‘I thought he was an angel or something, once.’ I did. I thought he was there to save me. ‘But he’s not, you know. He’s a thing with a hundred faces.’

2

Then

It was hot and the light was rich, the day it began. Five weeks ago, when the sun was still near enough to paint the pavement the colour of desert sand. Summer in London isn’t like summer anywhere else. There’s no romance in it at all.

I passed the first bus stop by and pressed on as usual towards Waterloo Bridge. The extra walk helped force the day behind me so by the time I got home, it would be as if I’d been washed clean. I thought of Russell now, making things from chorizo and peppers, the kitchen alive with chaos. He’d be pouring olive oil over salad leaves and adding fistfuls of salt. Russell came alive when he cooked even the simplest things, and whatever he touched became infused with his joy. The food always felt like love no matter how it tasted.

On the pavement it was cloying, even at 5 p.m. Buses and trucks radiated a hot and greasy air that clung to everything. Moisture trickled down my back as I tugged my bag further up my shoulder. Thankfully there was a shop on the corner, before the bridge proper got underway, where I could buy a drink. I shifted my path towards it.

Inside, the shopkeeper wilted extravagantly at the counter. I smiled at him – look at us in this heat – I was saying, but he didn’t take up the motif. I’m stuck here, you’re not, he seemed to say in reply. I didn’t have an answer for that.

I took the coldest can from the fridge and placed it onto the counter. But when I rummaged in my bag for my wallet, I couldn’t find it. The shopkeeper was looking at me with drooping eyes, waiting. I fumbled with the can and shrugged an apology at him, but didn’t have the energy to explain more than that. The shop was too suffocating. Behind me the clang of a bell chased in a customer. I picked up the can to return it to the cooler but as I turned, the swollen air moved and the new customer pulled in alongside me. Too close.

‘It’s okay, I’ve got this,’ he said, touching my arm. I flinched. He smiled at me, shark-like.

‘It’s fine, thank you.’

‘Do I know you?’ he said, and then, answering his own question, he added, ‘yes, I do.’

I stared at him as he continued to smile at me. There was something familiar about him – but not in a good way.

‘No,’ I said, ‘you don’t,’ and I darted away, leaving the can to sweat on the counter. Though I didn’t look back, I sensed him watching me.