She turned to set about retrieving them, then felt her semi-bare foot connect with something cool and squishy.
Marvellous. She had quite literally stepped on a banana.
She closed her eyes, turned her face upwards and took a deep breath. This wasfine, she told herself. At least – just this once – there were no witnesses to her klutziness.
As she exhaled and her eyes fluttered open, it became clear how wrong she was. Amid the devastation before her was A. Thomas, bent down and scrabbling for an errant apple before it could spin into the path of an oncoming Fiat 500.
Rosie swallowed. Hard. She felt embarrassment crawling up her spine, and her face was suddenly hot.
Her upstairs neighbour – who had now rescued all six of her fruits – came to stand in front of her, clutching them in large, lightly tanned forearms.
Oh god oh god oh god. Why was this happening? Why was she innightwear? And why, almost every time she saw this person, was she doing something inelegant and humiliating?
Biting her lip, she opened her bucket-sized handbag and nodded at him, wordlessly signalling that he could drop the apples into it.
As he did so, she allowed herself a brief look at him. Annoyed, she conceded he was as ridiculously tall and handsome as he’d been last time she saw him. Even worse, his standard aura of self-contained serenity only sharpened Rosie’s awareness of how flustered and clumsy she must seem.
This morning he was in running shorts and a slightly sweaty t-shirt that seemed determined to stick to his chest. It was attire that signalled his status as a well-organised, fully functional, ‘exercise in the morning’ sort of person – a striking contrast to her own look, which screamed ‘shambolic hobo who couldn’t be arsed to get dressed’. Rosie’s cheeks flamed.
As A. Thomas retreated slightly, his eyes drifted to her jazzy pyjama bottoms and she thought she detected a smile trying to form in the corner of his mouth.
‘I always dress to impress when I go to the minimart,’ she heard herself blurt out. ‘Feel like I should make an effort, you know?’
What. Was. She.Doing?
Her stomach rolled over as she remembered what she’d said the last time she had a run-in with A. Thomas: the stupid comment about him proposing to her that had spewed forth as he pulled her high heel free from a knot of carpet.
Something about his demeanour unnerved her, she realised. She felt a bizarre need to fill the silence between them before it could get too heavy – which apparently resulted in her saying extremely stupid things.
On this occasion, at least, Rosie’s idiocy earned her a short, deep laugh. Her neighbour was regarding her quizzically, now – the way he might look at some strange, potentially dangerous species of animal he’d never come across before. He was probably trying to work out whether she was having some sort of acute psychological incident, Rosie thought. In all honesty, she couldn’t blame him.
She pulled the banana she’d squashed from beneath her right foot and threw it into the food waste bin that was stored just off the narrow path. The remaining intact bananas went into her massive handbag, on top of the apples she now feared were so bruised they would have to end their days as compote or crumble.
A. Thomas was still hanging back, watching her movements from his position at the road end of the path. Was he transfixed by her bad taste pyjamas? No doubt his girlfriend was the sort who wore a silk negligee every night.
When he inclined his head in her direction, however, it hit Rosie that he was simply being polite – allowing her time to gather her wits, and her groceries, instead of barging past her so he could get into the building first. At the same moment she understood this, she noticed there was a glob of sticky, pulverised banana flesh on her big toe. Goodgod, the indignity was unbearable.
Desperate to end her mortification – not to mention fearful that she’d do or say something else ridiculous if she stood there much longer – Rosie picked up the dented (but still mostly full) carton of milk. She drew her shoulders back and tried to channel cool, calm confidence before she opened her mouth.
‘Well,’ she said after a moment. ‘Thanks. For your help, I mean. I’m Rosie, by the way.’ A. Thomas tilted his chin in acknowledgement of this introduction but didn’t offer one of his own. What waswiththis man?
‘I don’t know why you only ever see me at my clumsiest,’ Rosie rambled on. ‘It’s very unfair … I prance around Walthamstow like a ballet dancer most of the time, ask anyone!’
Urgh. Mouth one, brain nil.
Also: lies.
Cringing, Rosie walked away from her still-silent neighbour towards the old red front door, realising too late she’d have to fumble for her keys one-handed unless she put the damaged milk container down again. Before she could do so, A. Thomas stepped around her and deftly put his own key in the lock. She caught a waft of the same clean, soapy scent she’d smelled on the day he stopped her from falling over in the corridor. She instructed herself not to inhale it.
He held the door open so she could go through ahead of him and she shuffled inside, taking care not to get banana on the carpet. She couldn’t quite believe he’d still saidno wordsto her in the whole time he’d lived in the building – despite having stepped in to help her on two awkward occasions that might ordinarily involve at least a little speech.
Maybe he had chronic laryngitis? Rosie thought. Or was in some religious order that permitted living solo in an east London flat but forbade all talking? Then again, it was more likely he had simply determined to avoid socially interacting with someone who he’d probably concluded was a walking disaster.
Not expecting any kind of response, Rosie mumbled, ‘OK, so … thanks again,’ as she opened her flat door.
‘No problem,’ A. Thomas murmured as he began to climb the stairs – his voice so soft and low she could easily have missed it beneath the scrape of her key in the lock.
There was an accent there – a hint of something pleasant, interesting and definitely not southern – but before she had a hope of identifying it, he’d disappeared.
