And so it was that he left me there, at his parents’ house, and moved in with this girl. Given the situation, it would have been difficult for his parents to ask me to leave straight away and I told them that I would try to find alternative accommodation as soon as I could. The father insisted that I stay. He apologised for his son’s behaviour, insisting that he had not brought him up to treat people this way. He attributed it to a phase and assured me that he would see the error of his ways before too long, but also told me not to hang around, someone else would surely snap me up before too long, then he’d be sorry. 

 

It was sweet of him to care for me like this. He’d try to make me laugh and bring me cups of tea. His mother, too, horrified that her son had abandoned me like this, wanted nothing to do with this other woman and she, too, was sure that another suitor would be waiting just around the corner before too long! I tried to smile and play along. I was young and free, I agreed jokingly, ready to take my pick of all those eligible, dashing London gents!  

 

Little did they know that I was not done with Richie. Not done by a long shot. Obsessed about finding out more about this girl, I took an afternoon off work one Wednesday and took up residence for the afternoon in a cafe close to the restaurant where Richie worked, carefully watching the comings and goings. I saw him twice come out of the restaurant with a male colleague and go to the side to smoke. At around 5.30pm, I spotted him and two others leaving the front door, carrying bags. I’d tactically paid for my drinks each time I’d ordered so that I’d be able to leave as soon as it was time. I had brought a hat, scarf and sunglasses so that I wasn’t easily recognisable, but I felt ridiculous as I donned them in the cafe and prepared to walk out into the early evening of a warm spring day. 

 

I saw that he had taken a left to walk down a road with a Sainsbury’s on its corner and I started a brisk walk towards the traffic lights a short way down the street so I could cross the road at the crossing. Thankfully the lights turned red, and the little man green, just as I reached the crossing and I trotted swiftly across and down towards the Sainsbury’s, turning left and scanning both sides of the street to try and spot him. There he was! About 50 metres further down on the same side of the road, he was standing next to one of the colleagues he’d left with, talking to him as the colleague mounted a motorbike. I saw Richie step back from the bike as the other man started it up and revved the engine and then Richie walked off, raising his hand to bid him farewell. I followed cautiously behind. A short way down, he started to cross the road and I bent down as if to tie a shoelace as his head shifted from side to side to check for oncoming traffic. He crossed the road and I waited for an opportune moment to do so too. On this side of the road there was a green space with a path leading to a park, which he took. I followed cautiously. He walked straight through the park, out the other side and turned left. I hurried along through the park so as not to lose him on the other side and, as I emerged, I saw him about 30 metres further down, crossing the road diagonally and straight to the front door of a house. He knocked. No key, yet, I thought, breathing a sigh of triumphant relief. A girl - a young woman, I should say - opened the door, but he obscured my view of her as he moved forward. They embraced and he went in.

 

I wandered around the street for over an hour in a state of hypervigilance and only realised when a dog barking right next to me made me jump that it was getting dark and cold. I knew that I must have looked very suspicious to the woman who’d called nervously after her dog and who was now staring at me, and to anyone else who had seen me pacing around this same street for the last hour. It was at this moment too that the three pots of tea and the hot chocolate I’d drunk earlier decided it was time to harass my bladder. 

All of a sudden I was in desperate need of the toilet and started running on the spot as if the ground were too hot to stand on and then zoomed off down the road cartoon style in the direction of the park. I did a lap of the park just to appease my bladder momentarily while I looked for a public convenience, but there wasn’t one in sight. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to hold it in if I had to go to a cafe and ask permission first, and really didn’t want to just burst in somewhere and head straight for the toilet. So, I scanned the park for the biggest bush and headed there. Luckily, my petite frame was able to slip into the middle of the foliage so that I was concealed and I quickly undid my trousers and pulled them down sharply along with my knickers and, for a moment, I didn’t care and simply enjoyed the moment. 

 

Pure relief!

 

When I was done and buckled back up, I took a peek beyond the outer bush and saw that it was pretty much clear to make a dash, but as I did so, a trailing bramble caught the bottom of my coat and, rather than carefully remove it, I tugged hard in order to escape, ripping the material in different places right across the back so that the stuffing was exposed and in places hanging out. Fuck it, I thought, and headed boldly for the tube station, my resolve to win him back somehow bolstered.

 

I kept this vigil three or four times, taking time off work to do so on each occasion. Sometimes while he was there, but sometimes just to see her and see what she did, which wasn’t much, it seemed. A trip to the shops or to a cafe, welcoming a few visitors to her house. She didn’t seem to work and the house, although reasonably unassuming from the front, had space in it for at least three large bedrooms from what I could tell from my detective work here, and through the adverts for similar properties at the local estate agents. 

 

About a month after he’d moved in there, I was shocked one Friday afternoon to see him appear suddenly at the door and then swiftly slam it hard - way too hard - behind him, the way a small child might  do in a tantrum. He stormed down the pathway and I swear I saw steam emanating from his ears and nostrils. As he kicked open the fragile iron gate at the end of the short pathway, it seemed to dance in front of him, shaking its hips from side to side as it made its way on a forward trajectory towards its hinges, then snapped back, trapping him momentarily between the post and the edge of the rapidly returned iron frame and increasing his ire. 

 

I had placed myself further down the road, as I always did, in the opposite direction to his place of work and I’d always be close enough to a vehicle large enough to obscure me should he glance in this direction. 

 

She appeared briefly at the door, shouting,

 

“Are you fucking serious? Do not fucking speak to me like that!” then slammed the door shut. Oh dear!

 

Moments later, my phone rang. It was Richie! I could see him up ahead with the phone pressed to his ear. I froze. The phone rang out and then, a minute or so later, it beeped to notify me of a voice message.

 

I listened to the message and it was not the raging bull who I’d witnessed only a few seconds earlier. He had been meaning to call me, he said, wondered what I’d been up to. It would be good to see me. He figured I was at work and couldn’t take the call, but asked me to call him later if I could. 

 

Oh, I could. Sensing trouble in paradise, I waited until I knew he’d be well out of the way and messaged him with some options and said I’d be in touch once work was done