The Watcher by Charlotte Link Page A

get over it when other people had what she herself wanted.
    ‘Well, I don’t just sit around at home, if that’s what you mean,’ Samson replied to Bartek’s question. ‘I’d get bored. And this week Millie’s shift starts in the afternoon, so she’d be around half the day and . . . well, you know. I can do without her company.’
    Millie worked in a care home for old people. Samson knew that she hated her work. When he heard her talking about her patients, he shivered at the thought of one day being old and completely at the mercy of someone like her.
    ‘I don’t know how you can stand it,’ said Bartek. ‘Still living with your brother and sister-in-law! You’re much too old for that!’
    ‘But the house is mine too!’
    ‘Then let them pay you your share as rent, but find somewhere else. You’re treated badly there!’
    ‘I’m afraid of growing old alone if I live on my own,’ said Samson quietly.
    Bartek raised his eyebrows. ‘How old are you? Thirty-four! It’s time you found a woman to live with! Don’t you plan on marrying one day and starting a family?’
    Samson took a sip of his alcohol-free beer.
    Bartek had touched on a delicate point. They talked about it sometimes: marriage, having children, living a normal life. Bartek, who had had a steady girlfriend for years, did not find the topic easy either. His girlfriend had wanted to get married for a long time, but Bartek, although he was almost forty, was afraid of the commitment. Samson had never wanted to admit that he had different issues and had hidden them behind a fear of commitment that he did not in fact have. On the contrary, he longed for nothing so much as a wife. A house, a garden, children, a dog . . . He could picture it in his mind, and often he thought he would give everything for it to become reality. But the embarrassing – and in his mind strange – truth was that he had never even had a girlfriend. Neither at school nor since. Never. So he had never even come close to the whole issue of marriage.
    ‘Well . . .’ he answered evasively. ‘It’s not like you meet a woman every day who you want to marry!’
    ‘My girlfriend’s got me to that point now,’ said Bartek, and he did not look quite so unhappy at the thought of it. ‘She gave me an ultimatum. Maybe that was good. Next summer we’re going for it. There’ll be a big party, everyone’s coming. You’re invited too, of course!’
    ‘Nice,’ said Samson, and tried not to sound too envious. Bartek was always lucky. Always, in every way. They had met before Samson did deliveries for the frozen foods firm, when he was working for a chauffeur services company. Bartek worked there too, but unlike Samson he had not been let go. Someone like Bartek never lost his job. Everyone liked him too much, from his boss to his colleagues to the clients. When a car was booked, they often asked for him specifically. Can we have Bartek? Can we have the really nice Pole?
    Bartek spoke perfect English but with a charming East European accent that went down well, particularly with women. He knew how to keep people entertained with stories from his life, which were normally completely made up but told in a way that hooked his listeners.
    Samson, who would lie awake at night and go over and over in his mind why women constantly ignored him and why he was always the first to be let go when a company needed to make redundancies, had often wondered if it was down to his grotesquely boring biography. What did he have to tell people about? Or perhaps it was his name. Who was called Samson? If there was one thing he could not forgive his late parents, it was that they had given him that name. His mother had read a book during her pregnancy in which someone was called Samson, and she had liked the name. Samson’s brother, who was two years older than him, had been luckier. Gavin was a name that did not attract teasing all through school.
    ‘You have to start to get out more, be around