Human Remains

last comment. ‘And did you find a ring?’
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m thinking when the best time to propose might be. What do you think?’
    Of all the people to ask. As if I would have the faintest idea about such matters.
    ‘You could take her away somewhere,’ I said. ‘For the weekend. Or something like that.’
    ‘Weston-super-Mare?’ he said.
    ‘Not Weston-super-Mare. Somewhere romantic. Paris, or Bruges. Or maybe even Rome?’
    ‘Rome?’ he echoed, as if I’d suggested going to Siberia. ‘Surely I should be saving somewhere that exotic for the honeymoon?’
    ‘Vaughn,’ I said, ‘I’ve really got to go.’
    ‘Oh, I’m sorry, dear chap. Am I holding you up?’
    ‘Yes, you are rather.’
    He rang off, and I went home via the supermarket to buy small essentials. And after that, one of those delicious coincidences happened that make me occasionally consider that some higher power is guiding my hand in my enterprise. I came out of the Co-op with the intention of waiting outside in the precinct, to see if I could see any new subjects, any looking promising among the recently bereaved. And there she was – the woman I’d seen at the checkout on Tuesday evening. And, whilst she hadn’t appeared to be ready just two days ago, she certainly looked it now. Observing her, I felt a particular thrill of affection and excitement that convinced me more than anything else that she is the next one.
    She had a bag, a kind of canvas satchel in a grubby shade of brown, the strap worn across her body. It looked heavy. I wondered why it suddenly gave me a jolt, the sight of that bag, and then I realised it was because Helen had had one just like it. It was her school bag – covered over with notes and signatures and drawings in felt-tip pen, a CND button badge, another, larger badge with ‘Free Mandela’ on it under which some wag had written ‘with every purchase’.
     
     
    In my last year at Gaviston Comprehensive I acquired a friend, of sorts. She had joined the school in the sixth form as her previous school had no facility for students wishing to study at A-level. For the whole of the lower sixth, I barely noticed her. She was one of the confident ones, a girl who had no problems making friends. She blended in with them all, the ones who went out every weekend and spent the rest of the week talking about it.
    I survived without such complications.
    I was walking home from school on a Friday, and it was already dark so it must have been winter. Helen was walking home too, about fifty yards ahead of me, and I paid her no attention. I think for part of it she was walking with another girl, and then at some point her companion took one of the side roads and they said their goodbyes. Helen carried on walking and I slowed my pace a little to allow for the brief interruption in her stride, not wishing to narrow the gap between us.
    At the top of the hill she crossed the main road and then took the alleyway which ran behind the Leisure Centre and would emerge again in Newarke Street. The alley was lit by a single street-light halfway along its length.
    She was slowing down, which was annoying me. I slowed my pace to avoid catching up, not just infuriated because of her pace but also that the very thought of it was taking my concentration away from what I’d previously been thinking about, namely the difficulties in maintaining resonance frequency with a minimum electrical current.
    We were about a quarter of the way up the alley when I realised there was someone walking in front of her, someone who had also slowed their pace. A few moments after that, Helen stopped walking. She was about to step into the pool of light created by the street-light; in fact she was partly illuminated by it, her hair a bright orange halo around her head. She looked back, and saw me, then back the other way.
    Clearly I must have seemed less threatening than what lay ahead, because she turned then and started walking in my direction, her step quickening. I tutted with annoyance, not wanting to have to stand to one side in the narrow alley to let her pass with enough room between us, not wanting to have to smile or nod or whatever one was supposed to do in situations like this one.
    Despite all this, I had a jolt. That’s the only way I can describe it. I don’t even think it was the expression on her face – which was strange. It was that I was looking at her properly for the first time, and she was looking at me, and her