Human Remains

familiar and yet I’d never spoken to them, never would.
    He put a hand on my upper arm. ‘Now,’ he said, gently, ‘it’s just that I think you look as though you might be lost.’
    His hand was still there, on my arm, warm and quite firm. It felt as though I was leaning against him. As though I’d initiated the contact, not him, and it was such a curious thing. At the same time as knowing that this was strange, unwarranted, being touched like this – even with layers of clothing between his skin and mine – it was comforting. It was comfortable. I felt a little struggle inside between the part of me that thought this was unnecessary and intrusive, and the part of me that needed to be comforted.
    And the word bubbled up inside me like it had been held down and suddenly released. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not lost. I’m not lost. I’m just…’
    ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
    ‘Annabel,’ I said. ‘What’s yours?’
    His hand was still there and then it slipped away from me. My upper arm felt suddenly chilled, as though a draught had passed over it. All around us people were hurrying home, carrying bags of shopping, bundled up against the breeze that blew around the walkways. It felt like coming round. I could hear noises, people talking; two older ladies came out of the hairdressers next door laughing, and fitted clear plastic rain hoods over their newly set styles.
    ‘Ed,’ he said. ‘I am Ed.’ His eyes were dark green. I couldn’t remember ever looking into a pair of eyes and being aware of their colour before. If you’d asked me what colour my mother’s eyes were, Kate’s, Sam Everett’s, I couldn’t have given you an accurate response. But his eyes were green.
    ‘That doesn’t sound right,’ I said.
    ‘What do you mean?’ he asked. The tone of his voice had changed: he sounded suspicious, wary. I didn’t like that at all. It was as though there had been some sort of test and I’d failed it.
    ‘That doesn’t sound like your name.’
    He laughed, exposing his teeth. ‘Well, I assure you that it is.’
    ‘Ed,’ I said.
    ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘You need to remember that.’
    ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Well, I’ve got to come back here tomorrow morning.’
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I will meet you here tomorrow.’
    ‘Alright,’ I said.
    I think he said more. There were other things he said, too, things I couldn’t remember.
    A few minutes after that, or maybe it was an hour, or maybe it was a whole day, I was back in my car in the car park, and the engine was running. The heater was on and it was warm in there, and I was looking out through the windscreen into the darkness and the car park was almost empty. There was nobody else around. I looked at the clock and it was gone six o’clock. What time had I left the funeral people? It felt like just a few seconds, as though I had walked away from the place and got into my car and started the engine and then waited for something to happen. It was as if time had slipped out of my reach.
    ‘The strangest thing,’ I said aloud. It was like waking up slowly. When you were lying in bed in the middle of the night and you realised you were awake, not asleep, but you’d been lying on your hand and it was numb and it felt as if it belonged to someone else and you had to lie still and wait for it to belong to you again. I felt like that. But I felt good, too, warm inside and comforted.
    And I knew what it was. I’d just met an angel.

Colin
     
     
    Vaughn called me at work this afternoon to tell me that Audrey was at her mother’s.
    Fortunately I stopped short of asking him why he thought this information might be of interest to me. I’d finished work for the day and packed up, and was almost ready to leave when he’d called. I was in a hurry to get to the Co-op before going out to the college, and so I found I was standing there with my coat on, talking into the telephone receiver and feeling mildly annoyed.
    ‘She wasn’t at home,’ he said, with boyish enthusiasm. ‘She wasn’t ignoring me at all; she’d just gone to stay with her mother. She said she’d told me about it, but that I clearly hadn’t been listening.’
    ‘Or you’d forgotten,’ I added helpfully, thinking that it was entirely possible that he really was slipping into some kind of early dementia.
    ‘Anyway, I thought I’d give you a ring to let you know,’ he said. ‘I knew you’d be worried.’
    I ignored the slight hint of sarcasm around this