Free Opportunity by Charlotte Grimshaw Page A

when I was buying a cake for a big lunch party I was
having. I stared and stared. He looked up and I saw that he'd
noticed me. I was worried then, in case he realised I suspected
him. Imagine if he turned up outside my house!
    A week or so later, when I was with the boys in Foodtown,
I turned around and the same man was standing right behind
me. This is the sort of thing that happens to me: I go looking
for trouble and then find I've bitten off more than I can chew.
I got a fright, but I knew what I had to do. I glanced at him in
a completely neutral way. I went on talking to the boys and
dawdling through the aisles. I thought, if I show anything, it'll
confirm that I know, and he will follow me to the house. The
boys had no idea what was going on, and he stopped following
after a while, and went away. It was a test of my nerve. I realised
how careful you have to be, especially when you're the mother
of young children.
    I didn't see the man again, but I didn't stop thinking about
him. When I heard about the woman who'd gone missing and
turned up dead I thought him again. And now he's thrown
someone off a building in the city. The police haven't made
any progress, although they don't tell the public everything.
But I'm sure I'm the only one who's worked it out. It all comes
from being observant, and noticing what people are really
like.
    Max only ever paid attention to things that affected him. We
had a relative who started growing a tumour behind his eye.
Each time we saw him his eye had got more prominent, until
he looked like a monster. After one lunch I said to Max, 'I'm
glad John's getting his eye seen to at last.' Max looked completely
blank. He said what was I talking about. If you don't notice a
huge eyeball you're not going to pick up the subtleties.
    Max and I didn't talk much about anything, to tell the truth.
He was always too busy. I told my friends Karen and Trish
about my theories, but they laughed a lot and strayed off the
point. We ended up talking about the kids and complaining
about our schedules. Karen and Trish each had two children.
My two, Charles and Max junior, were nine and four. We'd
taken Charles out of his state primary school and sent him to
King's School. Max went to a private kindergarten.
    I had to do a lot of driving, what with all the children's
activities. There was golf, cricket, swimming, piano, extra
maths, violin, gymnastics. There seemed to be a competition
at King's about who was paying the biggest fortune to turn out
the most talented kid. It struck me as a bit rude the way the
mothers went on about money. They brought it into the
conversation all the time, either explicitly or by hints. They
complained about how much they'd spent, just so you'd know
how much. That's what the school was like.
    'Nothing but the best for my boy,' Max said. 'You get what
you pay for,' he said.
    I shared the driving with Karen and Trish, and I supposed
it was good the boys had so many activities. My childhood
was different. I remember my mother coming home from
work and asking, 'What've you been doing?' and we always
said, 'Playing under the house.' We spent hours down there in
the dirt and cobwebs. There were no adults around. We made
huts. We pretended. We ran wild.
    Sometimes, when we were driving to golf, I looked back at the
    boys. They had their faces pressed against the window. I wondered what they
    were thinking. I tried to talk to them but they just grunted and glowered.
    I tried to keep to the speed limit. In the back the trolleys and golf bags
    rattled with a cold, clinking sound.
    ***
    Charles was playing soccer and I was standing on the sideline,
warming my hands with a takeaway coffee.
    Karen said, 'And I picked up some cute ski suits from Baby
Gap?'
    There was a man coming across the field. He was in jeans
and a T-shirt, although it was cold and showery. He had strong
shoulders and a nice lean body. I'd seen him somewhere
before.
    'It had to be the five series. Then the Porsche