Ruth has drunk too much wine. In the end she and Alina opted to share a bottle, which was always going to end badly—for Ruth, anyway—because Alina rarely drinks more than a single glass. She had two this evening but, even so, that left two-thirds of a bottle for Ruth, which she can take, no problem, and still be safe to drive—but being legal to drive, that’s a different story.
It’s a good job they ordered that plate of food. Ruth has nine points already, for speeding, a traffic light, not drinking, but even so she is flirting with a ban and if she lost her license she doesn’t know what she would do. Take to sleeping on her dental chair, probably, because how otherwise would she be at the surgery in time for work? But at least with something in her belly there’s a chance, if she does get breathalyzed, she might, just, sneak under the limit. Christ, those chicken goujons were so dry they no doubt soaked up all the alcohol anyway. If Ruth had wanted to, she probably could have stayed for another glass.
But that would have been a mistake. She was later leaving than she intended to be as it was, and although she had a fairly decent time there is only so much of Alina’s company that Ruth can take. It would have been different if Susanna had been there. Then Ruth really would have drunk too much, because it was turning into one of those evenings where the wine was slipping down like water. Unfortunately/fortunately, however, Susanna wasn’t there, meaning Ruth managed to tear herself away.
She wonders how her friend made out with her client. Made out—ha! There’s a double entendre if ever there was one. A double entendre or a Freudian slip? Susanna would know. Just as she knew exactly what she was doing earlier when she gave Ruth and Alina the brush-off. Ruth quizzed Alina at the pub and though this client of Susanna’s might not have been a Leonardo DiCaprio, he apparently wasn’t that far off a young Johnny Depp. “Doubling up,” my arse, Ruth tells herself. Her friend was flirting—lusting—pure and simple, and why the hell not? She knows Susanna is far too much of a professional to ever act inappropriately with one of her clients but that doesn’t mean she can’t permit herself the occasional harmless fantasy.
Ruth smiles as she totters toward her car. And she is, she is definitely tottering. One glass, Ruth. Two glasses maximum. How many times does she really need to tell herself?
And look: she’s heading up the wrong street. There’s a parking space right outside the surgery, which usually Ruth thinks of as hers, but this morning she arrived later than usual and the space had already been taken. So instead she had to park in the next street over, meaning she should have turned left outside the pub, the way Alina went, not right and back the way they’d come.
Cursing with more color than is really justified, Ruth turns on her heels. But as she does so, she manages to drop her car keys, which she knocks with her foot into the gutter. There’s no drain, thank goodness, but even so. Ruth casts her eyes heavenward. Honestly, how is it she can pluck a molar from a ten-year-old and barely cause them to flinch but in the real world is an Olympic champion at tripping over her own feet? And it’s not the wine. Not always. If anything, mostly, alcohol actually makes her coordination better.
Yeah, right, says a voice. Save it for the policeman in the lay-by, old woman.
She is just about to bend to retrieve her keys when something catches at the tail of her eye. Movement, in the window across the way. Their window. Susanna’s window. Which must be a mistake because the window is dark and if Susanna were still up there she would have turned on a light. As it is the glass reflects back at her blackly, just like every other window in their little mews. The street is empty, the buildings too. And as Ruth looks again she is certain: there is nothing, no movement of any kind. There is only the flicker just above her from the solitary streetlight, which glows a warm, shadowy pink that could have been plucked from the horizon of the dying sky.
Ruth picks up her keys. She doesn’t totter this time. The sudden spookiness of the cul-de-sac has sobered her. She feels an urge to hurry off to find her car but before she does she takes a final look around. She checks the doorways first, the little alleyway that funnels toward the parade of shops, just in case the movement she thought she saw was closer than she assumed. It is only after she is certain there is no one around that she lifts her gaze once more toward Susanna’s window . . . and that’s when she sees it once again.
Movement. Unmistakable this time. The quick, back-and-forth tussle of shadows scuffling in the dark.
And that’s not right. Whatever it is that’s going on up there—whatever was going on up there earlier—Ruth is all at once convinced: it isn’t right. Susanna doesn’t flirt, for pity’s sake. Ruth doesn’t know what she was thinking. And doubling up? When has Susanna ever? Really, Ruth should have known better. More than that, she should never have left her friend alone.