I’m so thrown by her words, all I can ask is, “What do you mean?”
“I know families fracture. For all sorts of reasons. I’ve been there. But you don’t need to worry about him. He’s well dressed, he’s washed, and he smelled good. Really nice shoes. If you want, I can pass him your number if he comes in again?”
Pass him my number?
I’m almost tempted, actually. Do I want this psychopath having my number? Almost definitely not. But what if I could ask him what he’s after? Would he tell me? Would he back off if I had a solid way to track his identity? Can you do that with mobile numbers?
“No,” I say at last. I can just hear him heavy breathing into my phone at two a.m. The very last thing I need. I’d have to switch it off overnight to stop him waking me, then he’d have me at his mercy.
“No, it’s fine. We’re good. Um. In touch,” I lie. “I’m in touch with him. I was just… I was just surprised to hear he was in here. He’s?—”
“Brother?” she spits out. Then before I can react, “No, not with the same name.” I open my mouth, but, “Cousin!” she shouts. It ricochets off the raw-concrete walls hanging over us, but she doesn’t seem to care at all. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
And she looks so pleased with herself, I smile and nod. “Yeah. Yeah, he’s not from around here, so I was surprised?—”
“Ah, I knew it was something like that!” She’s pink now, her eyes lit with excitement, and I think/hope that’s the end of it, that she’ll go now and get the toast I feel too sick to eat. But she only leans back in her chair, fingernails tapping across the table as she thinks through the situation.
A new anxiety claws its way into my chest. Am I going to have to make small talk with her? Here, while I look like shit, pre-coffee, when I’ve just been chased out of my apartment by a killer? Doesn’t she have work to do? And where can I find a job like hers?
I tap a button on my keyboard pointedly, as though an important message has just popped up. She glances over at it, then leans forward, clearly having decided to ignore my none-too-subtle suggestion. “Listen, I know this is weird, but… if you’re in touch with him… do you think…” It’s like my soulslightly leaves my body. I know what she’s going to say. It’s in the way she pulls at her lower lip with her teeth. “Do you think you could pass him my number?”
I don’t know whether to scream or vomit. I don’t do either—I don’t do anything—so she talks faster to fill the gap while my mind folds in on itself at the ridiculousness of my life right now.
She thinks they ‘kind of had a moment.’ He was ‘almost definitely flirting.’ And she very expressly reminds me about how ‘nicely dressed and put together’ he was, looking my shirt over again as she says it.
I’m not jealous, because she’s not my type, what with not being a hot man and all that, but… How does this guy pretending to be me wrap the angry barista around his finger in the space of one coffee order, when I’ve been in here weekly for months and inspire nothing but a scowl? What is it with this guy?
I laugh on the outside, screaming on the inside. “Sure,” I say, just to end the soul-crushing conversation. Because I need to get back to worrying and moping. “Sure. I don’t know when I’ll see him. Like I said, I hadn’t realised he was back in town. But I can pass your number on when I do see him.”
“Oh, thank you!” She laughs awkwardly, watching me slowly pull my phone out to take her number. “I hope that’s not weird.”
I laugh too. But this time it’s genuine.
‘Weird.’
She has no idea how weird this is.
CHAPTER TWO
GOOD AUGUST
AND HOW HIS DAY GOT EVEN WEIRDER
I’ve been sitting here staring at my laptop for a good three hours, oscillating between home camera systems that I can’t afford and the shop space I’ve been dreaming of for months.
Maybe I should be suspicious that it’s still available, but at this stage, I don’t care. It’s becoming an obsession for me. I wonder if I could live in it. Work there while I live there. There’s no kitchen, and it looks pretty run down, but I could survive on pot noodles for a while, sleep on the floor. I lived off rice for three solid weeks one time when I was almost too broke to pay Mrs Huang’s rent.
And there it is. The reminder that I’m signed to a lease with her for another four months. I can’t leave her in the lurch. She’s alone, like me, and really, who else would want that place?
The tacky lace curtains are the least of its problems. It’s a dark, ground-level granny flat, paved with seventies linoleum floors designed to look like ugly yellow tiles, but scuffed and full of holes from decades of use. The wallpaper is a grisly, furry ochre-brown. The place is sparsely furnished with ancient furniture that her parents bought in the fifties when she was just a kid.
Oh, and then there’s the landlady herself.
Don’t get me wrong—she’s a wonderful person, and I adore her.Idon’t mind her dropping by at random times to collect the rent in person, cash in hand. And I don’t mind when she tells me that I should get a proper job, or that I should find a nice girl to take care of me. I’m very happy to have tea with her two mornings per week, and it’s nice to be invited to Mahjong on occasion. But what if the person who takes my place doesn’t want to do any of that? She’s ageing, losing her hearing, and I can’t leave her.
Yet I can’t help but scroll back to the shop listing, where all my meagre daydreams lie.
What I want is to open a karate school. I know how ridiculous that sounds. No, it’s not a golden ticket, but it’s the one thing I can do. And I love it. I’m teaching it part-time now, but those few hours each week aren’t enough. I need to go full time, and I know I could make it great if I just got the chance.
