The Watcher: A dark addictive thriller with the ultimate psychological twist

‘Your tea stain. Yes.’

He’s dropped the voice now. He’s got serious. Or as close as he gets anyway.

In the silence, his eyes wander over me.

‘I was just thinking about how it’s like a small button. I’ve always thought of it like that. Then I remembered I had a dream where I could press it and it would make you lose your memory. What do you think about that?’

I pause, breathe in through my nose and consider this. ‘I think you’re a very strange individual.’

‘Interesting you should say that. Very interesting,’ he says. Nodding, narrowing his eyes and archly taking me in as if he’s some sort of Buddha-Yoda, enlightening me with his abstract bullshit. He strokes my ankle, then makes to go back to his work.

‘Did you then?’ I say.

‘Did I what?’ he says.

‘Did you press it?’

‘It was just a funny dream. I thought I’d tell you.’

‘You pressed it! And now you’re being evasive,’ I say, throwing my shoe at him. It’s meant to be playful but I hit him in the head quite hard.

‘Ow! Oh God. Oh, my God. My eye. I think it’s going to have to come out,’ he says, overreacting wildly in search of a laugh. Which somehow he gets out of me.

‘Oh, my God. Tell me what happened next in your lame old dream?’

‘It’s not a lame old dream. It’s a nice dream,’ he says.

I hum to myself. Then breathe audibly. Rolling a bowling ball of disdain between us.

‘It’s not a nice dream. Is it? It’s not lovely, is it? It’s actually quite horrible.’

‘I think “horrible” is a tad extreme, honeybear,’ he says. This is one in a line of creative love names he’s taken to calling me. He uses them because we’re not the kind of people who would use them.

‘Well, I only say that because it’s a controlling, manipulative, latently sexist dream, in which I am essentially a doll-like creature to be played with at your whim. But, now I say it out loud, maybe you’re right, maybe that’s fine.’

His face contorts in thought. Then pauses. Then gives me a look like he’s about to cut through this whole conversation with something utterly brilliant. A real showstopper.

‘Don’t let anyone else’s dreams control you, Lily. For you are the master of your dreams,’ he mumbles with a degree of earnestness.

The room cringes.

‘Wow, that’s great, Aid. You should put that in front of some clipart of a sunset and whack it on the Internet. People love that sort of shit.’

‘Well, laugh it up, Lil. But your reaction to all this is very telling. You care too much about weird signifiers of what you are to others. You are the master of your fate and your–’

‘Yep, got it. Don’t worry, I’m fine as I am. But, thanks for the pop psychology, Pops.’

I’m irked but it soon turns to flirtation. It always does in the end.

‘That’s OK, honey… badger,’ he says.

He absorbs my mocking. It’s one of the many things I like about him. His discretion. His lightness of touch. He’s self-effacing and utterly pretentious at the same time. And somehow I’m still intrigued as to how exactly he does it. It’s a puzzle. The sort of thing that keeps a relationship going. He glances back at his screen again. Six, eight, ten taps.

‘Oh, one more thing. What happened when you pushed the button?’

‘Ah. Hmm,’ he mutters. ‘Dunno. As soon as I pressed it, I woke up.’

Without formal ending, Aiden’s eyes fall onto his computer. I am to consider this conversational cul-de-sac over, as we segue seamlessly back to our own worlds. Then he peers up over his device and smiles at me for a second. Full beam. All of him there, without any side. Then he disappears behind it again. And the tap-tapping goes on.

As I look at him, I see the binoculars sitting at his side and I get up and grab them in an instant and see what I can catch. I’m limiting myself to two sightings a day; I don’t want to get obsessive. You know how I get. That’s why I’m writing to you above anybody else. Because you know me, what I’m like. I fancy seeing one more bird while there’s still a little light. A wood pigeon or a goldfinch. Just a little one. You know. Just for a bit of fun.

35 days till it comes. (#ulink_fa04f9ff-1526-548c-9255-1f167f039721)

BT – Cyanistes caeruleus – Grassland – Magic-hour sunlight, still, 18 degrees – 10 flock – Bright yellow breast, black chest line, male – 12 cm, perhaps – Excitable, jerky hops and aphid swoops.

I’ve never been creative. I’m more a facts and figures type. My oeuvre is no great loss to the artistic world. I’m the only person I know that literally cannot paint. Not on a canvas, or wall, nothing. You may say this isn’t a thing, but it is. Even when I started painting the flat Aiden would say ‘long, smooth strokes’ and I’d try to do it but somehow I couldn’t and he ended up doing the whole room himself, telling me to ‘just watch and make funny comments to keep me going’.

Hey, you know what? This is creative. Ha, Aiden, ha! This will be my project that will lift me from the partial doldrums. Maybe engage my heart a little as well as my graph paper head.

But I think what he really wants to know is, when I’m going to get back to my book. I know this because he said it today. He said:

‘When are you going to get back to your book?’

To which I sighed. Then thought. Then replied.

‘Aid, enough sweaty academics have written Hitchcock essays, I don’t think I need to throw in my tuppence. It’s rehashing. It’s a remake of a remake. It’s just regeneration.’

He raised his eyebrows to this. I knew it without even looking up. I felt it.

‘Sure, agreed. Damn right. You give up on those dreams. Anyway, I mean, it’s not like nobody told you Film Studies doesn’t make anyone any money, honey.’

‘Oh, don’t do the dad jokes, Aid. My dad did them all at the time.’

‘You don’t need a degree to work in Saturday Night Video!’ He roared.

‘There we go. Thank you!’ I shouted. I read his mind. I always do. We’re that close.

‘Well, it looks like it’s Medical Market Research for you for ever then. Sounds like a strong plan. Is that the plan?’

‘Trust me, this was definitely not the plan.’

No, not even the most left field career adviser would have put me here. Except one. The left field career adviser that is London: with its ever-shrinking career opportunities and economic demands. Bugger off, London. I’d move back to Chesterfield, if I didn’t think it’d make me end it all. I’m serious. I would. But it would. The way I’m feeling now, at least. Everyone always said I was just like my mum. I hope I’m not too like her.

I go out on the balcony and my gaze runs past the trees to a flock of starlings, dancing around above the reservoir, swooping up into the bluing evening sky. I try to get a better look when they rise higher, hoping the moonlight will give me a better view of the plumage. Then I focus on the moon instead. We used to do that sometimes, didn’t we? It’s so clear tonight. If you look hard enough it actually looks like a place, not just a star or whatever. It’s mad to think people have had their feet all over that big rock in the sky, isn’t it? I know it sounds stupid, but it is weird, isn’t it? Then, absent-mindedly, I let the binoculars run to the block of flats on the right side, Waterway it’s called. All the blocks have got these serene ‘natural world’ names, to convince everyone they don’t live in a pigeonhole in North London and work in new media. We even have a concierge. Don’t ask me what they do. But he wears a uniform. I don’t think he can handle dinner reservations, like in a New York hotel in the movies. I think he mostly signs for post and solves ‘parking disputes’. Of which there are many. It’s that sort of building.

There’s a light on in the penthouse. And I’ve always wondered how big it is in there and I stand and stare. I stare at his Habitat curtains, which I saw in the shop the other week actually. They don’t look super posh or anything. Then I stare at the swing chair he’s got on his balcony, that does look expensive. And then I see him. Look at him. There he is. The million pound penthouse guy. Doesn’t look that impressive. In fact he looks downright odd at the moment. What’s he doing in there? I look closer. I analyse.

His back rises. Up and down he goes. A slight sheen on his back. He’s in his pants. This fair-haired (sweaty) man of average height, who has actual abdominal muscles, which I catch briefly in a reflection, is doing squats with dumb bells in his hands. With his back to me. No idea I’m here. Seeing it all. And he’s in his pants.