Circles

Circles

T HIS CANNOT POSSIBLY

be real. I am going to see her. Bridie. She is willing to see me. She is a widow now. She thought I was dead. It is too many new pieces of information for my brain to comprehend.

‘Hop in!’ Bella shouts, pulling up in front of my flat.

We are to meet on the university campus tomorrow morning, beneath the Old Joe clock tower.

There is much to be done. I need to scope out how the campus is laid out now. I hope there will be a place for us to share a cup of tea.

Then I will swing by the barber’s for a quick tidy-up of what is left of my hair. I want to look my best. Then I must invest in a new aftershave. I must keep busy. I must do something with my hands to calm my nerves.

English summer rain comes from nowhere, doesn’t it? Battering the car, Bella’s windscreen wipers are going at a panicked full tilt. But the rain just keeps coming, huge waves of it smattering down on the glass.

We are driving through the new built-up area of Selly Oak. It certainly didn’t look like this when I worked here; there’s a huge Sainsbury’s, and so many new apartment buildings. It looks so … vast

.

‘I cannot believe this,’ I say to Bella for perhaps the third time since I got in the car.

‘Less than twenty-four hours to go now,’ she says, tapping the clock on her dashboard. Her dashboard turtle nods along.

The rain is splashing up from the smooth tarmac.

Less than twenty-four hours until I get to give Bridie Bennett back her heart.

‘I’m so happy for you, Eddie,’ Bella says, notching the windscreen wipers into a greater frenzy as her windscreen becomes temporarily opaque with the rain.

‘Thank you, dear,’ I say to her. ‘For everything.’

Bella’s brakes are squeaking as we approach the roundabout. She hits them harder.

‘Shit, shit,’ she says, pressing again on the pedal, but it is too late.

And there is the bus. And there is the beeping.

Open the doors.

And there are the people.