Dancing Towards the Blade and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF

fringed curtain of underarm hair. He watched them from his favourite bench, his face hidden behind a newspaper, his back straight against the small, metal plaque.
    FOR ERIC AND MURIEL, WHO LOVED THESE WOODS
    He watched them, and he waited.
    He watched her , of course, at other times, too. He’d followed her home that very first day and now he would spend hours outside the house in Barnet, imagining her inside in the dark.
    He couldn’t say why he’d chosen her; couldn’t really say why he’d chosen any of them. Something just clicked. It was all pretty random at the end of the day, just luck – good or bad depending on which way you looked at it.
    When he was caught, and odds on he would be, he would tell them that and nothing else.
    It all came down to chance.
    They’d begun to spend their afternoons together. They walked every inch of Highgate Woods, ate picnics by the tree where they’d first met, and one day they held hands across a weathered, wooden table outside the cafeteria.
    ‘Why can’t I see you in the evenings?’ Alan said.
    She winced. ‘This is nice, isn’t it? Don’t rush things.’
    ‘I changed my shifts around so we could see each other during the day. So that we could spend time together.’
    ‘I never asked you to.’
    ‘There’s things I want, Rachel.’
    She leered. ‘I bet there are.’
    ‘Yes, that. Obviously that, but other things. I want to take you places and meet your friends. I want to come to where you live. I want you to come where I live.’
    ‘It’s complicated. I told you.’
    ‘You never tell me anything.’
    ‘I’m married, Alan.’
    He drew his hand away from hers. He tried, and failed to make light of it. ‘Well, that explains a lot.’
    ‘I suppose it changes everything, doesn’t it?’
    He looked at her as if she were mad. ‘Just a bit .’
    ‘I don’t see why.’
    ‘For fuck’s sake, Rachel.’
    ‘Tell me.’
    ‘I don’t … I wouldn’t like it if I was the one married to you, put it that way.’
    She looked at the table.
    ‘Don’t cry.’
    ‘I’m not crying.’
    Alan put a laugh into his voice. ‘Besides, he might decide to beat me up.’
    Then there were tears, and she told him the rest. The babies she didn’t want and the bruises you couldn’t see, and when it was over Alan reached for her hand and squeezed, and looked at her hard.
    ‘If he touches you again, I’ll kill him.’
    She appreciated the gesture, but knew it was really no more than that, and she was sad at the hurt she saw in Alan’s eyes when she laughed.
    Afterwards, Rachel leaned down to pull the sheet back over them. A little shyness had returned, but it was not uncomfortable, or awkward.
    ‘I would tell you how great that was,’ she said. ‘But I don’t want you to get complacent.’ She turned on her side to face him, and grinned.
    ‘I was lucky to meet you,’ he said. ‘That day, looking for the ball.’
    ‘Or un lucky.’
    He shook his head, ran the back of his hand along her ribcage.
    ‘Did you know that a smile can change the world?’ she said. ‘Do you know about that idea?’
    ‘Sounds like one of those awful self-help things.’
    ‘No, it’s just a philosophy really, based around the randomness of everything. How every action has consequences, you know? How it’s connected.’ She closed her eyes. ‘You smile at someone at the bus stop and maybe that person’s mood changes. They’re reminded of a friend they haven’t spoken to in a long time and they decide to ring them. This third person, on the other side of the world, answers his mobile phone doing ninety miles an hour on the motorway. He’s so thrilled to hear from his old friend that he loses concentration and ploughs into the car in front, killing a man who was on his way to plant a bomb that would have killed a thousand people.’
    Alan puffed out his cheeks, let the air out slowly. ‘What would have happened if I’d scowled at the bloke at the bus stop?’
    Rachel opened her eyes.