'Fancy some company?'
I looked up from the beer I'd been nursing for at least an hour. A woman with shoulder-length light-brown braided hair and pale blue eyes was smiling at me. She wore a navy-blue T-shirt with white handprints over her boobs and denim jeans. Was she a skank? I couldn't be sure.
'What?'
'Fancy some company?'
The automatic shake of my head turned into a nod.
'You look like you've got the weight of the world on your shoulders,' the woman said as she sat opposite me.
I shrugged, wondering why I'd agreed to company when all I wanted was to be left alone. I took another sip of my beer.
'My name's Eva,' she told me.
'I'm... Jude,' I told her.
The pause before saying my name had her smiling dubiously.
'Hello... Jude,' she said formally. I knew from her tone that she didn't believe for a moment that Jude was my real name. How ironic! 'So what d'you do... Jude?'
She was getting on my nerves already. 'I'm a painter and decorator.'
'Really? D'you work on a building site or for yourself or what?'
'I go where the work takes me.' I shrugged again. 'What d'you do?'
'I'm a nurse,' Eva said.
I looked at her then. Really looked at her. She didn't look like a nurse. She didn't look like anything much.
'Look, d'you want to get out of here?' I asked.
'Pardon?'
'D'you want to leave? Go somewhere else? Do something else?' I asked.
Where'd that come from? This sudden urge to get out of my body, to get out of my head?
Pause. 'OK then,' said Eva after a quick assessment.
I put down my warm beer and stood up. Eva stood up too. I put out my hand. Would she take it? She didn't have to. She looked straight at me as the seconds ticked by. Then she put her hand in mine.
'D'you have somewhere we can go?' I asked.
I knew what I needed and Eva would do as well as any other woman.
'Whoa there! D'you wanna slow down a bit?' said Eva.
'I want to be with you tonight,' I told her. 'If that's not what you want then say so now.'
'And you can't ask me any better than that?' Eva frowned.
'I don't feel like playing games,' I said.
'But you don't know anything about me,' said Eva in a typical girly fashion.
'But I know I'd like to,' I lied. 'And I need to be with someone tonight.'
'Have you just split up from your girlfriend or something?' asked Eva.
'Or something,' I agreed.
Eva regarded me long and hard. This was where I either got my face slapped or I pulled.
'Can I see your hands?' Eva asked.
Frowning I held them out. She turned them round so that my palms were facing upwards, and studied them intently.
'What're you doing?' I asked.
'Eyes and words can He but hands never do. I'm into palmistry,' Eva explained.
I almost groaned out loud. Horoscopes and palmistry and runes and all that other bollocks left me cold. Usually when a girl started spouting on with that nonsense, I ran in the opposite direction. One of the few things Callum and I had in common. What a turn-off! But I looked at Eva and decided that beggars couldn't be choosers.
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'You have a very prominent love line. You feel things very deeply. You love for ever and hate for ever. You have good hands. Strong hands,' Eva told me.
The image of Cara cowering before my hands flashed unbidden and unwelcome in my mind.
'D'you have somewhere we can go?' Only intense restraint kept the impatience out of my voice. What a ridiculous conversation. At least Cara and I had had real discussions not like this nonsense.
'We can go back to my place,' Eva whispered.
No slapped face. I'd pulled.
We walked back to her place arm in arm.
'It's a shame you don't have a car,' she told me. 'These shoes are killing my feet.'
'Why wear them then?' I asked.
'They look good,' Eva told me.
I mean, how stupid can you get? Cara wouldn't wear shoes just because they looked good, but then Cara had more sense. Cara... The direction in which my thoughts were taking me made me start.
'What is it?' Eva asked.
'Nothing,' I dismissed. 'Someone just walked over my grave, that's all.'
Eva laughed. I didn't.
'So d'you have any brothers or sisters?' asked Eva.
'No, I'm an only child.'
'Do you live around here?'
'About an hour away.' I sighed inwardly. What made her think that by asking me a few questions, she'd get to know me better? A few questions and she could tell herself we had some kind of relationship before we crawled into bed together. How pathetic was that? Throughout our walk, she asked me questions and I batted back so-called answers. I smiled into her eyes and laughed at her jokes as she held onto my arm and I held onto hers. When she finally drifted into silence, I knew we were close to her flat and she was beginning to rethink the wisdom of what she was doing. I could feel she was close to bottling out. Time to pour out the charm.
'You're very beautiful,' I whispered to her. 'I thought that the first time I saw you.'
And I bent my head and kissed her. Slowly her arms snaked around my neck. I wrapped my arms around her body. Not too tight, but not too loose either. I made it seem like I didn't want to crush her but I was loath to let her go. The girls like that one and it works every time. Jude's law number twelve: The key to a girl's heart is through her vanity.
Except with Cara.
When we both finally came up for air, Eva beamed at me, reassured.
'Here we are,' she said, almost immediately.
We stood before a seedy, rundown block of flats. A couple of old jalopies sat in designated parking bays around us. The majority of windows facing us were lit. I knew they'd be lit whether or not the flats were occupied. Unlit flats were an invitation to burglars as they signalled that the owner might be out.
'This is me,' said Eva. 'I'm up on the third floor.'
And she led the way. I watched her, wondering what the hell I was doing? Now it was my turn to have doubts. But it was simple. I needed some company. I followed her into the block. We turned the corner and headed up some stairs. The walls were covered in graffiti and the whole place stank of pee. But it was nothing I wasn't used to.
'No point in trying the lift,' Eva shrugged. 'It never works. And when it does, it's always covered in puke and worse.'
'The stairs are fine,' I told her.
On the third floor we went along a walkway with a waist-high wall on one side and a number of evenly spaced doors on the other. We stopped outside a dark-green door lit by a single bulb above it on the walkway.
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'Well, this is me,' Eva said again as she fiddled with her key in the door.
Not much I could say to that so I didn't bother trying. She unlocked the door and we went inside. The door opened into a small hallway, with doors off the right side of it only. Eva led the way into the first room on the right, the living room. The walls were painted cream with a couple of cheap posters put up to try and cover the cracks and damp patches on the walls. A grey and red, ill-fitting, threadbare carpet covered most of the floor.
'Would you like something to drink?' Eva asked, unable to hide the nervousness in her voice.
'No,' I said. I walked over to her and kissed her again. Part of me wanted to have sex with her but part of me was sorry I'd come to her flat. I just wanted to get this over and done with. So I kissed her like a drowning man who'd just been thrown a life ring.
The strange thing was, that's exactly how she kissed me as well. With the same kind of panicked desperation. I started to pull her T-shirt over her head.
'Let's go to the bedroom,' Eva broke away to whisper.
'What's wrong with right here?' I asked, looking pointedly at the sofa.
'The bedroom,' Eva insisted.
I let her take my hand and lead me out of the room and further down the hallway. We passed two closed doors and an open door leading to a small bathroom, to reach the last door down the hall. Eva went in first but waited until I was inside before shutting the door behind me. This room was smaller than the living room. A double bed filled three-quarters of the space. The walls were light blue, but not light enough. The wooden floor was painted matt white. The whole room felt enclosed and cold. A railing with clothes on it was pushed against the far wall. Eva went over to the dark-blue curtains and closed them. She came back to me with a smile and we started kissing again.
Less than five minutes later we were both lying on the bed, naked. I closed my eyes. I couldn't stop kissing her and touching her and stroking her. I was burning up for her. I kissed her shoulders and her neck and her ears, whispering the meaningless words that girls like to hear. Until she suddenly froze beside me.
'What's the matter?' I opened my eyes to ask.
'What did you just say?' She frowned at me.
How on earth should I know? Nothing of consequence. Just pre-sex talk, that's all. What was the big deal?
'What's wrong?' I frowned.
'You called me Cara,' Eva told me.
I've never been turned off so fast in my life. I moved away from her. 'I never called you that.'
'Yes, you did,' Eva argued. 'You called me Cara.'
'You're mistaken.'
Eva didn't argue, but her expression said it all.
'I'd better go,' I said, pulling on my boxer shorts. I couldn't've had sex then if my life had depended on it.
'You don't have to go,' said Eva.
'I think I'd better,' I said, pulling on my trousers.
'Was Cara your ex?'
'I never called you Cara,' I turned my head to tell her insistently. 'I don't know any Cara.'
'If you say so.'
'I do.'
I pulled on my shirt and headed out the door.
'You don't have to go,' Eva called after me. 'I don't want you to leave.'
I walked out. Then I ran.
