Day Six, Sunday, High Street, St Treharne
A bag lady lay in the Post Office doorstep, surveying the road. A little further up the road, a tall man dressed completely in black walked towards her, his coat billowing behind him.
The bag lady huddled into her sleeping bag, trying to look as lifeless as possible as he approached her. When you lived on the streets, you knew a little more than the average house resident about where you were living. And the bag lady knew that the streets of St Treharne had undergone a dangerous transformation since the years when she had grown up in a small house just outside the then sleepy village.
Her street partner – it was safer if you had a partner to help you out when you lived on the streets – had gone missing several days ago. Tony wouldn't have moved on without taking her, so she had to assume that he was dead, even though no body had been found and the police weren't taking her seriously – thinking that she was crazy. Touched in the head.
But she wasn't. She knew that there were predators on the street, just like there were predators in the jungle. The only difference was that these predators looked just like everyone else. That was what made them so dangerous. And this place was rife with them. She'd be moving on tomorrow.
The Stranger was level with her now. She blinked and missed his lightening-fast check for weapons.
Despite her caution, she found that something inside of her was fascinated by the mysterious Stranger. She couldn't pin down exactly what it was. It might have been the fluid way that he walked; purposeful, alert and ready for danger, yet confident that he could face it with his coat swirling behind him like a cape from the days gone by. Or it could have been the way he looked; the pale skin and dark hair combined with the look in his eyes. The look that said that this Stranger had known the greatest joy and the depths of hell. That he had loved and lost and didn't want to trust himself to love again. Maybe it was the way that she automatically knew that this was a Stranger who found it hard to make friends; but once he did, would move mountains to ensure their safety.
He had turned the corner now. Breaking all of her own rules, she climbed out of her sleeping bag and followed him around the corner into Harbour Road.
She watched as he walked along the road and then came to a stop outside the Florist Pub, looking into one of the windows.
Distantly, strains of music floated to her ears as she squinted, trying to get a clearer look at the Stranger's face.
He looked… surprised mainly. With a hint of betrayal, a pinch of anguish and, dare she think it… delight?
Perhaps he was meeting a lover and had just discovered that she wasn't there? No, that wouldn't explain it. What if he had just seen his lover in the arms of another man? No, that wasn't right either. No matter, she had time to come up with a satisfying reason why he was there and why he looked as he did.
She thought she heard him mutter something like, "The man can sing."
That didn't fit into any of the explanations she was turning over in her mind. But it was no matter. Give her time and she would be able to explain it all to her satisfaction.
As she watched, the Stranger ducked away from the window and then strode quickly away in the direction of the western cliff that served to protect St Treharne from the worst of the elements. The one known as Lover's Leap.
But perhaps he wasn't aware of that fact. After all, he was a Stranger.
She'd make it all fit in time.
Slowly, the bag lady shuffled back to her doorway, to wait out another night in terrified silence. But maybe she wouldn't be moving on tomorrow. Maybe, just maybe, she'd wait another couple of days. See if she saw the Stranger again.