I walked slowly onto De Beauvoir Road. Four youths on loud scooters sped past me. They made me jump. They had taken a short cut through the designated cycle routes on Northchurch Road and were probably on their way to Dalston from the direction of Islington or Cannobury. I found them quite threatening and I looked back a number of times to check that they hadn’t noticed me as an easy target. Luckily they hadn’t — obviously they had more important things to attend to. The streets were quiet and empty again.
It was a Victorian terrace in keeping with the area: original sash windows, pale brickwork, basement and loft both in use. All the lights were on. The house looked like it had been split into two, maybe three private flats. I had no way of knowing which one she lived in. I began to wonder if she actually lived there at all — she could have stolen the purse from someone; it might not even have been hers. It could have belonged to anyone. But then I remembered the photograph. I crossed to the other side of the road, by an old print works that had now been renovated into expensive warehouse-style apartments. At least I thought it was an old print works. I stood beneath a street lamp and two large plane trees that hung over the road, reaching upwards into the night, their branches reflecting the orange hue of the streetlamp back down onto the road. I looked up at the old print works, up at the peeling paint from its decaying, forgotten sign, the white paint fading: Collins & Hays. The building had huge windows, one light on in the top apartment, no sign of life whatsoever, the whole building gated and protected from the outside world.
I felt extremely uncomfortable, like I was stalking her—I was stalking her. I began to think that it was a bad idea and that maybe I should go back home, sit in my chair and do nothing. But I couldn’t. I was rooted to the spot. It felt like my body had taken charge, like it was my body that was making all the decisions. So, I waited, there beneath the street lamp and between the two large plane trees, shedding their bark, bathed in the orange hue, a warm, welcoming glow soothing my body. I looked back across the road, to what I assumed was her flat. I looked into each window, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. Only one window had its original wooden shutters open. It was the main window to the first floor, to the right of the main entrance. Even though there was a light on inside the large, high-ceilinged room, it was still impossible to see what was inside, especially from across the road. Just its initial size could be estimated, and maybe a bookshelf on the far wall, in-built, fitted. I couldn’t really be sure from my position. I concentrated, trying to focus, to block out any interfering light that might have impaired my view.
After about fifteen minutes, maybe more, I noticed some movement in the first floor front room: a shadow moving into the room. Then what I thought must have been a lamp was switched on. It began to flicker, a metallic grey, filling the whole room with its presence — it was obviously the TV. I looked at the house next door to check. Its interior was also bathed in the same flickering metallic grey, each flicker and waver in exact synchronicity with the metallic grey light in her room. They were obviously watching the same TV channel. I thought about all the other houses in the area, in the whole of London, or the entire country for that matter.
I was convinced that she was in the room, somewhere, sitting on her sofa, watching the TV for no other reason than there was nothing else to do — because that’s what we are supposed to do. A lower state of boredom: being bored with something. A state of boredom that I have no interest in. TV will not save anyone from boredom, it will only help to prolong the inevitable. We use TV, thinking it helps us to beat our ongoing emptiness, but it doesn’t, it can’t. It’s a mechanism of our own avoidance of it. Through TV we are beaten. Its very existence is proof to me.
Suddenly the flickering stopped. I immediately looked into the house next door: its room was still bathed in the same metallic grey. Her room became shadows again. She had obviously switched off her TV. This made me smile, but I soon stopped, due to the awkwardness of my situation. Then a warm glow filled her room, a milky yellow, like honey: it was a reading lamp in the far corner of the room I saw when I stood on my tiptoes. The new light had altered things, opened everything up. It allowed me a brief view of her: she was curled up on her sofa, reading a book. She was wearing what looked like jogging bottoms and a white, baggy t-shirt. My calves began to ache. I stepped back down to catch my breath. Then I stood up one last time. There she was, before me, in her own flat.
As usual, I didn’t really know what to do, or what I was doing. The obvious thing, the thing that most people would have done, was either to have kept the purse and its contents, or to have handed it over to the police to sort out its recovery. I had done neither. I was outside the owner’s house, staring in through her window, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. But it wasn’t enough, I had to do something more. I peered into the front garden, which was neat and well-kept. There was a garden/basement flat to the property that I hadn’t noticed from the other side of the road. The blinds were open and I could see directly into what was a bedroom. A man was lying on his bed — half naked — he was a bit fat and extremely hirsute. I looked back up to her window directly above him — it was in stark contrast. I wondered if they knew each other, whether they exchanged pleasantries each time they bumped into each other in the communal garden path, or in the street. I doubt they ever did. He didn’t look like the sort, and I already knew she wasn’t.
It was at that moment that a man appeared from the house next door. He was dressed in expensive designer casual-wear. His garments were garish and tacky: over-the-top lapels on his jacket, a bright polo shirt underneath, the collars turned up, skinny trousers, so skinny it was a wonder he could move.
“Excuse me!”
“Yes …”
“EXCUSE ME! What are you doing just standing outside this house?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’ve been watching you for the past twenty minutes. You have been acting suspiciously …”
“No I’ve not.”
“Yes you have. I’ve been watching you.”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of any law against me standing here in the street …”
“Don’t take the piss!”
“I’m not.”
“Listen, just be on your way, okay!”
“On my way where?”
“Wherever it is you want to go. Just not here.”
“But I want to stand here.”
“You can’t stand here.”
“Yes I can.”
While he said all this he was walking towards me. Then he suddenly slipped and fell over. He looked in considerable pain. I helped him back to his feet. It must have really hurt him because he remained quiet. Then he turned away and began to slowly walk back into his house next door. When he got to his front door he turned back towards me and stared for a long time before saying one last exasperated thing to me.
“Just go away!”
Just go away? Where? Where did he want me to go? I was outside her flat for a reason: I had her purse, her money. I was in the one place I should have been at that exact moment. There was nowhere I could have been going to — I couldn’t go back to my flat or the canal now that I knew where she lived. I had just cause, I had something to do, a purpose. Where else could I go? Where did he think I could just potter off to?
I moved closer and looked into her flat through the window, rising up on my toes to get a better look. She was definitely in there; it was definitely her, reading, curled up on her own sofa, in her own home. The milky, honeyed glow surrounded her. I wanted her to look up and notice me, so that I didn’t have to keep straining, stretching up on to my tiptoes. She seemed to be completely engrossed in whatever it was she was reading. I was aware that there was some rustling in the privets down by the small driveway into the property. At first I didn’t want to look — as tempting as it was — because I didn’t want to lose sight of her, though eventually I did shift my gaze. I couldn’t really make out what it was to begin with but I soon figured that it must have been a fox, or a large rat. Then I saw it: the smallest fox I had ever seen. At least I thought it was a fox. It had lost all of its fur and looked quite alien-like, its once bushy tail nothing more than a brown, leathery, thin whip-like thing. It was eating something that looked like a discarded chicken wing. When the fox eventually noticed me it stopped eating and simply looked up at me — a few seconds, if that — before it picked the chicken wing up and trotted off through a gap in a wall by the side of the house. When I looked back up, the curtains had been drawn and I couldn’t see into her flat anymore. I began to panic a little. I paced up and down, muttering to myself. I wanted to throw something at her window: a bud from a tree, a stone, something that would attract her attention enough to reopen the curtains, long enough to peek outside and see me. I began to walk away, towards Englefield Road, but I soon turned back and stood outside her flat again. The neighbour was at his window, staring over to me. He gesticulated to me that he was about to phone the police. I shrugged. I knew that his efforts to disperse me were futile, and the last thing someone like him would want would be to have the police involved. I hadn’t done anything wrong for a start and he knew it. He was trying to threaten me, to appeal to what he thought might be one of my fears. In fact, the only person who had done anything remotely threatening was him, when he confronted me in the street. He was acting out of sheer vanity, ego, and embarrassment. He was a fool. He knew all too well that his actions were over the top and erratic. There was nothing he could really do. I ignored him and turned back to her window. Nothing. No lights, no movement, nothing. Not even a quiver of movement behind the curtains as if she might have been spying on me through them. The whole house was now bathed in a dark, almost menacing hue. Everything seemed closed off to me, it all seemed distant. Her life lay behind those curtains, all of it, every last morsel, all of it contained within the walls inside. There was nothing I could do. Nothing.