She turns to stare at the pens lined up on the counter. Why hadn’t she seen things more clearly? She’s been wallowing in James-soaked self-pity and fretting about Eric the Viking’s age, and she missed the sign. A sign that now feels like it was written in large letters. In black ink.
Eric the Viking was a man who liked fountain pens. How could she have missedthatsign.
She should have just talked to him – properly – then maybe he might be here.
Instead, Eric the Optician is now leading Caramel Toffee Girl into a darkened room, where Jo imagines he will soon be gazing deep into her smiley eyes.
16
How to improve your handwriting
The afternoon has been dragging and Jo found it hard to concentrate – until the appearance of the police officer with the bad handwriting.
His dark head is now bent towards hers, concentration writ large on his face. ‘That looks like a series of waves. So they’re not actual letters you have to practise?’
Jo begins to write slowly across the page of the exercise book. ‘No, these are just shapes, like these circles here, or these lines.’ She points to the strokes she has made across the paper. ‘The idea is to teach yourself to form regular shapes. That way, when you come to write, you will be used to forming letters about the same size, and your writing will be more legible.’ She knows she’s not a campaigner, but maybe, little by little, she could encourage more people to write.
Jo continues. ‘The woman I’ve been watching on YouTube says no more than ten minutes’ practice a day.’ She shrugs at the police officer. ‘No idea why. But she wasn’t a woman I’d mess with.’
‘Bit like my wife,’ the young man discloses, grinning.
He doesn’t seem old enough to be married. She has to remind herself that this man actually has the power to arrest her.
Her thoughts flit to Eric the Viking. Then another memory rises to meet it: James and the joke he often told about being with an older woman. What started as a throwaway comment, delivered with a certain amount of pride, laughing about being her ‘toy boy’, was later aimed at her with more deliberation.
‘Lean back a bit, Jo – your face looks saggy when you sit like that.’
She was reaching out towards him over lunch, telling a story. Nice restaurant. Window table. She withdrew her hand as if scalded.
And sat back.
He muttered, ‘Don’t take it like that, Jo, I’m just saying. None of us are getting any younger.’
She didn’t say anything more, just pushed back into her seat as far as she could. The friends at the table with them, James’s friends, carried on as if nothing had happened.
At the time she told herself she was making too much of it. He had said ‘us’, not ‘you’.
In front of her, the police officer waits patiently, as Jo slowly turns the page of writing around so he can see better.
A change of perspective. That’s all it takes.
What if she wasn’t the one who was at fault? Somehow it had always felt as though she must be the one in the wrong, not quite fitting in. But James haddefinitely meant ‘you’ and she had felt awful. Itwasa horrible thing to say.
‘Okay, I think I could do that,’ the police officer comments. ‘What else?’
Jo tries hard to concentrate.
‘Find some letters in the alphabet that you like to write. It might be the first letter of your name. Now practise writing those with a bit more of a flourish. What you’re aiming for is regular writing with the odd fancy bit. Then you can read it, but it’s more stylish.’
‘And this really works?’
‘Yep.’ Jo’s confidence solidifies. ‘That and the things I was telling you about earlier.’ She hands a copy of her handwriting tips across the counter to him and pins another one to the noticeboard next to the ‘In case of emergency’ leaflet. Something of the afternoon spent with Malcolm and Reverend Ruth comes back to her. The feeling it brings is an unexpected gift.
She hands the police officer an exercise book. ‘Here, take this to practise in.’
He looks down at his unexpected gift. ‘Really?’ he asks, hesitatingly. He flicks through the pages of the book. ‘I feel I should buy something,’ he says, looking around.
‘If it works, come back and treat yourself to some stationery or maybe a fountain pen.’
