Free Sottopassaggio by Nick Alexander

slide the key into the door, the 80’s song pops into my head, retrieved automatically from some distance database. I evenremember the name of the singer.
Bill Withers
.
    I start to sing,
Lovely day
.
    It takes less than half an hour of sitting outside
Red Roaster
for me to appreciate the limits of my so-called plan; the sun has moved to the right, leaving my table in the shade, and I have read
The Guardian
from cover to cover.
    â€œ
This is a crap idea
,” I admit, rolling the newspaper and standing.
    I don’t know what the chances of bumping into Tom here are, but they’re not high enough. I mentally kick myself for not getting his number.
    The wind has dropped, the sun is gorgeously hot, and it seems the whole of Brighton is rushing to the seafront.
    I do my lap around the pier, refraining for once from buying a doughnut. Owen has no scales, but I’m pretty sure I’m putting on weight, and suddenly it’s a concern again – Tom looks pretty fit.
    Between the two piers, I pass a group of bikers unzipping their one-piece suits to let out the steam.
    A brief pang of desire for my motorbike sweeps over me, and with it a warm feeling for my life in France. I wonder if I could ride it yet, if I’m ready for roads, traffic, tunnels, …
    I haven’t driven anywhere since the accident.
    I buy a fish and chip take-away and head down to the water’s edge. Seagulls swoop and dive and scream at me, able to spot fish and chips at 50 yards.
    The sea has darkened into an even more sumptuous green and the sky is almost the same cloudless azure of home; another new thought. Icatch myself and roll the word around in my mind,
home
.
    I throw a chip to a seagull and realise almost before it has left my hand that this is a mistake. Hundreds of birds – mainly seagulls, but pigeons and cormorants too – appear swooping and screaming and jostling for position.
    The number of birds is getting threatening. And embarrassing.
    I glance around me and see a few people staring at the spectacle of the stupid man with the fish and chips; the man about to be pecked to death, or carried away, or simply pooped upon by a hundred seagulls.
    I think of the Hitchcock film, and the roller coaster at the end of the pier obliges with a soundtrack, distant screams drifting across the water.
    The gulls seem to be the most aggressive. The biggest one is standing only feet from me shrieking and I think about moving along the beach, and wonder if the birds will just follow me if I do. That could look
really
stupid.
    I decide to throw a stone instead, but just as I reach for a stone, just as I palm it and raise my right hand, a wet, white Labrador bounds into view scattering the birds in a tizzy of terrified squawks.
    I lower the stone and turn to look at the owner calling his dog from the top of the beach.
    â€œCome here!” he is shouting, red-faced. “Will you
fucking
come
fucking
here? Stupid bloody dog!”
    I decide to reassure him. I decide to say, “Hey, your dog saved me from
The Birds
!” but the dog roars up the beach and runs past him, and as he leaps and reaches and tries to grab the dog’s collar, he slips on the pebbles and falls.
    He laughs and looks up at me and opens his mouth to speak, but then pauses. Recognition spreads across his face.
    â€œWell what do you know,” he says.

And Lost Again
    The dog continues to chase the gulls ever more excitedly.
    Tom and I lie side by side and look at the sea.
    â€œI don’t know if he’s like this all the time or just with me,” he says.
    â€œOh, not your dog then?” I ask.
    Tom shakes his head. “Nah, I’m walking it for a friend. She’s ill … In bed.”
    â€œOh right, good,” I say. “I mean good it’s not your dog, not about your friend! I’m not really that keen on dogs.”
    As I say it I realise I have given something away. Why should I care what pets Tom