There were no such sights to be seen tonight. The bad weather had long ago blown out hope of customers in even the most stubbornly optimistic. Blinds were drawn and doors were locked. The rings in the window of the shabby jewellery store were covered with a cloth, the sausages were removed from the hooks in the butcher shop; the pawnshop, the shoe store, the corner grocery were all dark.
It was on her favourite street that the absence of traffic allowed Vera to hear footsteps closing quickly on her from behind. A glance over her shoulder told her it was who she thought it was. Only one light showed on the street, a window burned on the second floor above a men’s wear shop across the street. Vera fluttered toward it like a moth. She hurried across the street, coat flapping, eyes lifted to the light. Someone was up there, awake.
Behind her she heard feet break into a run, a patter of leather on asphalt.
Brought up short by the storefront, Vera jerked around, an animal at bay. When she whirled about, Thomas checked his headlong pursuit in the middle of the street. Briefly he hesitated and then came on in a stiff, self-conscious amble meant to suggest a man confident and completely at ease. Over Vera’s shoulder four shadowy mannequins watched his approach, saw him snatch off his tweed cap, ball it in his fist, and stuff it in his pocket when he was just yards from her. He came on like a sleepwalker and only halted when he was so close to Vera that it was all she could do to stop herself from visibly shrinking away, backing herself up against the plate-glass window. The light from the window above revealed perspiration gleaming on Thomas’s upper lip and a ghostly dab of shaving lather on the lobe of his left ear. The run had quickened his breathing. Vera saw him pant white smoke in the cold air.
“What do you want?” demanded Vera, feigning assurance. “Why are you following me, Thomas?”
Thomas did not appear to know how to reply. He started to lift his arms and then let them collapse helplessly against his sides. He shook his head, began to rock back and forth on his toes, swaying like a man overcome by vertigo on the brink of a precipice.
“What do you want?”
Thomas’s answer was to lurch blindly forward, fall on his knees, fling his arms convulsively about her waist, and burrow his face into the front of her coat. The theatricality, the extravagance of this gesture, paralyzed Vera with numbing embarrassment. My God, she thought, what if someone is witnessing this performance? How ridiculous. She cast her eyes apprehensively up and down the street.
“Stop it,” Vera said, her voice lowered now in such circumstances, almost a whisper. “Stop this, Thomas.”
He only clung to her harder, tightening his arms around the small of her back and working his face against the cloth of her coat. The strength of this embrace almost toppled her, and she had to reach out and steady herself by placing a hand on his head, but at the touch of his hair she withdrew her hand as if it had brushed fire. The grinding of his forehead against her pubic bone was becoming painful.
“Stop it!” she cried angrily, shoving at his shoulders. “Get away!”
Which only spurred Thomas to clench her even more suffocatingly close, to crush her spine with the jutting bones of his wrists. It was the squeezing pain, the panic of being robbed of breath, that made Vera strike Thomas smack dab on the dried shaving lather plastered to his ear. Her roundhouse slap rocked him but didn’t break his grip so that when she tried to tear herself free she only succeeded in losing her balance and crashing back against the plate-glass window. The store boomed hollowly, like a drum.
Vera recovered and came up fighting. She pummelled his head and shoulders with both hands, snapped her body backward in an attempt to break free. Thomas was dragged along her line of retreat, scrambling on his knees, his forehead bouncing off her pelvis and his hair shooting up in bursts of shock whenever Vera landed one of her haymakers. Whenever she missed and caught air Vera reeled and slammed against the window, striking the sound of distant thunder out of it.
Then a light burst on behind the mannequins, a lock rattled, and the door to the shop was thrown open. Vera and Thomas froze. Thomas remained on his knees, neck craned around to the door, mouth hanging open stupidly and eyes squinting against the sudden brightness. A man in a vest undershirt, trousers, and stockinged feet stood in the open doorway, a look of gentle, bemused perplexity on his face. He was middle-aged, very tall, stoop-shouldered, and had faded, reddish hair. Something about his manner made Vera think of Jimmy Stewart, her favourite actor. He had the bewildered innocence of Mr. Smith. A slow smile of amusement spread over his face as he took in the scene, Thomas down on his knees before Vera.
“I hope I haven’t interrupted a proposal,” was all the man said.
With that, Thomas got to his feet and began to strike ruthlessly at the dust on the knees of his trousers.
“Not likely,” spat out Vera. She jabbed an accusing finger at Thomas. “He followed me. He chased me. I ran here because I saw a light was on.”
The red-haired man took a step nearer, peered from one to the other, settled on Thomas. “Is that right?” he asked. “Were you following the lady? Did you chase her?”
“I only wanted to talk to her,” said Thomas sullenly. “Anyway, what business is it of yours?”
The storekeeper turned to Vera. “Do you know this man?”
“Does she know me,” interjected Thomas. “I’ll say she does. She’s my girlfriend.”
The red-haired man nodded his head reflectively. “So it’s like that,” he said. “A lover’s spat. But please, not on my window.” He flattened his palm against it. “It’s only glass. A really good spat could break it.”
“I want you to know,” said Vera, “that this man is an out and out maniac. I never was a girlfriend of his. He imagined it all. Mister, this man is crazy and I’m afraid of what he might do to me. Please tell him to go away.”
“You know that isn’t true, Vera. You were my girlfriend.”
“And there’s no lovers’ spat either. He just ran up and grabbed me here on the street. What it is is a pervert attack or something.”
The red-haired man was speaking to Thomas. “Please, maybe it would be better if you left the lady alone for the time being. Who knows? Maybe tomorrow she’ll want to talk. But now she’s upset and it’s clear she doesn’t want to discuss matters.”
Thomas glowered at the advice. “Why don’t you keep that big fucking nose of yours out of our business? Who asked you?”
“Oh, I think this is my business,” the man answered calmly, “because, you see, this window the two of you were trying to crash through is my business. And if it’s true that you’re bothering this young woman like she says you are – well then, in all decency, that has to be my business, too.”
“You’d better believe he’s bothering me,” chimed in Vera.
Thomas raked her with a brooding glare. “You better shut up, Vera,” he warned.
Suddenly she remembered the hat-pin. She drew it out of her sleeve and held it glinting in the light. “How’d you like this rammed up your ass, buster?” she said.
“That’s enough,” the store owner said sharply, pushing her arm down. “Maybe everybody should calm down and stop talking such nonsense, threatening each other like children. Maybe you should go home now, son, and give her time to think about it.”
“Yeah, with any more time to think about it I ought to really make myself sick to my stomach,” said Vera.
The man ignored her. He continued speaking to Thomas in a soft, persuasive tone. “There’s really no point, is there?” he reasoned. “This has all got out of hand. Leave her be. Sleep on it. The morning always makes a difference. Don’t make yourself any more trouble.”