The Stranger She Knew. Rosalind Stopps

are in a ski lift or commuting on the 7.19 train from the suburbs. I’ve still got my head down. I’ve had enough socialising for one day, and I think the best form of defence is to keep on slumping, talk to no one. He smells a bit funny. He smells of old man.

      Hello, he says and it makes me jump.

      He’s covered in blankets and nearly as slumped as I am. I wasn’t expecting him to talk. His voice is croaky, like he doesn’t use it much and it needs oiling.

      I try to look as uninterested as I can. There’s something about him, I’m not sure what. Something that upsets me.

      I think I’m in the room opposite you, he says in his rusty voice, we’re neighbours. I’ve been unwell but I’m getting better and I hope we can be friends.

      It’s familiar to me, that voice, I almost recognise it. Best to keep quiet, I think, best not to say anything at all. There’s danger in him, I can smell it and I can hear it and I can see it. He might look like a poor old chap with his blankets and his white hands clasped on top of the blankets like a baby but I know something else about him, I’m not sure what yet but I know something, that’s for sure.

      Drop by for a cuppa, he says, I don’t get many visitors.

      I bet you don’t, I think. It’s so hard not being able to say anything, and I feel so odd and there’s something wrong and before I’ve thought it through I lean over the side of my wheelchair and mime spitting on the floor.

      I suddenly realise Agnita is watching. There’s a shocked silence and then she says, May, that’s not kind, poor Bill, why don’t you say sorry to him?

      She’s got a nasty streak, this one, Agnita says to the other carer, the one she was chatting to.

      I know, says the other one, as if I couldn’t hear anything.

      You want to watch her arm as well, someone says, she’s got a powerful left hook.

      That’s not me, I think, I don’t recognise myself, that’s not fair, I’m not like that. It’s cruel, I can’t even defend myself. I hate being talked about as if I’m not here, and I hate unfairness and people being mean, and I start crying even though I don’t want to.

      Oh, now we’ve got the crybaby act says Agnita, I think it’s Bill that should be crying, not you.

      We normally get on OK, Agnita and I, she’s one of the nicer ones and this is too harsh, too unfair. I can feel the tears plopping down my face like a child and I wonder how long it would take me to die if I stopped eating anything at all. It’s then that he speaks, this Bill character, this poor old man who everyone seems to adore.

      It’s OK, honestly, he says, leave her alone, she doesn’t mean it. Look we’re still pals, everything is fine. And he puts his pale old wrinkly old arm over towards me as if to shake hands.

      Isn’t that sweet, Agnita says but I look up at him and because of the position of our wheelchairs, no one else can see him and he’s grinning, it’s not a good grin, it’s a grin that says hahaha got you now and I think I know that grin. I just need to concentrate, remember where from.