I opened the front door slowly and looked out through the crack. As I stood there, looking up and down the road, making sure I wasn’t going to be spotted, I felt a movement by my feet. The cat pushed past my legs and squeezed through the gap in the door, bounding down the path towards the road. Shit. I closed the door and followed the cat. But it ran across the road and disappeared into someone else’s garden.

I’m sure it will be okay, though. And as I walked home I stopped worrying about it, and everything else too – I’d already forgotten all about the loss of my job.

I was too excited to fret. I was going to show Siobhan that it wasn’t wrong to be a little self-indulgent. It seemed obvious that she didn’t know how to treat herself, and that it was up to me to do it for her. After all, isn’t that what lovers do?

Chapter 9

Siobhan

Thursday

OK, now, something very weird is going on. Either Biggles has suddenly developed prehensile abilities – which he’s hiding from me – or else I’m going crazy.

No matter how hard I rack my brains, I can’t think of any logical explanation as to how he managed to get a handful of Go-Cat out of a packet in a closed cupboard. It was fresh Go-Cat, too – I checked it to make sure that he hadn’t perhaps previously ingested it and puked it back up again, but it wasn’t remotely soggy. It still had that dusty feel to it, like when it comes out of the box. And I can’t figure out how he was outside the house when I got back from the gym – I’m sure I left him asleep on the sofa. He must have scooted out with me, I suppose.

And more strangely, I can’t think how he could have climbed up on the kitchen counter, got a mug down, and left it there…! It’s got a big chip in the base, which definitely wasn’t there before. The mug wasn’t there before. I never go out without leaving the kitchen tidy – mostly because I don’t want Biggles up there padding around leaving cat hair in my tableware, or worse, licking stuff. I know that cats are clean – I wouldn’t have one if they weren’t – but still, I don’t like the idea of his paws all over my surfaces. What if he’d just been raking his litter tray?

I assume I must have left the mug out, although how did I not notice that I’d chipped it? I don’t like this feeling at all. I hate not being in control; it’s like being on a fairground ride, when you can’t tell them you want to get off. Oh God, please don’t let this be the start of me losing my marbles; I couldn’t bear it. I wonder if I should ask Paula what her thoughts on voluntary euthenasia are – I’ll need someone to help me put a pillow over my face if it all gets that dire.

I can’t wait for Paula to get home. I’m dying to tell her about Phil and the dead flowers and the filthy postcard. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I’ve come to the conclusion that maybe it was Phil after all; some kind of macho screwed up way of proving his masculinity, or something… I don’t even want to go there. I’m sure if I don’t respond then he’ll stop bothering. It must have really got to him, to go to the lengths of asking somebody to leave dead flowers on my doorstep even while he’s in Portugal. What is it, some kind of special branch of Interflora? Maybe he used one of those ‘prank’ agencies you see advertised in the backs of magazines, offering to carry out practical jokes for revenge. Wilted lilies for jilted willies. It almost makes sense.

If it was just the postcard, I’d suspect Alex – after all, he did ask me out, and he put a pink ribbon around the review – but there’s no way he’d leave dead flowers, is there? Unless he’s angry with me for turning him down? But he didn’t seem angry, or at all upset. And besides, like Brian, he’s got no way of finding out my address. The college would never give it out, and McGowan is a pretty common surname.

Monday

Paula’s back; I rang her. Annoyingly, she was so jet-lagged that she couldn’t understand what I was going on about, when I tried to tell her about Phil, etc. She just wanted to talk to me about her holiday, which sounded exactly like the stuff of my worst nightmares: slumming it in those cheap and atrociously dodgy guesthouses in Phuket, no toilet paper, mosquitoes in swarms, constant stomach upsets and the runs – and she calls that a holiday? It’s my idea of complete hell. Still, she’s only twenty four. She’ll learn.

Tuesday

Well, dementia is clearly encroaching fast. I got a package this morning, special delivery: a beautiful box with the most delicious underwear in it; a slinky dusky purple body with teeny little spaghetti straps and ivory lace, in the sort of silk that’s so smooth it feels like it’s not even there, resting like an invalid in layers of fat white tissue paper.

But my delight at receiving such an exquisite package was ruined when I found the bill in the bottom of the box. £75.00, on my credit card – Lady Alzheimer is surely calling… I must have ordered it and then forgotten about it, or made some stupid blunder on the internet. I can’t think how it happened. I suppose it must have been when I was browsing through those fashion websites ages ago, the ones whose addresses Paula wrote down for me. They do brilliant reductions on last season’s stuff, from all sorts of different designers. I must have accidentally clicked on BUY at some point. I don’t understand how it works – would they be able to tell my address from my credit card details? Maybe it’s the same as that One-Click thing I’ve got set up for when I buy books and CDs on Bookjungle. I’ll ask someone more au fait with these internet things – Dennis Tennis might know.

I’ll have to send it back. I can’t afford seventy five quid at the moment, not until I get some articles accepted. I’ve still got four out with editors who should all have got back to me by now (must chase them).

It’s so beautiful, I can’t stop stroking it. The silk is so cool, and I can imagine how it would feel on my body. What a shame. I wish I was rich! But fortunately I seem to have ordered a size 10, and I can tell just by looking that it would be far too tight. It’d be up the crack of my arse in two seconds flat and I’d be uncomfortable all day, dying to hoik it out and not being able to unless in the privacy of my own home. Let’s be pragmatic here – ten minutes of that sort of torture and I wouldn’t care how soft the bloody silk was.

Wednesday night.

Something horrible’s just happened. I was walking home from the pub where Kathy and I had a drink after class (I’ll write about that later, when I’m calmer). I‘d cut across the swimming pool car park and was nearly at the far side, when suddenly I was sure I could hear footsteps behind me, secretive sly little steps. I glanced round, but there was nobody there. After what happened when I was fourteen, this is the one thing guaranteed to freak me out more than anything else. I instantly lost the ability to breathe properly, and started to kind of huff. I sped up, and just before I reached Colne Road – I am NEVER going to walk across an empty car park at night again – I spun around a second time. This time I did see someone, a dark figure pressed up against the wall by the disabled parking spaces, trying not to let himself be seen. I started to run, flat out, trying to clutch my bag close to my side in case he was a mugger, trying to figure out how accessible my clothes were in case he was a rapist.

I don’t think I’ve ever run so fast in my life. I ran so hard that all I could hear was my footsteps banging on the pavement and my own panting– but just as I got to the gate, I turned round again and, oh God, he’d run after me. I saw him, I just didn’t see his face but I swear it was the same man, lurking again at the end of the road, watching me.

He knows where I live. He knows where I live. He knows where I live. Who is he?

I need to talk to someone.