Chapter Twenty-four
The next day, we both take a long step back, back to the time we were almost strangers.
It’s as if we’d trespassed across a boundary into private grounds.
This morning we are carefully cordial, like colleagues.
No, actually – like two people who got drunk and had sex last night and now desperately wish they hadn’t.
So they pretend it never happened. Osian and I act as if we never had that conversation in the pub or later in the car.
For a start, we don’t have coffee on our balcony. I wait inside my apartment with the French windows open. Basically, giving him space to go out first. I wait and wait but he doesn’t come and there’s no smell of coffee from next door. Perhaps he too is waiting for me?
To hell with playing meek, if he has a problem, then… well, then it’s his problem. I’m going downstairs to Leonie’s café. She’s bound to have something yummy for breakfast.
Osian obviously has the same idea because he arrives a minute after me. Did he hear my front door slam shut and decide it was safe to come out?
“My God, we’re a house of early risers.” Leonie beams as she wipes down her counter. She looks neat and fresh; blonde hair in a high ponytail.
The professor, by contrast, is unshaven, grey hair slightly mussed. He sits at a table, laptop open. “Hardly surprising, given you’re all entrepreneurs. Your enterprises would flounder if you were all workshy slugabeds.”
Even unshaven and uncombed, he still manages to sound like Radio Four. That’s why no one calls him William Jones; not even Leonie who’s his daughter.
“I see we’re not the first.” Osian sniffs the air, which carries the warm smell of baking bread and a trace of salty fried bacon. “Is this breakfast?”
The professor taps his finger on the mouse. “Alex has already finished his, and I think Llewellyn too because when I passed the Hub he was busy inside.”
“Shut up.”
I snort. “Good morning to you too, Johnny Cash.”
“Shit for brains,” the parrot screeches back.
Johnny Cash, the parrot, has become very popular.
The Squad, who used to have breakfast in their rooms, now eat here.
Even I – who can’t cook and don’t have time to learn – have begun to rely on Leonie for most of my meals.
It helps that she gives me the partner discount, but her afternoon cream teas on weekends are worth every penny and a lot of fun with the soundtrack of Johnny Cash shouting insults.
“Why are you up so early?” Osian ignores the bird and speaks to the professor. “You’re not running a business.”
“I write better in the morning.” He indicates the laptop. “And I’m developing an addiction to Leonie’s bacon butties.”
“Leonie’s butties,” Johnny Cash drawls suggestively.
“How can he make that sound dirty?” Leonie blushes.
“This bird can make anything sound dirty.” Osian shakes his head. “I don’t know how you put up with him.”
“Because she’s a soft touch,” the professor says.
“Soft touch.”
This time everyone laughs at the parrot. And it’s true, he even makes ‘soft touch’ sound like something X-rated.
Osian looks at me. “Shall we sit on the terrace to avoid disturbing?” He cocks his head at the professor.
Relieved, I nod back. He immediately goes out to where the plastic chairs are stacked against the wall. But I’m still a little uncertain about us so I wait inside the glass doors and watch him.
Leonie brings the professor a pot of tea.
“It’s right about business people needing to be up early.
” She comes to stand with me, blonde ponytail swishing.
“The previous gardener, Watson, never got out of bed until nearly midday, then surfed the net the rest of the time. I secretly called him Watson the not-gardener.”
I lean on the doorframe and watch Osian looking fit and athletic as he moves tables and chairs around and sets up a table close to the edge where we can look at the mostly cleared garden. “So was he fired? Watson, I mean?”
“No. He was a partner so he couldn’t be fired. Evan had to wait for him to give up and leave. Had it not been for the renovations before Christmas, he might have lived here rent free for years.”
This is one story the chatty Rhian never told me.
“What happened?”
“Oh, last December the council was threatening to close us down.” A cloud passes over her beautiful face.
Clearly this was a serious threat. “So we had to have emergency renovations. Everyone rolled up their sleeves. They worked night and day to get the house fixed so it would pass inspection. Most of the time, they ate while working. Everyone except Watson. He said it wasn’t his problem.
That he was responsible only for the gardens. ”
I think of all the nice partners; the way Llewellyn made it clear I could use his Hub anytime I needed.
Alex, with his explanations about the mosaics on the blue wall, and all the young people without whose help the garden would never have been cleared.
And yet when they were under threat, Watson refused to help.
“How did they get rid of him?”
Leonie grins wickedly, examining her fingernails as if hiding a secret. “Let’s just say, the guys made no effort to be quiet. Anyone that needed to hammer stuff somehow managed to do it near Watson’s rooms. Alex would bang about early morning moving ladders and buckets. You know Ricky?”
“Oh yes.” I nod. “Let me guess.”
“He’s a little terror. Contrived to leave broken bits of wood and cans of paint piled up outside Watson’s door, blocking his way. But the thing that really pissed Watson off was Llewellyn.”
I stare at her. “Llewellyn? He’s the gentlest man I’ve ever met.”
“Yeah,” she agrees. “He fiddled with the router so there was no internet during the middle of the day. Right around the time Watson loved to be online.”
I laugh, covering my mouth with a hand. “No free accommodation is worth that.”
“The day he handed his keys over, everyone nearly broke into a dance. But Evan and Haneen learnt their lesson. That’s why we have the probation clause in our contract now.”
Of course, the probation clause. The reason I might be losing sleep soon. It makes it clear that my free accommodation is contingent on creating a successful business, and that if my project doesn’t make money in the first year I would owe Kendric House Enterprises rent and bills.
Osian walks over. “Shall we have a business breakfast?” His question is to Leonie, not me.
She instantly straightens, pushing away from the doorframe, and takes a notepad and pencil from her apron pocket. “What do you want?”
“What do you recommend?” he asks.
“I’m trying out a new sandwich recipe: cream cheese and honey on seeded bread. But I also have the usual bacon”—she looks over her shoulder at the parrot—“sandwiches.”
“Two bacon sandwiches for me please and a bread basket with a pot of tea.” He turns to me, a question in his eyes.
“I’ll try the cream cheese and honey, please. And tea.”
“Which tea?” Leonie looks from me to Osian.
“Whatever Evie wants. I’m easy.” He heads back to the table he’d set up earlier, drops into a chair and props his feet up on the railing.
Leonie gives me a quizzical look, the corners of her mouth pulling up in a smirk. “Whatever Evie wants,” she mimics. “And he’s… easy?”
“You are spending way too much time with that bird.”
She grins but her eyes flick between me and Osian. “Am I missing something?”
“Not even a little bit.”
“Really?” She doesn’t sound convinced. “How else do you explain the changes in him lately?”
I roll my eyes. “Osian is a law unto himself.”
She turns back inside to make our breakfast, and I go to sit with Osian.
How do you explain the changes in him? She doesn’t know the half of it.
Last night, in the space of two hours he went from jokey, to caring, to confidential before he panicked and withdrew.
I spent the whole night reliving the moment he said my secret was safe with him.
I flex my hand, remembering the feel when he held it.
The way he looked at me with understanding…
And this morning it’s all like a soap bubble that just popped into thin air.
Now as I approach to take my seat, he looks up, friendly but guarded. He has his hands in his lap, his right hand clasping the left wrist – a clear signal that we’re not touching today.
Will he change again? More to the point, can I change him as Leonie seems to think I can? Not while I feel so on edge myself. I think he’s more likely to change me.