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my left wrist. It’s an old watch, a boy’s watch. It should have been my brother’s. Everybody has those times when it all becomes a bit overwhelming. When everything becomes too much, I look at my watch. I love its Roman numerals. Love the look of them, as if they are Roman buildings with all those I s like columns of a ruin. Roman numerals are very rarely used now, except for things like the date a movie is made so we don’t realise how old it is. Or to number items in a series, like boats or sons or Rocky s.
    There are two things I like best about Roman numerals—firstly, it’s not just the symbols that matter, it’s where they are placed. I and V together should equal 6. But if you put the I right before the V, it’s 4. XL is 40, CM is 900. Also I like that there are no zeros. The Romans hadn’t invented them. That was up to the Hindus.
    Sometimes I’d like to crawl inside the face of my brother’s watch. I’d walk around the numerals. Touch them. Balance on the hands. How long can I stand here thinking about numbers?
    What is the proper length of time to stand in a café and consider a watch?
    The mystery of Roman numerals is this—why do clock (and watch) faces have IIII instead of IV? Surely the Romans knew how to count in their own language? Even Big Ben has IIII instead of IV. The most common answer is that the IIII balances the VIII on the opposite side of the clock face. But I and XI don’t balance and no one worries about them. No, the most likely answer is that— despite our evolving strict rules for counting, to control the way the numbers are used, to make them conform—the Romans didn’t think that way. Probably IIII was okay because everyone knew it meant four and it wasn’t such a big deal. They had more to worry about, like getting good seats for the Colosseum and making sure their togas didn’t fall off. But maybe the whole IIII/IV business is the real reason the Roman Empire fell. Plenty of empires survive cross-border incursions. There’s no recovering from sloppiness.
    Whatever the correct amount of time is for standing in a café looking at your watch, it’s passed.
    Now I have to decide.

3
    I can wait for the panic to rise until I can’t breathe or I can walk over and sit down. If I do that, Cheryl can come over and say something about the weather and bring me my chocolate and my cake and then I can count the seeds and eat the cake and then I can go home. But if I sit there I have to talk to him. That would be two conversations with one stranger. Unprecedented.
    I go over. 12 paces to the table.
    I pull out the chair.
    I sit down.
    He’s got sweet teeth, like the milk teeth of a child. At least the 6 I can see are like that. Creamy white with curves instead of corners and points. He’s wearing jeans again today, on a Friday. Great. Not only does he have no friends but he’s also unemployed. Still, he looks good in jeans. He’s wearing a black waffle weave short-sleeved shirt with 6 buttons up the front. The buttons are small and glassy—plastic pretending to be mother-of-pearl. His blond hair is messy. He’s offered me his table. I really should be gracious.
    ‘Are you stalking me?’ I say.
    He’s mid-sip of his coffee, and snorts. ‘Um…no. Are you stalking me?’
    ‘Why on earth would I want to stalk you?’
    ‘I don’t know…to steal my fruit?’
    ‘It was one banana. I’ve moved on.’
    ‘So have I. Really. It’s…nice to see you again.’ He picks up the menu. He puts it down again. It sounds as if his brain is leaking.
    I check my sarcasm detector. Nothing. Perhaps he means It’s nice to see you again . Astonishingly, I start to blush. Not a delicate Austenesque two-dusky-pink-circles-in-the-middle-of-my-rounded-girlish-cheeks type blush. More like a swell when you are standing in the ocean, a rolling swell of heat and redness that starts in my toes, thunders up my legs and tickles my labia before finally crashing on the beach of my face. A violent