Chapter Nine
STUART, TEN YEARS EARLIER
It’s winter now and the woman in the pub has taken to wearing a long fur coat, fake, by the look of it, and mittens, which she peels off at the bar and folds one into the other.
She also has a fabric wrap of some kind over her ears that she pulls off before smoothing down her fine brown hair with bony fingers.
The dog is wearing a coat with a fur lining.
“Single or double?”
She pretends to think about it and then says, “A double. Thank you.”
She notices me in the corner as she carries her drink across the bar, and I see her change direction slightly. I nod at her unthreateningly and continue scrolling on my phone.
I watch her take off her fur coat, fold it neatly into itself, and drape it on the back of the chair opposite her. I know that in under three hours she will be pulling that same coat on messily and inelegantly, struggling to find the armholes, the sleeves.
Someone calls her an hour later. I see her stare at her phone in horror, pick it up, look at the screen, put it down again, and then sigh heavily, pull herself straight, and answer it.
“Hello. Yes. Is everything… Right. OK. How bad is it? Should I—?… Yes? OK. OK. I can be there now. I mean, in ten minutes or so. I’m just up the road… Great. See you in ten. Fifteen… Yes. Thank you.”
She ends the call, and I see her mouth “Shit” under her breath.
Then she lifts the remaining half of her vodka tonic to her mouth, tips it down her throat in three hard gulps, goes to the bar, asks for a double espresso, necks it in one, pulls on her coat, pulls on her headband, pulls the dog to his feet, and heads for the door.
As she leaves, I see that she has left something behind. Her mittens, on the table. I finish my pint and pull on my jacket and my hat, I pick up her mittens, and from a distance of around two yards I follow her through the streets of Hampstead.