EVERYONE NEEDS A hobby, don’t they?
Well, for pretty much the whole of last year, my hobby was watching Roan.
I didn’t have anything else to do. I had no real friends. No boyfriend. I did my homework late, when I was in bed. I was never mentally ready to start it before eleven o’clock, never in the right headspace. I’m a night owl. So, after school I’d wander across to the Portman Centre most days, see what Roan was up to. The thing with the young woman fizzled out pretty quickly. I saw her a lot: because she was a smoker she spent a lot of time outdoors. I think she was a secretary. She wore a lanyard but looked too young to be a clinician. But I never saw her and Roan share a cigarette again; I didn’t see them swan off for drinks or whatever. I think maybe she went off him after their little rendezvous that first evening. Maybe she realized she was way too young for him. Or maybe he was inappropriate in some way.
And that’s the weird thing, because all those months and years I spent with Roan as a patient I never got anything sexual off him, not ever. He was, well, not quite avuncular, not fatherly, but sort of matey. Like one of those teachers at school who you feel you can be yourself with, yet you still respect them.
But outside of that room with its halogens and its nubby chairs, I saw another side of him. He didn’t seem to be able to have a conversation with another woman without some kind of physical contact with them: hugs, squeezed arms, doors held open but not leaving enough room for the woman to get through without pressing against him, shared umbrellas, linked arms. His eyes were always on a woman. If he couldn’t find a woman to look at, he looked lost.
The days started getting longer, and at some point it was still light when I came after school, and I realized I couldn’t hide in the trees in broad daylight; I needed to be more mobile, to keep moving. So I started to wait across the street, pretending to look at my phone, and then I’d follow him wherever he went. And it was surprising how infrequently he went straight home. He often joined people for drinks at the scruffy pub on the corner of College Crescent, or for coffee at the place opposite the tube station.
I had my hair braided about this time. The braids were pale pink. It wasn’t meant as a disguise, per se, but he hadn’t seen me for a while: I’d grown; I was different. I followed him into the pub one night last summer. We’d had a nonuniform day at school, and I wore a crop top, baggy bottoms, a camo jacket, all in dark colors, my hair under a baseball cap. I ordered a lemonade and took it out into the beer garden. The football was showing on a big sports screen. There were loads of guys out there. Only two other women apart from me. I sat under a canvas canopy on a metal chair, with my back mostly turned toward him.
He was with a woman and two men. It was loud in the garden, men cheering at the football match, the animal sound of the crowd pumping out through two huge speakers. I couldn’t hear what they were saying.
The woman with them was about thirty. She had soft red hair tied into a long plait that sat over her shoulder. She wore no makeup and smiled a lot. At first the conversation was between all four members of the group, but then the other two guys started watching the football match more seriously, turning their backs slightly to Roan and the girl, leaving them to talk between themselves.
I played with my phone on my lap, turning every now and then to watch Roan and the woman. They were engrossed. I could have stood square in front of them and blown a raspberry and they wouldn’t have noticed. I took a picture of the two of them. I turned away again.
The match finished and the volume in the beer garden went down. I heard one of the guys with Roan offer to go to the bar for more drinks. There was a pause; then Roan said to the girl, “Want another drink? Or we could maybe go on somewhere else?”
“I don’t mind,” said the girl. “Whatever you want to do.”
“I dunno,” said Roan. “I mean, we could wander up the road a bit maybe, grab something to eat?”
“Yeah,” said the girl. “Yeah. Why not?”
I drained my lemonade superfast. I waited till they’d passed by me and then followed them a few steps behind. They turned left and wandered aimlessly for a moment, peering at menus in restaurant windows. They settled on a Chinese restaurant with shiny ducks hanging in the window.
I sat at a bus stop across the road. They sat at a window table. He was all over her. He cupped her face with his hand. He stroked her plait. He stared and stared at her. He was creepy as fuck. But she seemed to like it. She took mouthfuls of food from him like a baby. She kept the eye contact. She held his hand across the table. She threw her head back with laughter.
They were in there for an hour. Then the bill came and I saw him insist on paying. I thought, That’s nice, you, with a family at home, buying noodles for some girl young enough to be your daughter. I thought, You total wanker.
He walked her to the tube station afterward. They did a sort of hand-squeezing thing, a quick hug, no kissing, too close to home, I guess, too close to work.
I saw his face as he turned back to cross the road, the sly little smile on his face. I thought of his skinny blond wife back at their posh Hampstead flat, probably putting some freshly cooked meal in the refrigerator because her husband had eaten his dinner out tonight. I wondered what he’d told her. Just a bite with colleagues.
I watched him cross the Finchley Road, sprinting through a break in the traffic when the red man was up. He took his phone out at the other side, no doubt texting his skinny wife: On my way home now!
It was starting to get dark; the sky was a kind of chalky lilac, and cars had started to put on their headlights. I was hungry, and I knew Aaron had cooked something good for dinner. Part of me just wanted to go home, get rid of my heavy rucksack of books, eat something good in front of the TV. Another part of me wanted to find out what Roan Fours looked like walking into his house after taking a woman out for dinner.
I waited for the red man to turn green; then I sprinted across the road and caught up with him just as he turned the corner to the stone steps up to the steep hill. He’d put his earphones in now. I could hear him humming very quietly under his breath. He walked fast, and I was out of breath by the time we got to his street. I didn’t realize how fit he was.
Then he was outside his house, looking for his keys, opening the door, closing it behind him. He had a certain swagger to his entrance, like he was lord of the manor.
I was standing outside a kind of empty building plot; it had a big wooden gate across it and high brick walls overhung with flowering foliage. I peered through a hole in the gate and saw a huge piece of empty land covered in flowers and rubble; it didn’t look quite real, like a secret park or fairyland. I could see the foundations where a big house had been. The land must have covered at least an acre, maybe even more. Above it the sky had turned violet and gold. There was a notice taped to the gate. Apparently they were going to build some flats here. The notice was dated three years ago and the planning permission would expire next summer. I hoped that no one would ever build flats here, that it would just stay like this, hidden away, growing layers and layers, getting denser and denser.
I saw a movement to one side. Something fleeting and shiny. A fox.
It stopped for a moment and stared at me. Right at me.
My stomach rumbled. I hitched my schoolbag up on my shoulder and headed home.