The Missing O

I took my typewriter with me most places. It was large, and clunky, a vintage piece I had scavenged for just ten British pounds off of the front garden of an old war veteran. He had known, straight away, that I was supposed to buy it. I don’t know how he knew, but he did, and so did I. The body was a deep, bronzed brown colour, that had become scratched and warn over the years, having spent the previous thirty years of it’s existence under a box of Christmas decorations in an attic. It was damaged, and had the letter ‘O’ missing, but it didn’t matter. Because it was mine.

That Sunday, ten pounds poorer than I had been that morning, I walked home with what was soon to become pretty much my entire life.

It was a cold winter, this year. Snow had fallen, and my Steel City had become a wonderland for the children of Sheffield. I watched a boy and a girl, neither of them could have been older than eleven, as they threw children sized snow balls at one another. They darted about, her long red hair trailing behind her, alight like a flame against the white. The boy was not as fair as the girl; he had dark, curly hair that flopped down over his ears, nearly brushing his shoulders. I was remind instantly of the Fox and the Hound. I began to type.

“What’re you writing, anyway?”

Ah. The distraction spoke again.

Ever since I had bought the Typewriter, I had spent every consecutive Sunday in a small café. Kenny’s, it was called. My weekly routine had started a year prior, and most of my sittings here were always the same. I’d order a normal coke - I had a strong belief that diet would do you serious harm later in life - and a lemon slice, and watch through the window until I absolutely could not stand the silence of the keys, and began tapping away at the letters, not even stopping to consider replacing the one missing letter. However, two weeks ago my routine had changed, and now into the third week, I was still annoyed that he had decided it was perfectly fine to share my table. My table.

“Nothing of any matter,” I muttered, sitting back in my creaky wooden chair.

He smiled, looking straight at me, almost straight through me. That’s what had annoyed me the most the first Sunday. The way he had walked into the café, ordered a black coffee with three sugars, and then, just like the vacant stool had been waiting there all year for him, dropped himself right opposite me. Bastard, I had thought straight away. Bloody bastard.

When he didn’t say anything after at least five minutes worth of no talking, and the constant clicking of the typewriter, I made myself turn to him. He was watching me already, I didn’t know how I’d managed not to feel his eyes right on me, heavy, pressed to my skin. The way his autumn hazel eyes looked at me, as if he already knew me, bugged me, and it bugged me a lot.

“Do you have a problem?” I had grunted, flipping some hair from my eyes.

He smirked, a lop sided grin, full of arrogance. “Is this seat taken?”

“…No.”

His laugh came as a breath through his nose. He leaned towards me, propping his chin on the palm of his hand. “Then no, Love. No problem at all.”

Bastard, I had thought. Bloody Bastard.

Now, into the third week of his intrusion, he proved that his cocky demeanour wasn’t just a part time thing he did on the odd weekend, but a lifestyle that he lived day in day out, almost like a religion. That first day he had insulted not only my grubby typewriter, but the gloves I had chose to wear that day; a mustard yellow and aubergine striped job that I had just bought from Monsoon the day before in the sale. He then went on to criticize how ‘anti-social’ I was coming across, and that I should be more aware of how I behaved around strangers, first appearances could make or break a relationship after all.

Today, he sat in my vacant seat, and he looked at me but through me, and he was annoying me, all over again. I sighed.

“You know, Morgan,” he began, folding his long, lanky arms on the table. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as quiet as you. It’s sort of weird, how quiet you are, but how much you type on that piece of junk. For someone that’s got so many words in their head, you don’t say a lot.”

I rolled my eyes, “Technically, we haven’t actually met. You just invited yourself to distract me.”

“Ah, she’s speaks,” he was smug. “Go on,” he said after a pause. “Tell me what you’re writing.”

I sighed again, knowing that this Sunday, yet again, wouldn’t be very productive.

“I already told you, nothing. And besides, why should I tell you anyway. I don’t even know you.”

He pretended to be hurt, his expression over acted. “Morgan, after all this time we’ve spent together!”

“Three hours a week, for three weeks isn’t a lot, you know.”

He was quiet for a while, before he shrugged. “It makes us more than strangers,” he said. “And we know each others names.”

“I know Elton John’s name, doesn’t mean I know him.”

He leaned towards me, the way he had the first day he had sat here, and I felt myself shrink back a little. This kid had a bold appearance, there was no doubt about it at all. The moment he had walked into the café, everyone’s eyes were on him, even mine. It was hard not to stare. He was tall, taller than me, I could tell even from being sat down. And thin too, with gangly legs that were always covered with dark, tight jeans. But it wasn’t even his ridiculous lanky body that caught your attention at first, not even his long, straight brown hair that flipped around and framed his face. It was the tattoos. They started on his fingers, crawling up his arms and reaching up, up, up until they crept out of the colour of his shirt, on to his neck. I tried not to look at them, in case he caught me.

“You’re a funny kid,” he sipped his coffee, and after that it was quiet again.

This was a pattern I had learnt now, already. He would talk, mostly, and I would grumble back, any short reply to keep him satisfied but to give the hint that he should leave. And then, when the conversation had sputtered to an awkward end, he would simply sit back, drink his coffee and watch me and the typewriter. It was those times, though they may be fleeting, that I got any amount of work done.

His name was Jonathon, but nobody called him that. Not ever. So it was Kid. Just Kid. That’s how he introduced himself, sweeping off the purple bowler hat he wore, and with a gracious bow of his head, his fox red hair fell in his face, covering his amber eyes for just a flash, before he’d stood straight once more, arms behind his back, chin up, and a mischievous smirk set in stone.

“Kid,” he’d say in his chipper tone. “The name is Kid.”

When Marlow had met him for the first time, this was how he had presented himself, and honestly, she was taken aback. She wasn’t used to this sort of formality, an all manners, all gentlemanly greeting. So all she could do was scratch the back of her neck and mumble her own introduction.

“I’m Marlow,” she barely whispered, “Marlow Hound.”

She was a young girl, though not naive. Her mother had taught not to talk to strangers, to not walk out alone at night and to never take a ride off of someone she didn’t know. But non of this helped when it came to purple bowler hat, waistcoat wearing young men. She simply did not know what to do.

“How do you do, Marlow,” he bows his head again, but not enough so that his hat would topple. “I’m afraid that my meeting you is not such a coincidence.”

Marlow did not understand him. She cocked her head to the side, her long, floppy hair falling over her ears. Her eyes were large and brown, and she had a small, pointy nose.

“I’m afraid,” he said, pressing his weight against the garden fence, squashing a few flowers on the creeper plant, “That I need to take you away.”

‘Don’t take rides from people you don’t know’ she repeated in her head. However, this did not quite apply. He wasn’t offering to take her anywhere, he was telling her that he was taking her someone. Still the poor girl did not know what act she should make at this point. Run, maybe. Kick him, and run.

“Where to?” she asked, pulling on the hem of her green dress. It was just the weather for it, sunny skies, the middle of spring.

“That, I cannot tell you. Not yet, anyway.”

“How do I know that you’re not a murderer?” she questioned, now folding her arms. Marlow cocked her brow at the boy.

Kid smirked, his pointed teeth revealing themselves as he chuckled.

“I want you to trust me, Marlow,” he said. It was not a question. “I want you to take my hand, right now.”

He held out a gloved hand, his fingers waggling slightly, coaxing her. She stared at it, her hearting beating much too loud in her head, so loud that maybe, just maybe, Kid might be able to hear it thudding too. Her mouth was dry, and her palms became increasingly clammy. With one last look back at her house - she knew her mother would not be able to see her when she was so far down the garden - she extended her fingers.

“You don’t know it now,” Kid grinned, “but by taking my hand you may have well just saved the world.”

“It’s gone two, y’know?” The distraction was really starting to grate on me, I ground my teeth and counted back from ten: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...before I looked up to him.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, tearing my page from the typewriter and closing it in my ring binder.

“It’s twenty past two,” he noted, nodding at the clock that hung behind the counter. “You usually leave at two.”

“So do you.”

He smiled, his lips slowly slipping over his teeth and exposing them, white and round. Today he was wearing a grey beanie, resting on the back of his head, just his fringe and the long sides of his hair poking out around his face. He’d taken his coat off, resting it on the back of my vacant seat, and had rolled up the sleeves of his blue jumper, his tattooed arms catching the occasional stare and whisper of other customers.

“I was waiting for you to go first,” his seat creaked as he moved.

“Maybe I was waiting for you to go?” We both began pulling on our coats, and I wrapped my scarf around my neck, watching him out of the corner of my eye. He was stood, waiting for me, every so often glancing at the typewriter.

Now that I was stood, I compared just how much taller he was than me. I had always been tall, the tallest in all my classes back at school, even taller than most of the guys. It bothered me, sometimes, especially when my friends would say things like, “Oh, Morgan, you could be a model with those legs!” or, “I wish I was as tall as you, Morgan, I’d never have to tip-toe to kiss guys.”

No, I always thought, but at least you don’t have to lean down.

Whenever something had happened at school, like if someone had called me names, my mother, Shirley, would sit on the edge of my bed with me, rub my back and say, “Morgan, you’ll never have to ask a man to get the jam jar from the top shelf.”

At first, I thought it was a joke to cheer me up, but I soon realized that ever since my father left, before I was even born, my mother despised the very thought of relying on any man. Now, whenever she went on one of her, “All men are chauvinistic bastards that’ll tell you anything to get into your bed” rants, I’d roll my eyes and take it on the chin.

I looked at him, and wondered what my mother would think, if I brought someone like him home to meet her. She’d probably hit the roof and shoot right through.

“How tall are you?” I asked, heaving the typewriter over my shoulder and settling the strap on my arm. It was damned heavy.

He gave me a questioning look, but answered, “ Six two. Why?”

“I dunno. You’re taller than me,” I shrugged, walking from the café, and out the door. It was bitingly cold out, pinching my exposed skin straight away.

He laughed, “I’m taller than most people.”

“So am I.”

I listened to the crunching of snow under my boots, and the same under his shoes. I didn’t like how he followed me, it was like some middle man had given him permission to stalk me, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I’d already tried telling him to fuck off.

He stopped when we passed his car: a small black VW with rusted wheel arches and a wonky front licence plate. I didn’t falter, just walked passed him.

“Do you want a ride?” he asked for the third time in three weeks.

For the third time, I said, “No, thanks.”

I breathed out a cold breath, keeping one gloved hand on the strap of the typewriter, the other pushed down into my coat pocket with my ring binder tucked under my arm. I sped up, trying to get away.

“I’ll see you next week!” he called. I heard the smirk in his voice, I didn’t need to turn around to confirm it.

With a turn in the pit of my stomach, and pounding in my head, I closed my eyes for a second, and called back, “Bye Oliver.”