The Watcher (7 page)

‘You have to start to get out more, be around people,’ said Bartek. ‘Else you’ll never find the right woman. So, what was it you said you do all day, if you’re not sitting around at home?’

I haven’t yet said what I do
, thought Samson in irritation. Sometimes Bartek did not really listen to him. After all, he never had anything particularly impressive to talk about.

He hesitated briefly, wondering whether it was wise to tell Bartek what he did. He wanted so much to tell someone and there was no one else apart from Bartek. ‘In a way,’ he said mysteriously, ‘I do spend my whole day around people.’

‘Really? What do you do?’

‘I look at other people’s lives.’

‘Huh?’ said Bartek.

‘I walk around the streets. At set times. And it’s really interesting . . . you find out a lot about people in their own surroundings. How they live. Whether they are alone or have a family. Whether they are happy or unhappy. That kind of thing.’

Samson suddenly thought that he had probably made a mistake. It was stupid of him to open up to Bartek like this. He could see it in the expression on his friend’s face.

‘You mean, you
stalk
other people?’ asked Bartek after a pause in which he was obviously trying to make sense of what he had heard.

‘I analyse them,’ explained Samson.

‘What do you mean, you analyse them?’

‘I try to find out things about them. For example, why someone is alone. And how the person deals with that.’

‘And what do you get out of it?’

‘I understand things.’

‘Yes, but why? I mean, what exactly do you want to find out?’

Samson saw that there was no point. Bartek would not understand. Perhaps the whole thing was incomprehensible. Nevertheless, he tried to explain it.

‘Well, I’m alone too,’ he said. ‘And I often wonder why I am. And so I try to work out why other people are in the same boat as me.’

‘Yes, but – now don’t take this the wrong way – but it’s a completely . . . well, pretty disturbed way to go about it! Why don’t you look on the Internet? There are thousands of people there with the same problem as you. There are tons of forums where you can talk to people about it.’

‘I do that too,’ admitted Samson. ‘But it’s so anonymous. I often feel doubly alone if I’ve spent the whole afternoon chatting to someone five hundred miles away who I don’t even know, just because he too can’t find a partner.’

‘So is your main issue about finding a woman?’

‘Yes. That too.’

‘And do you think you’re going to find a young, single woman by wandering the streets and spying into other people’s houses?’ asked Bartek, who was obviously trying hard to bring a certain structure and logic to a situation that seemed grotesque to him.

‘Not exactly.’

‘So what the hell makes you do it, then?’

Samson shrugged his shoulders. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘No, it does. Don’t take this the wrong way, Samson, but it sounds pretty crazy to me. If you ask me . . . being unemployed isn’t good for you. You’re starting to do some odd things.’

‘I didn’t choose to be jobless.’

‘No, of course not. But are you trying to find something? You’re still young! You can always drive a taxi . . . something. Creeping around after other people all day – that’s not going to help!’

‘It’s interesting.’

Bartek shook his head. ‘God, Samson, really . . . Have you at least found a woman who could be right for you? So there’s been some point to all your walking?’

Samson had to admit that there was not an abundance of single young women that he had his sights on. ‘Most are quite a bit older, of course. A lot older than me. There is one woman in my . . . schedule. She is my age and obviously lives on her own. She works at home as a freelancer and has a big dog.’

‘And? Have you ever talked to her?’

Samson realised that Bartek did not understand a thing. He would never talk to the women he shadowed.

‘No.’

‘Invite her out for a coffee.’

‘Yes, why not,’ Samson said, but only to keep Bartek happy.

‘You can find women on the Internet too,’ said Bartek.

‘I know, but—’

‘No buts. You shouldn’t just always talk. And dream. You have to do something!’

‘There is one family . . .’ said Samson hesitantly. He did not want to draw Bartek deeper into his confidence, but he suddenly had the feeling that he should correct the impression that he had only been targeting women. Bartek seemed quite shocked, and he did not want to leave it like that. He did not want his only friend to see him as some kind of sex offender. ‘They live at the other end of my street. Right by the strip of green, opposite the golf course.’

‘OK. And what about them?’

‘He’s a business consultant. He helped Gavin once. She’s very attractive. And they have a charming daughter. She’s about twelve.’

Bartek was not looking any less perplexed than before. ‘Right, and what do you want with
them
? Nab the yummy mummy?’

‘No, of course not. They are just so . . . so perfect, you know. A dream family. The family I’d like to have one day!’

Bartek was looking very uneasy now. ‘Samson, my impression is that you’ve lost touch with reality a bit. You dream about other people’s lives, but you don’t change your own at all. It seems like you’re fleeing something!’

And, thought Samson, don’t people need that sometimes? The chance to escape?

‘I’ll be OK,’ he said. Why had he started? He was sure that Bartek would latch on to the topic like a terrier and not let go.

‘Let me see if I can sort something out for you,’ said Bartek. ‘There must be a woman for you somewhere! You don’t look bad, you own a house . . . well, half a house . . . you’re not stupid and you have no disgusting characteristics. It would be a doddle if—’

‘Look, I’m jobless.’

‘All the more reason to start to really look for a job.’

‘I’m looking like mad.’ That was not true. He had not even signed on at the job centre. He knew that was a mistake. Things could not go on like this. Without benefits, his savings would soon dwindle. But as soon as he signed on, he would need to write heaps of applications and he would need to keep bringing proof that he was trying to find work. How was he to fit that in with his other activities? Many days he had thought to himself: tomorrow I’ll start to think about the future! Tomorrow I’ll sign on and then I’ll deal with the problem!

But he never had. His desire to continue to observe the people in whose lives he took such an interest – an interest so much more intense than he could ever admit to Bartek or anyone else – was simply too great. His life without this activity seemed pointless to him.

‘If you really work on it, you’ll find something,’ said Bartek optimistically. To Samson’s great relief, he then changed the subject and turned to his own plans for the future: his marriage arrangements, his wish to buy a property for himself and his soon-to-be wife, the difficulty of obtaining a mortgage, and, and, and . . . Samson let it all wash over him. He had not eaten since breakfast and his finances did not even allow him to order a burger, the cheapest item on the pub menu. But that did not matter. He felt a pleasant dizziness. Everything around him seemed somehow dulled, lacked sharp outlines, had a nice haziness: people’s voices, their laughter and chat, the clinking of glasses, the cold air that swept in when someone opened or shut the door, Bartek’s prattling on, everything.

He was thinking of Gillian Ward.

If only I could leave without anyone noticing, thought Gillian.

But of course she couldn’t. She could not go without Becky, and that did away with any chance of an unnoticed exit. The tennis club kids were running around the hall; Becky, in black leggings and a pink T-shirt, was one of the wildest of them. Impossible to extricate her. The parents, mainly mothers, sat in a café area separated from the actual sports hall by a glass wall. The café was part of the club and it was where committee meetings and parties took place. Christmas decorations were up and Christmas songs were booming from the stereo. The bar was serving coffee, tea and champagne. The parents had brought the food and set up a buffet on a long table. There was an abundance of Christmas biscuits, Christmas pudding and home-made cakes, as well as salads, two cheese platters and bowls of nibbles. There was no way it would all be eaten. Gillian had baked a chocolate cake and put it with the other food, but no one had yet taken a slice, as she could see out of the corner of her eye. To her own surprise, this fact upset her in an almost childish way. Her cake looked pretty good. Of course, there were two almost identical chocolate cakes next to it, which could explain why it was untouched.

Diana had cancelled at the last minute, because Darcy’s throat infection had got worse. As Gillian had never talked to any of the other people here, she had sat completely on her own for the first half-hour. She had to do something if she was not to just stare gormlessly at the wall. The rest of the mothers seemed to be friends with each other, judging from the impenetrable wall of sound – shouts, laughter and talk. Everyone felt comfortable here, everyone was happy.

Everyone except Gillian.

In the end a woman had sat down next to Gillian, but only because she had arrived late and not found another seat. She put a tray down on the table in front of her, laden with various salads, cheese and a big glass of bubbly.

‘God, I’m hungry,’ she said. With a glance at Gillian’s empty coffee cup and the two half-nibbled biscuits on her saucer, she added, ‘Aren’t you?’

‘Not really,’ said Gillian.

The other mother tucked into her food with relish, at the same time telling Gillian in detail about her son, who had suffered from eczema since early childhood and had a number of other allergies and food intolerances. She had visited any number of doctors with him, had tried everything, advised strongly against cortisone based on her own experience, but could recommend various balms and globules and was quite an expert in the field.

‘Does Becky have allergies too?’ she asked.

‘No,’ said Gillian and swallowed the answer that was on the tip of her tongue:
I think she’s allergic to me. Recently there hasn’t been a single civil word between us. I wish it were something else: an allergy to grass pollen or dust mites, or a lactose intolerance. Then I’d know where to start. But as it is, I’m completely lost.

She did not say it, but she felt how close she had been to uttering the words and it scared her. This woman was a complete stranger whose only connection to her was that their daughters played tennis together, and she had been so close to confiding to her all the pain that she had almost sunk underneath these past weeks.

Get a grip, she ordered herself. She decided to call Tara later that evening. Tara was loyal and reliable and Gillian knew that she would not gossip about anything she told her.

The other mother – Gillian still did not know her name – took a swig of her champagne and finally changed the subject. ‘Doesn’t Burton look fantastic today?’ she asked in a low voice.

Gillian looked around the room and spied John Burton, the tennis coach, leaning on the bar, surrounded by a horde of mothers. No doubt he was answering questions on the children’s progress. If the situation was proving stressful, he did not let it show. Of course, it was nothing unusual for him. Every time Gillian took Becky to team practice, she could see how the mothers surrounded him. That might of course be because they wanted to be informed about everything to do with the team. No doubt Burton’s effect on women had something to do with it too. He was good-looking, and even more importantly, he had the aura of a mysterious past. People said he had been in the police force and had risen rapidly through the ranks before leaving at the young age of thirty-seven in mysterious circumstances. Then he had founded a private security firm that now employed a good two dozen employees. Its services included guarding both people and buildings. He lived and worked in London, but twice a week he came out to Southend to train two young people’s teams. He had made an effort to recruit some of the players from disadvantaged parts of town. He considered sport, particularly team sports, to be the most effective preventative measure against young people’s slipping into criminal activity, as Gillian had once heard by chance when he was explaining this to a couple of mothers who hung on his every word. Particularly for the well-to-do women he was a hero, a fighter. Gillian could imagine how much they romanticised him.

Probably he was not at all what they saw in him.

But she had to admit that he was attractive. ‘Yes,’ she answered finally. ‘He’s pretty good-looking.’

‘Pretty good-looking? I have to stop myself having indecent thoughts whenever I see him. Strange that someone like him doesn’t have a wife.’

‘Maybe he has a lot of girlfriends.’

‘But then we’d have seen one of them coming to watch or collect him or something. It’s odd. I’ve never seen him with a woman.’

‘He wants to keep his private life separate,’ said Gillian. She could understand that. The women here were like vultures, she thought.

‘I still find it odd,’ insisted the woman. ‘Like much about him.’

Gillian did not want to know what she meant by that and did not reply. Her silence did not of course stop her neighbour from sharing her opinions.

‘I’d really like to know why he had to leave the police. He was in Scotland Yard. That’s not a career you just throw away! And then he comes out here for these sessions. He lives in London. So why come all the way to Southend? Maybe no sports club in London wanted to have him. Why not?’

Gillian had the distinct impression that she would not be able to bear listening to the woman’s detailed thoughts on the trainer’s private life on top of the story of her son’s maladies. She looked into the smug face with its crude features and stood up abruptly.

‘I’m sorry. I just have to have a smoke.’ She tried to make her exit a little less impolite. ‘This damn addiction . . .’

Dear God, don’t let her be a smoker too.

The woman smiled sourly. It was clear that she was offended.