One Step Too Far Read Free Page B

me,” I say, and it comes out wrong. The shop assistant looks hurt.
    “Sorry,” I say, and to my horror I’m crying. The man puts his arm round me and in his beautiful sing song voice tells me I’ll be OK, and through my embarrassment I wonder how I’ve become such a bitch. He finds me a tissue and then picks out something he says will be perfect for me and even insists on giving me a discount. When I finally leave the shop I have a working new phone, fully topped up and ready to make calls. He was so kind he somehow made me remember there’s more going on in the world than my own misery – I must go back and thank him one day.
    Out on the street I feel wobbly again – I need somewhere quiet to sit where I can compose myself, where I can make some calls, it’s much too noisy here. I take a bus, any bus, from outside Holborn station, and it takes me all the way down Piccadilly and drops me outside Green Park. I only know this because I’m reading the street signs, but I'm pretty sure Green Park is somewhere in the centre, and if I’m in the centre I can head in whichever direction to my new home, it can be wherever.
    I walk through the park and am surprised at how quiet it is, once you turn off the main thoroughfares, away from the deck chairs and the tourists. I find a banked area where the grass has been left to grow long and I walk up towards the top and set down my bag in the shade. I kick off my ballet pumps and lie down in the yellow grass and there’s absolutely no-one around, just the low rumbling of the traffic outside the park to remind me I’m actually here, in the capital. The sun through the trees feels warm on my face and I shut my eyes and feel almost normal, content even. And then the image that has seared itself into my soul appears suddenly, vividly, and I shrink inside myself for the millionth time and open them again. It’s weird that it didn’t happen on the train when the grief of leaving was so raw. Just now I was almost feeling happy, from the physical tiredness, the thrill of the privacy, the anonymity, the promise of a new start, here in the middle of this great city. And happiness Catherine, that is not allowed .
     
    I call nine or ten places, all over London. They’re either already gone (“Oh, you came through Loot, love, that’s a bit late, you need to call as soon as it goes online”) or there’s no reply, or the people don’t speak English well and don’t seem to know what I‘m talking about. I can always get a hotel, but the thought is depressing. To go through with this I need to start now , today. In a hotel it would be too easy to dwell on what I’ve done, what I’ve lost – too easy to hole up quietly and open my veins. I don’t trust myself.
    I call the last ad on the list – room in shared house, Finsbury Park, £90 per week. I’ve no idea where it is. It’s more than I wanted to pay. I’m desperate. I think no-one’s going to answer and then at the last moment before I hang up someone picks up.
    “Finsbury Park Palace,” says a laughing voice. I hesitate. “Hello?” she continues, in some kind of Essex accent, or at least that’s what I think it is.
    “Uh, hello, I’m looking for a room, I saw your ad in Loot.”
    “Did you? There’s no rooms here, babe.” Just as I’m about to hang up I hear someone interrupt in the background.
    “Hey, hang on,” the voice continues. “Oh, it seems someone’s moved out today, but it wouldn’t be advertised yet. You must be answering the last ad, but that room went ages ago.”
    “How much is this one?” I persist.
    “It’s the size of a cupboard I warn you, and Fidel was a pig. £80 and it’s yours – saves us advertising for it, and you sound more normal than the usual nutters who ring.”
    “It sounds fine,” I say. “I can be there by six,” and she gives me the address and I hang up.
    I haven’t eaten anything all day. Hunger forms like a fist in my gut and I leave the park in search of