The supermarket aisles are deserted. She shops at night because her days are too busy and weekends are for long lie-ins and trips to the gym rather than household chores. She is buying a leg of lamb. Brussels sprouts. Potatoes. Sour cream. For a dinner party perhaps, or a romantic dinner.
I glance past the cash registers to the newsstand. Alice is reading a music magazine and sucking on a lollipop. She’s wearing her school uniform: a blue skirt, white blouse and dark blue jumper.
Her mother calls to her. Alice puts the magazine back on the rack and begins helping her pack the groceries in bags. I follow them through a different checkout and out into the car park where she loads the shopping into the boot of a sleek VW Golf convertible.
Alice is told to wait in the car. Her mother skips across the car park, head up, hips swinging. She pauses at a crossing and waits for the lights to change. I stay on the opposite side of the street and follow her along the pavement past brightly lit shops and cafés until she reaches a dry cleaner’s and pushes open the door.
A young Asian girl smiles from behind the counter. Another customer follows her inside. A man. She knows him. They brush cheeks, left and right. His hand lingers on her waist. She has an admirer. I can’t see his face but he’s tall and smartly dressed.
They’re standing close. She laughs and throws her shoulders back. She’s flirting with him. I should warn him. I should tell him to skip the foreplay. Don’t bother with marriage and the messy divorce. Buy the bitch a house and give her the keys—it’ll be cheaper in the long run.
I am watching her from the far side of the road, standing near a tourist map. The lights from a nearby restaurant illuminate my lower half, leaving my face in shadow. A kitchen hand has come outside to have a cigarette. She pulls the packet from her apron pocket and glances over the cupped flame.
“Are you lost?” she asks me, turning her head away as she exhales.
“No.”
“Waiting for someone?”
“Might be.”
Her short blond hair is pinned behind her ears. She has darker eyebrows, her true color.
She follows my gaze and sees who I’m looking at.
“You interested in her?”
“I thought I recognized her.”
“She looks pretty cozy already. You might be too late.”
She turns her head again and blows smoke away.
“What’s your name?”
“Gideon.”
“I’m Cheryl. You want a coffee?”
“No.”
“I can get you one.”
“It’s all right.”
“Suit yourself.” She crushes the cigarette underfoot.
I look back at the dry cleaner’s. The woman is still flirting. They’re saying good-bye. She rises on her toes and kisses his cheek, closer to his lips this time. Lingering. Then she walks to the door, swinging her hips a little. A dozen garments in plastic sleeves are draped over her left shoulder.
She crosses the road again, towards me this time. Six steps and she’ll be here. She doesn’t raise her eyes. She walks straight past me as though I don’t exist or I’m invisible. Maybe that’s it—I’m fading away.
Sometimes I wake at night and worry that I might have disappeared in my sleep. That’s what happens when nobody cares about you. Bit by bit you begin to disappear until people can look right through your chest and your head like you’re made of glass.
It’s not about love; it’s about being forgotten. We only exist if others think about us. It is like that tree that falls in the forest with nobody around to hear it. Who the fuck cares except the birds?