Alaric’s probably too nice to call me a pretentious wanker and, after all, he only moved in yesterday. “Oh, okay. Cool. No werewolves, no vampires, no ghosts. Got it. Loud and clear. It’s a famous book, and I’m an idiot.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Whatever.” Shrugging, he gives me a brief smile. “No drama.”
“As I said, it’s based on the life of Thomas Cromwell.” I can’t stop myself; this priggishness is probably one of the fundamental reasons I’m still single at thirty-four. “Homo homini lupus estis the original Latin.”
Alaric chews on his glossy bottom lip. It’s…distracting. “And Cromwell didn’t have pet wolves.”
God give me strength.“Cromwell was an English statesman and lived in England, so no.”
“When?”
“What do you mean, when?”
“I mean, when was Cromwell alive? Roughly?” Alaric’s blue eyes are innocent and round. At least he’ll go to bed tonight a little less uninformed. “History isn’t my forte.”No shit.“Was it the 1600s or something?”
“Close,” I concede. “Cromwell was executed in 1540.”
“Oh. Interesting.”
Like a whir of scurrying mice, Alaric’s thumbs tap over his phone screen. Maybe he’s going to educate himself by reading up on the early modern period of British history. His phone case is ridiculous: a cartoon raccoon wearing rainbow sunglasses and the wordsgay and trashyscrawled underneath. Tilting my body away from him—as I said, he’s distracting—I log into my Zoom account and check the settings with only a couple of minutes to spare. When my finger is poised over the meeting link, he brandishes his phone at me.
“Hey! Gerald! Listen to this: ‘The wolf is generally thought to havebecome extinct in Englandsometime during the reign of Henry VII (1485–1509), or at least very rare’.” He grins. “So, theoretically, Cromwell could have had a pet wolf. He could have had the very last one in England as a pet and kept it a massive secret.”
On that note, he uncurls from the sofa, flashing me a strip of thin white belly as his tee rides up. Good, he’s going to his room, and taking his ignorant comments with him, saving me the bother of trying to bite back a chilly put-down. With his hand on the door, he turns to look at me. The gappy smile is still there, though not quite as fulsome as before. “Oh, and by the way,” he says sweetly, “can you list the International Society of Urological Pathology’s prostate cancer grading system and reference it to a Gleason score? No? Really, Gerald? I’m astonished someone like you hasn’t come across it.”
The grin turns grim. “Everyone’s got their strengths, mate. Mine are good manners and a fuck-tonne of medical know-how. Yours seem to be pissing people off.”
CHAPTER 7
ALARIC
One day, this coffee room in the hospital will be renamed The Alaric Alvin Memorial Annex, seeing as I’ve added a few personal touches to it over the years. Very discreetly. Such as a framed poster showing a grumpy, fat frog sitting with his arms folded andthe surgeon waiting for the anaesthetistwritten underneath. It needles them, especially as they are invariably the ones waiting for us. When a disgruntled gasser tore it down, I replaced it with another. I have at least twenty or so printed out.
I’m also waging a silent war against hospital signage. The management suspects it’s me defacing them, but I’m yet to be caught in the act. I’m a one-man mutineer against every patient-facing desk below an A4 notice advisingdon't abuse staff. It's so unwelcoming. You don't see any telling-off posters in Tesco or hotels, because it only relates to a small fraction of people.
On that note, they should employ the clever folks who do airport signage to resign all hospitals, because ours is a fucking maze. Not a day goes by when I don’t come across someone frantically searching for the exit. While they’re at it, they could remove Latin terms from all outgoing patient correspondence,too. Relabel it the Brain Department (not Neurology), Cancer Care (not Oncology), Eye (not Ophthalmology). It’s pompous and unnecessary. I don't go to a supermarket looking to buybrassica oleracea. No, I give a respectful nod to the cabbage on route to the shelves housing cherry Coke.
“If you don’t open the window soon, the smoke alarm will go off,” Luke advises. He’s deliberately curtailing my five-minute diatribe on the pictures of mums and new-born babies lining the walls of the corridor outside the maternity unit. They’re cute enough, but where are the brown babies? The babies born with a cleft lip? The lesbians and gay dads?
Not long ago, courtesy of some pretty severe mental health issues, Luke took a year out of medicine. But now he’s back, and thankfully on a much more even keel. He’s side-stepped into dermatology (or, as I prefer, skin medicine.) It suits his retiring personality more than the cut and thrust of the big surgical specialties while still letting him chop nasty things out of people.
“Nah, the alarms don’t trigger if I sit over four metres and thirty centimetres away from them.” Not that I’ve spent my night shifts conducting controlled trials or anything. “If I use the vanilla-flavour vape juice, I can get to within three metres sixty.”
Isaac doesn’t work with us anymore, though we still meet up a lot. He’s moved out to the sticks to live with Ezra, the hot brother-boyfriend, and got himself a part-time position in an ED the other side of the river. I miss him, and Luke does too. Isaac was a steadying fulcrum in the middle of both of us. Me pivoting high, Luke pivoting low.
“How’s the new place?” Luke asks.
“Hey, I’m at work!” I protest. “Don’t spoil it.”
Waiting for a proper answer, he says nothing. I offer him a shrug. Truth is I don’t know. After ourWolf Hallspat, I half expected Gerald to ask me to leave. Things have settled down since, though only because I’ve largely kept out of his way. Ifind myself watching him out of the corner of my eye, or at least minding where he is in the flat. Not wanting to engage him, merely… analysing. Is he attractive under that stiff, tense shell, or just blessed with being tall and broad? Is he an utter dickhead or simply a nerdy introvert? Is my mild fascination with him down to a lack of sleep, growing dislike, or utter boredom?
“It’s temporary and cheap,” is the best I can offer. “And company. Sort of. You know how I hate being by myself.” That’s what was so awesome about living at Stefan’s. Something was always happening, even if it was only him and Marcus having a barney over whose turn it was to put the bins out and why Stefan wants a quick drink with his tennis club mates after a game, instead of rushing back to Marcus. (Marcus thinks emotional maturity is a frigging cocktail). If I ever felt lonely, there was always the guy behind the counter in the corner shop to have a chinwag with, or I could watch the world go by while seated in the café two doors down, drinking an awesome latte with a chocolate sprinkle heart swirled into the foam.
Luke, on the other hand, loves solitude. He lives alone in a very nice two-bed apartment in Hackney he bought with a loan from his parents. Like me, he’s got an active mind, too active for his own good. Over the years, it’s gone to some fairly dark places. But since he’s had his own space, his sanctuary, he’s much happier.
I envy him.
