It's Not Safe to Go Out Anymore

"....So its all about trust really", she was saying as she brushed a stray piece of hair out of her eyes (which gave her an excuse not to look into mine)."You've got to be able to trust people...an...an...you can't do it...you want to, you really really want to...but..."

She examines her thumb nail, picking away at a bit of loose skin, her head bowed to the task so all you can see is her hair hanging down; her parting looks like an eccentric footpath in a field of wheat (her voice gets muffled now as well as her eyes).

"It used to be so easy when you were kids...at junior school and that...an you had best friends and gangs ...an...well you were just more honest I suppose...yeah honest...you know like when you got upset you'd just cry?....or yell at someone?... like your feelings were out there in line with your actions... an you never thought to worry about what they thought about you..."

She picks up her drink, moving her eyes carefully so she doesn't have to look at me, half closing them as she lifts it to her lips and takes great greedy gulps of the beer from the pint pot. Then she puts the glass down, wipes the froth from her top lip with the sleeve of her three sizes too big men's brown tweed jacket and in almost the same movement takes a packet of Embassy Regal from her pocket. She checks how many she's got left, selects one and puts it between her lips, lights it with my cigarette lighter that's lying between us on the table. I reach for one of my fags and she leans over to light it for me, cleverly choreographing the move so the flame comes between her eyes and mine. As the flame dies I look directly at her and feel a shudder cross the space between us (fear? Or disgust?). She blows smoke into it and needlessly flicks the end of her fag at the ashtray, following the glowing end with a too quick flash of her eyes.

"It used to be safe to play out then...back when you were a kid. y'know?... you were always playing out...you wanted to be out there...needed it, y'know...even when you weren't friends with someone and there was a row going off...that was all part of the fun...you trusted people to be ..y'know...real...you told the truth an you weren't...scared... (And she leaves a hole in the conversation but she still doesn't look at me).

She looks round the room; twirls a piece of her hair round her finger and thumb absently. Somewhere in the other room, in the bar, the jukebox starts up, REM - Losing my Religion. A group of lad-dish lads in the corner burst into loutish laughter just as the pub door swings open spilling in a screaming stream of good time girls in Friday night glad rags and handbags, all glitter eye shadow and tight skirts and did-you-see-him-eying-up-my-tits and ooh-Sharon-you-are-a-slag -what-are-we-having-in-here-then and the lad-dish lads laugh louder trying to catch their ears and she shivers belatedly from the draft that blew in through the door in front of them.

She looks at me sideways but I'm watching the girls tease the young boy behind the bar. She shrugs her shoulders...takes a deep draw on her cigarette, I sip my beer and look at her over the rim of my glass. She picks up a beer mat and starts to peel off the top layer of cardboard. "...It was safe to go out then..." she says.She focuses her whole body on the work of demolishing the mat, bends to the task, speaks to the table, "...Its too dangerous nowadays..."

Suddenly she looks up, her face is flushed, a tremor washes over her and her lips look ashen against the color of her cheeks, something moves in her eyes as she gestures at the room with her head. Her voice changes, hardens. Her eyes (looking straight at me now) seem unashamedly naked, the color of flint...

"Look at them all!" leaning forwards, she almost spits the words into my beer. "All these...people...not one of them comes out to play anymore...they're all ...all hiding inside their houses...separate houses...one-bed roomed houses...they all peep out from behind their nice Acdo Glowhite net curtains...their..their...saw- it-on-the-telly -bought-it-in-Asda identities...they think its freedom but its not...its prison...if you ever catch them twitching their net curtains...having a sly peep at you...they drop them quick...scuttle back inside...back away from their windows....just look at them all!...look how they're so careful to keep the outsides of their houses so immaculate...modernized...all done up and painted in the latest colors and styles...they all look the same really...like that old folk song says...you know the one I mean ? .. By what's 'is name... Pete somebody-or-other". She sings tunelessly, "little boxes, little boxes, little boxes made of ticky tacky". I smile, remembering it and she takes another swig of her beer, relaxing. She puts a hand down the neck of her green sweater, adjusting a dislodged bra strap (she's looking at me now, straight at me with the curtains open, her eyes a softer gray, sadder somehow).

"And you can never tell if there's anyone at home...that's the way it's got to be...its safer...so there's no point in knocking at their door...and they all have burglar alarms fitted...you've seen the look...it says don't try to touch me...really touch me...or I'll bite...you'll be sorry...sometimes you know...sometimes...you can see their net curtain twitch a bit...and you know they've seen you looking in...you know they know you're watching them...and neither of you dares to wave or...or say hi there...because you both know there's not supposed to be anyone at home.....nobody's allowed to call for anyone anymore...like we used to knock on the door and just say is your so-and-so playing?...they just can't handle it..."

She'd been leaning forward again, her whole body involved in the talking. Now she falls back into her seat, exhausted, and disengages, (draws the curtains). She picks up her glass again and takes another gulp of her beer and the noise of the pub, the ale-oiled laughter, the shrieks, the bye bye Miss American Pie, the clang clang last orders please, rushes in to fill the vacuum left by her ...her...her indigence and I wonder if I just dreamed it. Suddenly, she grins at me, lights up another fag with my lighter, but now her eyes don't line up with mine, she's looking at my left cheek.

A scruffy looking bloke in amazingly dirty jeans and a red anorak zipped to the chin, that looks like its been scorched in some mad attempt to iron it, sways over to our table carrying a full to the top pint of black beer. He fixes his eyes on the wall behind us and fixes a look of recognition on his face, stumbles against a stool in his path, slops beer foam over his filthy shoes.

"Fucking 'ell Martin, you great big toe rag!" She scolds him almost gently, like a mother, he stops as if unsure what to do next. "Well, are you sitting down or what?"
"Shorry, shorry love. Eh I'm bloody pissed ah am....can ah scrounge a fag off yer til mi giro comes...I'm gasp-in' for a fag".

He teeters over a stool at our table, takes a long gulp gulp gulp of his beer and takes her penultimate Regal king-size, which she's just lit up for him.
"Ta, chuck, yer a lifesaver". He looks sidelong at me through slits in his curtains. He's a fox, wary, weighing me up as a potential free meal. He's a wolf, knows I'm at home, wonders whether to huff and puff and blow my house down. She tosses her hair, strokes his sleeve and plays Little Red Riding Hood, knifes me with a glance and laughs out loud at my dismay.

"Its just not safe to go out anymore", she says, as she goes inside and closes the door and dares me to believe that she was ever at home.