City Girl in Training

‘Oh,’ I said. It was just as well I wasn’t trying to impress this man. He clearly thought I was a total ditz. ‘Sorry. I didn’t realise the walls were so thin.’

‘They’re not.’ He said this with the authority of a man who knew. ‘I was at my door when you—’

He seemed reluctant to use the word again and I could scarcely blame him. ‘Screamed,’ I said, rescuing him. ‘I’m sorry to have disturbed you. The fuses blew. That’s all.’ All! ‘I was just going to fix them.’

‘You know how?’ he said, without bothering to disguise his disbelief.

I tried to remember that he was being kind. A good neighbour. That he could have just shut his door. ‘They teach girls stuff like that in school these days,’ I assured him.

‘Really?’ He seemed unimpressed but he didn’t argue. Didn’t do that ‘I’m a big clever man and you’re just a girl’ thing that most men did. Instead he said, ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it.’ Which should have been more gratifying than it was. He took a step in the direction of his own front door, then hesitated, turned back. ‘You’ve got spare fuse wire?’

There had been none where I’d have expected it to be and it occurred to me that I might yet be grateful for his ‘good neighbour’ act.

‘I shouldn’t think so for a minute,’ I said. Keeping my smile to myself.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve only seen your flatmates from a distance. Very decorative, but they didn’t strike me as the practical type.’

I considered the fragile beauty of Sophie, the cool sophistication of Kate. ‘You may be right,’ I said. Women who looked like that would never need to be practical.

‘Why don’t you see if you can find the blown fuse while I fetch some wire?’ he suggested.