The Night Shift

She loved it when he phoned her on his way to work. Those intimate chats left her wanting more… By Kate Foster

He always phones just after

10pm, on the way to his night shift at the warehouse. Honestly, you could set your clock by Tony Marshall. Heather settles into the sofa for the call. She takes a sip of her cinnamon tea. They’ve been doing this routine for six months now. The tea even tastes of his voice.

She makes herself cosy in her cashmere wrap but she can’t settle. There’s something she needs to ask him.

“Hi babes,” he says. “Today’s been hectic.” In the background she can hear the low growl of his BMW. She loves that he calls her babes, even though she’s well past 40. It makes her feel young again.

“It was amazing seeing you again yesterday,” she says, catching him before he launches into the story of his day. They need to talk about the thing she’d raised last night. Seeing each other more. Meeting each other’s kids.

“It’s always amazing seeing you,” he says. “We have such a nice time together.”

His indicator clack-clacks and his windscreen wipers fight the Scottish drizzle.

“It’ll be good to see each other more often,”

she says, trying to keep warm under the cashmere. “Instead of just Saturday nights. We could do Wednesdays when you’re not on night shift. I could come over, once you’ve been to the gym.”

“That’d be nice,” he says. “I’ll just need to make sure the girls are OK with that.” It’s what he’d said last night. That it would take time for them to accept Heather. That they were still loyal to their mum, even though she’d run off. That’s why Tony always came to her place. Every Saturday night. And left at midnight. He didn’t like leaving the girls. The night shifts were tough enough on them. It’s one of the reasons she’d fallen for him on that first coffee together. Online dating is so tricky when you’re divorced and older. Rogues and scoundrels at every swipe. He was a devoted single dad.

“That’s me at the supermarket already,” he says. He always stops for his snacks. He rustles out of his car to get a meal deal for his midnight munchies.

“Chicken mayo or Mexican bean wrap?” he asks.

“Chicken,” she smiles. He always asks. She always says chicken. He walks in a bouncy way, on tiptoes. She can hear it in the swift swish of his jacket. She first noticed it that day at Linlithgow Loch. That was their second date, when he’d got a

parking ticket because they’d kissed so long in the car park, he’d gone over his time limit.

He’d said it was the best £50 he’d spent in a long time.

She’d gone back to Linlithgow Loch alone last week, on her day off, because she knew the daffodils and the primroses would be in full bloom. She’d taken pictures of the boats. Remembered the kiss.

She can hear the cold bleeps of the supermarket tills as Tony stands at the self-service checkout. She wonders if he’s accepted her Facebook friend request yet. She wants to tag him in the picture of the boats.

As he talks about his day – the argument the girls had and his visit to his mum in hospital – Heather opens her Facebook app.

He still hasn’t accepted her friend request. That’s been a week now. She knows everything about Tony Marshall: where he goes to the gym, where he works and where he shops. The new housing estate he lives in…

But she’s not met his friends and family yet, and that’s why connecting on Facebook is so important to her. She’d told him that last night.

“Of course. There’s got to be trust,” he’d said. “I’ll add you.”

She checks his Facebook profile. He’s put up a new picture. He’s wearing the white T-shirt she bought him.

Tony’s back in the car now, the engine growling, his meal deal scattered onto the passenger seat.

It’s five to eleven and they are in the last minutes of their call. She hears that clack-clack of his indicators round the roundabout to the warehouse. The windscreen wipers scraping the rain away.

“I can’t be bothered with this shift tonight, babes,” he says. “Wish I was tucked up with you.”’

“Me too,” she murmurs, clicking on the Facebook photo, feeling guilty for looking when he’s right there on the phone to her.

It’s the tight, white hint of a hand on his arm that does it. She zooms in, as close as she can. It’s definitely the edge of a hand. Fingers brushing that bad tattoo of a dragon on his arm. The fingers are almost cropped out, but not quite. She can see the jab of red acrylic nail. So unlike the neat French manicure she

gets each month.

“I’m at the warehouse,” he says.

She can always hear the shift in his voice as he gets into work mode. Quieter. More formal. He always drops the babes. She hears him switching off the engine and gathering up his bags. The click of the car door opening. The heave as he gets out. Then something that she can’t quite place. Her heart is pounding as she swallows down the urge to ask him whose hand is on his arm in that photo.

“Night then,” he says. “Night you,” she says. She can hear the air around him as he finishes the call. It sounds like the rain has suddenly stopped. The air is still. Too still for a windswept warehouse car park.

There’s always a shift in the weather when he gets to work. Rain, wind, sleet always seem to stop when he parks up. More like a sheltered driveway than the big, open-air space outside the warehouse. She knows what that looks like. She’s passed it enough times, just off the motorway.

She puts down her phone. She finishes her tea. All that’s left of it are bitter cinnamon dregs. She takes off the cashmere wrap and gets off the sofa. She puts on her coat and gets in her car.

They’d kissed for so long in the car, he’d got a parking ticket

THE MAIDEN BY KATE FOSTER (MANTLE, £14.99) IS OUT NOW.