Chapter Nine #3
launderettes, would block out daylight early every night, bring
down the night too soon. Blank-faced strangers strode past him.
Someone else wanted the pay phone; he felt himself shouldered
aside, and he subsided on the low wall that bordered the park,
grasping at its iron railings. His mouth was dry, heart thumping.
He had the number to Gunari’s mobile, his one frail link to Sasha,
but that would mean going into a shop with his twenty-pound note
and buying something to get change, and just at present this simple
plan felt beyond him…
“Laurie?”
Laurie
jerked his head up. He felt the odd inner clash in his skull,
between wanting something desperately and finding it near to
him—within arm’s reach, almost, dodging through the crowd Laurie
had suddenly found impenetrable. “Sasha,” he whispered, mouth too
dry to give the word sound. The most beautiful bloody sight in the
world, dark eyes seeking him out as if somehow he was too. Laurie
dragged up a smile and scrambled to his feet. “What are you doing
here?”
“Finished my shift at the wash. It’s just around the corner
from here.” He took Laurie’s arm and guided him out of the rush on
the pavement, into the park, and onto the bench Laurie now felt he
could occupy in safety and contentment forever. “And I knew you
were booked to see that flat, so I came this way to see if I’d bump
into you. God, Laurie, sit down. You look awful. You didn’t get it,
then?”
“What?”
“The flat. Look, don’t worry. You’re welcome with us for as
long as you need.”
“But I did get it. I…got the flat, and a job. I start at the
Rayne’s End tomorrow.”
Sasha grinned. He leaned forward to examine Laurie’s face by
the lamplight. “Bloody hell. I’d hate to see what you look like
when you’ve had a bad day.”
“I know. I’m sorry. It all went fine, and then…I called home,
and…” He paused. His head was spinning. Now that he came to think
about it, he hadn’t stopped to eat since his breakfast at the café,
so long ago it didn’t even feel like this same day. “And I think I
fucked up about the rent. Gave him pretty much everything I had
before buying any sodding food. I’m broke, apart from…” He reached
into his pocket. “Apart from one last twenty.”
Sasha stared at the note he’d produced. His grin broadened,
and he shook his head. “You really are new at this, aren’t you? I
thought you meant pence
piece. Come on, love. Come with
me.”
Sasha
proceeded to show him that he wasn’t broke at all, not by a long
shot. He took him into a grocery store—not the chain one, with its
brightly lit windows and automatic door, but the Indian corner
shop, where dodgy-looking little kids hanging about on their bikes
scattered under the force of Sasha’s black-eyed warning glance. He
steered Laurie gently up and down the aisles, showing him what
could be bought cheap and made to last, and where he should invest
a bit more in fresh stuff to sustain him. Tinned soups, knocked
down to nothing because their labels were ripped or their sides
dented in. Bread a day past its sell-by, perfectly good but going
into Laurie’s bag at a quarter of the price when Sasha and the
owner had finished amiable debate in several languages concerning
its quality. “Old bread won’t hurt you,” Sasha informed Laurie,
casting his eye over fruit juices and long-life milk. “Old rice
will, and don’t eat green potatoes.” They came back out onto the
street with two bulging bags, at which point Sasha handed his
unceremoniously to Laurie and told him to go home and wait. “I’ll
be there in five minutes.”
It was
less. Laurie had not even had time to find pound coins among his
change and the flat was still sunk in cold darkness when the soft
tap came at the door. Ashamed, shivering, desperate to see that the
act of faith he’d performed in the street by letting Sasha out of
his sight had been justified, Laurie pulled open the door and
hauled him in.
“Easy,” Sasha protested, laughing. He let Laurie capture his
mouth for one unsteady, cold-lipped kiss, then pushed him back.
“Mind my takeaway.”
“What? Didn’t we just do economic shopping for the sensible
young bachelor?”
“You did. I bought this big pile of
burgers and chips to reward us. Anyway”—Sasha glanced around the
shadowed rooms—“looks like cooking might be an issue. Is the power
off?”
“No, but it’s coin-op, a meter. I just need to find a few
quid.”
“Hang on a second.” Sasha deposited the aromatic takeaway bags
on the table and hooked out a chair from beneath it. He scrambled
up onto it, ignoring its wobble, though Laurie seized the back of
it in a steadying grasp. “Good. It’s an old meter. Hand me a pound
coin and a bit of paper. The receipt from the grocer’s will
do.”
Laurie
obeyed and watched in fascination as Sasha folded up the paper,
tucked the coin into it, and eased it a little way inside the
meter’s slot. “What are you doing?”
“Magic coin. Old gypsy trick.” Balanced on the chair, he
flashed Laurie a wicked grin. “This’ll stop the dial from tripping
back to empty.”
“Sash, no. That’s—”
“What? Cheating? Did he tell you electricity was
extra?”
“No, but—”
“Well, he should have.” Sasha gave the meter a calculated thump
and stepped lithely down from the chair at the same time as the
lights came on. He surveyed the bare living space revealed by the
unshaded bulb overhead. “Latcho, Laurie!” he exclaimed,
eyebrows rising. “This place isn’t bad!”
“Isn’t it?” Laurie asked weakly. To him, the yellow electrical
brilliance was harsher than daylight, bringing unseen stains
blossoming out of the carpet and walls. Then rain rattled on the
dark window, and he tried to see his surroundings through Sasha’s
eyes. Roof and walls. Warmth at the touch of a switch. Sheltered,
all his own… “No. I suppose it is okay, isn’t it?”
“Better than.” Sasha put out a hand, brushed it down the side
of Laurie’s face, barely touching. Mindful of his bruises. “You did
really well to get it, you know. And the job. You did
brilliantly.”
Laurie turned away. He went over to the sink. He supposed that
in the cupboard beneath it there might be some plates and glasses,
and, if not, at least crouching down here gave him temporary cover
for his sudden and complete loss of control. He opened one cupboard
door at random and knelt clutching its handle, muscles in his arms
and shoulders locking tight with the effort to suppress his
sobs. God almighty, why
now? The food would be getting cold. His
throat clenched. Hot tears half blinded him. Yes, there were plates
in there. He reached for one, and it slipped out of his grasp, hit
the tiles, and cracked in two along its dirty hairline
fracture.
“Oh, Laurie.” Warm hands on him, detaching his death grip on
the cupboard door. Laurie closed his eyes as Sasha crouched beside
him—made a despairing effort to lurch away, cracked his brow on the
edge of the sink, and fell into the waiting embrace, the
comprehensive catch that closed around him tight. “Oh, my Laurie.
You’ll be okay, ves’tacha. Everything will be all
right.”
* *
*
The
burgers and chips were good, even served almost cold. Laurie, half
mortified, half laughing at his own collapse—his recovery and
ravenous hunger in the wake of it—piled everything up on the one
remaining plate and took it to the fireside, where Sasha was
waiting for him, smiling.
“You all right now?”
Laurie
sniffed and pulled his sleeve across his eyes. “Never better.” He
put the plate down on the bit of carpet that served for a rug and
held his hands out to the fire, which although it smelled of dog
hair while heating up, threw a good amount of warmth into the room.
And Sash was right; it felt a hell of a lot better, knowing he
wasn’t paying for it. “I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“Falling apart at the first tap. Thought I was
stronger.”
“Oh, you’re strong.” Sasha pushed the plate toward him. “You
need to eat, though. You think I haven’t curled up and cried some
nights?”
“I don’t know.” Laurie grabbed a handful of chips and watched
Sasha thoughtfully while he demolished them. “You know, I
really don’t know.
We’ve spent so much time together, and I’ve never given you a
chance to talk.”
“Well, we’ve been…busy.”
Sasha’s
eyes glimmered, and Laurie, despite his exhaustion, felt a sudden
wild desire to be busy again, right there on the rug. He pushed it
back. “Stop it. I want to hear—all about your life, how you’ve
survived. Tell me.”
“I already have.” Sasha reached for the carton of fruit juice
they were sharing and, to Laurie’s surprise, knocked it over—the
first clumsy gesture Laurie had seen him make. He looked
uncomfortable for the first time. “Container truck, yogurts,
Hungerford Bridge. You.”
Laurie
reached for the napkins that had come with the burgers and helped
him mop up. “Come on, Sash,” he said gently. “More to it than that.
I know about your parents, but… Well, who else came over with you,
or…or tried? Do you have brothers and sisters? Did—”
“Laurie.” Sasha’s hand descended on his. It still had an
outdoor chill in its palm, a tang of chemical damp from the car
wash. “No,” he said. “That is, no to the brothers and sisters. And
as for the people who came with me—my friends, or if I did have
family who stowed away with me… Think what you’re asking
me.”
Laurie
drew a breath. His head was full of his own day. He knew, to his
shame, that his effusion of curiosity about Sasha’s origins had
been just that—an outburst, brought on by the relief of finding
safety, food, and shelter. He shivered. All of that was
meaningless, wasn’t it, unless he had Sash by his side? He played
back his question, imagining a cold morning on the Dover docks,
border patrol agents opening a refrigerated van onto a scene of the
living and the dead. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean
to…”
“Shut up,” Sasha said, smiling. The flicker of—what? anger?
dismay?—had died from his face, and he was busy unwrapping another