I Am Watching You
Teresa Driscoll
JULY 2015
CHAPTER 1
THE WITNESS
I made a mistake. I know that now.
The only reason I did what I did was what I heard on that train. And I ask you, in all truthfulness – how would you have felt?
Until that moment, I had never considered myself prudish. Or naive. OK, OK, so I had a pretty conventional – some might say sheltered – upbringing but . . . Heavens. Look at me now. I’ve lived a bit. Learned a lot. Pretty average, I would argue, on the Richter scale of moral behaviour, which is why what I heard so shook me.
I thought they were nice girls, you see.
Of course, I really shouldn’t listen in on other people’s conversations. But it’s impossible not to on public transport, don’t you find? So many barking into their mobile phones while everyone else ramps up the volume to compete. To be heard.
On reflection, I would probably not have become so sucked in had my book been better, but to my eternal regret I bought the book for the same reason I bought the magazine with wind turbines on the cover.
I read somewhere that by your forties you are supposed to care more about what you think of others than what they think of you – so why is it I am still waiting for this to kick in?
If you want to buy Hello! magazine, just buy it, Ella. What does it matter what the bored student on the cash desk thinks?
But no. I pick the obscure environmental magazine and the worthy biography, so that by the time the two young men get on with their black plastic bin bags at Exeter, I am bored to my very bones.
A question for you now.
What would you think if you saw two men board a train, each holding a black bin bag – contents unknown? For myself, the mother of a teenage son whose bedroom is subject to a health and safety order, I merely think, Typical. Couldn’t even find a holdall, lads?
They are loud and boisterous, skylarking in the way that so many men in their twenties do – only just making the train, with the plumped-up platform guard blowing his whistle in furious disapproval.
After messing about with the automatic door – open, shut, open, shut – which they inevitably find hilarious beyond the facts, they settle into the seats nearest the luggage racks. But then, apparently spotting the two girls from Cornwall, they glance knowingly at each other and head further down the carriage to the seats directly behind them.
I smile to myself. See, I’m no killjoy. I was young once.
I watch the girls go all quiet and shy, one widening her eyes at her friend – and yes, one of the men is especially striking, like a model or a member of a boy band. And it all reminds me of that very particular feeling in your tummy.
You know.
So I am not at all surprised or in the least bit disapproving when the men stand up and the good-looking one then leans over the top of the dividing seats, wondering if he might fetch the girls something from the buffet, ‘. . . seeing as I’m going?’
Next there are name swaps and quite a bit of giggling, and the dance begins.
Two coffees and four lagers later, the young men have joined the girls – all seated near enough for me to follow the full conversation.
I know, I know. I really shouldn’t be listening, but we’ve been over this. I’m bored, remember. They’re loud.
So then. The girls repeat what I have already gleaned from their earlier gossiping. This trip to London is their first solo visit to the capital – a gift from their parents to celebrate the end of GCSEs. They are booked into a budget hotel, have tickets for Les Misérables and have never been this excited.
‘You kidding me? You really never been to London on your own before?’ Karl, the boy-band lookalike, is amazed. ‘Can be a tricky place, you know, girls. London. You need to watch yourselves. Taxi not tube when you get out of the theatre. You hear me?’
I am liking Karl now. He is recommending shops and market stalls – also a club where he says they will be safe if they fancy some decent music and dancing after the show. He is writing down the name on a piece of paper for them. Knows the bouncer. ‘Mention my name, OK?’
And then Anna, the taller of the two friends from Cornwall, is wondering about the black bags and I am secretly delighted that she has asked, for I am curious also, smiling in anticipation of the teasing. Boys. So disorganised. What are you like, eh?
But no.
The two young men have just got out of prison. The black bags contain their personal effects.
I can actually hear myself swallowing then – a rush of fluid suddenly filling the back of my throat and my pulse now unwelcome percussion in my ear.
The pause button is pressed, but not for long enough. Much too quickly, the girls are regrouping. ‘You having us on?’
No. The boys are not having them on. They have decided to be straight with people. Have made their mistakes and paid their dues but refuse to be ashamed.
Cards on the table, girls? Karl has served a sentence at Exeter prison for assault; Antony for theft. Karl was merely sticking up for a friend, you understand, and – hand on heart – would do the same again. His friend was being picked on in a bar and he hates bullying.
Me, I am struggling with the paradox – bullying versus assault, and do we really lock people up for minor altercations? – but the girls seem fascinated, and in their sweet and liberal naivety are saying that loyalty is a good thing and they had a bloke from prison who came into their school once and told them how he had completely turned his life around after serving time over drugs. Covered in tattoos, he was. Covered.