Bitterhall, Helen McClory [red queen free ebook TXT] 📗

in the postal nook at the hallway. One waved hand, kindly enough to bid me leave his presence.

Badr, the final and most normal flatmate: friendliest man ever, made good dishes that filled the kitchen with rolling saffron waves of scent. Insisted on mostly eating these meals on the sofa – blackbeetle-coloured, pvc – and playing videos of this singing contest show from Russia he was obsessed with. Cat-singing, huge roof of mouth singing, that was what he liked to accompany eating. Badr was careful and obnoxiously, to my tastes, clean, liked spritzes of bleach after every use of the sink or shower. I had yet to learn much about him beyond these facts in the nine months we had been living together.

I had heard from a colleague in archives that Dr Minto was more than a widower, cast out from the university under a cloud – of rumour, but more, of toothy suspicion – but I, not wishing to know, had waved my hand, kindly enough, and got on with the prep for the intricate digital transfer process for which I had been employed. Half a year ago? More.

The Annunciation

Badr wasn’t home quite, no bleach or high cheer, so I made myself tomato soup from a can with a twist – the twist being lemon rind, grated a little, and a splash of vodka, and yes I hated myself even for the idea of this being a twist or any kind of innovation, but it really was quite tasty. I checked my emails as I sat listening to the microwave. Nothing important. The door rattled, and Badr was now coming through.

‘Are you there, Danny boy?’

‘Yes, Badr,’ I said, smiling. Badr came in the room like a jolly sun in a cartoon with his shopping and rolled about putting things correctly away. I took the soup out of the microwave and sat back down, braced for a moment. I felt like screaming oh for fucks sake in the middle of the room, which was a kind of posturing idea, since I could quite well manage screaming anguished obscenities from my seat while I ate the soup. And I’d have to live with Badr after that.

‘I have a good lead on a housemate,’ said Badr, ‘potentially.’

‘Oh, that’s good, someone from work?’

‘Someone from my gym actually.’

I ate half my soup, washed out the bowl and poured a glass of water.

‘He’s coming to look at the place,’ said Badr, folding his bag-for-life under the sink.

‘Oh?’

‘In half an hour. Can you help me clean?’

‘Oh.’

Himself

Badr got it. In came the stranger filling the whole space. Dark blond, slightly out of breath. Black coat like something professional, black jeans, tight, muscle tee under, the wrong thing for the weather and for the other gear, these being some clothes cobbled together in a rush. Black Converse. Younger than me by a good few years I thought, though this based only on his look of unlined confidence. Touch of a tan on his face. Freckles. Unruined, possibly vain. Bigger than both Badr and I. His balance, the way he stood and moved through the spaces suggested the grace of a larger animal, predatorial, a creature that could leap and pounce, but could let you know, in subtle ways that it would not. Fuck me, I thought.

The Tour

I got myself up and smiled and shook the offered hand – handshake just as expected. Badr took the lead and guided him around the communal spaces, the living room first, the kitchen, the halls, then his room – if he wanted it, on the ground floor, view of the garden.

‘The garden is communal too, and you’ll have a key to the shed.’

The stranger stood in the centre of the room and stretched out his arms as if to try and touch both walls, though they were many more metres apart than he could touch, it was some kind of gym move, I guessed, an exercise he might like to do in his new space. When he wasn’t wearing a coat, presumably. ‘Yeah, looks great. Listen – are pets okay? If I’m interested.’

‘Pets are okay,’ said Badr, ‘like, one pet.’ Minto wouldn’t notice an animal if it pissed on his lap. Maybe then.

‘Okay cool, cool. I have a cat.’

‘I like cats,’ I said, ‘always adds something to a house.’

I wanted, after my cringe, for him to look at me like a predator would, turn those eyes on me, scoff, scorn.

‘Yes absolutely,’ was all he said, with a slightly odd smile – he turned his face from me quickly and took a breath, and my thought was that he hates me, it can’t be that he’s shy – ‘Well. Looks good. Listen – any chance I could move in tomorrow?’ He was saying, ‘I know, short notice, but my old lease is up, I have the day off, and like I was saying, Badr, I can’t stay another month . . .’

He looked around proprietorial but also preparing to leave, to be gone. If he moves in he won’t stay, I thought. Also: he looks like a celebrity, not one I know, but one who hasn’t become famous yet, but is marked to, a celebrity in waiting.

‘Oh yeah, of course,’ said Badr, ‘we need the room filled. Sooner works for us.’

‘Cool, thank you. Good meeting you both.’

And then the door was slammed shut, the walls reverbing, and Badr and I were looking out the lease to copy and show Minto, well, leave for him in the cubby.

‘Seems all right, eh?’ said Badr.

‘Yes,’ I said, too firmly. But Badr, if he knew, never spoke with me about my desires, what general part of the population I fancied, nor anything of himself on that matter. I went up to my room to worry about other people, other scenarios.

The next day Tom moved in with Mrs Boobs, and unofficially, his girlfriend.

Herself

Órla was just about the strangest person I had met apart from myself. She came the night of the housewarming, she was late, and the men