was no one there. I touched my wrists. I could still feel a slight sensation, but it was fading.
‘Yes, yes, just a bit tired.’ I stood up. The man stood back and watched me warily for a moment before going back into his house.
I snatched a look down the street behind me again and the figure appeared on the corner. A tall man, wearing dark clothes. A black cap was pulled down over his face, his head slightly tilted so only he could see me.
Although I couldn’t see his eyes, I recognised everything else about him. I pulled my cardigan around me and began walking away from him at speed, I tripped on a crack in the pavement and stumbled forward. I righted myself, then stole a look down the street to the corner, only to see it was empty.
The man was gone. I looked around to see if he had made it across to the other side of the road when I had been racing along, but that was empty too. I suddenly doubted myself. Had I imagined it?
I wanted to believe I could come here and stay hidden and anonymous. But I knew on this occasion my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me.
I was no longer hidden.
He had found me.
4 Now
The weekend began, and I found myself drawn to the sanctuary of the summerhouse again, my notebook and pencil in hand, ready to prep ideas for textiles projects. Mini’s uncle had given the all clear for the old furniture to go to the charity shop, so a van had been round and took the lot early that morning. I looked around at the blank canvas, feeling a sense of anticipation of what it could become and, for a moment, a slight butterfly sensation in my stomach. I was so unused to the subtlety of those kinds of butterflies compared to the fierceness of the anxiety that could take my gut hostage on a daily basis. But as I had been told many times before by countless therapists and counsellors: receive any amount of positivity you can and hold on to it.
But my brain had a funny way of tricking me into thinking I still did not deserve happiness, and no sooner had the light relief arrived, than the darker feelings chased it away.
Mini popped her head around the summerhouse door at lunchtime, assessing the room from the safety of the threshold, not wanting to dirty the brand-new duck-egg-blue brogues she was sporting.
‘How’s it going? Thought I’d remind you to eat!’ She smiled sweetly. ‘Oh, and to show off these babies.’ She wiggled her foot through the door.
‘They’re beautiful,’ I said sincerely. I remembered the pleasure gained from a brand-new pair of shoes
