Strangers. Danuta Reah

Irish.’ She didn’t want to go into the complexity of her background, so she said quickly, ‘I’ve seen you here before.’

      He nodded. ‘I started work at the hospital a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been meaning to get acquainted, so it’s an ill wind, right, dog?’ He addressed this remark to Shadow, who hung back behind Roisin, observing the scene dubiously.

      ‘This is Shadow,’ Roisin said.

      His smile broadened. ‘I kind of thought it might be. Shit!’ He stumbled again as he put more weight on his leg. ‘Sorry.’

      ‘You need to get that seen to. Come on, let me help you up to the road. We should be able to get a taxi.’

      ‘No need. If I can just get up here, I can make it to the tube at Camden Town.’

      She didn’t think he would be able to manage even that short distance. ‘I’ll walk with you. Shouldn’t you go to A & E?’

      ‘And spend the morning waiting to be told I’ve twisted my ankle? I’ll get it checked out at work.’

      But he accepted her help up the steps, resting his arm on her shoulder to keep his balance. Once they were at the top, he stopped, using the wall for support. ‘Look, I’ll be fine. You don’t need to hang around. You must have things to do.’

      ‘I feel responsible,’ she said.

      ‘Well, don’t. I should have been looking where I was going. Tell you what, let me buy you a drink later on, and I can give you an update. Give me your number.’

      ‘OK. I’d like that. But it’d better be me buying.’ She indicated the subdued dog.

      ‘Poor old lad.’ He reached down and tugged Shadow’s ear. He waited as she scribbled her number down, then glanced at the paper and put it in his pocket. ‘I’ll call you tonight,’ he said. She watched him as he hobbled away down the road towards the tube station, then she turned back to the canal. If she didn’t get a move on, she was going to be late.

      That was the good bit.

      When she got into the college where she taught English to overseas students, she was greeted by the news that one of her colleagues was off sick and she had to pick up two of his classes, groups of engineering students who combined a poor grasp of English with an insistence that they knew exactly how they should be taught, and who tested Roisin’s not very enduring patience for the next five hours. It was a comedown for someone who had come close–very close–to owning her own language school.

      But those plans had come to grief in the bitter war that Michel was fighting with his ex-wife. Their joint venture had somehow become entangled in the proceedings, and they had had no option but to sell, and sell at a loss. Michel had taken half of the money that was left. That was the law–the business assets were in their joint names. The fact that this had been Roisin’s money, and that very little of his money had yet been committed, was irrelevant. She had trusted him, and he had let her down.

      So now she was in London with a mortgage that she could barely afford on a run-down flat in the middle of a building site, keeping her head above water with part-time contracts, and trying to decide what to do next. Teaching English to disruptive young engineers hadn’t been part of her life plan, but just at the moment she had no choice.

      She left work in a bad temper and with a headache that wasn’t improved by long delays on the Northern Line. When she finally got home, she realized she’d missed the date for paying off her credit card and would incur a hefty interest payment.

      And, of course, the canal-side man didn’t phone.

3

      Roisin wasn’t surprised when the man she’d met on the tow path didn’t call her. Nor was she surprised when she didn’t see him the next time she went running with Shadow. She was no expert, but it had looked to her like a more serious injury than a sprain and she assumed he was probably housebound and had had more time to think over the matter of her culpability.

      She mentioned the episode to friends over a drink at the weekend. They were intrigued, and then disappointed when the story fizzled out into ‘And I never heard from him again.’ Roisin hadn’t been involved with anyone since the disastrous end of her relationship with Michel, and they thought it was time she tested the waters. ‘Oh, come on,’ she said when they began speculating about ways she could contact the elusive Joe, ‘I tripped him up and probably broke his leg. No wonder he doesn’t want to see me. I’m more likely to get a letter from his solicitor.’ When pressed, she was prepared to admit that she found him attractive.

      Old George was just as bad, but for different reasons. ‘That bloke had the guts to call you yet?’ he asked her every time she went to collect Shadow or to join him for a cup of poisonous tea. She had told him about the episode when she returned the dog, and he’d made adverse comments about her lack of care and foresight. ‘Poor old lad,’ he’d said under his breath as he’d checked his dog anxiously for cuts and bruises. The man on the tow path was now ‘the man who kicked Shadow’ and who should have the courage to face the music. But the mysterious Joe seemed to have vanished.

      She put it out of her mind. She was busy at work, but the job was only temporary, a stop-gap that she had taken without too much thought under the pressing necessity of earning some money. She had to start making decisions about what to do next. Her career path had been leading up to the moment when she had the funds, the expertise and the credibility to start her own business, and the way the rug had been pulled from underneath her had left her floundering. She had to decide whether to start again, to see if she could get some more money together and raise some more loans, go through the web of bureaucracy that all the permissions required, or if she should resign herself to the admitted security but endless frustration of working for other people in large, unyielding institutions.

      Some of the options were attractive. The European universities were always eager for experienced language teachers and offered a whole field of academic work she’d barely explored. Beijing University was actively recruiting, as were universities in Korea and Japan. She’d never been to the Far East and was curious to travel there, but she had a life in Europe she wasn’t quite ready to give up. There was also the complication of her mother.

      Roisin was adopted, and all her life she had been aware of her mother’s fear that one day she would walk away and declare an allegiance to a different past. Since her father’s death, this anxiety seemed to have grown and become a factor that Roisin had to weave into all her plans and considerations. ‘Why don’t you come back to Newcastle, pet?’ had been the most recent theme. Roisin loved her mother and wanted to help her settle into a new life, but she wasn’t prepared to go back home and live with her.

      So she didn’t really have time to brood about a phone call that had not been forthcoming.

      Spring was late arriving. London pulled a grey blanket over its head and rained. The buildings seemed to grow darker and the streets were sodden and filthy. Her morning runs with Shadow became an ordeal rather than a pleasure–for her at least. For Shadow, there was no such thing as bad weather–there was just weather and it was all good.

      She was back in her flat one Saturday morning, rubbing her hair dry and warming her frozen hands round a cup of coffee, when her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and checked the number. No one she knew. ‘Hello?’

      ‘Roisin? You probably don’t remember me. It’s Joe. Joe Massey. I tripped over your dog and nearly ended up in the canal.’

      ‘Of course I remember. How are you?’ She felt ridiculously pleased.

      ‘Look, I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch before. I lost your number. I thought I must have dropped it when I was sorting out my money on the tube. I wasn’t concentrating too much that day. I thought I was going to have to wait until I was fit enough to get back on the tow path, but I just found it.’

      ‘That’s