Two days passed...

And there was still no sign of Her.

The morning after that I was standing at the back door to the Members House smoking a cigarette and chatting to Alex. It was quarter to nine o'clock in the morning and the staff were filtering in in dribs and drabs. I finished my cigarette and flicked the butt into the garden where it was rapidly set upon by one of the seagulls that hung around waiting for scraps. As the seagull took to flight, dropping the smoldering cigarette it had in its beak, She appeared.

I walked towards Her and asked how She felt. She mumbled that She couldn't talk about it and walked past me into the canteen. She got a cup of tea and sat down at a table that was filled with other staff members who were killing time before their shifts started.

I watched out the corner of my eye as She sat chatting to Dawn and Louise. As She chatted Dawn put an arm across Her shoulder and Her head dropped onto the table as though She was trying to hide her face. Louise turned around and gave me a look that seemed to say I was guilty of something. The look in her eye was strange to me but I could tell it was meant to convey.

The clock in the canteen clicked onto the next minute and people began making their way to wherever they were supposed to be working that day. Louise and Dawn took Her by the arm and escorted Her towards the ladies changing room. I wandered into the kitchen, trying to make it look like I was getting a cup of coffee and tried to hear the conversation between Her, Lou and Dawn.

The muffled voices coming from behind the closed door of the changing room were too quiet for me to hear properly. The only thing I could make out with any certainty were those of Her crying and the occasional "The Bastard!" from Lou. I gave some consideration to knocking on the door and asking if everything was alright but decided I'd rather not face Lou when she was on the warpath. For all I knew I had upset Her and Lou had decided I was, in some way, responsible.

I decided I probably should get as far away as possible from Lou, just in case she lashed out and popped me one if I was within arms reach and went upstairs to my office to finish my cup of coffee. I sat in my office with the door shut so that I couldn't be disturbed by someone wanting supplies.

The only people who could get into the office without me opening it were the keyholding management so I knew it was safe enough for me to spend the next fifteen minutes trying to figure out why She was upset. I sat at my desk and thought about everything I had said or done that could have caused Her to have three days off of work and caused Her to cry in public.

Nothing came to my mind. I couldn't think of why She was so upset. My heart ached as the thought "You caused this" coursed through my mind. I'm not ashamed to say that I wept for Her right there in the cold, soulless office.

I'd still to take the milk and the internal mail to the main office so I cleaned myself up and made my way towards the main office. As I passed the members bar I noticed that Terry the barman had left the bar unguarded and unlocked so I slid into the bar and grabbed a couple of bottles of beer, a deck of cigarettes, a pack of rizla papers and slipped them into the pockets of my trousers.

I walked along the corridor to the main office and saw Lou standing in the office with a look on her face that could turn you to stone in a second. "Is there any mail to go to the office? I've got to take their milk down and may as well drop off the mail at the same time." I said. Lou shot me another look that could knock down a stampeding bull and threw the small bundle of internal mail at me.

"What's up with your pus?" I asked.
"Just fuck off Ross." She answered, with no detectable hint of humour. I took this to be a clear signal that I was Persona Non Grata in her eyes at the moment and decided retreat was the better form of valour.

I picked the mail up off of the counter and got the hell out of there before Lou let loose the dogs of war mouth that she occasionally let fly with. I'd seen her lose it at someone once before and never wanted to experience the visceral verbal volley that would issue forth from her.

As I started the van I slipped the bottles of beer from my trouser pockets and slid them into the door recess. I put the van into first gear and drove down the hill towards the main office. I parked the van at the side of the main offices and entrance hall of the Zoo and walked up the stairs. I popped my head into the office of the wages clerk and gave him the figures for the wages that had to be paid and passed a few minutes talking to him about the fortunes of Fiorentina and the slip ups of the Seattle Seahawks.

After I'd got beer in the van and had a bit of hash in my pocket I didn't hang around for very long and made my way back to the van. I drove to the top of the zoo hill where the Zoo maintenance department stored spare building materials and parked the van behind a stack of wood where it was hidden from sight.

I rolled myself a strong joint and popped open one of the beers with the bottle opener I had in the glove compartment for occasions such as this. I spent the next fifteen minutes sitting on the bonnet of the van and staring into space drinking beer and pulling deeply on my joint. I felt numb. I'd caused pain upon the person whose heartbeat drove mine. I'd brought pain to the perfect person. I'd hurt Her.

I knew I had to know what it was that I'd done and resolved to ask the one person I knew knew for sure. I had to ask Her. I got back into the van, threw the empty beer bottle out of the window into the weeds and drove down the hill towards kiosk 2.

As I approached kiosk 2 I could see Her small frame sitting inside. Even from a distance I could see She may have been sitting there in kiosk 2 but Her spirit was somewhere else. I was at least two hundred yards away but I could still see the pain in the pupils of her perfect eyes. My heart ached as I drove slowly towards the kiosk.

As I approached the turn to take me to the side of the kiosk the safari bus came up the hill towards me and I stopped to allow it to go along the road first as it couldn't pass if I parked the van in its way. The driver of the safari bus waved a thank you and I watched as it passed slowly by filled with Japanese tourists who were clicking away on expensive Nikon cameras taking pictures of everything that wasn't human or of interest.

I could see Her through the gaps of the tourists heads and noticed that She wasn't moving. She was staring right at me but I don't think she was looking at me. She was staring absentmindedly into space with a look of utter heartbreak on her beautiful face. It killed me to see this. I wanted to take away Her pain by doing whatever I could but I had to wait until the safari bus driver decided that the tourists had taken enough pictures of the pygmy hippo and moved on.

The next couple of minutes were abhorrent as I watched this angel agonise. The safari bus moved on and I pulled the van over and switched the engine off. I took a deep breath, popped a polo mint into my mouth to take away the smell of beer on my breath and got out of the van. I pushed open the door to the kiosk and looked in to see that She was still silently staring into space.

"Claire?" I said softly. She turned and looked at me. Then She broke out crying. "Oh fuck no, don't cry baby; Please, anything but that, I never want to see you cry, it breaks my heart." I said, as I put my arms around Her and pulled Her close. She sunk into my chest and I felt the racks of pain coursing through Her. She cried in my arms saying "It's all so fucked up" between surges of salty tears.

A visitor to the Zoo appeared at the hatch. I looked up at the guy standing at the hatch, held my hand and mouthed that It'd be at least five minutes until he got served. He decided that this was unacceptable and began to make his thoughts known on the situation. I cut him off by telling him that unless he wanted to be dragged through the hatch and beaten half to death with a stick of rock he had better get out of my sight. "This is disgraceful! I want to speak to your superior!" he said.

In a moment of rashness I picked up a carton of raspberry juice and hurled it at his head. "Fuck Off Cunt!" I yelled as the carton of juice crashed into the wall just above his head. He took this as a sign that I was way past giving a shit and promptly disappeared from sight. I gave small consideration to how much trouble I was going to be in when he reported me but I couldn't have cared less. She needed me and the rest of the world could go fuck itself.

I heard a small laugh come from Her. "Claire?" I said.
"You're going to get fired for that one. Funny though." She said, her sobs becoming less audible.
"Baby, what's wrong?" I asked, putting my finger under her chin and lifting her head so I could look into her eyes. The surrounds of Her eyes were covered in cried out mascara, her cheeks were red and her eyelids were all puffed up from crying. It pained me to see this so I let her hide her face in my chest and asked what was wrong. "It's all fucked up Ross." She said.

She was no longer crying but I could still hear the pain in her voice. "What's fucked up? Did I do something to hurt you?" I asked, running my hand over her hair like my mum used to do when I was a kid. This always soothed me and for some reason I knew She would also be soothed by it. As I ran my hand gently over her head and cooed to Her like She was the most precious thing I had ever known she gave small sighs of satisfaction and took deep, slow breaths. If she had began to purr like a cat I wouldn't have been surprised.

"It's nothing you did Ross, I don't think you could ever do anything to upset me. It's just that everything is so fucked up in my life, you're the only thing I feel a connection with in the world right now." She said. I knew right then and there that I hadn't done anything to cause her pain and asked what she meant. "I thought I knew what I wanted in my life, you know? But something has changed and it's knocked me off of centre. I feel like I'm losing myself." She said.

"Claire; Baby; Precious; Sweetheart; Love; Trust me, that's the one thing you can never lose. No matter how far you go, no matter where you are, no matter how much you think you've lost yourself, you're always right there." I told her. "Nothing in this world is controllable, we're all specks of dust being blown by the cosmic winds, all you need to do is to centre yourself." I continued. Perhaps the beers and the joint hadn't been such a good idea after all.

I put my finger under Her chin and lifted her head again so I could look directly into Her eyes. I stared deep into Her eyes and said "Take a deep breath and focus on nothing but my eyes."

She looked deep into my eyes and began a long slow deep breath in. She swelled in my arms from the intake of air and when She began to exhale She closed Her eyes and squeezed me tightly. I felt her loosen up in my arms and moved her across towards the seat at the hatch so she could sit down. I pulled the hatch closed so we could talk without distractions. I ran my hand across Her hair again and let it slide down onto her arm. When my hand brushed Her forearm she let out a small gasp of pain.

"Have you hurt yourself?" I asked.
"I caught my arm in a door. It's nothing. Honestly." She said, trying not to look at me.
"Can I see?" I asked.
"It's fine Ross, honestly, please just let it go." She said.

I squatted down until I was at eye level with her and stroked her cheek with my finger. "Please?" I pleaded. Her eyes dropped towards Her arm and She rolled up the sleeve of Her cardigan. A large bruise covered her forearm from the wrist to the elbow. "Holy fuck..." I said, shocked. "How the hell did you manage that?" I questioned.

She continued looking at the floor at Her feet and once again said she'd caught it in a door. "Were you trying to rob a bank and got your arm caught in the safe?" I said. The bruise was huge. "I was leaving the house to come to work but I'd forgotten my keys, I was reaching back into the hallway and my flatmate kicked the front door shut on it." She said.

"Shit." I said. She rolled the sleeve back down Her arm and said She had better get the kiosk opened as there was quite a lot of people walking around. I said I'd see Her at lunchtime and gave Her a small kiss on the cheek.

"I'll drive past whenever I can just to make sure you're OK. If you need anything just flag me down." I said, as I walked towards the door.
"Even if it's just because I need a kiss and a cuddle?" She said, with a small coy smile.
"Especially if it's because you need a kiss and a cuddle." I said. I gave her an overexaggerated comedy wink pulled the door closed.

I drove back to Members house and pulled the van into the parking space. Then I swung by my office to do the orders for the next day, checked there was anything that the kitchens wanted and popped by the office to see if Lou needed anything done.

Lou informed me in a terse voice that there was some more mail to go to the main office and that the banking needed to be dropped off. I took the mail from the counter and Lou went and got the previous days takings from the safe. As she handed the blue bag to me through the hatch and I took hold of it she pulled backwards on the bag filled with cash and cheques.

"Are you going to come with me?" I asked.
"You better sort things out with Claire." She said.
"I just did, she's fine." Lou replied.
"What?" Lou questioned.
"Everything is fine. I talked to her about it all and she's fine now." I said.
"So she told you about what her flatmate did?" Lou asked.
"Yes, it's all fine. Can I go now?" I said trying to get out of there before Lou attempted to pull me through the four inch gap between the glass and the oak counter.
"Fuck off then. But if anything like that happens again I expect you to take action." Lou said, letting go of her grip on the takings bag.

I made a hasty retreat and drove down to the main office, drove along Corstorphine Road, dropped the banking off and popped into the fishmongers I used to work in for a cup of coffee with my old workmates. This was always a good fifteen minute skive and I could usually score myself a bit of fish for my dinner later on.

The guys in the back shop of the fishmongers usually waited until I arrived to put the kettle on before they took their morning break so I walked into the howff, popped the kettle on and enquired about how everyone was. Fifteen minutes later I walked back to the van with a few fillets of haddock and some salmon bones for the chef to make stock with and drove back to the Zoo.

I spent the rest of the day giving the kiosk workers their breaks and checked on Claire whenever I could. She always smiled and waved when I passed and when I finished my shift I popped up to ask if She fancied going for a drink after work but She told me that She had some things to do and could we make it another day. "Sure. When do you fancy it?" I asked.

"How about I meet you Friday afternoon?" She said.
"Aren't you working?" I asked.
"No, I've got the day off. Saturday as well. Same as you. Maybe we can do something together?" She said, smiling that smile that made the universe dissapear into nothingness.
"Sure," I replied. "I'll meet you at the top of the Waverly Steps when the one o'clock gun goes off?" I continued, grinning like the cat that hasn't just got the cream but the milkfloat as well.
"Meet me at nine o'clock. We can spend the whole day together." She suggested.
"Even better." I said, giving her a small kiss. "See you Friday."
"See you Friday." She said.

I walked home that day floating on a cloud. Not only did this woman make my life worth living but I had begun the beautiful dream I had seen in my sleep.