I restarted the car and selected the only other option; the coward’s option. This was the needy choice of a love addict who would carry on with the pretence. I wasn’t ready to forego the passions that Mitch ignited and maybe in the New Year I’d broach the subject. Perhaps by then he would have an answer, an explanation and we could face the situation together. Yet deep down I suspected, as I blindly drove back through the driving sleet and snow, that this was the beginning of the end.

15

Arthur

I’ve never been a twitcher; a birdwatcher that is. The binoculars were an impulse purchase from an antiques fair a couple of years back. I suppose though, you could say, that I’ve always been a watcher.

When my dad left, I was about eight or nine, and Mum and I moved into a small semi-detached house in Wood Green. It was all we could afford with the alimony we made from my father’s misdemeanours. It had two bedrooms, a lounge and kitchen in open-plan design, a bathroom, separate toilet and a very long narrow storage cupboard running the length above the master bedroom.

This became my hideaway; my den; my darkroom complete with a pinhead peephole at the end nearest the eaves of the house. My mother stacked the space with keepsakes and mementoes. Old tat, laughed my father as he belittled her aunt’s china ornaments and bric-a-brac. Photograph albums of my grandmother gave me hours of pleasure. I hunched over the sepia prints with my boy scout torch, hidden behind the myriad of cardboard boxes.

At first, the dark space had been a secret comforting childhood den, somewhere I could escape reality. However, when the men started appearing out of nowhere, the cramped cell became a hiding place when my mother believed I’d gone round to Connor’s to watch television.

I couldn’t stand Connor but I hated these men more. At first I felt sad, but as I began to understand what was going on, the misery deepened. By the time I reached puberty, there followed weird conflicting emotions which ranged from murderous rage to incomprehensible excitement. I learnt stealth and silence. These attributes assured my survival when faced with life’s basest natural instincts.

The small dark room at the pharmacy suited my needs with its enveloping confines. The voyeuristic instincts that had sprung from my childhood found an outlet, albeit a masochistic one, by watching Amber from afar; but not too far.