I See You(21)

My ankle hurts. I can’t run, so I stop trying.

I give up. Turn around.

He’s young; nineteen or twenty. White, with baggy jeans and trainers that pound on the concrete floor.

I’ll give him my phone – that’s what he’ll be after. And cash. Do I have any cash?

I start to pull the strap of my handbag over my head but it catches on my hood. He’s almost on me, now, grinning as though he enjoys my fear, enjoys the fact that I’m shaking so much I can’t untangle myself from the leather strap of my bag. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut. Just do it. Whatever you’re planning, just do it.

His trainers slam against the floor. Faster, louder, closer.

Past me.

I open my eyes.

‘Hey!’ he calls again, as he runs. ‘Bitches!’ The tunnel curves to the left, and he disappears, the echo of his trainers making it sound as though he is still running towards me. I’m still shaking, my body unable to process the fact that what I thought was a certainty didn’t happen at all.

I hear shouting. I start walking, my ankle throbbing. Round the corner I see him again. He is with the group of girls; he has his arm round one and the others are grinning. They’re all talking at once; excitable chatter that builds to a crescendo of hyena-like laughter.

I walk slowly. Because of my ankle, and because – even though I can see now that there’s no threat – I don’t want to pass this gang of kids, who have made me feel so foolish.

Not every footstep is following you, I tell myself. Not everyone who runs is chasing you.

When I get off the train at Crystal Palace Megan speaks to me, but I’m slow to respond. I’m relieved to be out in the open air; cross with myself for getting in a state over nothing. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, ‘what was that?’

‘I just said I hoped you’d had a good day.’ There are still fewer than a dozen coins in her open guitar case; she told me once how she scoops the pound coins and fifty pence pieces out throughout the day.

‘People stop giving if they think you’re doing too well,’ she’d explained.

‘It was okay, thank you,’ I tell her now. ‘See you in the morning.’

‘I’ll be here!’ she says, and I find her predictability comforting.

At the end of Anerley Road I walk past our open gate and through Melissa’s painted railings. The door swings open, a response to the text I sent as I walked from the Tube station.

Time for a cuppa?

‘Kettle’s on,’ she says, as soon as she sees me.

At first glance Melissa’s and Neil’s house is the same as mine; the small hall with the lounge door to one side, and the bottom of the stairs facing the door. But the resemblance stops there. At the back of Melissa’s house, where next door you’d find my poky kitchen, is a vast space extending into the side return and out into the garden. Two huge skylights allow the light to flood in, and bi-fold doors run the whole width of the house.

I follow her into the kitchen, where Neil is sitting at the breakfast bar, a laptop in front of him. Melissa’s desk is by the window, and even though Neil has an office upstairs, if he isn’t working away he’s often in here with her.

‘Hi, Neil.’

‘Hey, Zoe. How are things?’

‘Not bad.’ I hesitate, not sure whether to share what’s going on with the photos in the Gazette; not sure I can even define it. Perhaps talking about it might help. ‘Funny thing, though – I saw a photograph in the London Gazette that looked just like me.’ I give a little laugh, but Melissa stops making the tea and looks at me sharply. We spend too much time together for me to hide anything.

‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine. It was just a photo, that’s all. An advert for a dating site, or something. But it had my picture in it. At least, I thought it did.’ Now it’s Neil who looks confused, and I don’t blame him; I’m not making any sense. I think of the kid on the Tube, running to catch up with his friends, and I’m glad no one I knew was there to see how I overreacted. I wonder if I’m having some kind of midlife crisis; having panic attacks over invisible danger.

‘When was this?’ Neil says.

‘Friday evening.’ I glance around the kitchen, but of course there isn’t a Gazette lying about. In my house the recycling box is permanently crammed with newspapers and cardboard packaging, but Melissa’s bin is neatly tucked away, and emptied regularly. ‘It was in the classifieds. Just a phone number, a website address, and the photograph.’

‘A photograph of you,’ Melissa says.

I hesitate. ‘Well, someone who looked like me. Simon said I must have a doppelg?nger.’

Neil laughs. ‘You’d recognise yourself though, surely?’

I go to sit at the breakfast bar, next to him, and he closes the laptop, moving it so it isn’t in the way. ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? When I saw it on the Tube I was convinced it was me. But then by the time I got home, and I showed it to the others, I wasn’t so sure. I mean, why would it be there?’

‘Did you call the number?’ Melissa says. She leans on the island opposite us, the coffee forgotten.

‘It doesn’t work. Nor does the website; the address is something like find the one dot com, but it just takes you to a blank screen with a white box in the middle.’