Chapter One
Ashley.
I allowed a bony and bare, left elbow to rest on the club’s bar, obviously after checking that the bar tender had made the surface dry, then I blew out in abject boredom and looked around the almost silent room wondering why in God’s name I was stood in this dump of a place. Camlyn, my bestie, who can always read my mind, tilted her head to one side with raised eyebrows, as if to say “go on then, what’s wrong?” It didn’t stop her moving though, as if music was playing generally, rather than just playing in her head.
“What are we doing here in this dive Cam. Why don’t we just go to one of our usual haunts, meet the others there and maybe enjoy ourselves a bit? This place is a time waster.”
Cam forced a smile because it wasn’t the first Friday night that I’d asked that question.
“You know full well Ash, girl. Taylor insists we meet here, then we catch up on all the goss from the week, and only when the air is clear and we all know who said what to who and which side we take do we delve into the shadowy areas of town where the music is too loud for us to communicate without shouting and the beautiful young men in their twenties find it hard to see that we are all thirty something and looking to maybe catch a relationship. In that atmosphere you wouldn’t want to be shouting to the other girls about how you kicked shit-head out now, would you.”
I took a sip of a very ordinary white wine, wondering if I really wanted to relive a blow-by-blow account of Brad leaving. “His name was Brad, as you well know, not shit-head, and I didn’t kick him out he left.” I tried to make my voice sound ordinary, with no warble, and not as if I already missed him, which to be honest was something I was still trying to work out in my head. Did I still love him or had I just got used to a bloke being there and now there was a hole in my life? He was still affecting me by making me skip meals and making me feel that just a few drinks on an empty stomach would take me over the top.
“You’re talking to Camlyn Watson here Ashley my girl.”
Cam placed her clenched fists on her hips and she only ever called me by my full name when she wanted to emphasise something.
“He left with that schoolgirl - don’t raise your eyebrows at me like that. I know she’s in college but that still makes her too young for him - and how long do you think it would have taken before one of our merry band of nine found out about shit-head and the schoolgirl being at that party together and then you would have kicked him out? Him leaving was a short cut, saved time, helped you out.”
Cam unclenched her fist to reveal the empty shot glass she’d been cradling there and I put my wine down on the bar as if I might abandon it and wouldn’t really care if I did. “That’s my point Cam. Getting into a noisy atmosphere with the chance to let myself go a bit would be great for my head and maybe take my mind off things, instead of standing here waiting for the others to come with everyone telling me how much they’ve never liked Brad anyway and then hoping we don’t get back together in case they all look like fools. Let’s just take all that for granted and move on. Oh, here they come. They must have travelled together.”
My gang walked in almost doubling the bar’s population, and looking as if they were dressed to kill, which was just a little bit out of sync with the bar we were in. Emily and Joanne had gone for the long leg, short skirt, massive heel, lowish but respectable top look, Sarah and Hannah had obviously discussed things before dressing and gone for their usual tits-out look to display their faked-tanned, best assets to any prospective males, and Sam and Taylor, both in recent marriages, had chosen boring trouser suit combos as if they’d been dressed by their foreign and extremely domineering husbands. I think it was because of Sam’s husband, who insisted she be covered up if she was going out, that had put the rest of us off marriage. They had both described that they found the domination cute and it made me shiver with disgust when they’d said it. There was no need to look at what Alexis was wearing because ripped jeans and a tee shirt designated her as the weirdo of the group, the one who always wanted to be different and look different. Okay, my black mini-dress was brave for me but I’m not a ripped jeans sort of girl and could never wear a tee advertising bubble-gum like Alexis had.
Taylor spoke first which was no surprise. “How you feeling Ash? Like your hair by the way. A black bob suits you.”
I picked up my wine again before answering, only half surprised that it was still there and hadn’t been cleared away. “I’m feeling that the atmosphere is crap here, this pathetic wine has gone warm and I can’t wait to move on. Oh, and my hair has been like this for about a month now, reverse bob, shorter at the back.”
“That good a mood then. Not what I meant and you know it,” Taylor sounded as if she wanted some juicy details. “Anyway, shots are half price here on a Friday night, before we move on.”
I finally gave in to her, noticing heads looking towards me with interest as my voice went all monotone. “Nothing much to report really. I got home from work, he was packing a case, I asked him what was happening, he told me he was leaving, there was no shouting, we agreed that things had gone stale and the apartment was mine, so it was a clean break. It’s not as if we were married or had kids, or worse a joint bank account, so the best of luck to him.”
Hannah, who was in the middle of ordering drinks so had obviously ignored my plea to move on, turned her head towards me and went into her usual psychiatrist mode, even though she works in the office area of a supermarket. “Seems to me like you’re not accepting things yet and need to ditch the wine and join us all on shots. We’ll get you a bloke tonight and make sure he’s better than shit-head. Yours is a lemon-drop, yeah?”
My face must have looked indignant. “Did you all call him that behind my back? Brad was good to me while things lasted. Maybe it was both our faults that things went stale. You know, pressure of work, me hating my tedious job, no time for ourselves, money tight all the time.”
Sarah, who speaks her mind with absolutely no attached filters looked surprised. “Didn’t you call him shit-head Ash? I thought everyone did. To be honest I thought he was a stop gap for you while you found someone decent and that’s why you eventually kicked him out. Anyway, when all the mobiles started ringing with your news that’s what I guessed.”
“Look, everyone.” My voice was slightly raised with frustrated anger, reminding me that Cam had said that these chats would be difficult in a busy and noisy bar. “I did not kick Brad out and I never called him shit-head and I didn’t realise that you all did. I was in love with him and maybe I still am, maybe, slightly, so no, I do not want your help in fixing me up with a bloke tonight, thank you very much. My plan is to enjoy myself while staying relatively sober and single, maybe just getting stupid drunk, and then to be able to get a cab home and to sleep - on my own. I have a busy day planned for tomorrow which will involve not having too much of a hangover, gathering up anything that relates to Brad, bagging it all up, placing it in the downstairs store room, informing him of its whereabouts, getting the locks changed on my apartment and maybe having a good cry while feeling sorry for myself.”
Joanne gave a dirty laugh but often did. “Who is talking about the daytime tomorrow girl. Back to his, or back to yours, do the biz, then your cab home or a cab for him and do all your packing tomorrow without the tears and with a smile on your face. You are single remember.”
“Thanks Jess,” my voice I knew sounded sarcastic. “I knew you would be the one to understand that I’m not quite ready for a relationship just now, it being three days since the last one finished.” The lemon-drop hit the back of my throat as if it was waking it out of slumber after being put to sleep by the warm, white wine. I felt it trickle down my throat like volcanic larva and settle in an empty stomach that had expected food. Maybe it tasted too nice, even more-ish.
Jess looked genuinely puzzled. “Relationship? I thought I just described a one-night stand with no ties.”
“I need the loo before we move on,” I told them all generally. “So, you can all talk about me while I’m in there, and when I get back, because there is no more discussion to be had about me and my lack of a need to be out of the frying pan and into the fire, can we please go somewhere with at the very least some music to move to?”
Nobody followed me to the toilets luckily, allowing me to sit and contemplate the fact that I didn’t really want to go. That is, I didn’t really want to go with respect to urinating and that my bladder could easily take more than half a glass of rubbish wine and a shot, and also to contemplate the fact that I didn’t really want to go in relation to being anywhere else and moving on to a louder venue.
I knew I’d been coerced into going out clubbing and the girls would never accept me abandoning them to go home alone now. Their hearts were in the right place and they were probably right about me getting out and not sitting at home feeling sorry for myself, so I couldn’t blame them for that.
I didn’t think I’d been sat for very long but Cam’s voice asking the toilet area generally “are you alright” produced a flush of nothing in particular and then produced me.
Cam was smiling. “I’ve convinced them to move on. That new club that opened last month. Sam and Taylor went there last Saturday with hubbies in tow and said it was okay and probably good for a Friday girlie night. Like you said, you and Brad weren’t married. Imagine being married to an Eastern European and having to wear trousers to go out like those two. There must be an upside to their marriages but I don’t know what it is. We can only guess.” Her eyes went wide in a dirty sort of way but it couldn’t produce a smile on my face.
There had always been a problem, us being nine women together, because wherever we went locally, it involved two taxis. Some larger taxis took six passengers, others only four so there was no logical way to split costs. Years ago, there used to be friendly discussions over who would travel in each cab, splitting by four costing each of us more than splitting by five. These days the four and the five are always the same girls and we chip into a kitty to fork out for the two cabs, like the sensible adults that we are not.
We arrived at the said club and walked straight in, there being no queue and nobody to object to the way that Alexis was dressed and that did not bode well and gave me something else to grumble about, except I couldn’t grumble, it being me that had insisted on moving on.
“It’s early,” Taylor defended her club choice. “I did say we should have stayed in the last place for some more shots.”
She was generally ignored, well, I ignored her anyway, and even if we were still bar-propping, a shuffle to the music was appreciated and it was loud enough to not be able to have general conversation, only one to one comments. As the night went on, the shots took more and more of an effect on me and my empty stomach, some of the girls were dancing but I was still just about sober enough to be thinking that it was a little early to announce that I was getting a cab home without the girls demanding that I stay. They had convinced me to join them by continuing to drink shots and if I’m honest, their intended cure was beginning to work and my head had stopped concentrating on sane things.
“My round.” The slurred words came from Taylor who was clearly enjoying being away from hubby for the night. “Same again?” She shouted too loudly into my ear, nearly bursting an ear drum.
“Please Taylor. I’ll neck this one and help you with the other drinks.”
Taylor waved her hands about at one of the barmen in semaphore that spelled out “I want to be served,” then eventually handed me my drink, then another before I could drink mine, and then another and she clearly believed I was an octopus and could carry nine drinks somehow while she did the biz with her credit card. She’d told me which was which but I lost the thread after the third one and wondered if the girls would be able to tell if they had the wrong drink or even care at this stage.
“Can I help you with those?”
The question came from a deep voice from behind me, maybe from Alexis doing a silly voice. I spun around too quickly, my brain had difficulty keeping up with the rest of my skull and two large but firm and warm hands took me by my bare shoulders to steady me. Whoever it was moved his body back slightly to avoid the drinks going over him but his hands stayed firmly on my shoulders.
I was staring at the chest of someone in a tight, white shirt that left nothing to the imagination with regard to the sculpted body it covered. I tried not to look up too quickly but when my head eventually reached his I could see his smile, his chiselled jawline and the jet-black hair that had flopped down over his forehead. He was gorgeous, probably had a hundred women chasing after him, and I stood no chance whatsoever, not that I was looking for a chance. Was I?
“No. I’m fine. That is, I can manage thank you.” I managed in a voice that didn’t seem to be mine.
In my head we were a couple on a book cover, the desperate girl, and the hunk, only he still had his shirt on and I, pathetically, was trying not to be an idiot by spilling all the drinks in my hands. If I hadn’t been lumbered with the drinks, I thought, I might just move that hair of his away from his eyes and back to where it should be, which would be an indication to everyone in the room that he belonged to me.
Taylor chipped in and I should have expected it.
“Let him help Ash, you’ve already spilled a load.”
The reason that I didn’t turn around to tell Taylor to keep her nose out of things was because this man had hypnotic blue eyes that could not be ignored, or even let go of and I knew that by not turning to Taylor to answer her meant that I looked pathetic in the man’s eyes, but it did allow his hands to remain on my shoulders where I wanted them to be. Weird, I thought, how a girl can make decisions concerning moving her hands or her feet but not her shoulders, which may have indicated that I was more than tipsy.
“Ash,” he said in that deep voice again. “Please, I just wanted to help because you looked as if you were struggling.”
Before I knew it the so-called friends of mine had taken the drinks out of my hands and moved away somewhere where, no doubt, they couldn’t be seen but could follow everything that happened to me. Whoever took the last drink pushed me in the back even closer to Mister Adonis who had let go of my shoulders leaving them feeling lonely. I wanted his hands to return and I wanted him to say my name again.
“Look,” I decided to start talking instead of just staring into those dreamy eyes like a cross between a love-struck teenager and a puppy. “I appreciate your offer to help, which is not needed now, obviously, thanks to my friends, and I know you were only being kind and if that was it then that’s great, but it’s only fair to tell you that if anything else was on your mind then you have to know that I’ve just come out of a relationship and I’m having a break from men at the moment and also that I never stop talking when I’m nervous and tend to do it in over long sentences and don’t breathe.”
“O-kay,” he dragged out while watching me gulp for air. “I won’t propose marriage, us having black-haired blue-eyed babies, or anything similar at this point then, not even a friendship if you feel that all men are bastards at the moment, but what about a quiet drink and a chat? You sound as if you could do with a chat and your friends seem to have left you without a drink.”
I was just about to say “yes, a drink and a chat about my hair being mousy-brown but dyed black, in the quiet area, then maybe a friendship, then propose to me tomorrow, and the baby thing might follow, and wow, you noticed my eye colour in this light” when I had to spin around yet again when I heard a too familiar voice.
“Didn’t take you long to get over me Ashley Beale. Or maybe you’ve been with this guy for a while and with me leaving, you no longer needed to hide it.”
“Piss off Brad,” I snarled. Realising far too late that I was not being very ladylike in front of my dark and dreamy friend. Then I added, “You never come here so please go to your usual club with your schoolgirl.” I knew she wasn’t a schoolgirl but my mates had loaded that gun for me and I also noticed that I didn’t deny being with the guy who wouldn’t really want pathetic little old me and had possibly disappeared by now.
“This place is new Ashley dear,” he told me with sarcasm in his voice. “I have as much right to be here as you and your giggly little friends.”
I got angry with him then but didn’t want to cause a scene and didn’t want the girls to come over and maybe make an even bigger scene so I decided on negotiation. “Look I’m here with my eight friends. We can’t all go just because you are here, so I’m asking nicely…”
I didn’t get a chance to finish my sentence because two hands slipped into my armpits that were thankfully shaved and well deodorised, and I was lifted into the air, turned and when my drunken, spinning yet again, head had worked out where I’d landed, I was the other side of my new friend, facing away from him, back-to-back with him, and the deep voice was saying something to Brad. Whatever it was that was said it worked because Brad and his bit of stuff left immediately and I watched them to make sure as they walked up the stairway at the far side of the club.
“I owe you one,” I told the stranger without knowing what that actually meant. Obviously, it doesn’t mean the next time he found himself arguing with his girlfriend, I’d be there to lift him out of the way and then to see her off.
“Ryan,” he told me.
“Sorry?”
“I owe you one Ryan. It’s my name. Do you know that when you’ve had a drink you think out loud? I don’t have a girlfriend and hardly ever argue with anyone, it’s not my style, so I wouldn’t need you to see her off if she did exist.”
I knew that my face was both hot and red. I could feel the redness travelling down my neck and onto my chest and felt that soon I would be red all over and looking like a beetroot. “I’ve had too much to drink, you’re right, and I need to go home,” I told him, as if I was either saying goodbye or inviting him to take me home, but I’m sure he already knew about my state of drunkenness. “But I’ll have to tell all my friends first that I’m going for a cab. Could you please see me safely to the taxi rank?”
He smiled to show me that the dimple in that square chin was matched by dimples in his cheeks and when you added those deep blue eyes into the equation it was impossible for a girl to concentrate on only one facet of his face. He was right and our babies definitely would have blue eyes and hopefully, his black hair. I shook my head to come out of my dream state.
He turned slightly and pointed. “If it’s the eight girls over there in the shadows who haven’t taken their eyes off us since my first offer to help you, I think they already know that you’ll be leaving and if you told them you were leaving to get a cab alone, they’d either murder you or not believe you. Am I right?”
“Pretty much so, yes, but I don’t know you and you could be an evil axe murderer and I don’t want to share a cab with an axe murderer. You’re very confident aren’t you.”
He looked confused and his thick eyebrows turned down to point to his nose adding yet another feature to stare at. Which I think I did.
“I’ll assume that was you talking Ash and not thinking out loud then. If I was an axe murderer, I’d be a pretty poor one because I don’t have an axe or anywhere to hide one, and believe it or not I’m one of the least confident men around when it comes to talking to women.”
He opened his arms wide to prove to me the fact that there was no axe there and then I was staring at the arm muscles that had lifted me into the air earlier. I couldn’t be just a friend to this guy, I thought, because my eyes would be all over the place and maybe my hands too. I made sure to think that without saying it but it was hard. I also stifled the giggle that tried to come out about him not being confident and that was harder.
“And anyway,” he continued, “I don’t drink and my car is quite close. I can drive you to your place, make sure you get in safely, I won’t ask if I can come in for coffee because you are off men, and if you think it advisable, we can swap numbers. I’ll be able to ring you and ask you out for a meal, no axes, and if the number I ring is unobtainable I’ll know you’ve made one up and you didn’t want to see me again.”
Now I was stuck. I wanted to leave the club and go home but my friends wouldn’t allow that. The potential axe murderer had offered to take me home and had already proved that he could easily overpower me, or at least lift me into the air. Then, while trying to decide, I realised that all the way through his speech I’d been nodding like a nodding dog and seemed to be agreeing to everything he’d said. Before I knew it, we were walking towards the staircase, the one that Brad plus one had left on and I heard a loud cheer in the background from eight girls who I knew would be waking up tomorrow and ringing me before they’d even had coffee. I knew that if I’d been sober, I wouldn’t have left with Ryan. Was it Ryan that he’d told me?
I was taking a huge risk, but to be honest, in the mood I was in, I fancied taking a huge risk in being driven home by this courteous man and I was half hoping that Brad and his young tart were still about somewhere to witness us leaving the club as a couple.
Chapter Two.
Ryan.
Early on a Friday evening is a pre-arranged judo time for me and as usual I arrived at the dojo over an hour early to be able to warm up on my own, gently, very gently, almost in a copy of a Tai-Chi exponent. The later teaching session with me as the teacher of an intermediate group went as expected and without incident but what wasn’t expected was for my Japanese dojo master to call me back as everyone else was leaving.
"What is it Sansei," I asked him with maybe too much of a concerned voice. He’d never asked me to stay behind before and his face looked serious.
"Ryan, I appreciate all you do for this dojo, your helping with the teaching of those below you, your commitment to training, and especially the generous sponsorship that you organised for us, but…"
He hesitates so I prompted him again. "Sensei, is there a problem now with me refusing to fight?”
"Not a problem as such and your decision to teach without fighting is yours and yours alone and may change back in time. Time changes decisions. You are black belt third dan in judo, and in karate you are …”
"The same Sensei. So do you believe I spend too much time …" He didn't let me finish stating that I was worried that he thought karate might be taking over from my judo or that the competition instinct had left me.
"No, no, no. I just feel that the work you put in at this dojo and the work you must put in to your karate teaching without fighting, along with your obviously hard job that takes you here there and everywhere, means that you need something, or someone, to take your mind off your busy life."
I smiled. "I think you know that you emphasised the word ‘someone’ then Sensei. I have had many short-term girlfriends, and it's my fault that they've all been short term. As you say, a job, judo, and karate take up most of my time, along with the odd day fishing. Apparently, the female of the species is built to demand time from a man and if she doesn't get the amount of time that she wants or needs, then she walks away. That’s my experience anyway.” There were other reasons why they’d walked away but that was personal to me and not to be shared openly. Anyway, the reasons I’d given were surely enough to satisfy him.
"Then you must try harder Ryan. Go to a place where men and women meet each other, meet some women, and explain to them about your busy lifestyle. You will eventually find the woman that does not want her man around her all of the time, who is willing to accept your lifestyle, someone who maybe has a similarly busy lifestyle. Two souls in the world must eventually meet each other, as long as you don’t hide your soul away.”
I thanked him and bowed as I left. I appreciated his concern, believing him to be wrong, but I could never completely disregard the words of my Sensei and hiding my soul away was possibly a good description of me. The fact that his accent was Japanese and he talked in philosophical phrases always seemed to add to the importance of what he said. I was forced to be committed to a single life but hoped that it could sometimes be shared briefly with others.
After showering at home, instead of putting on loose clothing and curling up in front of the tv as I’d planned, I made a snap decision, decided to put on a clean white shirt, smart black trousers and my shiny black shoes and headed for the city centre by car. I'd read about a new club and thought I should check it out for social purposes, but in the back of my mind I was also having the place checked out for work reasons and could never completely turn off from my work. My line of work meant that I had to have some idea of what was going on around me as well as knowing the places that I was sent to away from my home and it would have been embarrassing if something was missed so close to home.
I was early and had no problem in being allowed in to make up fairly low numbers. My work-time head could not switch off and I took in the fact that all transactions were by card to stop theft from staff, so if investigation into bank accounts revealed cash deposits, then money-laundering would be suspected. Stood at the bar, not concentrating, with a glass of diet cola, filled with ice and lemon in my hand, not having been in the place for ten minutes or so, I saw what I thought was a poor maiden in distress being handed more small drinks than she could possibly deal with by a friend who was presumably too drunk to realise what she was doing. At first it was comical, the way the woman being served at the bar kept adding the glasses but then the distressed maiden was now trying to balance a second layer.
"Can I help you with those?” I asked the back of her head. From that point on everything in my memory ran at double time, as if I was watching a recorded programme and I’d fast forwarded through the adverts and not slowed the tv down again. She spun around, I dodged the drinks, I automatically steadied her by holding her tiny shoulders and she just stared at me as I stared back.
I guess it was one of those moments that seem to last for minutes but probably only lasted a few seconds. Two souls in the world must eventually meet each other, as long as you don’t hide your soul away. In those few seconds her staring, deep-blue eyes that were caught in one of the bar lights, captivated me, and her beautiful, high-cheek-boned face was perfectly framed by jet-black hair that curved in towards her cheeks and I knew that the front of her hair was strangely longer than at the back and at the bare neck that I’d spoken to.
As if the two of us were following a film script on set and needed direction, women arrived from all directions and acted as if they were from what would have been the continuity crew, taking drinks from my maiden, and I believe the last drink was removed from her as she was pushed closer to me and she would have stumbled into me if I hadn’t been still holding the sculpted-marble shoulders of this statuesque figure. There was some small talk between us and she had obviously had a lot to drink and then suddenly my hopes of further chatting to her were dashed when another bloke started talking to her and I could see that she was attached and her man was not very happy with her talking to me.
Was he a partner or an over protective brother? I knew I was drawn to her so I stayed close and watched their interaction in case it came to me having to apologise to a partner and having to explain to him that I wasn’t taking advantage of her because she was tipsy. I was truly only trying to help her, but secretly, I stayed close in case there was still some tiny hope for me, even though I knew that my circumstances would see her move on quickly from any relationship with me, as was always the case.
I couldn’t hear what he said but could see that the man had venom in his eyes and looked evil as he spoke to her and I could hear her shouting and telling him to piss off. He started shouting at her again, his finger wagging in a confrontational way, so I decide to step in. God was she light when I placed my hands under her armpits. I sent her body to a safe haven behind me and then asked the bloke what his problem was, which was when I found out just how uncouth he was.
"She's my shag and she kicked me out, probably for you,” was his reply which didn't seem appropriate to me considering he didn’t know me, but I breathed in slowly and decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and to adjust for the fact that he’d probably been drinking heavily. The problem was that he followed it up with, "If you're bedding it, I want my stuff from her flat and the best of luck to you because she’s crap in bed, but you probably already know that.”
The man was rude I thought, calling the girl "it" so I ask him nicely to leave the club and not to make an even bigger scene.
"What you gonna do about it?" He asked.
That was more of a dilemma for me than you might think. The man was easy meat but I knew I could easily damage myself in any conflict so I decided, sensibly, to resolve things with words and to rely on defence only if needed. In a calm voice I told him, "I'm legally and morally bound to inform you that I'm a black belt in both judo and karate, that is I need to tell you that before I break both your arms and maybe a leg. That way I will have a defence in court and can say I used reasonable force to restrain you after warning you and I have witnesses to that fact.”
I watched his arms, ready to catch a quick punch from either fist, already knowing he was right-handed from his earlier finger wagging. With flat palms he went to push me backwards but I’d already moved one foot back, forming a triangular base but also in readiness for any kick that came my way. My body didn't move and he came across a chest that didn't budge a fraction of an inch. He then turned and walked out of the club with some other woman and then the damsel in distress girl, who I had learned was called Ash carried on talking to me as if nothing had happened and strangely, she sometimes voiced her thoughts, which was charming and something that I found amusing.
After some general chatting in the quiet area, off the main club area, we walked out of the club together, sort of, as in we walked side by side, me and Ash, not holding hands but me half reacting with a twitch each time she staggered in her over-sized heels, which was often, just in case she needed catching or supporting. Her friends, who I’d been watching, cheered as we left and one shouted out a dirty remark which I knew to be a physical impossibility. Giving Ashley a lift home, I told myself, was for her benefit, because she’d told me that she desperately wanted to disregard her friend’s wishes and wanted to return to her apartment and to be alone. Any ideas I had about a relationship with this angel I knew would be short lived, purely selfish on my part, and could only end in tears from one or both of us.
We chatted some more about nothing in particular until we reached my car and Ash giggled when I opened the car door for her and she called me a gentleman, but I’d only done it because she looked incapable. I helped her into the low seat because she was concerned about keeping the hem of her dress exactly where she obviously thought it should be.
"I've never been in a car this new before," she slurred as I got into the driver’s side.
Maybe she didn't realise that my nineteen-sixty-three, fully restored, Triumph TR4 was carefully looked after, cleaned often, and nice and shiny. I suppose it could look new if you didn’t know how old it really was. I smiled at the obvious relief on her face as her heels were removed, probably making her a great deal shorter, but the act was done with great effort, one hand removing a shoe, the other hand still holding her dress down.
My judo sensei’s words came into my head when he’d talked to me long ago about height. I’d been worried in competition about my average five-ten and he’d seen it as an advantage. ’Smaller to get under the big guys’ he’d told me. Since that time height in people had become unimportant to me and Ash’s true height was even more unimportant.
Again, general chit chat bounced back and fore while I drove. I learned that she worked in an office and hated it, both the job and the people, and she didn’t really know what she did because, the way she described things, she was a small cog in a huge corporate wheel and wasn’t that sure of the start of the process or the end result. She learned straight off that I'm in merchant banking and mainly move around our own country but sometimes also Europe and that answer is usually either boring enough or complicated enough to stop anyone asking any further questions. At one point I found it too hot and clammy in the car and lowered my window, then she shivered so I immediately rolled it up again. That was something that kept happening to me, only me.
Directions came from her when needed. "Left here. Right at the next roundabout, sorry I should have said that quicker and we’ll have to go back,” that sort of thing. Then, when we eventually got to her apartment block, knowing I wouldn’t be invited in, but before I could ask her if there was any chance of seeing her again, she blurted out an answer to a question that hadn’t been asked, as if we’d already been having a different conversation and it wasn’t just in her head again.
"Okay then if you insist,” came out of the blue without me knowing what was okay. Followed by, "but I make shit coffee, instant, nothing like merchant banker coffee, so we might have to open a bottle of wine instead.”
I guessed she’d had a conversation with me in her head and it had become real to her and then she gave me her hand for the first time so that I could practically pull her up out of the low seat of the car, and while she headed, bare-foot, for her main door, I picked up her shoes from the car-well and followed her. Once in the upper corridor of the block, and after a few of her attempts at the lock of her door, she let me use her key to get in, and after instructing me to sit in the single armchair, not the sofa, as if the sofa might be reserved for a second date, she left the room and came back with what I knew to be an average priced bottle of white wine.
Having established that I didn’t drink alcohol, that it was by choice and I'm not an alcoholic going dry, but that she is a lover of wine, she downed half the bottle, probably too quickly, and then passed out in her chair. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to pry but neither did I want to leave with her semi-conscious in an armchair to wake up stiff and cramped. A nudge at a door off the room showed me where a bedroom was, I pulled back the sheets of a double bed, obviously now vacated by the evil guy I’d met earlier, went back to the lounge, and gently lifted her from her chair and placed her in the bed, fully clothed, covering her for both warmth and modesty.
Back in her lounge, I thought ‘I should leave now, maybe leaving a note with my number on it’ but then I heard her heaving. In the kitchen area was a bowl and I got to her just in time. It was as if she hadn’t even woken up because she immediately collapsed back into sleep leaving me holding the alcohol-smelling mess of a bowl. It was my duty, I thought, to clear up in her en-suite bathroom, put some disinfectant in the bowl and put it back at the side of her bed in case it was needed again.
Now I was stuck. Leave and see her wake in the morning with a hangover, maybe destroying my dreams, or stay and make sure she didn’t choke on her own vomit. How would I feel, I wondered, if she died over-night in that horrible way.
Deciding on some sort of compromise, I found my third wallet, the second false one, tucked it into the crease between two cushions on the sofa and decided that I’d curl up to doze there. I sat there and strangely knew that I wasn’t that sleepy and figured that if I later dozed and then woke in the early hours of the morning, checked on her and if she looked fine, I would leave at that point. Then I thought it might help out if before I left, I prepared a tray for her to take back to her bed in the morning, so I made one up for her.
Onto the tray went what I thought I might want in Ashley’s circumstances. A glass of water, another one of orange juice that I found in her fridge, pain killers that were in a top cupboard and are always in a top cupboard and then a mug with coffee granules in it ready for her to make her own black coffee. Half filling her kettle with water and leaving the tray in the kitchen for her to take back to bed with her in the morning, I went back to the sofa and closed my eyes for a power nap.
It seemed that all my plans and expectations were wrong. I didn’t wake until the morning and at that point I woke to a screaming banshee. The room was light, it was obviously late morning, and Ash was shouting words that included taking a liberty, assuming too much, calling the police, and strangely I thought, something about the fact that her tights were still on and at the correct height on her stomach. I had to leave and quickly to get away from the Jekyll and Hyde monster.
With my hands held up in surrender, then bending and picking up my shoes, I turned to leave only to find her already at the main door in front of me, holding it open for me. As I wandered down the staircase I thought ‘my relationships are usually short but I think that was the shortest and could be a world record.’
Just before getting into my car, I looked up to where her window maybe was to see if she was watching me leave but there was nobody in any window on her floor. The shoes went on, the engine started with a roar and I headed for London and the sanctuary of my job that covered Saturdays, if I was in the mood to work that way.
