The girl with her face

Part Two

There is a pattern to her days. She works, and then finds places to sit while broken memories skitter through her head, and a gritty anger grows in her stomach.

She sits in the café nursing her coffee. Every day for five days the girl with her face buys drinks with her friends. Who is she? How is she possible? Patricia spits out her mouthful of coffee. She needs a stronger drink.

'Euh. Gross!' The girl with her face speaks with a nasally voice. Patricia shudders, she knows that voice. She gropes her way from the seat, and staggers out into the street. Her thin scarf is whipped away by the bitter wind. She pulls her coat tight, and crosses the road to stand in the shelter of a doorway.

The students leave the café, and catch the number seventeen bus. An hour later, Patricia catches the same bus. It smells of smoke, but there are no-smoking signs. When the bus passes the local college, Patricia stands, getting off at the next stop and walking back to the college entrance. She sits on a wall, waiting.

At four-fifteen the girl with her face walks to the bus stop. She is texting someone. Patricia steps closer with hands fisted in her coat pockets. The girl lifts her head, Patricia walks past, counts ten shaking steps, and glances over her shoulder. The girl's eyes flick away, her fingers dance on the screen in her hand.

What is she telling her friends? The crazy drunk from the café is outside the college? How dare she judge. Patricia bites her tongue. The warm, salty taste eases her anger. She walks on.

The number thirty-four bus passes by. The face she wore as a teenager stares out from the back window.

On Saturday, her pattern changes. She doesn't walk to the café, but catches the number thirty-four bus instead. It leaves the main town behind, and takes her to where the cars are shiny, and each house has a private drive.

Her heart thumps. She knows this part of town. This is where she pushed a pram. Down these leafy roads. She stands up and walks to the front of the bus. She alights, and allows her feet to take her home.

The house looks the same, but there is a double garage, and a drive has replaced the small front garden and white fence.

She sniffs her fingers, remembering him wiping them with white spirit before he'd let her back in the house. She smiles, but it twists on her face into a grimace. White spirit burns if you swallow it.

The trees reclaiming the pavement are larger than she recalls. Choosing one, she stands in its shadow, watching the house. The garage doors lift silently as a silver car turns off the road. A man with her husband's face stops the car in the safety of the garage. She grabs the tree, fingernails scrapping the bark as her legs turn to dust. The garage door closes. It is not a memory. It is now.

Searing anger and shivering fear fight for control of her body.

A door slams. The girl with her face, and a hint of his voice, shouts something about being back for tea, while her hands and eyes chat on her phone.

Patricia stares. A car pulls into the curb, music abuses the air as the girl opens the passenger door and climbs in.

'Can I help you?' A woman's voice startles Patricia. She flinches and steps out into the sunshine. The girl turns her head, and their eyes lock as the car drives away.

'Are you lost?' The woman steps closer.

Patricia looks up, she sees sympathy in the woman's eyes. 'No. I'm fine.' She walks away, straightening her posture, needing no-one's pity.