pulled the photos out, one by one, and laid them on my black-clad knee. The first was of me and Amy, little-girl versions of me and my best friend, dressed up as princesses and hugging desperately for the camera. The next one was a more formal shot of me, my sisters, my mum and my grandmother, looking considerably less chipper. We weren’t huggers, the Brookeses. Someone basically had to die to convince my mother to go further than a stern pat on the shoulder. When my first granddad had passed away, she had ruffled my hair. It was intense. The third and final photo was of me and Amy again, this time all grown-up and joined by Charlie, my co-worker, best boy friend and the man I had been in love with for the past decade. The three of us were slouched on a sofa in some random Parisian hotel in front of a huge mirror with another one behind us. My face was obscured by the camera that had gone everywhere with me that summer, but my denim cut-offs and stripy T-shirt echoed endlessly in the reflections of the two mirrors. Charlie and Amy’s reflected faces smiled back at me. Amy was on my left, deep in her Amélie phase, black hair cropped close to her head and legs stretched out, draped across me and Charlie. To my right, the love of my life rested his head on my shoulder and held a lit cigarette off to the side, so as not to drop the ash on my bare skin. Even though you couldn’t tell by the photo, I remembered I was smiling. We were the three musketeers. Rock, paper, scissors. Amy was the scissors, Charlie was the paper and I was the rock. I was always the rock.
Slowly but surely, I felt my breathing return to normal and the tension in my shoulders ease ever so slightly. Just in time for me to realize someone was sitting beside me on the bench.
‘Morning.’ An incredibly average-looking man with a shaved head and a black bomber jacket gave me a sideways nod.
‘Morning,’ I replied, carefully placing the photographs back in my bag. No reason not to be polite. This was my life now, after all. Just sitting around, talking to the other non-workers-slash-vagrants in London’s parks while I lived vicariously through the dog ownership of others. I wondered if the Tesco near Russell Square sold White Lightning. It felt like the day was missing a bottle of White Lightning.
‘Don’t make a scene,’ the man said, moving down the bench towards me and looking straight ahead. ‘Give me your wallet and your phone.’
‘Sorry?’ I wasn’t quite sure I’d heard him properly. Was I being mugged? After seven years in London, was I actually being mugged? Not bloody likely.
‘Phone and wallet. Now.’ He pulled a small Swiss Army knife out of his pocket and gave me as scary a look as he could muster. ‘Don’t make me make you.’
Still not quite with it, I tilted my head to one side and stared. I couldn’t help but think he’d be scarier with hair. He looked like an overgrown baby.
‘I haven’t got a phone,’ I replied. This was actually happening. I was being mugged by a giant baby in a bomber jacket. ‘And you can’t have my wallet. There’s nothing in it anyway and it was a present.’
‘Everyone’s got a phone.’ He sounded a bit taken aback. ‘Give it to me now.’
‘No, really.’ I opened up my handbag and tipped it upside down, emptying the contents out onto the bench between us. Three lipsticks, a powder compact, my keys, more tampons than anyone could ever feasibly need and even more pens clattered against the wooden slats. I picked up my wallet and stuck it between my knees. I meant what I said – I’d already told him he couldn’t have that and I wasn’t about to go back on my word to a criminal. ‘See? No phone. I just got fired. They took my phone. Have not got one.’
‘You haven’t got a phone at all?’ The would-be mugger was visibly shocked. ‘That’s bollocks, that is.’
‘It really, really is,’ I agreed.
We sat in silence for a moment.
‘Haven’t got a job either,’ I said as I started scooping up my belongings and dropping them back in the bag. It seemed he wasn’t nearly as interested in highlighters as I was. Probably didn’t have much call for them in his game. ‘Phone’s not such a problem.’
‘Me neither,’ he replied, grabbing a couple of tampons and popping them into my handbag for me. ‘Had one. Lost it. Fucking Tories, innit?’
‘I suppose the recession has been hard for everyone,’ I sympathized. ‘It’s a tough time.’
‘Do you need to call anyone?’ the big baby asked. The man dug his hand into his non-knifey pocket and produced a brand-new iPhone. ‘You can use my phone if you want.’
‘Actually, that would be amazing,’ I said, readily accepting the handset but ignoring the controversial cover design. Pretty sure they didn’t sell Swastika iPhone cases in Carphone Warehouse. This was definitely home-made. ‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll give you a bit of privacy.’ He nodded curtly, stood up and wandered a couple of feet away. I watched as a worried-looking middle-aged lady in a waxed jacket and an Alice band took a very sharp and sudden detour. I looked away as he followed her.
‘Hello?’
‘Amy.’ I would never answer the phone to an unknown number. Amy always would. ‘It’s me.’
‘What phone are you on? What’s going on? Did they give you a new phone. Did you get an iPhone? Have you got Siri? Can I ask him a question?’
‘It’s not my phone.’ I cut her off before she could come up with anything filthy to ask the omniscient Siri. ‘Are you at work?’
‘Yeah.’ She didn’t sound convinced. ‘Until five.’
‘Oh. I got the sack and I thought you might want to get very, very drunk.’
‘STELLA!’ I snapped my head away from the handset as Amy bellowed at her boss without moving the phone away from her mouth. ‘I’ve got a migraine. I’m going home. All right?’
‘I don’t think you can shout that loudly if you’ve got a migraine,’ I pointed out.
‘Be at yours in half an hour,’ Amy replied, ignoring me. ‘Don’t kill yourself before then, OK?’
‘OK,’ I said. It hadn’t actually occurred to me before she brought it up, but the Thames was awfully close by and it would save me from having to sign on. I didn’t actually know where the job centre was. Maybe my new friend could tell me. Or maybe I should just kill myself. Amy had hung up before I could ask her opinion and I noticed the phone’s owner hovering nearby. I hung up, smiled and held it out to him.
‘You know what?’ He waved my hand away. ‘Have it. I can always get another one.’
‘Oh no.’ I tried to press it back into his tattooed hand. ‘I couldn’t possibly. Really, I couldn’t.’
‘No, take it.’ He pressed it back into my hand and stood up. ‘How are you going to get another job without a phone? Just have it.’
‘Well, thank you very much.’ I gave him my cheeriest smile. ‘That’s really lovely of you.’
‘No worries.’ He held up his arm in a salute I vaguely recognized, and not from Brownies. ‘And don’t worry yourself. Fit bird like you? You’ll be fine. Just remember, fuck ’em all.’
‘Yeah,
