‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Good.’
Sophie’s living room is a mirror image of mine, but dimensions are all they have in common.
In here the walls, floor and fireplace are a chalky white, while everything else is not.
There’s dusty-pink bookshelves stocked with rainbow spines.
A gold floor lamp. Five leafy houseplants, plus one orchid.
A framed print takes up most of the chimney breast, made up of what must be tens of thousands of tiny, multicoloured dots.
The couch I’ve slept on is upholstered in emerald-green velvet and crowded with brightly patterned cushions.
Alex insisted I stay. I fought him at first, but it was half-hearted.
I didn’t want to spend the night here but I didn’t want to spend it in my own house even more.
He offered to take the couch and let me have his room, but there was no universe in which I was going to climb between the still-warm sheets of a man I barely know.
Besides, compared to my yoga mat and sleeping bag, this couch felt like a bed in a five-star hotel.
A toilet flushes upstairs.
I tense, afraid that Sophie is about to walk into her living room and curdle my blood with her screams. She slept through last night’s drama, as far as we know – Alex mentioned brand-name earplugs and a white-noise machine.
But when I hear soft footsteps followed by the kitchen door gently opening and closing, I accept that it’s Alex who’s up and about.
Sophie wouldn’t know there’s a reason to be quiet.
If I leave now, I won’t have to face her.
The kitchen is more tame than the living room, with matte-grey units, a wooden floor and another spray of houseplants.
Alex is standing at the counter, dressed but wearing his glasses, fiddling with a coffee machine.
He smiles at me and says, ‘Good morning.’ I close the door behind me before I say it back.
‘How did you sleep?’ he asks.
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Good.’
‘How do you take your coffee? Or would you prefer tea? Or juice?’
‘Ah, nothing for me, thanks. I’m going to head home.’
‘Ellie, come on.’ He turns to fully face me. ‘It’s not even eight. Sit down. Have something.’
But I know what he really wants is to talk about last night.
I managed to persuade him to call the guards a second time and say that his first call was a false alarm.
He hadn’t argued with me, or pushed me for an explanation.
We hadn’t talked much, really, after I’d agreed to stay here; he seemed to understand that all I wanted to do at that point was to go to sleep.
I really don’t want to talk now.
But then, Alex did come to my rescue. I don’t want to seem ungrateful for that.
‘Coffee,’ I say. ‘Please.’ I take a seat at Sophie’s dining table, which is far nicer than mine.
But then, everything here is far nicer than mine.
Where I have an off-white PVC sliding door framing a grim, crumbling yard, she has French doors in trendy black iron, showcasing a patio paved in pristine sandstone. ‘Are you normally up at this time?’
It’s the most innocuous question I can think of.
‘I used to get up at six to go for a run before work.’ Alex has resumed his coffee-making; a spoon tinkles against ceramic. ‘Now I work from home and my running days are over, but no one’s told my brain. I’m lucky if I manage to sleep until seven.’
‘What do you do?’
‘At the moment, mostly freelance graphic design that I seriously overcharge for. I’m waiting until the house sells to figure out my next move.
’ Alex looks over his shoulder and catches my quizzical expression.
‘Not this house – my house. That I bought with my wife. Ex-wife. We’re getting divorced.
And neither of us can afford to buy the other one out, so … ’
‘Why did you stop running?’
I don’t want to hear about his personal life because I don’t want him to ask me about mine.
‘Too many old injuries,’ he says. ‘But on the bright side, I’m forty-two, so I’m long overdue to start taking cycling way too seriously.
Once I can afford the thousands of euro in equipment that no beginner actually needs, I’ll be all over it.
’ He flashes a grin. ‘So I figure I may as well keep up the early mornings in the meantime.’
Alex is only a year younger than me. I thought he was several years older.
I watch him bring two mugs of steaming coffee to the table and think, Is this what a man my own age looks like now?
I try to picture myself dating someone with a head of silver hair, but I can’t even picture myself dating.
The last time I did it, men my age were in their early thirties, with more blank pages than not in the stories they were writing.
And so was I.
A sudden, acute ache in my chest takes my breath away.
I’ve spent so much time dwelling on the literal years lost, but what about the irretrievable tranche of youth gone with them? I feel like I’ve been skipped ahead, aged without having actually lived. I might make up for lost time, eventually, but I’ll never be able to turn back the clock.
‘You all right?’ Alex asks.
He’s taken the seat opposite me and slid a mug my way.
I wipe my thoughts off my face and nod, smile a little. I take a sip of the coffee.
It’s too hot and tastes bitter.
‘Thanks again for last night,’ I say. ‘Sorry to be so much trouble.’
‘Not at all. Oh – I found a number for a locksmith. They’re in Donnybrook. Seventy euro to replace a lock in a patio door. Call-out included.’ He watches me closely as he says this, particularly when he mentions the price.
‘That sounds reasonable,’ I say.
It sounds like all I’ve got left.
‘And, ah …’ He tilts his chair on to its back legs to grab something from the kitchen counter. ‘In the meantime, you can use this.’
He puts a long, thin wooden stick on the table between us. It’s maybe a foot in length and one end is stained brown with something.
‘What’s that?’
‘It was a stake Sophie had in her tomato plants, but you can use it as a dowel. Lay it in the track of your patio door and it’ll prevent anyone from opening it. If it’s too long, let me know. We can saw off a bit.’
‘How very MacGyver of you.’
He laughs, abruptly and loudly, and I hope Sophie still has those earplugs in.
‘God, I haven’t thought of him in years,’ he says. ‘I used to love that show.’ He smiles at the memory, but then a seriousness clouds his face. ‘Ellie, listen. What happened last night. I know you don’t want to, but I think you should really report it to the guards.’
‘I just need to change the locks,’ I tell my coffee cup.
‘You’ve had two break-ins in less than twenty-four hours.’
‘They didn’t take anything.’
‘Because there was nothing to take.’
‘Well, exactly,’ I say, even though I’ve no clue what I mean by that.
‘Why would burglars target a house with no contents?’ Alex asks. ‘And if it’s not burglars, what other reason would someone have to break into a house that isn’t theirs?’
I think of the stain, the kaleidoscope of decay seared into my floorboards.
I say, ‘It could be any number of things. The house was vacant for years. It could have had squatters. Teenagers, hanging out. And isn’t there something about copper piping?
Doesn’t that get stolen from unoccupied places all the time?
’ I don’t know where I’m getting this, but it sounds good.
‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because once I change the locks, problem solved. ’
After I solve the problem of where I’m going to get the money to do that.
Alex doesn’t look convinced. ‘Maybe you should contact the previous owner,’ he says.
‘Ask if this ever happened before. Or if there’s anyone they know of who has a key.
Who are they, anyway? Sophie said a woman used to come round every now and then to check on things, but that no one actually lived there.
Not since she moved in, anyway.’ He meets my eye.
‘Did you talk to them? Did they say anything about why they’d left it vacant for so long? ’
I shift in my seat, discomfited by this line of questioning. Were people always this nosy or am I just noticing it now, when I have things I don’t want to share? Even if I had answers, they wouldn’t be any of his business.
‘No,’ I say, hoping he won’t ask me to clarify which question I’m answering.
We sip our coffees in silence and unintentional unison.
‘I have a storage unit,’ Alex says then.
‘With my stuff from the house. It’s not much, but it’s too much for here.
And none of it was up to Sophie’s standards, so …
There’s a double mattress and, I think, a TV stand, and an armchair.
A coffee table. And it’s all just sitting there.
Gathering dust and costing me money to store it.
You could have it. Just until, you know, you get yourself sorted. I mean, if you want.’
‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘But I’ve got stuff on the way.’
Another lie, but I don’t want to spend any more time with him than I already have, or owe him for any more than I already do.
‘Sorry, but I really need to get going.’ I push back my chair, screeching the legs across the floor. ‘Thanks for the coffee. And thanks for last night, again.’
‘Ellie, it’s just an offer of help. Furniture that I’m not even using. You’d be doing me a favour, if you took it.’
I stand up. ‘I’m fine. Really.’
‘Wait.’ Alex stands up too. ‘Before you go, you should know … Sophie knows.’
Behind me, someone clears their throat.
Alex looks over my shoulder and blanches.
I turn around and see that Sophie is standing in the doorway, arms folded, leaning against the jamb.
‘Good morning.’ She looks from one of us to the other and smiles, sickly sweet. ‘What have I missed?’