a question of friendship - chapter one

I park the volksmobile under a tree a little way up from the bar. I turn the vibes up, get my phone out. Anyone who happened to glance in the window would see only a regular looking guy in jeans and a t-shirt. No-one has any reason to give me a second glance. Nobody realises I'm here several nights a week. But in any case, there's no law against people-watching.

I like to watch.

The queue for the bar known locally as 'The cattle-market' stretches all the way along the front of the pub, and past the off-license next door. I always watch the queue before I go in. You can check the girls out before they get too blitzed to stand up straight, never mind hold a conversation. You can observe them outside their natural environment.

It's raining a little, but they're all out in their flimsiest prick-teasing gear. High heels, bare legs, skirts short enough to be belts, low cut tops that stop just short of revealing their nipples. Not that I'm complaining. At this stage of the night you could think butter wouldn't melt in their mouths, but they're all playing the game. If only it wasn't so easy.

I spot a target. A cute blonde, hair to her ass. She's with a group of girls, but she seems a little isolated, needy. Plus her skirt is a little longer than her friends', her heels a little shorter. She's clearly the outsider of the group. The queue moves on a little, and she's lost from view, but I'll see her inside.
I watch some more, until the rain dies down and the queue gets a bit shorter, and I leave the car. The phone box is free, so I step in for just a minute.

The handset is slightly warm and smells of cheap aftershave or perfume. I can't tell which, but the fact that someone else's skin was touching this metal such a short time ago, maybe even doing what I'm doing, makes my skin crawl. I hold the phone away from my ear as I key in the numbers from my little black notebook. I take a quick glance outside for cops and strangely dressed girls as I press the last number.

'Hello?'

I wait. It's a girl. Not local, though. A country accent? Welsh?

'Hello?' she tries again, before hanging up. I dial again, straight away.

'Hello? Can you hear me?' She asks. 'Listen, if you can hear me, call me back on my landline. I think there's something wrong with this phone.'

The logical type. No point in calling her again – she probably won't even bother to pick up. I dial the first twelve digits again, but replace the final four with a five.

The next person to pick up is a guy, and the one after that, but with the next combination I hit the jackpot.

'Hello?... Hello? Who is it?' she asks. There's an edge to her soft voice.
She pauses, I let her hear me breathe, swallow. A few seconds pass.

'Hello. Who is it?' she asks again, the tension rising in her voice. I wonder if she's alone. Who does she imagine I am?

I wait a minute after she hangs up, and another minute. Still, when I redial, she picks up immediately, almost as if she had been hoping for it.

'Hello?'

I take a deep breath, as if I'm about to speak. But there's a bang on the window.
'Gonna be much longer, mate?' The guy has his head in the door. The mood is completely ruined.

I hang up. 'Knock yourself out, mate,' I tell him, but he ignores the implicit threat and begins dialling. The side door of the bar is open, so I take the chance to slip in. No way I'm queuing in the rain if I can help it.

The pub is jammers as usual. Students, office workers and sports fans shout back and forth to each other as they jostle for service at the bar, though I get served immediately – over peoples' heads in fact. My secret? I always tip.

I hold my pint carefully in front of me and use the other hand to push my way through the crowd to where the lads are standing, as usual, beside the front door. They have a quaint theory that if a girl is leaving without having pulled, she'll be an easy target. Ok, I admit they have a point. It beats the indignity of picking up outside. But any girl leaving this early in the night either has already pulled, or just isn't interested.

'Story?' Pete yells, as if we hadn't been watching Dawson's Creek together not two hours ago.

'Not a lot has happened since I saw you last, Petey,' I reply, but he's already scoping a couple of birds squeezing past us into the bar.

'Way outta your league, man,' says Mike, shaking his head appreciatively.
We hang out there for a while, getting shoved and elbowed by the punters coming into the bar.

'Come on, let's move over to the balcony,' I say. 'Nobody's leaving yet. We're just in the way here.'

'Oooh, someone's in a mood,' says Mike.

'I'm not in a mood. I just want us to pick up some honeys, not everyone else's riff-raff. Something wrong with that?'

He rolls his eyes.
'Yeah, let's go chat up some students,' says Anto, rubbing his hands together.

'Anto,' I remind him, 'You are a student.'

'That's beside the point.'

Mike gets the pints in, and we make our way through the crowd to the raised area and find a few spare inches of shelf to set them on. Seats are, of course, out of the question. But as luck would have it, the blonde I noticed outside is chatting to some skank, not three metres from us.

Pete's ranting about Lord of the Rings as usual, so I tune out and concentrate instead on getting the girl to look over at me.

'Come on,' I beam the thought at her again and again. 'Look up!'

Eventually the skank starts searching through her bag for something, and my target looks around the bar. I meet her eyes, give her a high voltage smile, and return my attention to the lads' conversation without giving her a chance to respond. I can feel it even from this distance, though; her body language has changed. The next time I catch her eye, she's ready for me. It really is almost too easy. I'm about to go introduce myself when I spot that freakazoid girl standing in an alcove by herself. She's watching me watching the chick, and she's not being subtle about it either.

The first time I saw her she was hugging a tree. A fucking tree, man. And crying. And not in a park or anything. It was in the middle of the street. I was queued in traffic, waiting at the top of a hill, I glanced out the window, as you do, and there she was. I thought it was a wee girl at first from her clothes. She had on some kind of light colored dress - old-fashioned, socks and gutties, but when she looked right at me, like she could tell I'd been staring, it wasn't a kid looking at me. Then the lights changed and I had to move on. Fucking freak, that's what I thought. Since then, she's been everywhere I go.

Tonight her hair is pink - at least some of it is, and she's wearing some weird outfit of clashing colors. I mean, I'm a guy, but even I can tell that red, pink and green don't go. She definitely does not fit in here. So what's she doing here? And what is her problem?

'Pete,' I say, nudging him. 'Is that girl staring at us?'

'Which one?'

'Pink hair.'

He looks over, but she's turned away, talking to another girl who's conveniently appeared beside her.

'Don't think so mate. Besides, rule number 63: never go with anyone with less dress sense than your granny.' He laughs.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid. She could have been staring at someone else. Or day-dreaming. It's time to close the deal.

'Alright lads, I'm away,' I tell them. 'See you later.' I down my pint, set the empty glass on the shelf, and turn back just in time to catch the blonde throwing me a dirty look before disappearing into the crowd. And Little Miss Weird is smiling. What the fuck?

I could buy another pint, find another bird, but that would mean leaving the car. Plus, I'm freaked. I just let some random weirdo scupper my campaign. So much for things being too easy.

As I exit the bar the way I came in, the hair stands up on the back of my neck. I half-expect some spide who didn't get into the bar to tap me on the shoulder, and to be honest, I wouldn't mind some fisticuffs. But it's the weirdo. Of course. She's by herself, and texting as she walks slowly past me, and on down the street. She really must be crazy walking about here by herself. There have been rapes, muggings, beatings. I've even heard about an abduction. No, not the kind involving aliens, the sort perpetrated by local paramilitaries. I grab my hoodie from the car and make my way quickly down the street. I catch up with her outside the Christian café and stand in behind a pillar, allowing her to get a little further ahead before following again. She crosses the road, and stops to tie her shoelace, raising her foot to a wall rather than kneeling down to do it. I duck behind a car. Don't ask me why. If anyone were to walk past I don't know how I'd explain my behaviour. But I'm only making sure she's alright. I'll follow her to whatever street she lives on, and then I'll turn around and go home. She's not even my type.
The street is deserted, and the only sound is the whispering of the trees. That, and her footsteps, and my footsteps. I try to make less noise, but it's impossible without actually tiptoeing. Anyway, she doesn't appear to notice, doesn't quicken her pace. She hasn't looked around once. Maybe she's got her ipod on.

I halve the gap between us, but then she turns the corner, and by the time I've crossed the road, she's disappeared. What the fuck? There's no sign of her in any direction. But then the sound of feet hitting tarmac alerts me to the fact that she's sneaked into the park. I run over and begin to climb the gate. It's sticky with tar. My good jeans are probably ruined. Fantastic. I jump into the park. She's already out of sight.

I jog along the path between the trees, my footsteps sounding louder now, echoing in the empty space. It's almost completely dark. I have to stop for a few seconds to allow my eyes to adjust. It's gotten colder, and I can smell the fresh rain on the leaves, but I can't hear any footsteps, there's just an eerie silence. I follow the path around to where the green should be and spot a figure at the other side. Then she walks up a path and I lose her again. I cross the green and hurry up the nearest path, my trainers squelching from the soaking grass. Just when I think I've lost her again she calls from a few metres behind me.

'Hey! Aren't you going to join me?' She speaks with a little-girly voice, sweet as sugar. 'I had to take my shoes off to cross the field. Aren't your feet wet?'
I hold back my reply – for now.

She pats the bench beside her. 'Come on, sit down. It's dry.'
I sit.

'So, what's your name?' She asks.

'Joe.'

'Hi Joe.'

'Hi.'

She finishes strapping her shoes up and straightens her hair. 'So… do you often do this kind of thing Joe?'

'What kind of thing?'

'You know, stalking girls, following them home from the bar.'

'I was just making sure you were ok. You shouldn't be out by yourself at night.'

'Yeah. Not with people like you around, you mean.'

'You don't know what you're talking about,' I tell her, rising to my feet.

'On the contrary, Joe. I know rather a lot, as you will see.'

I decide not to bother trying to decode her cryptic insinuations.

'It is very peaceful here though, don't you think?' she continues.

'It's spooky.'

'But smell the flowers, Joe.'

I inhale. Roses. 'Yeah, it's nice,' I agree, and she giggles.

'Why are you laughing?'

'Because I said something funny. Don't worry about it.'

'Whatever.'

'So here we are in the middle of a deserted park at night. We're all alone. Nobody can hear us. What are you gonna do, Joe? What happens next?'

'I told you…'

'Will I scream?' She interrupts. 'Just for the laugh?'

'No. stop it.'

'I know what you told me,' she says. 'But tell me something else. Why didn't you approach me? If your intentions were so honorable?'

'I don't know.'

'Well let me know when you figure it out.' She leans back into the shadows, starts playing with her hair.

'What's your name?' I ask after a while.

'You can call me Alice.' She rummages in her bag for a minute. 'So you're just gonna walk me home then?'

'Yes!'

'My knight in shining armour. Right. Back in a minute.' Her footsteps fade away into the darkness.

I sit back down to wait. She must be taking a piss. Had to walk 20 metres away so I wouldn't hear her. I wait some more. It's fucking freezing. What the hell is taking her so long? Could she have gotten lost in the dark?

'Alice. ALICE.' I call. There's no response. It starts to rain. 'Alice! It's not funny. If you're there, come out.'

Nothing.

I make my way back through the park, and up the hill. I'm drenched by the time I reach the car. My only consolation is that her cool exterior was obviously a put-on. She knew she was being followed and she decided to trick her way out of it. But I sure as hell won't be seeing her again.