He sees that it is a middle-aged man, wearing tight Lycra leggings and a zip-up jacket with strange black flaps over his ears and wires coming out of a tiny pocket in his jacket.
A jogger. He throws Owen a strange look, before running back down again. The road is a dead end, separated from the six lanes of traffic on the Finchley Road by a set of stone steps. For a while it is just Owen and the jogger.
As the jogger reaches the top of the hill for the sixth time he stops and collapses into himself, breathing so loudly he sounds as though he might die. He glances up at Owen. ‘You all right, mate?’ he asks.
Owen feels something stir deep inside himself, something dark. He looks at the jogger and he says, ‘Are you married?’
The jogger grimaces and says, ‘Eh?’
‘Married?’ says Owen. ‘Got a girlfriend?’
‘What’s it got to do with you?’
‘Nothing,’ he replies. ‘I just wondered.’
He starts to head around the corner to his street when the man catches up with him. ‘Do I know you?’ he asks.
‘I have no idea.’
‘Are we neighbours? I feel like I’ve seen you …’
‘I live there. Number twelve.’ He points at Tessie’s building and shrugs.
‘Ah, yes. That’s right. We live there.’ The man points at the house opposite, the one where the teenage girl lives, where the stupid mother with the concerned face lives.
Owen nods. The man gives him a tight smile before jogging away from him. ‘See you around,’ he says.
‘Yeah,’ says Owen. ‘See you around.’
The TV in Tessie’s sitting room rumbles through the closed door. She’s watching the live feed from the Houses of Parliament. Something to do with Brexit. It sounds like a donkey compound.
He tiptoes past, gets himself a pint of water from the kitchen and then locks himself away in his bedroom where he undoes the top three buttons of his shirt, kicks off his scruffy shoes and opens up YourLoss’s blog. There’s a new post up but he doesn’t read it.Instead he scrolls down the page to the link that saysContact.Hi, he types in the contact form:
My name’s Owen. I love your blog. Would love to chat sometime. I’ve just lost my job. Don’t really know what my next steps are.
Yo, Owen[comes the reply], what’s going down with you?
I’m a teacher. I was accused of ‘sweating on a student’ and ‘taking the mick out of vegans’. And I just turned down the chance to attend a ‘retraining course’ and quit.
No way! Tell me more!
Owen replies succinctly. The outline of the thing. The party, the tequila shots, the girls, the meetings. The curl of distaste on the mouths of Clarice and Holly every time the word ‘sweat’ was mentioned.
What’s the deal with you [asks YourLoss]? Are you celibate? Infrequent? Never? What?
Celibate[he replies]. Never.
Do you like anyone? I mean, are you romantic?
Owen considers the question. He can’t find an answer. Eventually he replies:
I don’t know. I don’t like anyone. But I have liked people.
Dated?
Kind of.
Dinner and flowers? The pub?