There were 7 tests. If the 8.20 to Victoria was on time. If there were no empty seats. If I saw the weird couple. If I could get across the station concourse without them making any change-of-platform announcements. If the beggar was in that doorway just round the corner from the post office. If a pigeon walked across the pavement in front of me without me dodging to get it there. And if I arrived at work before nine. Check check check check check check check! He loves me.

Each day I make it more difficult and each day it's proved – apart from Tuesday which was crap in every other way as well, what can you expect, it would be unbelievable if it did always work, there has to be an exception to prove the rule. Like spelling. He brought the report back in to me at 3.07.

- Well done Janine, you've done a good job. He smiled. - Apart from the usual problem. Have you turned that spell-checker off, or simply converted it to your own personal language?
- It's on, I said. I was trying to stop giggling. - There wasn’t a single underlining. Honest.

He laughed that deep brown glow in his eyes it warms you through to your guts.

- Creative spelling. I love it! OK, I've underlined in pencil here. Can you get it in tonight's post?

He was starting to go. Like the sun disappearing behind a huge dark cloud taking all his lovely warmth away.

- Dr Anderson
- Yes?
- I – d'you want to see the corrected copy?
- No Janine, I trust you.

Of course he does. He trusts me. He closed the door gently and you could hear my heart banging like a drum, sometimes it's dangerous, I'm afraid the others will notice – the bitching the gossip, they'd have a field day. You only have to listen to the way they talk about Maggie. Lisa was on the phone though and Laura was taking her printer to bits, the paper feed was jammed again. They don’t notice. Because they can't imagine. They can't imagine he'd like someone like me. They think they're so great with their wonderbras and lipgloss and step-ladder shoes, they don’t even ask me what I did on Saturday night.

Well fuck them. They know nothing.

Once he sent me a note. Jan - articles from BMJ on post-abortion depression, May 95–97, by 10.30 if pos? You're wonderful.

I keep it folded up in my pocket. I can feel it through my jeans, secret against my thigh. You'll be wondering how it started. I'll tell you. It's good to tell someone at last, it's been like this secret balloon inside me, this lovely growing swelling thing that makes me so huge and light I sometimes think I'll burst – burst with happiness or just take off and float into the sky. The secret wants to burst out of me, I want everyone to know. It was instant. First sight, on my second Monday there. He came into the office.

- What's this? Can't a man turn his back for an instant without everything changing? He smiled at me. He's got grey hair but he smiled right into my eyes and I had that feeling you get in a high-speed lift when it suddenly plummets 20 floors and you think Omygod.

This is Janine, said Laura. She kicked Lisa under her desk then she said, She's filling in for Maggie.
Welcome Janine filler-in-for-Maggie, he said. You let me know if they're not looking after you.

My hands were sweating, I couldn’t hit a single key right. I had to get out a pen and fiddle about pretending to make a note of something. He went over to Lisa's desk asking about some letters, his voice is deep and soft and furry my ears can pick it out anywhere it's right close up to them, in a crowd I can sometimes hear it too, low and close murmuring beside me as if it'll keep me safe from everything. When he'd finished at Lisa's desk he came back past me and he slowed down he couldn’t walk past me he couldn't help himself he had to stop.

You girls get younger every week. How old are you Janine – or is that an offensive question?
No. I was afraid I would giggle. It's horrible. It comes out sometimes and then they laugh at me they used to laugh at school. - 18.
As old as that!
I was giggling. I couldn’t help it. He would hate me and think I was an idiot. He started to laugh.
She's a giggler! he said to Laura and Lisa. Wonderful! A dose of that all round every morning and you'd halve the NHS waiting lists!

He went then and I was giggling so hard I was gasping for breath, I could feel my face like a beetroot. But the other two didn’t notice, they were whispering together, Maggie this and Maggie that, he can't wait till she gets back. He's been to see her twice in hospital. I wasn’t interested in Maggie. I knew he liked me. You can tell. You know it but you don’t believe it. You have to keep checking, you don’t dare to let yourself think it might be true. That someone like him could fall for me. But everything that's happened – every single thing – reinforces it.

The library. I go to the library for my lunch. Often I think I won't, I think I'll go to a wine bar where there are foreigners or business men doing deals but in the end I go to the library. The others send out for sandwiches but I don’t like sitting listening to them, I like to go somewhere where I can watch people without them feeling sorry for me and trying to drag me into the conversation. In the library you go through the revolving door and past that expensive card shop then down the stairs to the café. I like the posters down the stairs, all the plays they have on there, one day I'm going to go to that theatre. One night, I should say. I bet it's different at night full of glamorous people holding drinks from the bar, chattering away, reading their programmes. Maybe I'll go with him!

At lunchtime you can sit by a pillar or the wall, usually you can get a table to yourself and there are invisible people there, old codgers with lots of coats and a cup of tea, sometimes studenty types I suppose they use the library, or ordinary people, fat with a shopping bag. There's a man with glasses who always reads a book, everyone ignores each other and you just queue and pay for your sandwich, none of that embarrassing waiter business. You can buy theatre tickets there – I've seen where they do it. Also the toilets are good, very big with gigantic mirrors, there are four cubicles and when you come out it's like you're a film star reflecting back and forth and back and forth in the mirrors in front and behind.

He came into the library café. July 2nd. July, the 7th month. I still don’t know ... did he follow me? I can't believe he did but how else did he end up there when I was there, what are the chances of him going where I was going at lunchtime with the whole of Manchester and all the important people he has to meet for lunch and the girls asking if he wants a sandwich when they pop out - how did he end up there with me?

I was in the right hand corner by the pillar near the stairs and he came down the opposite stairs. We saw each other straight away. Instant. He smiled then there was a little frown, I was afraid he wasn’t pleased to see me. But he didn’t have to look at me, it's easy enough for people to pretend they haven't seen you isn't it? They do it all the time. Or he could have just smiled and waved from a distance. But no, he came straight to my table like he was drawn there by a magnet.

All on your own Janine? Not having lunch with the other girls?
I shook my head. I was afraid I might giggle.
Is everything alright? You all getting on OK in the office?
He was so kind he is so kind. He's the kindest person I ever met.
Fine thank you. I just - I didn’t want him to think I was stupid but I couldn’t think what else to say. – I like it here.
It's a marvellous building isn't it? A jewel in the heart of the city!
He understands everything I think.
I'm waiting for a book from the depths. May I join you?

He went to the counter and when he was there he turned back to me and made sign language pointing to the teacups then back to me. I mouthed back coffee and he smiled and I felt as if I was melting into a puddle. I was melting into a puddle it was awful my nose started to run and I had to swallow my mouth was full of saliva I was all warm and watery inside I was afraid I might have wet myself. I didn’t dare to look at him until he was sitting down, he ate his sandwich in 7 bites. 7 is my lucky number.

D'you use this library? he said. I shook my head and he leaned forwards. Have you ever been upstairs?
Upstairs. I can't believe he asked me that.
No. The giggles were rising in my throat nearly choking me.
Well if you've finished come with me and have a look. You might want to use it one day.

He stood up and drank his coffee in three gulps. It was coffee. The same as mine – not tea. We went up the marble steps together there are 26 to the ground floor, I stepped on each one at the same time as him. We moved at the same speed.

Wonderful institution, public libraries, he said. But we must use them. Use them or lose them, eh Janine!

He says my name so beautifully. I was giggling and he laughed too, he joins in my giggle. I thought I would never tell anyone because people would probably sneer, my mother would say something terrible and crude like he's a dirty old man or something because he's about 20 years older than me but she doesn’t understand anything. Now I have to tell someone but you won't laugh because you can see he's not dirty he's kind, he's kind to a person like me when he doesn’t have to be, he notices me he talks to me he looks at me he loves me.

We turned round the corner and went up the next lot of steps. 35 (definitely lucky – the sum of my birth day and month, the 27th of the 8th). There's a desk where you get books stamped then he turned in through an archway into the centre of the building and I followed him in between two tall bookcases in to the middle where it opens up. He looked at me. He was looking at me to see if I liked it. It opens up under a vast round white dome smooth as an egg, with a glass circle at the top. Around the edges, gilt lettering; SHE SHALL BRING THEE TO HONOUR WHEN THOU DOST EMBRACE HER. SHE SHALL GIVE TO THINE HEAD AN ORNAMENT OF GRACE. Me. Me and him. It must be. He knows it. Brilliant sunlight pouring through the glass dome.

- It's beautiful I said and he patted my shoulder his fingers touched my blouse. I can feel the shape of them still on my skin I could draw round it with a biro today if you wanted me to show you. It was only for an instant and he went ahead of me towards the round counter in the middle of the room he moved away pretending it was nothing. He had to, in a public place like that we had to be careful.

My legs were trembling I sat down at the end of a long table, there was a young black woman writing away at the other end with a pile of books around her. I can come here. This magic place he wanted me to know about. All the round walls are lined with books and mustard marble pillars and tall bookcases come inwards like rays of the sun and there are big metal cabinets with newspapers and maps in, and quiet voices and pages turning. Our special place.

He picked up a book from the counter then he went round to a photocopier, I watched him fish in his pocket for change. I wanted to run over and do it for him, I could have done that. He copied 2 pages then he took the old book back to the counter. He handed it to a librarian and she smiled at him – I couldn’t see his face, his back was to me but I saw the way she smiled at him and I thought Hah! You don’t know. Forget your smiling like that you slut, it's me he loves.

He came back with his papers he was looking at his watch I counted his steps, 17 from the counter. 17.

Shall we be getting back? It's nearly 1.30.

We didn’t talk on the way back, we didn’t need to, we each knew what the other was thinking. He stepped in front of me and held the lobby door open for me and the security man saw us come in together smiling and happy a couple.

He's married. You guessed that. I know everything about him. The others talk; he's got 2 kids at university. His wife's a doctor, his name is Paul. They talk about him and Maggie but they know nothing. Paul. In my dreams every night he's smiling – he's reaching out to touch my shoulder – he's leaning towards me and his voice is stroking, tickling, inside my ear.

Sometimes I don’t see him for days. But I know he's here. Inside the building, talking, smiling, thinking of me. We can feel it – each other's force field. I know when he's in the building and when he's out, I don’t have to see him to know that. Lisa had a phone call for him and I said He's not in - and she rang through to his office because she didn’t believe me. But I was right.

They had a kind of party. It was to launch something – a booklet, Maternity Care into the 21st century. We were invited to stay for a drink after work. Lisa dared Laura to ask Paul if Maggie was invited and they laughed like a pair of hyenas but I ignored them. I didn’t know what to wear. They dress up like secretaries, he knew I wasn’t like them. He knew I was different. I was afraid his wife would be there and that I might let something slip. If I met her I might start to giggle – I wouldn’t be able to help myself – she would stare at me and she would begin to realise – she'd quickly understand that this is why Paul has been so strange lately, so dreamy and absent-minded, smiling to himself and humming a little song. Because of me.

I worried about it all night, the fear of it kept me awake. I didn’t want to make things difficult for him. That was the last thing I wanted. And I had nothing I could wear. In the end I decided not to go, when the others finished at 5 and locked the office I put on my jacket and went down the stairs. They got in the lift, they didn’t bother to say goodbye.

As I was going across the lobby he came bursting in from the street carrying a huge bouquet.

Hello, he said. Coming up for a drink?
I have to go home.
Oh that's a shame. He wanted me there. He knew how much I wanted to be there. –
Well have a carnation. I'm sure the chairlady of the AHA won't miss one!

He pulled out a long-stemmed bright red carnation. As red as blood as red as my heart thumping Paul Paul Paul. It's a promise. He knows why I'm going home. He knows we will be together one day – soon. I keep the carnation pressed inside Rebecca.

Maggie was coming back to work the week after that so my job ended but on my last day I saw 2 magpies when I was walking to the station – 2 for joy! And they gave me a card signed by everyone in the office and he'd put Thanks for all your hard work. Good luck, giggler! Paul X With a kiss. He had to be careful because everyone would see the card, but even so, he put a kiss.

I'm working in the accounts department now at Debenhams. It's 7 minutes to the library, I go there every lunchtime. I don’t like it so much since they redecorated, the café is navy blue and yellow, a depressing combination. There are even blue lights, they seem to shed darkness. It's been a long time since I saw him, I think that's why I'm bursting to talk about it. Sometimes I go upstairs to the big white domed room and sit at a table and look at a book. That’s where we'll meet again. He knows I'm here. I can sense it. Soon it will be July, our anniversary.