I’m walking up James Street, fresh out of the office and trying to pull a cigarette from its packet when someone tugs at my sleeve.
‘Excuse me.’ I utter. I try to brush them away but their hand refuses to move. I turn my head to focus on my sleeve and see the stranger’s fingers hooked round my arm.
“Get off me.” I say, this time fixing my gaze into her grey eyes, hidden behind slack bands of skin. The woman in front of me looks about sixty-five but is probably nearer fifty or so. Her fingernails are yellowed and the musky smell of stale tobacco seeping out from her swathes of clothing indicates what bought her these extra years. My stride snaps faster as I try to get away from her, but now another clawed hand circles round my wrist, making the metal of my watchstrap bite into my skin.
‘My child, my child,’ she croaks at me. The woman is small; no more than five foot six but her grip is strong. I manage to release of her hands from my arm but as soon as I try to disengage the other, the first is back and pinching hard into my wrist with those yellowed nails.
‘Oh sir, please sir,’ she begs again, pulling down on my arm with such fervour that any attempt to move away is rendered practically impossible with her clinging onto me so fiercely. A woman walking past in a navy trouser suit with her briefcase wedged under her arm steps carefully round me, curling her lip in horror at me and my human sidecar. I don’t know why this lady who is still attached to my arm has chosen me, but she has and she’s still there and still not letting go. I’m growing fast aware that this is becoming a scene so I stop sharply on the spot, and the woman comes stumbling to a halt in front of me. A black shawl covers her head, and the bristly, grey hair poking out from underneath it muddles itself with the ragged fringing on the shawl. As the slit of her mouth opens to speak again I look at her yellowed but straight teeth.
‘My child, won’t you help me?’
Looking at her face covered in fault lines of wrinkles, I start to think that by logic this woman’s child, if there was one, would have to be about forty at best.
‘I-I’m sorry.’ I stammer, and offer her to help herself from my packet of cigarettes by means of appeasement. She looks at me blankly. I nudge the packet in her direction again with my free arm and wait. We’re locked in a stalemate. If she frees an arm to reach for the packet, I could get free; if she doesn’t I will still be stuck. Her right hand grips me tighter as she frees up her left hand to reach towards the cigarettes. She quickly takes one, but at a loss for how to light it clamps it between her teeth in the meantime.
‘I need to go.’ I say. I’m firm, but polite. Or at least this is what I am aiming for. ‘I need to leave now.’ Her hands fall away from my arm to stop in front of her and she weaves her fingers in and out of each other. ‘Here.’ I say, taking my lighter from my jacket pocket and holding it towards her. ‘Take it.’ And she does. I nod my head to her slightly and start to walk back down the street, inadvertently trying to straighten out my sleeve.
Five hundred yards down the road, my brow still knotted from the semi-altercation, I decide to step into a newsagents to pick up a replacement for my lighter and something else to take my mind off the woman. I stand at the counter waiting to pay but the mid-thirties shopkeeper is busy watching something on the television. I draw my nails back and forth along the counter at an increasing pace as though this will produce enough energy to animate the guy who’s meant to be serving me. Instead he’s still tipping his head backwards to watch the formula one cars dodge over tarmac, his head slightly bobbing as the cars take the curves. I clear my throat. He doesn’t look at me, but balls his fist and lifts a solitary finger as if to say ‘hang on, just one minute.’ First the old woman and now this, I start to feel the heat prick in my face and my shirt collar grow tighter with renewed frustration. I push the paper and chocolate bar I’ve picked up across the counter and make to walk out. The guy at the till seems to wake up at this point and rings up my items, although his eyes try to gravitate back towards the screen.
‘Two thirty-four.’
‘You’re a fan, huh?’ I say, by means of politeness as I hand over the money.
‘Hmm?’ he’s stretching his neck up to the screen again.
‘A fan, of racing.’ I should have guessed that even this would be hard work.
‘No.’ he replies. I take my change and walk back out, shaking my head as I go.
I’m in the middle of balancing my briefcase, newspaper and unwrapping a chocolate bar when I feel something pulling on the back of my jacket. I turn round quickly to find myself greeted again by those steely eyes. Before I can even think ‘Oh God,’ to myself her rasping voice pleads,
‘My child, my son.’
Her face is ripped in torment and tears are starting to moisten her eyes. By now I am confused and angry, trying to figure out what this woman wants from me and in exasperation thrust my Snickers towards her, stopping just short of those to teeth all lined up like tombstones. She reaches up, I think she is going to take the bait again, but instead her hand closes round my fist and lowers it to in front of me and doesn’t let go.
‘My son.’ she says. Her other hand moves up towards my face and grazes my cheek as she pronounces these words. The tips of her fingers catch themselves in the stubble pricking over my face. I’m too stunned to say anything or to move away from so we stand there, one of her hands still clasped over mine.
‘Your eyes. Like my son’s.’ A tear spills from her eye and I start to imagine why I had been chosen, why she followed me after I thought I’d got away the first time. I push her hand away from my face and tell her,
‘I can’t help you. I’m sorry. I can’t help you.’ This woman standing in front of me looks confused and her mouth stutters as though her words can’t quite work out which is the most important to come out first.
‘Your face is my son’s.’
But it’s not. Maybe to her but to me I’m another commuter trying to get down James Street and make my way home. It could have been another one of the faces in the rush, but she had chosen me.
‘I’m sorry. But I’m going. ‘ I say finally, and add, ‘I’m sorry for your son.’ I push her arms back towards her sides and hold them there for a second to make sure they’ll stay put. I try to look her in the eyes but don’t quite manage it so instead look down at her battered black loafers with the leather peeling off before trying to get home again. I walk about twenty paces and turn my head over my shoulder. She is still standing there, arms where I left them, tucked by her sides, looking at me.
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