“Very tidy,” Dair murmurs from the doorway, and I glance back to see him leaning on the doorframe with Kitty winding figure eights around his ankles.
“Yeah,” I say roughly. “She didn’t leave a mess for us to sort through.” I hope he doesn’t hear that as judgement for what he’s been left to deal with. During our video calls, he’d described the belongings filling each of Alice’s rooms as overwhelming. A never-ending tide. One I watched him drown under each evening while I was away up-country.
I straighten up, fully expecting to see him curling like a fragile fern at criticism. Dair just looks interested, so I rephrase, working hard to make my meaning clearer.
“I mean, the house-clearance side of the business meant she was prepared. She saw plenty of places that were really hoarded. A lot of people keep hold of actual rubbish. Those places are nothing like Alice’s.”
“Your aunt worked for the business?”
“Stacey? She started it.” I can’t get over Kitty still weaving around his legs. It pulls on a loose thread, tugging free thebutton holding my lips closed on family business. It pings off, skittering to some dark corner as I admit, “That was right after she found out her little sister had been trapped in a difficult situation. One she wanted to leave but couldn’t.”
“Her little sister?” Dair asks quietly. “You mean your mam?”
“Yeah.”
Dair wets his lips. “She tried to leave that difficult situation. With you?”
I nod again, and his gaze darts in the right direction for the rat run of alleys where a dealer just thanked me. His smile flickers. “Someone helped you both to do a midnight flit?”
I don’t answer.
Some words can’t be spoken.
I’m pretty sure I couldn’t find the right ones even if I had stuck it out at school for longer. I rummage through tote boxes instead, looking for something that might help Dair’s situation. It’s easier than seeing his face crease with concern. That doesn’t stop me from hearing sympathy. “That guy said he paid back your old man. Your dad?”
I can’t answer that either.
“I- I’m so sorry.” He’s also curious, wanting to know more about me, even if it’s ugly. “When did it happen, Vincent?”
“Ages ago. When I was almost nine.” I clear my throat. “Anyway, that’s how come I lived here with Stacey before she…”
I don’t know why he keeps calling me smart. He joins dots way faster than I ever could have.
“Wait. That guy said your aunt helped out his sister at the end of the summer. That she wouldn’t take payment, so she must have still been running the business.” He falters. “H-how long ago did your aunt?—”
I back out of the storage unit before he can finish speaking, and I don’t do it empty-handed. I’ve found the tote I wanted. “We lost Stacey four months ago.” I count back. “Almost fivenow.” I lock up fast and head for the front door of the flat like a ghost is chasing me across the hallway. “Heart attack. No warning. Come in.” I step inside. “There’s a laptop in this tote. I can’t see the charger for it. Think there’s a spare in my old room.”
Dair doesn’t follow.
He’s rooted in the hallway between the front door and a cupboard holding boxes Kev and I packed in clenched-jaw silence. Kitty still winds around his ankles. “Really, Vincent? Just four or five months?”
“Yeah.” I heel out of my shoes. “Come in.”
He does, heeling out of his own shoes, if slowly, but at least Kitty follows him inside instead of doing her usual disappearing act. She sticks close to home when, up until now, she’s tried over and over to escape, desperate to hunt down a woman she’s still furious she can’t find.
Now she trots towards the kitchen, the bell on her collar tinkling. The rattle of her eating kibble comes next, that bell clinking against a rare mudlarking find of a complete saucer I’d scrubbed clean of Thames mud in return for a second Mr. Whippy.
I walk away from that memory and into my old bedroom, only to stop dead.
Dair follows, but he doesn’t notice what’s different in here since my last visit. The bedding spread across my mattress is new—Marilyn not done trying to tempt me home, it seems. There’s no reason for Dair to know that; besides, he has a different focus.
It’s me.
I find that out next to a bed covered with semi-naked firefighters. Or at least it’s covered with a brand-new duvet featuring bare-chested heroes, all with extra-long hose reels, and I can almost hear Marilyn’s cackle.
I do hear her ring tone from my phone, so I set the tote down and answer quickly. “Yeah, Maz?”
She tells me she’s running late and won’t be back until later. I don’t know if I thank her or even say goodbye. I’m snagged by Dair’s gaze, which doesn’t stray to my new beefcake bedding or even to the window with its view across the river. It locks on me and shows no sign of shifting.
