Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
The next morning was Saturday, one of Scott’s elected days off from his new job.
Thomas, however, had decided he would be working on his laptop, cutting and stitching the footage they’d filmed together into a ‘masterpiece of pornography’.
He wanted to work in peace and had vanished into his private room – the one Scott wasn’t allowed to enter.
Scott briefly stopped outside it and pressed his ear to the door beneath the KEEP OUT sign. He swore he heard Thomas laughing to himself. Which wasn’t a good sign when he was watching footage of Scott masturbating.
Scott hurried away with a blush scorching his cheeks.
Not knowing what to do, Scott retrieved the net Tim had given him and strolled the gardens again, even venturing as far as the wildlife pond, but he didn’t see a swan with a bionic beak.
There was evidence of one, like the white feather Scott had found and tucked behind his ear, but he decided not to walk around the pond in case he got attacked.
He needed his hands in working order and couldn’t afford for his arm to be broken.
Scott made his way back to the house, swishing the net through the air like it was a sword because, apparently, when he was bored, his mind resorted to childish things to occupy itself.
A white van was parked up outside, and Scott slowed, eyeing it with suspicion. The back doors were open. Scott swung the net in his hand, aiming the pointy end at the van like a spear. He’d fight for his life if Warren tried to throw him in the back.
The doors slammed shut, and a woman huffed and puffed as she hugged a vacuum cleaner to her chest. She swayed, began to topple, and Scott dropped his net to rush forward and help.
He steadied her before she fell to the ground and took the vacuum cleaner. When he stood it on the ground, it was almost taller than the woman who smiled up at him.
“You must be Scott,” she said.
“And I presume you’re Janice.”
She had chin-length white hair with butterfly bangs and glacier-blue eyes. She was older than Tim, Carly and Jay, with smile lines around her lips and creases at the corner of her eyes, but she looked at him in the same way they had, like he was a wonder.
It was nothing to with his looks, and all to do with why he was there.
Thomas had let him stay.
That seemed to be an abnormality.
It made him appear special to the people closest to Thomas.
“Doesn’t Thomas have a vacuum cleaner up there?” Scott asked.
Janice nodded. “He does, but this is my lucky cleaner.”
“What makes it lucky?”
“Oooo…” Janice chuckled. “The messes this has cleaned up, the bad spills it’s got me out of…” She patted it affectionately. “My grandson put a new motor in it, and now it would pull the flesh from your bones.”
Scott grimaced. “That’s…impressive.”
Janice gestured him closer. Scott frowned, leaning into her, and found his face squished between her hands. “Let’s take a look at you…”
Scott blinked. Janice’s nose brushed his as she stared into his eyes, then she turned his head left and right, up and down.
“Open your mouth.”
“Why?” Scott asked as her fingers tried to pry his lips apart.
“Just do it.”
Scott opened up like he was at the dentist.
“Lovely teeth,” Janice said. “No split tongue, no piercings all over your face.” She released him and stepped back. “Are there piercings anywhere else?”
“No piercings,” Scott confirmed.
Janice pointed both her forefingers at Scott’s chest. “You sure there isn’t any on your nipples?”
“There wasn’t this morning, but who knows what might have happened as I was walking around the gardens.”
“Fancy flashing them so I can make sure.”
Scott frowned. “I’m not flashing you my nipples.”
Janice held her hands up. “Maybe if you just rub them through your T-shirt. I’ll be able to tell from the shape of the peaks.”
“I won’t be doing that,” Scott said politely.
“You’re right. I’m old enough to be your grandmother.”
“Age is just a number.”
Her mouth twisted with a coy smile. “Exactly, and my number is around three times higher than yours.”
“You don’t look a day over thirty.”
Janice pushed his shoulder. “Save your talk for Thomas. He’s as bristly as a hedgehog and needs all the smoothing he can get.” She looked up at the house. “I take it he’s not outside with you?”
“No, he’s upstairs in his…private room.”
“I see.” Janice’s shoulders slumped. “He’s always miserable when he comes out of there. Anyway, Scott, will you be a dear and lend me your muscles?”
“Depends on what you want me to do with them. I don’t know if you’re aware, but there’s a ‘no sleeping with me’ rule in effect around these parts.”
Janice laughed. “I’m well aware.” She pointed at the vacuum cleaner. “I don’t suppose you could help me with that? Getting it up the spiral staircase is a nightmare.”
“Of course I’ll help,” Scott replied, wrapping his arms around the cleaner. The weight of it put an instant strain on his biceps, and he wanted to put it back down but didn’t, in case Janice thought him weak.
“Tattoos?” Janice asked as they approached the doors.
“Nope,” Scott said. “I almost got one a few days ago.”
Janice shuddered. “Don’t, they’re ghastly.”
“You have seen Thomas, right? He’s covered in them, and I happen to think he looks great.”
“That’s because you never saw Thomas before the tattoos.” Janice sighed. “Such a shame.”
“You knew Thomas before he got inked?”
“Long before,” Janice replied, holding the door open. “I’ve known him since he was six years old.”
“Six?”
She hummed, then closed the door behind him. “I used to clean for his parents. At six, he was always smiling, happy to see me. He loved animals and wanted to be a vet when he grew up.”
Scott had so many questions, but he kept quiet. There was a fondness to Janice’s expression that suggested she might tell him more without him prying. Janice headed up the stairs, and Scott followed.
“He had the voice of an angel.”
Scott adjusted his grip on the cleaner. “He can sing, that’s for sur –”
“But even at that age, before his voice had broken, it was flawless. I remember his parents being worried about his voice breaking, and yes, it affected the pitch and tone, but he sounds so much better, deep and smooth. In all my years I’ve known him, I’ve never heard him sound anything but perfect.
” She sighed. “It’s such a shame he hates it so much. ”
Scott frowned. “He hates to sing?”
“Haven’t heard him in at least five years.” She glanced at him. “Obviously, for three of them, he was in prison…”
“Whenever he sang, the whole wing came to a standstill. His voice demands to be listened to, and it’s impossible to ignore it. I didn’t even like that kind of music until I heard him sing.”
Janice’s eyes twinkled as she smiled at him. “Carly told me you were Thomas’s cellmate for three years.”
“I was.” Scott nodded. “We’ve only been out four months, but it feels like it was such a long time ago.”
“Do you miss being inside?”
Scott paused to take a breather at the top of the stairs. “Miss it? Are you serious?” He used his most scandalised tone. Janice saw right through it, though, refusing to blink.
“Sometimes,” he admitted. “Sometimes…you feel safer in a cage.”
“I think Thomas feels like that too.” Janice pointed at the vacuum, and Scott picked it up again. “Thomas tattooed a cage on himself, only he calls it a skin. It keeps everyone out and protects the damaged man within.”
“He told me he did it to feel beautiful in a different way.”
Janice shook her head. “One man’s beauty is another man’s beast.”
Scott tripped. Janice glared at him when it looked like he might drop the vacuum. She was quiet as they walked the length of the corridor, then sighed.
“He was a beautiful, happy child, and I hate that he did that to his skin.” She touched Scott’s arm. “I don’t blame him. I understand to some degree, but I hate that his life played out like it did.”
Scott shrugged, looking up at the ceiling, then the walls. They paused at the base of the spiral staircase so Scott could readjust his hold. “Some people would say Thomas’s life turned out pretty great.”
“And those people would be idiots.”
Scott widened his eyes and looked away from her. “Well, that told me.”
They couldn’t walk side by side on the staircase. Janice went ahead, and Scott trailed behind her, doing his best not to smack the cleaner into each step.
When they got to the top, Janice stopped and turned to him.
“If he could go back in time, he’d give this all up just to be happy and anonymous again.”
“Anonymous?”
The black door that led to Thomas’s quarters opened, with Thomas tilting his head on the other side. Scott frowned, feeling lost again at not knowing anything about his ex-cellmate.
“Oh God, I don’t like that look on your face at all.” Thomas folded his arms. “What’s the old bat been saying?”
“Old bat?” Janice squawked. “I may be old, but I can still clip you around the ear. Lean forward so I can slap you.”
“I think I’ll give that a miss.” Thomas stepped back to let them inside, then took the vacuum cleaner from Scott’s arms.
“Damn it, woman, I have the best vacuum money can buy.”
“This is my lucky one.” She reached out to touch it. “I’ll hear no more complaints about it. If I do, I’ll suck out your other eyeball.”
Scott furrowed his brow, making sure his eyes were firmly in his face. He didn’t like the image Janice’s words had conjured. “Hold on…”
Both Thomas and Janice looked at him.
“That’s not how you lost it, right?” Scott pressed himself against the wall. “She didn’t suck out your eye?”
“Sure did,” Janice said. “So you’d better watch yourself, make sure you always wipe your feet on the mat before coming inside.”
Scott glanced down at his trainers, then at the mat a few yards back that he’d stepped over. “I’m sorry.”
“You will be,” Janice replied.
“Janice didn’t suck my eye out, although don’t put your face anywhere near this thing,” Thomas said, lifting the vacuum. “It will probably suck your brain through your nose.”