Chapter 16
The next morning, she was in the kitchen working at its large stainless steel-topped island. Gary was still not in, but the food delivery had arrived, so she’d been promoted to peeling potatoes. They were green on the outside, and Tasha had told her she’d need to remove several layers to get to something edible. Given that the peeler she’d found was about as sharp as a marshmallow, and made for someone right-handed, this was easier said than done. She had just frustratedly launched a particularly shitty specimen of a tuber across the room when Jasper came in. It skidded to a stop at his feet, which, she was horrified to note, were clad in the type of zigzag-patterned Velcro-fastening walking sandals that crusty environmental warriors wore. Despite this crime de fashion, the rest of him was still, undeniably, extremely easy on the eye.
‘What’s with the spud missile?’
She shot him a warning look. ‘Don’t.’
He eyed the mound of skin next to the paltry pile of potatoes that she’d managed to prepare. ‘Have you peeled a potato before? Do you need me to show you how it’s done?’
‘I’m fine, thanks.’
He picked up the jettisoned potato from the floor, rinsed it under the tap, and returned it to the worktop. ‘So you enjoy cooking then?’ His voiced dripped with sarcasm.
‘I find cooking for yourself is a bit like wearing your best underwear to clean the bathroom; unless there’s someone around to appreciate it, what’s the point?’
He cocked his head on one side, puppyish. ‘So you’re saying you only ever make an effort if there’s someone to witness it?’
‘Is this about to turn into one of those if a bear shits in the woods, does it still stink of shit debates?’
‘I don’t think I’ve heard it phrased quite like that before.’
‘Isn’t everyone driven by external validation?’ she said.
‘Partly, I guess. It’s a natural human instinct. But I’d say it’s not healthy for it to be a primary source of motivation.’
‘Thanks for the life hack. I’ll try to be more intrinsically motivated by removing skin from this potato. Maybe I could start a new religion. Call it Zen Spuddism.’
He stifled a smile.
She motioned to his footwear. ‘Although I’m not sure I should be taking advice from a man in those sandals.’
He looked down at his feet. ‘What’s wrong with my sandals?’
‘Let’s start with what’s right with them. They’re not espadrilles. The end.’
‘It’s going to be thirty degrees today.’
‘I don’t think there’s a heatwave strong enough to justify the visibility of men’s feet in an urban setting.’
Although, in fairness, his weren’t the calloused hooves that many men sported. They were, like the rest of him, extremely tidy.
‘Are you foot-shaming me?’ he asked.
She groaned. He was so right-on. She re-examined the potato he’d retrieved. It was covered in tiny sprouts, dead eyes that needed to be gouged from its surface. She pushed the pointy end of the peeler into its squeaky flesh, but fumbled it and sent the blade into the base of her thumb instead.
‘Christ,’ said Jasper, as blood oozed out onto her starch-dried skin.
‘Don’t worry, it’s nothing.’
She rubbed at the nick by way of illustration, deep red mingling with chalkiness, making it look like she’d tested a pink lipstick there.
Jasper winced.
‘It’s fine,’ she reiterated. ‘You don’t need to look so concerned.’
‘It’s just…’ He hesitated. ‘I’m not very good with blood.’
She laughed, genuinely surprised.
‘Thanks for the sympathy,’ he said.
‘You know you are ten percent blood, right?’
‘I know. But I don’t like it when any of that ten percent makes a break for it.’
It was too good an opportunity. She smeared some of the blood around the gap in her fist, making a large-lipped hand puppet. ‘Jasper doesn’t like the sight of blood,’ she said in a Mickey Mouse voice, her hand miming along.
He averted his gaze. ‘For your information, haemophobia is actually one of the most dangerous phobias you can have.’
‘Is that because you get torn to shreds for being a big girl’s blouse?’
‘It’s because you can sometimes faint and hit your head. I’m not that bad though. Still, if you could just…’ He made a shooing motion at her.
She went and rinsed her hand off at the sink, then held it up for his inspection. ‘Better?’
‘Thanks.’ He poured himself some weak squash from one of the large jugs Tasha had prepared. ‘Are you not afraid of anything?’ he asked after gulping it down.
Of course she was. Living alone in London meant there were plenty of things to fear, but she’d be blowed if she was speaking to some hot head doctor about them.
‘This pile of potatoes never being finished,’ she said.
‘That is a legitimate concern.’
He continued to eye her curiously. Was this what psychotherapists did? Just stared at you long enough until you felt you had to fill the silence?
‘Isn’t there a tree somewhere you should be chaining yourself to?’ she snapped.
He smiled. ‘Don’t worry, I’m off. I only came in for a quick drink.’ He put the empty cup in the dishwasher. ‘I might catch you later.’
‘Sure. Say hello to your friends at Extinction Rebellion for me.’
* * *
He’d been gone barely a minute when a man she’d seen at dinner the previous night appeared at the door. His face was the colour of overdone toast, and as creased as the pin-striped suit he was wearing. His greasy hair was scraped back from his face and hung like oil-slicked seagrass across his shoulders. A pair of pale amber eyes looked out from under black eyebrows that were strikingly bushy, but still paltry in comparison to his beard, which didn’t so much require the attention of a barber as a landscape gardener. He was holding a small old-school camcorder, its red light winking at her.
‘I know what you’re doing,’ he said.
‘Preparing lunch?’
‘You’re watching me.’
‘I’m not watching you.’
‘You’re watching me now.’
He spoke with a thick accent, like his tongue was too heavy for his mouth.
‘Now I am, yes, but that’s because you’re in my eyeline. And you appear to be filming me so, you know, people in glass houses…’
‘What about them?’ he said.
‘Who?’
‘The people in glass houses.’
‘It’s a saying. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.’
Although shouldn’t wank during daylight hours would be similarly good advice.
‘Why would they be throwing stones?’ the man asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Nobody should be throwing stones.’
He grabbed his throat through his beard and rubbed it anxiously. She returned to the potatoes, but his presence was hard to ignore.
‘You know Rumi?’ he said.
I no roomie?Was he asking her if she lived alone?
‘A stone I died and rose again a plant,’ he said. ‘A plant I died and rose an animal; I died an animal and was born a man. Why should I fear? What have I lost by death?’
His tone was odd. Not robotic as such, but notably detached. The usual inflections and rhythm of speech stripped away. It was a bit like speaking to Siri.
‘Was there something you wanted?’ she asked.
‘I know where you’re from.’
‘Brixton?’
‘The government sent you.’
Strictly speaking, she supposed they had, but she was getting the impression that wasn’t what this guy meant.
‘You took my hat.’
Judging by the state of his hair, there was every chance it had crawled off his head of its own accord.
‘You want what I’ve got,’ he said.
‘Nits?’
‘You’ll never get it.’
‘I’m sure we can work this out, whatever this is.’
‘You don’t belong here.’
‘You’re not wrong there, dude.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Don’t you know you should never ask a woman her age. Or film them without their consent.’
He flicked the viewfinder closed. She was surprised how relieved she felt. For someone used to sharing her life with strangers on social media, the individual attention of one person felt oddly exposing.
‘I’m thirty-five,’ she told him.
‘When were you born?’
She was reminded of when she’d use a fake ID to get into nightclubs, although this guy was a bit more troubling than your average bouncer. She told him the date.
‘And what day was that?’
She had no idea.
His eyes narrowed, great fuzzy black caterpillars crawling closer to the bridge of his broad nose. ‘It was a Sunday.’
Oh yeah. Her dad used to tell her that Monday’s Child poem. She was destined to be bonny and blithe and good and gay. One out of four wasn’t bad. But how did he know that?
He tapped his temple with a coarse finger. Okay. She was officially creeped out.
‘Why did you take my hat if you have nothing to hide?’ he said.
‘I didn’t take your hat. I’ve been in here for the last hour.’
‘And yet you’ve only prepared seven potatoes?’
The unpeeled pile taunted her.
‘April eighth, 1990,’ he said. ‘Jose De Vega, American actor, dies of AIDS. Ryan White, youngest American haemophiliac to contract HIV, dies of AIDS. Some people think that AIDS was created by the CIA to punish homosexuals. What do you think?’
‘I’m sure that’s not the case,’ she said.
‘Also the day Twin Peaks was first broadcast.’ He cast her a slightly unhinged Kubrick stare. ‘Agent DB Cooper. Named after a man who hijacked a Boeing 727 mid-flight and, when he received his ransom, parachuted out over Washington, never to be seen again.’
He continued to regard her like she might have information about the guy’s whereabouts. He was obviously some kind of wacko, but was he dangerous? He didn’t seem dangerous, but then she didn’t have much experience of foreign oddballs. He stepped towards her. She gripped the handle on the peeler more firmly. What was she going to do if he tried anything, pare him to death?
‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
‘Getting the tin foil.’
‘Are you going to make yourself a new hat?’
He peered at her like she’d lost her mind. ‘I’m going to bake a potato. If I wait for you to be done with lunch, I’ll wait forever.’
* * *
Gayle was scowling at her computer when Simone burst into the office.
‘Is the guy in the suit dangerous?’ she said.
Gayle didn’t look up. ‘Why?’
‘He thinks I took his hat.’
‘And did you?’
She told Gayle what had happened.
‘You’ve only peeled seven potatoes? What the bleeding hell have you been doing in there?’
‘I’m serious, Gayle. I’m not qualified to deal with mad people.’ Her heart was beating quickly, and it wasn’t the dash to the office that had caused it.
Gayle tutted. ‘We don’t say mad. We say reality challenged.’
‘Okay, reality-challenged people.’
Gayle sniggered. ‘We don’t really say reality challenged. That’d be ridiculous. No, he can be a bit mad.’
‘Well, the mad one is?—’
‘No, I can say mad, because I’m a certified mental health professional. You can’t.’
‘For fuck’s sake. I can’t call him mad, and I can’t call him reality challenged, what can I call him?’
‘How about Hozan?’ Gayle’s lip twitched.
‘Well, Hozan really doesn’t like me.’
‘Then he’s a very good judge of character. And it’ll be that he doesn’t trust you yet.’
‘And how can I make him trust me?’
‘Make him like you.’ There was another twitch of the mouth. It was like there was a verbal tripwire attached to Gayle’s lip, which she kept blundering into.
‘Brilliant.’
Gayle tapped on her keyboard. ‘What does it matter if he doesn’t like you? You’re only here for three weeks.’
‘I don’t need him to like me, but I do want him to not look like he wants to kill me.’
‘Don’t flatter yourself. He’s more likely to think you want him dead.’
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘What’s different about him, you mean?’
‘Yeah. Whatever. That.’
‘He has some interesting ideas. Conspiracy stuff. He thinks big corporations are out to ruin the little man.’
‘That’s not a conspiracy: that’s capitalism.’
‘He thinks we’re under surveillance 24/7.’
‘We are. It’s called the internet.’
‘And he thinks the government has planted a cognitive enhancement chip in his brain as part of a global experiment in human warfare.’
‘What the fuck?!’
Gayle waved a dismissive hand. ‘He’s fine. He just gets antsy around new people. Speak to Jasper if you want the full diagnosis.’
‘Yeah, I might do that.’ She genuinely wanted greater reassurance.
Gayle finally looked up from her computer. ‘On second thoughts, do not speak to Jasper about him.’
‘But you just?—’
‘I do not want you and Jasper…’ She swirled her hand around.
‘Waving?’ said Simone.
‘You’re about as funny as a clown. Now go and make yourself … less here.’
She reluctantly returned to the kitchen, but there was no sign of Hozan. Even so, she finished off the pile of potatoes as quickly as possible and was happy to be asked to help out at an art therapy class in the main communal area. She wasn’t sure how therapeutic art could be for a bunch of wildly untalented amateurs – Van Gogh cut off his own ear and shot himself in the chest, and that boy could actually draw – but it was better than being alone.