Alphabet by Kathy Page

to write this but he knows she will understand it is too early for him to have a relationship again . . .
    He types out a copy to Mr Grange. Only takes a minute or two despite his fingers feeling so cold.
    Anyone touches me in that breakfast queue, he thinks, I’ll explode. And I’m not seeing fucking probation.

15
    Three steps up to the Portakabin door. Jackson knocks:
    â€˜Man for you, Bernie.’
    â€˜Send him in, please.’ It’s a woman.
    â€˜Bernadette Nightingale,’ she says, as she gets out from behind the desk and comes over, holding out her hand to shake. She’s about his own height, well-rounded with a plump face, pale, smooth-looking skin, dark eyes and thick, shiny hair, chestnut, fixed up in some kind of a knot at the back of her head.
    â€˜I don’t really need this. I’ve only come –’ he tells her, letting go of the offered hand. ‘– because I need to get out and work’s cancelled. Staffing.’
    â€˜Uh-huh. Well, pleased to meet you, Simon. I just started here last month. We haven’t met before, have we?’ There’s Irish in her voice, overlaid with a posh school, and Lord knows what else. ‘Sorry it’s so cold in here!’ she says, rubbing her hands together. Her fingernails are neatly filed and polished, covered with rings, both hands, all fingers, plain, complex, old-fashioned, modern, ethnic – all different. How old is she? More than him. Getting on for forty, perhaps? ‘The heating will come through soon,’ she tells him. ‘Then we’ll bake!’ Her skirt rustles as she moves back to her chair.
    â€˜So,’ she says from behind her side of the desk, ‘what is all this about letters and a teenage girl?’
    â€˜A mistake,’ he tells her, flatly, so as to conceal his irritation. ‘I didn’t know she was so young. I’ve written and told her that I don’t want to go on. I handed it in this morning.’
He’s too tired to be aware of expecting any particular response.
    â€˜Have you had a pen friend before? Are you going to look for someone else?’ she asks.
    â€˜What’s that to do with you?’ he snaps.
    â€˜I just wondered,’ she says, lifting the ringed fingers of her right hand slightly from the desk. ‘What’s the problem?’ Her eyes seem to be looking right into his, but because of their darkness, he can’t be sure.
    â€˜Listen, it’s just a hobby,’ he tells her, ‘like painting eggs or binding books. Except it makes less clutter!’
    She waits a little, then says, very softly. ‘I expect it is more than that.’ And it seems to take him for ever to decide what to do, whether to tear her off a strip (except that he has a ghost of a feeling it won’t work) or to stop talking, to change the subject completely, or to leave.
    â€˜I haven’t slept for five days,’ he finally says and then everything seems to shift a gear.
    â€˜Are you going to tell me why?’ she enquires. The small pause she leaves beforehand has a calming effect. It says, somehow: I know this will rile you, but all the same, I do have to ask.
    â€˜I don’t know a blind thing about you,’ he points out.
    â€˜No?’ Her lips pull into a smile. ‘But I expect you’ve made a few guesses,’ she says, ‘and they’re probably right. And if there’s something specific you want to know, you are perfectly free to ask.’ She sits there waiting, her head tipped slightly to one side, a bit of a smile, her eyes glittering, bird-woman. But he can’t think of anything at all to ask. Even if he could think of something, it strikes him that she would somehow end up learning more about him as a result of his asking it than he would learn about her.
    â€˜That won’t last,’ he tells her, pointing suddenly at the big spider plant in a blue pot that she must have brought in