She headed straight for a booth in the far corner with the air of someone who’d been there before. ‘What’ll you have?’ she said and dropped her bag on the seat.
‘Just a glass of tap water will be fine,’ I said. ‘I don’t drink alcohol.’ It was a convenient lie.
‘Oh.’ She looked taken aback but recovered quickly. ‘After the day we’ve just had, I need one.’
So did I, but I’d wait till I got home. There was a couple of cans of cheap beer in the fridge, I’d be happy with one of them.
I had a chance to observe Carol as she stood at the bar waiting to be served. A tall woman, rather heavy around the belly and hips, her hair cut probably shorter than suited her, she wore loose colourful clothes in a light fabric that seemed to float around her as she moved. Expensive clothes. I didn’t envy her them, just her freedom to spend money on things she liked. I had no yen for fancy clothes, what I wanted was to be able to travel. I’d never been outside the UK. I’d applied for a passport years before and that was as far as I’d got. Lack of funds, combined with my need to visit my mother at least twice a week locked me in place and probably would for years to come.
‘Here you go,’ Carol said, placing a glass of water on the table in front of me. She shuffled into the seat opposite and took a long drink from her glass. ‘A G&T always hits the spot.’
The clink of ice in her glass, the slice of lemon that bobbed as she drank, made me regret my abstention. And my stupid unnecessary lie made it impossible for me to change my mind. I lifted my tap water and took a sip. ‘I’m glad to be done with mandatory training for another year.’
‘It comes around very quickly.’
Next, she’d be saying the years were flying by. ‘Were you working in the Bath United till recently?’
‘Yes, I finished there last week. Decided to try agency for a while, see if it suited me better.’
I took another sip of my water. It didn’t taste good, I guessed it had been sitting in a jug in the fridge for a while. ‘I finished last week too.’
‘Yes, I followed you.’
I’d just taken a mouthful of water and my deep breath of shock had sent it flying into my windpipe making me cough and splutter. ‘Sorry,’ I said, slapping the flat of my hand against my sternum. ‘It went down the wrong way.’ It took a few seconds before I was recovered enough to be able to speak normally. ‘What do you mean “you followed me?”’
She was swirling the ice around in her glass and looked at me in surprise. ‘I was joking!’
Was she? She had a silly smile on her face, but it didn’t reach those pale blue eyes.
We left as soon as she’d finished her drink. She was, she told me, parked in Charlotte Street car park. ‘What about you?’
‘I’m on the bus,’ I said. ‘I don’t have a car.’
Her eyes widened in surprise. ‘You’re doing agency nursing and you don’t drive!’
I wanted to point out that I hadn’t said I didn’t drive, merely that I didn’t have a car which was a different thing entirely, but I didn’t bother. ‘The agency knows, they said it would be fine.’ They hadn’t actually; they said it would be awkward but that it was up to me to ensure I arrived for a job on time, regardless of how I got there.
‘Right,’ she said, obviously unconvinced. ‘Well, I better be off. Fancy meeting again sometime, compare jobs, etc.?’
I noticed she didn’t volunteer to give me a lift anywhere. For all she knew, we could live in the same area. A shiver ran through me at the thought that I might see her creeping around where I lived. Peeping in the window of my ground-floor apartment. Following me. I suddenly had to know where she lived.
‘Yes, that’s a good idea. Agency nursing might be a bit lonely.’ I picked up my bag and pulled out my mobile. ‘I’ll take your number, then message you so you’ll have mine.’ When that was done, I dropped it back into my bag. ‘Maybe we can meet on our days off. Are you far from Bath?’
‘Larkhall. What about you?’
Larkhall was nowhere near my tiny place in Weston, and I found the tension slipping a little. ‘I’m in Weston, near the hospital but I’m thinking of moving. The apartment I have is tiny and a bit expensive for what it is.’
‘We’ll meet up somewhere, maybe before or after a shift someday.’
And on that note, we left the pub and parted. I didn’t really want to see her again. Friendship wasn’t something I sought. Life was easier, suiting myself and nobody else. But I would meet her, that familiarity I had felt when I’d first seen her… I was sure it hadn’t come from a random meeting in the staff canteen in the Bath United or passing in the corridors… it was something more and I needed to know what it was.
I also couldn’t get her words out of my head, I followed you.
22
I’d only worked a few shifts for the agency before I moved to my new apartment in Bathford. There were several nursing homes within a few miles radius who were always crying out for staff, so as long as I could manage on the bus, I wouldn’t bother with a car. When it came to winter, the chilly wait for a bus might change my mind. I hoped by then, I might have money to spare. I’d asked to do night shifts, to bring in even more money, and I’d signed an opt-out disclaimer with the agency that allowed me to work more than the recommended forty-eight hours. Most of the time I’d be working twelve-hour shifts. If I did five days, a sixty-hour week, I should be able to pay the top-up fee for my mother’s care and be able to squirrel away enough to buy a decent car.
Two weeks after that mandatory training day, I was surprised to get a message from Carol.
Hope you’re well. Fancy meeting for coffee?
I looked at it for a long time without responding. If there was a hidden meaning in the words, it was lost to me. I remembered the unease she’d triggered… that strange sense that I knew her from somewhere. But even as I thought I shouldn’t, I was tapping out a reply to say I’d love to meet.
Living in Bathford, I was now on the same side of Bath as she, so I suggested meeting in the café in Alice Park. It was convenient for me, the bus stopped on the London Road immediately opposite, but it was in Larkhall, her patch of the woods, and I wondered if she’d suggest going elsewhere. To my surprise, she responded almost immediately.
Perfect, it’s near me. How about tomorrow?
Tomorrow? Her eagerness to meet puzzled me. More… it worried me. Was I paranoid to think she must have a hidden agenda? A very well-hidden one, I couldn’t see any reason for her interest in me. Unless she knew something about me – but I’d been careful in the Bath United. At least I thought I had.
Anyway, the following day didn’t suit me, I was starting the first of three twelve-hour night shifts.
I’m working. How about on Tuesday?
Perfect. Midday in Alice Park?
I sent her a thumbs up, and dropped the phone on the table beside me.
If it hadn’t been for the extra money, I would have avoided working nights. The shifts tended to be hours of boredom punctuated with brief spells of activity. It left too much time to think.