Chapter Nine
By the time David arrived home a few hours later, Meredith’s upbeat mood had undergone another major reversal. David had no more than stepped through the door before his teary-eyed housemate threw himself into his arms.
“Good God, what’s the matter now?” By this time, David had developed a good gauge for this sort of thing and was certain that these particular tears were frivolous rather than the result of anything dire.
“W-well, you see,” said Meredith, thankfully releasing David so they could proceed into the living room, “I was doing a bit of cleaning, knickknacks and such since you said they was collecting dust, and I put on a film for a bit of background noise, one of yours that was on the shelf, but—oh, David, it was awful.”
“What did you watch?” David strode toward the television to investigate.
Meredith pronounced, carefully and dreadfully, “Les yeux sans visage.”
“Why would you do that? You know horror films always make you cry.”
“Yes, but I thought—well, I mean, it’s French, how frightening can it be?”
David wiped a hand over his face, at a loss for words.
“And Alida Valli’s in it!” said Meredith. “But—but the poor dogs, and when they showed what he did to her face—”
“That’s—Schwarzy, that’s in the name,” David pointed out.
“Yeah, but I can’t read French,” Meredith wailed.
David sighed heavily and gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “There, it’s all right,” he murmured. “You poor empty-headed little magpie. There’s just nothing going on up here”—he tapped him on the temple—“unless you catch sight of anything that sparkles, is there?”
Meredith giggled at that, then stepped back with his hands on his hips, frowning. “I’m not little.”
“That’s the part you object to, is it?” said David in disbelief.
“People only think so because they see me next to you, and you’re just so big.”
“Well, yes, but—”
“I’m quite medium-sized,” Meredith insisted. “I’m five ten.” Under David’s unwavering gaze, he crossed his arms and amended, “Five nine and a half.”
“Yes, well, medium-sized magpie doesn’t have quite the same ring, does it?”
“It’d be more accurate.”
“It was meant to be an endearment,” said David, then realized what he’d just said.
#63: It was meant to be an endearment.
So much for trying to comfort him. Distraction seemed to have had much the same effect, anyway.
“I’ll make some tea,” said David. “Why don’t you go and put on a Siouxsie Sioux record or something, that always cheers you right up.” He didn’t know how Meredith’s music was meant to cheer anyone up, but somehow it always seemed to do the trick.
—
The kettle boiled. The teapot was filled. A knock sounded at the front door.
As Meredith was now occupied reorganizing their combined record collection by some mysterious system that made sense only to him, David went to answer the door himself.
He opened it to find a young, dark-haired woman clad in a richly embroidered cloak of ultramarine silk.
“Good evening,” she greeted him. “I’m here about the room.”
“Ah, you must be the psychic. Do come in. I’m David, and this,” he said, gesturing toward Meredith on the floor with Bianca at his side, “is the madman who lives in the upstairs closet.”
David had hoped this would prompt Meredith to introduce himself properly.
It didn’t.
“Yeah. Hi.” He gave a little wave and got to his feet.
“Meredith,” supplied David.
“Yeah?”
“No,” said David, and led the way to the kitchen table, where he’d arranged the tea things. “I told you, you never introduce yourself properly.”
Meredith ignored David and turned to their guest. “Lovely to meet you.” After they’d gone through the usual business of embrace and cheek kiss, which she reciprocated, he asked, “What’s your name, then?”
“I,” she announced gravely, “am Sylvania Holland.”
“That’s a lovely name,” said Meredith, dropping backward into a kitchen chair. “Quite perpendicular. Like a street corner,” he elaborated.
Somehow, instead of slapping him, Sylvania Holland smiled. “Oh, I like you.”
“I hate you,” said David, pouring out two cups of tea. To Sylvania, he offered, “Sugar?”
In response, Meredith pulled a face at him and broke into giggles.
It took a second for Sylvania to react. “Oh! Me. Yes, thanks, just one.”
“He wouldn’t bother asking me,” Meredith confided. “Not in a million years. David’s terribly mean to me.”
“I’m mean to you, am I?” repeated David, astonished at his utter audacity. “Just for that, you can pour your own tea, thank you very much.”
“Well, I know how you take yours,” said Meredith. “Just a pinch of sugar, and milk until it’s the same color as that awful cardigan sweater of yours.”
David bristled. “You’d better not mean the one I think you do. That’s a traditional Cowichan design, I’ll have you know, made for me by an artisan in British Columbia—Harriet’s grandmother, in fact—and I won’t have it insulted.”
“I know what a Cowichan sweater is, David, and obviously I don’t mean that one, seeing as how the one you’ve got is gray.” Meredith shook his head at what he clearly considered David’s hopelessness. “I mean the sort of camel-colored one, with the ugly toggle buttons.”
Upon reflection, that was an accurate match to how David took his tea, even if he did disagree about the buttons. (Meredith preferred his black and very strong, and would sooner have coffee, not that David would admit to knowing it.)
“You keep your mouth shut about my sweaters.” David splashed the remainder of the tea into a third cup and thumped it down unceremoniously in front of Meredith. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Holland. Did you say sugar, or no?”
Sylvania Holland stared at them. “Look, no offense, but I’ve seen enough, and I’m not getting into this. The upstairs bath doesn’t work, those treacle wasps haven’t gone for good, no matter what you think, and the two of you need to sort yourselves out.”
“Yeah,” said Meredith, sipping his tea. “That’s fair. But you will stay and have cake, won’t you?”
David was less shocked by this turn of events than he’d like to admit. Of course the two of them did bicker on occasion, but he hadn’t thought it so extreme as to drive away prospective tenants.
A new worry opened up. Naturally, David couldn’t very well announce his impending departure yet, but what if they couldn’t find a third housemate before he left?
Although he was eager to make his escape, he hadn’t intended to leave Meredith completely alone, or to stick him with the entirety of the rent.
Meredith, oblivious to this dilemma, was sharing the last of the Battenberg cake with Sylvania Holland and expressing at length his admiration for her jewelry, which consisted of numerous pieces of carved stone and hammered copper.
“That’s a lovely jade ring you’ve got there,” he said. “Don’t suppose you’d trade for one of mine?”
She cast an appraising glance from her own hand to his. “But it’ll never fit!”
“You’d be surprised,” said Meredith, and lit up in the familiar dangerous way that he did whenever he got an idea. “Bet you a sugar cube it will!”
“I’m afraid I haven’t any sugar cubes,” Sylvania pointed out.
Meredith lifted the lid of the sugar bowl, removed three, and presented them to her. “Now you have!” he said brightly.
#64: He appears to have no concept of how gambling actually functions.
“Very well,” she agreed. “One sugar cube that it won’t fit.”
Had David been a betting man, he would’ve put his money (or sugar cubes, as the case may be) on Meredith, who, in defiance of all artistic stereotypes, in fact had quite small and rather inelegant hands.
Sylvania removed the ring in question and offered it to Meredith, who slid it onto his third finger with no trouble.
“I stand corrected,” she said, and presented him with one sugar cube, which caused him to laugh delightedly, and made David scowl all the harder.
“However,” she went on, “I’m afraid I can’t part with that one. It was made for me by my father. He does sell similar wares at the Night Market, if the style appeals.”
With a final longing look, Meredith handed it back. “Wait, not Manuel Holland?” He raised his wrist to display an engraved silver bangle bracelet. “I got this off him ages ago.”
Sylvania leaned in for a closer look. “Of course! I should have recognized it straightaway. You know,” she said thoughtfully, “I can’t give you this one, but I do have just the thing for you.”
From the recesses of her cloak, she withdrew another ring, this one of intricately carved obsidian. Meredith removed one of his, a band of weathered bronze, and offered it to her in exchange, but she shook her head.
“Consider this a gift,” she said, “in thanks for the tea and a wonderful evening. You must know, however, that I do not entrust this piece to you lightly. It bears an enchantment—the ability to reveal that which is concealed.”
“Oh, yes?” asked Meredith, already admiring the ring on his finger as the lamplight played over the polished surface of the stone.
David was about to point out the danger of placing such a magical artifact in the hands of a man who was utterly hopeless at heeding directions, but Sylvania Holland’s mysterious smile gave him pause. As a psychic, surely she knew what she was about.
“I trust it will clear up a few things for you,” she said.
“Yeah,” murmured Meredith. “Expect so.” Then, finally tearing his attention away from his jewelry, he told Sylvania, “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” she returned, rising to her feet, “and good luck finding a roommate.”
As soon as she’d gone, Meredith’s accusatory gaze turned upon David. “She was lovely, David.”
“She seemed quite pleasant, yes.”
“Shame you frightened her off.”
David stopped in his tracks carrying the empty teacups to the sink. “I frightened her off?”
“You did,” said Meredith, “what with all that I hate you, sugar business.”
“The sugar was for the tea!”
“Well, it’s no use now. Anyway, I’m going to go have a shower before I go back out. Me and Kinley are going to the Rat Cellar,” he added, “if you want to come with.”