I read somewhere once, or maybe my poor old Tom told me, that shy people use body language which can easily be mistaken as aggressive.  So, being an open-minded woman, I try not to judge quiet people too quickly.  But this new bloke at Number 84 takes quiet to a whole new level.

He moved into the house at the end of our little street a month ago.  I suppose I have seen him twice a day since then.  Good mornings are about as far as we’ve got so far.  He wears thick lenses with round frames, which make his eyes look big, and therefore emphasise their reluctance to meet my gaze.  

He sets off on foot every morning about 8am, I suppose to the railway station, not exactly in a hurry, but walking briskly past me with his briefcase, as if saying: look, I don’t have time for you –   things to do, people to see. You know the type.

Since I am not the most talkative of people myself, I have let this pass  till now, but to be honest I am starting to find it a bit rude.  Why do I care?  Well, that is a good question.  I suppose it would be nice to be acknowledged at least.  This morning he was wearing corduroy trousers and a matching jacket all in a rusty orange colour.  That jars, is what it does.  I mean, to me the clothes say: look at me!  I want to be noticed. But everything else about him says the exact opposite.

He’s got lovely hands though.  I noticed that yesterday.  Manicured I should think.  He obviously works in an office, and not outside somewhere.  Long fingers, like a piano player.  Maybe he is here rehearsing for a concert somewhere.  Yes, that’s it.  And he has to rush off every day to try out new ideas with the orchestra. I should just stop him and ask him outright, no beating about the bush.  What is it?  Piano?  Guitar?  Trombone?  No he hasn’t got the lips for a trombone, they are too thin.  It would be nice to know though.

Maybe I should be asking myself what has happened to make him behave like this.  Perhaps I should leave him alone – if that’s really what he wants.

It’s a big old house, that one at the end,  and I wonder what he is doing there all on his own.  I haven’t seen anyone else going in or out since he moved in.  I think I would be lonely if I moved to a new town and didn’t know anyone in the road I lived in.  Having said that I am not sure I would want people invading my space and pressuring me to chat.  I would probably find that uncomfortable.  

So I am thinking that I should try and let him know that I get it.  And if he doesn’t want to meet his neighbours, that’s fine by me.

He must be in his late 40s I reckon, with fair, ginger hair thinning on top, unkempt.  Not married it seems.  Not that that matters nowadays.  I looked in his front window, no curtains there yet, as I walked past yesterday. There are still packing cases, unopened on the carpet.  Piled high they are.  I wonder where he lived before.

I should mind my own business, but it’s very hard not to notice things when you are as observant as I am.  Not much gets past Annie, they all used to say,  oh no, especially after old Tom went.   

I always think: you never know what’s going to happen, do you?  We could wake up one morning and there could be a police car outside his house and he could be found dead at the bottom of his staircase.  And the police would be round asking everyone what they noticed, wouldn’t they?  And I would feel stupid if I hadn’t made a few mental notes about him during his short stay on our road, wouldn’t I?

I mean, he could be recently divorced. Forced out of his own house and into a strange place while his wife takes the kids and starts a new life.  And he’s left on his own, struggling , but too shy to ask for help.

Perhaps he’s foreign, that’s it.  He’s come here to work for a bit, for a multinational.  He’s probably been to many other countries during his career, and he’s a bit of a workaholic so he’s had no time for getting married or having children.  The work might be vital to national security, and that’s why he can’t talk to anyone about who he is or what he does.  He doesn’t look foreign, but these days it’s difficult to tell.

Or what if it turned out that he was running away from an international crime syndicate, lying low.  The last thing he would want is for people to be poking their nose into his life.  He’d just want to steer clear of strangers, not talk to people, rush past and pretend that everything was alright.  When obviously it isn’t, is it?

That’s me catastrophizing, as my poor old Tom would call it.  Things never turn out as badly as you think they are going to, he used to say.  Except in Tom’s case, they did.  

It’s at times like this that I miss him most.