Sometime in late November, about six weeks after John’s death, I was walking home from the shops when I passed a youngish woman leaning over her buggy in which a toddler was having a bit of a gripe.
If I described the woman’s hair as being lank or the sort of clothes she was wearing I could easily suggest what class she came from. But why bother? The fact is she was poor, or a good deal poorer than I am, and to all intents and purposes from an entirely different world.
She had her face right up to the child’s face – a little trick which I’d soon discover was a favourite of hers. She might even have been swearing at the child. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that, as I passed, I happened to glance over, just as her little tirade was drawing to a close. The woman was straightening up. The child was clearly still quite cheesed-off. And, almost casually, as if to complete proceedings, I saw the woman take hold of the child’s upper arm between her thumb and forefinger and give that infant flesh a sharp little nip.
The child burst into tears. Not surprisingly. It took me a moment to properly register what I’d just seen. I had to rerun it in my mind a couple of times, to be sure. But by the time I’d stopped and looked back, she was pushing the buggy behind me. And she must have had an inkling that I’d seen her, because she had her eyes on me.
I said something like, ‘What on earth did you just do?’ I may even have sworn. I’ve wondered more times than I’d care to mention, that if I had sworn, whether that would have been sufficient provocation and how things might have been different if I had not. So I might have said, ‘What the hell did you just do to that child?’
The young woman stepped around the buggy and headed towards me. She was on me in no time at all. But it was the way she had a quick glance over her shoulder, to make sure that nobody was coming up behind us, that made me think that I was in trouble, and in that instant I felt all my moral outrage evaporate.
‘And just what the fuck has that got to do with you?’ she said, and jabbed me hard, just below the collarbone, for emphasis – a sharp little poke which I can still feel as I write this down.
And I knew straight away that she was quite capable of beating the hell out of me – and quite possibly killing me. I had this overwhelming sense of vulnerability. I found myself trying to work out how far I’d have to run to reach safety and where on earth that place might be.
I can’t particularly remember the rest of our little exchange. I don’t imagine I made much of a contribution. It consisted mainly of her telling me to mind my own fucking business, combined with a stream of quite personal insults. (Well, I suppose if you’re going to insult somebody you might as well make it personal.) But as she carried on I had the distinct impression that she was working herself up into a state. As if, now that she’d finally found a legitimate target for whatever anger she’d been carting around all day, she might as well offload as much of it as she could. The longer her little rant went on, and the more I looked into her eyes, I had the sense that she was also gearing herself up for a small explosion of violence – a grown-up version of that little nip she’d just delivered to her child.
But just as she’d glanced over her shoulder before approaching me, I now saw her glance over mine. And I thank God that she must have seen someone coming towards us, because she suddenly stalled. Her little onslaught was suspended. And as a parting shot, she leaned right in towards me.
‘I’ll see you later,’ she said, and jabbed me in my chest again.
Well, I scurried off up the hill just as fast as my little legs would carry me, and as soon as I got home I locked and bolted all the doors. And I didn’t mention it to anyone for two whole days, and then only to Ginny. I think perhaps I was ashamed – at how frightened she’d made me. Like a bullied child, I’d thought that if I did actually tell anyone it would somehow only make things worse, to have things out in the open. And that by keeping it to myself I might somehow contain it. When, in fact, as I say, what I really wanted to keep secret was my shame.
When I finally spilled the beans Ginny insisted I go to the police and report the incident. And when I refused she appealed to my sense of morality – those same morals that had so quickly deserted me when that crazy woman stepped up to me. I should contact Social Services, Ginny said, because if she’s prepared to treat her child like that in public, then how the hell might she be treating it behind closed doors?
All of which did nothing but make me feel even more awful. The truth is I was terrified of ever seeing the dreadful woman again. She’d looked into my eyes and known that she could trample all over me. So I made Ginny swear not to tell another soul and from that point on whenever she started haranguing me about it I’d immediately get all emotional, until she left me alone.
There’s no doubt that if I’d had John around I wouldn’t have felt quite so frightened. In the first instance, I’m sure, he would’ve flown off the handle and, just like Ginny, insisted I do something about it, etc. But at the close of the day when the lights went out he would’ve been there, in the dark, beside me. Someone for me to hide behind.
As it was, I became quite obsessed with her. And, as well as avoiding the street where I’d happened to encounter her, I drew in my mind a half-mile radius around it and created a no-go zone. Returning home from a bit of shopping I’d have a quick look all about me, to make sure she wasn’t there, taking note of where I lived … just as I looked left and right before leaving the drive on my way out. And lying in bed, alone, I’d imagine her creeping round the garden, and trying the windows. Now just how screwed-up is that?
I managed to bestow on her a kind of omniscience. She knew what I was thinking – was right there in my head with me. And the only solace I could find was that young policewoman who’d told me about John’s death.
She’d be used to dealing with such people, I reasoned. She wouldn’t be frightened. And in the midst of my deepest panics I’d comfort myself by thinking that if I was still half as terrified when I woke the following morning, I’d ring her up and tell her all about it – the equivalent of running to my mother and telling her how beastly some big girl had been to me at school. The obvious difference being that the policewoman was young enough to be my own daughter.
Rather contrarily, the other little scenario I sometimes envisaged was me going in search of my assailant. Finding out where she lived and stalking her for several days. And then, when she was least expecting it, I would leap out of the bushes and punch her square in the face. Knocking her senseless.
‘How’d you like that?’ I’d shout down at her, ‘you disgusting little witch.’