Pictures of You

Chapter Fourteen

After staring at my phone for the longest time, I decided to go down to the bar and get something to eat. I considered sending a second message, checking he'd got the first, but I already knew he had. The blue ticks didn't lie. Maybe he was staring at his phone the same way that I had just been, trying to get the message perfect. But then his status changed and showed he was offline. I didn't see the point in staying in my room and obsessing about it, and I was pretty hungry too.

The bar had thinned out somewhat since I was last in there. Gladys was sitting at a table in the corner reading a book, whilst a younger girl was now tending bar. Gladys looked up as I entered the room and smiled. 'Hey Ash,' she said. 'You decided to take me up on my offer? What would you like to drink?'

'A beer?' I said, questioning if that were okay.

'I assume you've got ID you can show me?' she said.

I laughed. 'No.'

'Thought not. You'd best come through to the back then.'

She guided me back through the bar as she had before, but instead of going up the stairs to my room, we went through a door on the ground floor that led through to a kitchen-dining area. She opened up her fridge, pulled out a couple of beers and snapped them open with a bottle opener fridge magnet. She took a swig from one and handed me the other.

'Thanks,' I said, and she winked at me, before pulling a chair out and sitting at the table. She pushed the second chair out with her foot for me to sit.

'So, I'm curious,' she said. 'You're clearly only young. Under eighteen by your lack of ID. You're staying in London on your own, clearly out if your comfort zone...'

She left her sentence open for me to complete.

'You got me,' I said.

'So what's your story? Tell me to mind my own business if you want, but I'm a people person. I like to get to know my guests.'

Her directness did take me by surprise, but I didn't mind. It was nice having someone take an interest in me. My own boyfriend couldn't even be bothered to reply.

'I'm here to meet someone,' I said.

'A girl?' she asked. I gave her a yeah right kind of look. She laughed and said, 'No, thought not. So what's his name?'
I was just about to tell her when there came a knock smat the door. It opened before Gladys even had the chance to say come in.

'Yoo hoo! It's just me. Are you decent?'
In walked a lady in her sixties, wearing a long floral dress, with grey hair flowing right down her back. I looked up at her to realise she was actually a he.
'Oh sorry,' he said. (I did later speak with him about the pronouns he preferred, and despite his preference for ladies clothes, he did go by he/him). 'I didn't realise you had company.' His eyes were fixed on me.

'It's okay. Come on in Walter. Grab yourself a beer and join us.'

'Well if you're sure.'

Walter closed the door behind him and went straight to the fridge.

'Walter is my closest friend,' Gladys told me. 'We've both lived in Camden most of our lives. We both moved to London when I wasn't much older than you. Obviously Walter was a fair bit older.'

'Not that much older you bitch,' Walter said with a grin.

'We met in a bar and became friends really quickly. And we've stayed that way over the years.'

'That's really lovely,' I said. I wondered if James and I would still be hanging out together when we were as old. I always assumed we would be.

'Do you have your own pub too?' I asked Walter.