J.S. Lark - After You Fell

I think there’s an entrance to the cellar of Alex Lovett’s house on the other side of the park. A door cuts through the wall beneath the iron railing that’s topped by the Fleur de Lys. The ground of the park drops into a ditch that is more than a metre below the street level, and there’s a row of short doors in the wall supporting the street; one for each house. Those doors were probably used for deliveries for things like coal, blocks of ice or bags of flour years ago. Today, though, they must still provide access, through a tunnel under the road, to the basement floor of the houses.

I stand, only because my bottom and legs are numb from sitting here so long. I walk to the left, because when I turn at the corner I’ll be able to look at the house for the longest period of time.

There’s so little activity in the house, I think Alex has taken the children out.

It is Saturday.

I throw the cup of cold coffee in a rubbish bin.

Frustration grips as a pain in my stomach again – right in the middle of me. I want to see the children. The frustration starts to bubble, like fizz rising in lemonade, but it feels as if in a moment it is going to boil like water that tries to jump out of a saucepan.

They are my children , a voice says – a voice that might be Louise’s.

She’s frustrated too.

I walk across the park in the direction of the house, listening again for Louise’s voice, but nothing else is said.

A knocker rattles, announcing that a door is opening. Conversation tumbles into the street.

It is Alex Lovett’s front door. Children’s voices carry on the air and they come out into the street.

I walk down the slope, into the valley at the edge of the park, towards the wall, towards the house.

‘Granny,’ the boy says, looking at a woman I do not know. She’s past middle age. There’s an older man with the children too. I haven’t seen either adult in Facebook posts.

I guess they’re Alex’s parents.

The door closes without an appearance from Alex.

It is less than two months since Louise died.

They need their father.

Their mother.

He should be with the children.

I walk up to the railing, and hold the bottom of the metal rails, watching from my rat’s-eye-view, as they walk off along the street.

The edge of the plastic lid scratches my lip, then the coffee burns the roof of my mouth. I move the cup away, flinching.

I am trying to look like a casual occupant of the park bench.

Day by day I am claiming this bench as mine.

It is the perfect place to watch Alex’s house from.

He usually leaves the house at 8.20 to walk the boy to a holiday club. I followed them the first day I’d come here early, but I can’t follow them every day because it will be too obvious. He holds the girl’s hand but the boy keeps a little distant and tucks his thumbs inside the shoulder straps of his backpack denying any chance of contact with his father.

Alex returns at 8.50, with his daughter. They go back inside the house and then at 9.00 the door opens again, and he comes out with keys rattling in his hand as he either walks off down the street or goes to a large Range Rover.

I do not know what time he comes home after work. It is too late for me to stay and watch.

The door opens now, following the same routine.

I put the cup up against my lip and hold up my phone as though I am looking at the screen and look beyond it.

The curls in Alex’s hair are disordered, untidy in a way that suggests his hair has not seen a comb or had a cut for weeks. He’s not shaven either and the growth of blond hair on his chin denies any thought of grooming. The shirt he’s wearing is rumpled.

Watching him is fascinating, like studying an animal. I hear David Attenborough narrating the family’s movements in my head.

I need to understand Alex’s life if I’m going to work out a way to become a part of the children’s lives. I need to spot a weakness – a door that’s been accidentally left open, that I’ll be able to push my way through.

The girl holds onto his hand, which hangs loose. Alex looks back into the house and calls for the boy, who squeezes past his dad and sister and runs ahead.

Louise’s heart pulses with a rush of emotion every day when I see them come out through the door.

‘Wait for us!’ Alex’s call stretches across the park that contains me and two people with their dogs.

His aura’s strange. I have never seen anything so dark before; it is greys, black in places, like a terrible storm wrapping about him.

Alex and the children disappear around a corner.

I drink the cooling coffee and look through Robert Dowling’s pictures on Facebook while I wait.

My life is now paused and played on Alex’s command.

It’s cold today; my free hand slides into the pocket of my coat. There are several used train tickets and the one I need to get home in my pocket. The price of a ticket is extortionate at this time of day.

I have savings: a lump sum put away when Dan told me to get out of the flat; a pay-off for all the jointly purchased white goods and furniture I left behind, and the half of the deposit I lost. But I can’t afford to travel backwards and forwards to Bath every day for long.

You are getting obsessed , Simon’s voice whispers through my head.

I can become an addict of anything, because of bipolar. It is like a gambling addiction, or drug abuse – I can’t stop once I have started believing something. My mind becomes fixated.

This is strange , Chloe’s voice tells me.

It is strange. I know it is. But being given someone else’s heart is strange, especially when that woman steps into your body and tells you to find her family. But this is real. And the house is the jigsaw puzzle that’s waiting for me to step into place and complete it.

I owe this to Louise and I want it for me.

The distant sound of conversation pulls my attention back to the corner that Alex and his daughter appear from. She is half running, taking four or five steps with her short legs compared to his two strides. He’s rushing today.

He opens the front door of his house with the key, but doesn’t close the door after he’s taken the girl inside. Then after a moment of some sort of exchange behind the half-closed door he reappears.

When he walks away from the door the headlights of the Range Rover flash as the car doors unlock.

I wait until he’s in the car and pulling away from the kerb, then stand.

Once he’s gone I usually go somewhere to eat breakfast. Then I come back.

There’s the rattle of a doorknocker that has a looser sound than anyone else’s. I look back to see the front wheels of a pushchair appear from Alex’s house.

The third child will be in that pushchair.

I have only seen the youngest child in a few of Robert Dowling’s pictures.

The nanny steers the pushchair over the threshold, then looks back and says something to the girl who follows.

I think the girl is three years old. She captures my attention more than the others. She’s so small and pretty. I have always wanted a girl and she’s my dream child. My hands want to reach out for her every time I see her. That’s Louise’s desire too, but I know my own feelings are the same, not just hers.

I feel as if Louise would simply pick the children up and run.

I can’t do that; I would not be able to keep them. And I want to keep them. I want to make them mine.

The girl holds onto the pushchair as the nanny locks the door.

The nanny turns the pushchair in my direction, to cross the street.

For the second time, someone is looking at me looking at them.