“Do you live in Tonbridge?”
“About five miles away. Tunbridge Wells. I’ve just been for a job interview.” He wasn’t sure what made him add that but maybe this guy knew of a job somewhere. He’d come to realise he needed to seize every opportunity. This might be one.
“Good thing you’d been to the interview rather than being on your way to it.”
Newt forced a smile. “I didn’t get the job.”
“They told you there and then?”
“Yes.” Sort of.
“What type of work are you looking for?”
He wished he could joke and say pilot or banker or personal assistant to a millionaire. But he couldn’t bring himself to be flippant. “At this point, I think I’d do anything as long as it was legal.”
“Right. Your cheek’s still bleeding, by the way.”
Newt wiped it again and held the tissue in place.
“What can you do?” Max asked.
“I have a psychology degree, which appears to havequalified me to do very little.I’d take bar work, cleaning, gardening, office work, retail… As I said, anything legal.”
The coffees arrived with little jugs of milk, though Newt didn’t take milk. The milk tasted horrible in prison so he’d gone without and soon hadn’t missed it. There was a biscuit too. He had missed those. They could be bought at the canteen but he’d managed without. He checked the tissue and the bleeding seemed to have stopped.
“Did you, by any chance, study language in your degree course? How speech develops, problems with speech, that sort of thing?”
Newt nodded. “How people produce, understand, acquire and use language was part of it. And the way language influences our thinking, how we learn languages, and the way they’re processed in the brain. It’s fascinating.”
“But you don’t want to use those skills?”
“I would in any job I did. Understanding people and their behaviour is part of most types of employment. Knowing how to communicate is sort of essential.” He gave a short laugh. “Well… Unless I was working on my own in the middle of nowhere. A lighthouse keeper, if they still exist, or counting puffins on some remote island, or a caretaker in an isolated hotel that’s closed over the winter. Ooh, that sounds too much likeThe Shining.”
Max laughed and Newt felt a frisson of pleasure to have managed that.
“Though if I was only communicating with myself, and had time to analyse why I wanted a job away from civilisation, I’d probably not like the answer.”
“Do you not like people?”
“I like some.”
“I do too. I like you.”
Maybe Newt showed his discomfort because Max shook his head. “Not like that. You’re not my type, darling. I go for cruel butch guys who treat me like shit, because apparently, I’m a masochistic idiot.”
He was gay?
“I never seem to learn.” Max sighed. “Every time, I assume that under the cruelty, there beats a gentle heart that’s all mine if I can just find the key. I never find the key. But I’ll keep looking. I wish you were my type. Brave is, cute isn’t.”
“How did you guess I was gay?” Newt was half-shocked, half-impressed.
“I wasn’t sure, but now I am.” Max grinned.
Newt groaned. That was careless.
“Does it matter? Aren’t you out?”
“No, it doesn’t matter. I’m neither out nor in. I just don’t want to get my head kicked in, so I’m careful.”
