To Indigo, Tanith Lee [best ereader for comics .TXT] 📗

“What did you do with the others?”

“Oxfam.”

“Very wise,” he said. He stretched his legs out, and regarded the revolving washing in the chugging machine. He said, without much expression, “They knocked me about a bit. Nothing terminal. The hospital assured me I’ll be fit enough in a month. Till then, I must just be careful. Lucky that. I came to in the hospital car park, about 1 a.m. No one in A and E. Can you believe it? It’s normally packed out. Someone did ask how this had happened. I said, Personal matter. Girl I shouldn’t have fucked. Did I want the police? I said no, I’d probably deserved all I got. And how have you been?”

“Here,” I said.

“How’s the book? I mean Kill Me Tomorrow.”

“Going quite well.”

“Glad to hear that.”

I too had sat down. We drank the tea. The chocolate biscuits were on the table. I pushed them over.

“Thanks.” he said. He took out two and ate them, also as if being careful, now, of his jaw.

I didn’t ask him why he had returned. He didn’t tell me. We both knew, at least both of us, I assume, thought we knew.

The machine finished its cycle. I got up and put on the drying programme.

“Funny that,” he said, “the comforting noise of a domestic washing machine. Never like that in a launderette.”

“So you use launderettes,” I said. I was thinking of the flat in the roof and the washing machine that couldn’t be there unless there were another way in and out.

“Oh, now and then. You meet some weird people in launderettes, Roy.” It was the first time now he’d used my name.

“I expect you do. I expect,” I added, “they do, as well.”

“Me, you mean? Yeah.”

He smiled. I did.

“I was going to order pizza,” I said. “You’ve got me into bad habits – junk food, takeaways.”

“I did, didn’t I. Yes. Pizza would be extra comforting. Only tonight I can’t pay. Sorry.”

“Oh, that’s all right. You bought so much last time. Just one thing though, Sej. Now I answer the door. You can stand on the top stair if you like, and keep watch.”

“Oh,” he said, “I trust you.”

We both ordered the Pizza Double Plus, which had pepperoni, bacon and steak on it, along with mushrooms and olives, tomatoes, mozzarella and ricotta cheese.

It arrived around seven. I paid and brought it in. We sat in the kitchen, the windows dark as if it were January, and the washing machine chugged on, and we ate pizza and drank a bottle of decent if not wonderful red wine.

Afterwards I brought the slab of dark chocolate I’d got myself out of the fridge. We broke this up and ate it too – I noticed he let his melt a little in his mouth before he’d bite – dental work? A broken tooth? I made more of the Brazilian filter coffee and brought out the last of the vodka, which I’d never poured away as I didn’t drink it. There had been little conversation – comments on the food, the weather, London, the world. As before.

But reaching the coffee-chocolate-alcohol stage: “So,” I said, “now tell me about yourself. Tell me who you are.”

“Joseph Traskul.”

“I know that. At least I know you told me that. Last time you told me too you were in a children’s home. True?”

“Did I? Well yes. It is true.”

“Prove it.”

“I can’t, Roy. But. It was shit. Look.” He rolled back the left sleeve of his blue shirt. “See?” I could see a long thin old scar. “I have a few of those. Someone there liked to use me as an envelope. He, you understand, was the letter opener. Bloody letters.”

“And you learnt from him,” I said.

“Learnt from him? No. I just learned.”

He leaned back in the chair. He was looking at me, and all at once he was crying. The tears ran from his eyes.

I thought, with great compassion, he can do this at will. But how and from what has he learned that?

He said, “Roy. Life plays with us. It plays. Cat with mouse. And all we can do…” He spread his hands, lowering his eyes. When he looked up they were dry. “We can play, Roy. Play. Roy. If there’s a lesson, that’s it. Learn how to play.”

We sat in silence, as we often had this evening. The rain and the washing machine, now at work on the towels, filled the gaps, marbles in wet cement, domestic chugs. We drank the coffee. I poured him another double vodka.

“I shouldn’t drink this,” he said. “I’m on prescription pain-killers. But vodka is better.”

“You’ll be OK.”

“You should know,” he said. He smiled, but it wasn’t like the other smiles he’d always used. “You arranged it.”

“Arranged what?”

“I wonder.”

“Did I? So you’re angry?” I asked. “Resentful?”

“No. I said. I deserved it.”

I must justify nothing.

“You can always sleep here. I have a put-you-up bed. It’s not too bad.”

“I remember. Only last time I couldn’t use it, because I had to watch you.”

“Well now you don’t have to.”

Bluff? Double bluff? Double Plus Pizza bluff?

He said, quietly, “There are people staying at my place. I – have to let them do that. I’ve got a couple of couches that turn into beds. But I can’t stay there. These people – need some space.”

“This is at your flat, 66 Saracen Road?”

“Yeah.”

He put his arms down on the table, and rested his head on them. This lasted about two minutes. I drank my coffee. At last he looked up, sat back.

“Thank you for dinner. Perhaps I should just get out.”

“Well, if you prefer. But – why don’t you play the piano in the front room. I used,” I said, smiling, “to like that. My father used to play. And a woman I loved. She played the piano – not as well as you, but very well. I loved it. I loved her, Sej. I thought she might have been your mother. Only she wasn’t.”

“No, Roy. No. My mum’s name was Ashabelle.” He spelled it. “A.S.H.A.B.E.L.L.E.” He laughed,