the people that filled the houses around me were dead and gone. If the local population were alive but not out here with me, then the alternatives were spine-chilling and I wasn’t ready in my head to go there yet. There was only so far I could push my sanity in one morning.
To be honest, I wasn’t even sure what had happened to Chloe, let alone anyone else, but I wasn’t going to go back and find out. If she were still alive, then she wasn’t my Chloe anymore.
Stony wasn’t a town with many clothes shops. After going through a period of floundering without direction during the eighties, it had finally found a niche for itself in the retail world-small outlets and boutiques filled with gifts and knickknacks, glassware and ornaments. It was where people in Milton Keynes went to fill Christmas stockings and to buy that special something for a birthday present. But it wasn’t a place to come to if you were looking for the latest in jeans or designer gear. In fact, it wasn’t a place to come for stuff to wear if you were under retirement age. There was one shop that sold relatively good clothes for women; Chloe had been known to pick up a couple of things from it, but there was nothing here for men. Apart, of course, from Morris’s Menswear, halfway up High Street.
It’s funny the things you totally ignore in your
55
everyday life. Morris’s Menswear had been here for as long as I could remember, passed down through the family, surviving the cull of bankruptcies and repossessions that swept the town in earlier decades, but I had never even really looked at it, let alone considered going in. It still retained the same unassuming frontage that it had for years, its very blandness maybe the key to its success. It was aimed at a breed almost extinct, especially this far out of London, those kind of men who like to know their tailor, who like to buy their country casuals and business suits all in the same place, who like it that someone knows that “sir dresses to the left or right.” I didn’t reckon there were many of them under fifty.
Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and my options were limited. I crossed the road at the churchyard and headed towards the tan awning, passing some of the smaller privately owned businesses, the pet shop, one card shop, a florist; all shut. No explanations on the door this time. By the time I reached the small co-op, it was obvious that Stony Stratford was not open for business today. All the doors were locked and the gloom behind the shutters and windows showed no sign of impending life.
The sun however, was beating down, keeping the air pleasantly warm. It was shaping up to be the best day of the year as far as the weather was concerned. It seemed that Mother Nature was oblivious to the problems of man, or maybe she just didn’t give a shit, and who could really blame her? It wasn’t as if we’d really played fair, had we? But that’s a debate for another time.
Pushing my shoulder into the thick glass of the door,
56
I realised that it was going to take more than just a shove to get inside. There was no way I could just punch it and break it; it was too strong for that. Sighing, I squinted and peered along the empty street. I was going to need a brick or a missile of some kind and I wasn’t sure where I was going to find it. Smiling, I saw the metal swing board of the butcher’s-falsely advertising friendly service inside the abandoned shop-and jogged down to fetch it. It was heavier than it looked, and as I hurled it towards the glass window I flinched and cringed from the smash, expecting an alarm to rip through the empty air around me, heralding my descent into crime to any who cared to listen.
After the shattering of glass there was nothing. There must have been more pressing matters to attend to than setting the alarm for whoever was last to leave the shop premises, and I straightened up to get a good look at my first successful breakin. Not the
To be honest, I wasn’t even sure what had happened to Chloe, let alone anyone else, but I wasn’t going to go back and find out. If she were still alive, then she wasn’t my Chloe anymore.
Stony wasn’t a town with many clothes shops. After going through a period of floundering without direction during the eighties, it had finally found a niche for itself in the retail world-small outlets and boutiques filled with gifts and knickknacks, glassware and ornaments. It was where people in Milton Keynes went to fill Christmas stockings and to buy that special something for a birthday present. But it wasn’t a place to come to if you were looking for the latest in jeans or designer gear. In fact, it wasn’t a place to come for stuff to wear if you were under retirement age. There was one shop that sold relatively good clothes for women; Chloe had been known to pick up a couple of things from it, but there was nothing here for men. Apart, of course, from Morris’s Menswear, halfway up High Street.
It’s funny the things you totally ignore in your
55
everyday life. Morris’s Menswear had been here for as long as I could remember, passed down through the family, surviving the cull of bankruptcies and repossessions that swept the town in earlier decades, but I had never even really looked at it, let alone considered going in. It still retained the same unassuming frontage that it had for years, its very blandness maybe the key to its success. It was aimed at a breed almost extinct, especially this far out of London, those kind of men who like to know their tailor, who like to buy their country casuals and business suits all in the same place, who like it that someone knows that “sir dresses to the left or right.” I didn’t reckon there were many of them under fifty.
Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and my options were limited. I crossed the road at the churchyard and headed towards the tan awning, passing some of the smaller privately owned businesses, the pet shop, one card shop, a florist; all shut. No explanations on the door this time. By the time I reached the small co-op, it was obvious that Stony Stratford was not open for business today. All the doors were locked and the gloom behind the shutters and windows showed no sign of impending life.
The sun however, was beating down, keeping the air pleasantly warm. It was shaping up to be the best day of the year as far as the weather was concerned. It seemed that Mother Nature was oblivious to the problems of man, or maybe she just didn’t give a shit, and who could really blame her? It wasn’t as if we’d really played fair, had we? But that’s a debate for another time.
Pushing my shoulder into the thick glass of the door,
56
I realised that it was going to take more than just a shove to get inside. There was no way I could just punch it and break it; it was too strong for that. Sighing, I squinted and peered along the empty street. I was going to need a brick or a missile of some kind and I wasn’t sure where I was going to find it. Smiling, I saw the metal swing board of the butcher’s-falsely advertising friendly service inside the abandoned shop-and jogged down to fetch it. It was heavier than it looked, and as I hurled it towards the glass window I flinched and cringed from the smash, expecting an alarm to rip through the empty air around me, heralding my descent into crime to any who cared to listen.
After the shattering of glass there was nothing. There must have been more pressing matters to attend to than setting the alarm for whoever was last to leave the shop premises, and I straightened up to get a good look at my first successful breakin. Not the
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