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Puzzled, I tried to stay calm and consider the possibilities. I definitely had them that morning because the front door needed to be double locked, and I never forgot to do that. I wouldn’t have needed them at the library so couldn’t recall noticing them, which could mean two things; I’d dropped them on the walk to work or they’d fallen out of my bag at the library and were at that moment gathering dust somewhere in the building.
The first possibility filled me with panic, and after a quick scout of the steps and concrete garden area, I grabbed my mobile and dialled work. Pressing my phone against my ear to try and drown out the hum of traffic, I could only just make out the ring tone. It seemed to purr in my ear forever until Maria finally picked up, trying to get her words out between heavy rasps of breath.
‘Maria, it’s Leah.’
She seemed relieved I wasn’t a customer after some help, and I gave her time to gather her breath. But with every passing second my panic was rising. I was already late home and now I couldn’t even get inside. My whole evening was being disrupted by something I had no control over.
‘No problem,’ Maria said, once I explained my keys were missing. ‘I’ll go and have a look. Call you back.’ And she hung up, eager to get off the phone and help me. All I could do then was wait, with the icy November air biting my skin, desperate to be in my only slightly warmer flat, shutting the door on another day of existing.
It was too cold to stand still so I paced up and down the steps, ignoring the bemused looks I received from a couple of passersby. Minutes ticked by and nearly half an hour passed before Maria finally called back. I held my breath and waited for her to tell me she couldn’t find them.
‘I’ve got them,’ she said, jingling them to prove it.
Relief flooded through me. ‘Where were they?’ I should have thanked her first, but I needed to know where they’d been.
‘Um, a customer must have handed them in and Sam put them in the office. I just checked in there in case?—’
‘Okay.’ I tried to make sense of this. I was always so careful so couldn’t see how they had fallen out of my bag.
‘Anyway, I’m about to leave so I’ll bring them to you now. You live off Garratt Lane, don’t you? I can be there in ten minutes, just?—–’
‘No! I mean, don’t put yourself out. I’ll walk back to the library. Meet you there?’ I had never invited Maria to my flat and recently she had started to drop hints about coming over, but each time I’d managed to avoid it actually happening.
She fell silent for a moment. ‘Right. Fine. But I’ll meet you at the coffee shop. I have to lock up now and it’s too cold to stand around outside.’ And right then I made a silent promise to myself to make it up to her.
Thanking her, I wrapped my thick wool coat tighter around me and began to trace my steps back towards work. I walked fast, even though I knew Maria would take a while doing all the checks before she closed up. I just wanted my keys back in my hands. I didn’t expect her, or anyone else, to understand it but any disruption to my routine left me vulnerable. I needed order. Everything to be exactly as it should be, no deviations. And tonight could so easily have become one. As it was, I was still thrown off my routine; I should have been inside by now,cooking dinner before logging on to the website and living my vicarious life once more.
When I reached the coffee shop, I peered through the window to see if Maria was there but there was no sign of her. The after-work crowd had claimed every seat, chatting away to each other, in no rush to be at home. Unlike me. I felt a pang of envy, but I knew I could never be like them.
Although I was thirsty, I decided against going inside. As much as I enjoyed her company, if Maria and I sat down together the evening would be gone and I needed to get online. So continuing to brave the cold, fiercer now than it had been just moments ago, I faced towards the library, anxious to spot her the minute she became visible so I could grab my keys and get home.
It was twenty minutes before I saw her, walking as if she was taking a stroll on a beach, in no rush to get my keys back to me. ‘Oh, you’re out here,’ she said, when she reached me. ‘I thought we could get a coffee.’
‘I’m really sorry, but I need to get home. So tired. But we could go for one next week?’ I considered faking a yawn but didn’t think I’d be able to pull it off.
Her smile disappeared. ‘Okay. But next time, right?’ With a gloved hand, she pulled my keys from her pocket and handed them to me. ‘Be more careful next time,’ she said.
As I walked home, I wondered how much of her comment was made in jest.
It always felt comforting to close the front door and stand for a minute in my hallway; like stepping into a bubble, knowing the world had been shut out. That I was safe. This was my space and I rarely had visitors. It was easier that way.
Of course there were rare occasions when I invited Mum over, but those times were always fraught with tension. Her complaints of London being too dreadful a place for words, and her insistence that I’d be more comfortable at home, were thingsI had to spend weeks psyching myself up for. She could never concede that my small flat in Wandsworthwasmy home now. There was no other.
A pile of letters sat on the threadbare doormat and scooping them up, I rushed up the creaky stairs, eager to get my evening back on track. Normally I opened my mail before I did anything else, but my growling stomach warned me to fill it up with food, and quickly. So for the first time, I left the envelopes on the kitchen worktop. No letter I ever got was so important that it couldn’t wait until later.
Even though I was existing rather than living, I filled every moment of time with something. Idle time was a toxin for me; it meant my thoughts could get the better of me and I’d spent too long letting that happen. Keeping them at bay was my goal now.
Once a week I volunteered at the care home on the next road, reading to the residents after dinner and keeping them company. If I could have afforded to I would have done it seven days a week. Just seeing their faces light up when I walked in was enough to lift me from my fog, to show me that I wasn’t a bad person.
But there were still long hours I needed to fill and it was thanks to Maria that I’d discovered Two Become One a few months earlier. Never shy about her search to find a man who would stick around longer than a week, she openly shared the fact that she had found a dating website. On it, the men were all professionals and people broke the ice by talking in chat rooms before deciding whether to meet up.
Hearing Maria talk about it, the idea of meeting someone online filled me with horror. It was like shopping for a partner.How could you know they were who they said they were? How could you be sure what they wanted? The idea was abhorrent to me. I wasn’t being judgemental, it was just the idea of meeting any man, anywhere, filled me with anxiety.
But curiosity – or perhaps it was loneliness? – got the better of me one night and I checked out the website, browsing through it until I had worked out what it was all about. I felt safe doing it: I was alone in my flat and nobody could see me, no one could reach me.
Witnessing people’s conversations, I envied these people for their carefree attitudes, and was slowly drawn in, within weeks setting up an account, using Mum’s maiden name, Harling, and posting a picture that I was convinced nobody from my past would recognise me from. In it, my hair, now lighter than it ever had been, covered a lot of my face and I was turned to the side. It was the best I could do if I wanted to talk to people on the site. But that was all I would allow myself to do. If I couldn’t have my own life then at least I could live in a fantasy one.
The incident with my keys almost forgotten, I sat on the sofa, balancing my laptop on my knee, a cup of tea on the coffee table. Although it was easier to use the computer at my tiny kitchen table, I was too exhausted to sit on a hard wooden chair.
