Chapter 6
6
RORY
Rory collapsed onto his bed. Please, if there’s a god out there, never make me sit through another football match . A smile waved across his face, like the City and Liverpool fans in the crowds. He rolled onto his side and stared out of the window. The moon shone brightly as if smiling too, happy that rain clouds had cleared. He’d walked Tahoor home. Rory let out a groan. The old man had been so delighted with a bit of male company that he’d invited himself over to watch another match next week. It was the stick insects all over again. When was Rory going to learn to say no?
Elena had disappeared upstairs during the match. It had been odd how, earlier in the evening, whilst he was cooking, she seemed to have completely vanished. She definitely hadn’t been in her bedroom or its bathroom, nor her office. Her blushed cheeks had given away that, for some reason, she hadn’t wanted him to know what she’d been up to.
Elena Swan seemed easy to read at work – hardworking, organised, popular with the staff. So what had she got to hide at home ?
Tahoor had asked Rory in as he was having trouble bleeding a radiator in the bedroom he slept in, the biggest at the front of the house. On the way out, Rory had noticed the elderly neighbour had a burglar alarm, but not a single bolt on his door, nor a CCTV camera either, like Elena’s. They clearly weren’t standard fittings for each house in the cul-de-sac. Since moving in, Rory was increasingly struck by how safety-conscious Elena was. Their sporadic chats, away from the office environment, had revealed that she’d never got blind drunk, nor even flown on an aeroplane. Nothing especially unusual about that – unless, like Elena, you mentioned those things with a voice tinged with regret.
Yet she wasn’t shy. Her rendition of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ at the karaoke, last night – well, a duet, in fact – had proved that, although she had looked awkward at the start and shot off the stage as soon as the last note played. Elena held her own with colleagues, never afraid of a heated debate. On a department night out, in the spring, when a youth stole Caz’s handbag, she was the first to give chase. In the summer she’d asked the manager of the coffee shop next door to work, out for a drink, but he was taking a break from dating, she’d explained to Gary one lunchtime in the staffroom, when Rory was in there making a coffee. She’d been fine about it, so rejection didn’t scare her either. Yet during the last couple of months, now that he gave it some thought, Rory had sensed a change. Elena had been late to work a few times, until she got used to a new route to the office. She’d muttered something about avoiding an accident hotspot. She’d stuck down a rug by the department’s entrance with double-sided tape, even though no one had ever slipped on it. As for the milk she used to drink a couple of days past its use-by date if it smelled okay, Elena now took her coffee black. Elena’s careful modus operandi at home looked new, too. The bolts shone as if recently screwed on, and she’d mentioned in passing that she’d only got the CCTV installed a few weeks ago.
Unless he was over-thinking. He ate ham a week past its use-by date and would use any rug to surf across a smooth floor. As for taking an aeroplane trip, he’d once enjoyed a wing-walking experience. Who was to say which one of them, he or Elena, was more out of the ordinary? But imagine living your life according to so many rules. He leant against the bed’s headboard. It was none of his business why Elena had been so upset at work, why she erred on the side of caution, nor where she’d disappeared to earlier.
It wasn’t.
Even though he couldn’t forget the terror on her face, when she’d slipped.
Rory rolled his lips together, got changed into his pyjamas and sat in bed. He reached for his journal.
Wednesday 20th November
15-minute morning shower singing ‘Ocean Eyes’ aided by a 385ml shampoo bottle microphone.
2 checks by Elena that the front door is closed. Seriously, she needs to loosen up.
50-long-minute drive to work listening to a CD of her KILL ME NOW music.
Heart thumping more quickly than its normal 62 beats per minute, as Elena slipped and almost fell.
The expected gag reflex from her when I took out my gherkin jar and ate two, each one containing 0.035mg copper and 0.245mg iron – keep magnets away!
The daily pickle *joke* (using that word loosely) from Gary, asking if I’m pregnant.
0 words spoken on the way home .
As long as it took to cook a stir-fry for Elena to go missing without leaving the house.
THE MOST BORING 90 MINUTES OF MY LIFE (and that’s saying something, having sat in the lotus position for one hour, trying to meditate, as a *fun outing* on a quad biking trip to Cambodia), with 3 goals, 1 red card and 3 penalties.
2 expletives in Urdu.
1 celebratory coffee after City won 2 to 1.
1 radiator bled in Tahoor’s bedroom, that had 4 photographs of his wife on a chest of drawers, 1 half-empty pink perfume bottle on a bedside table, along with 1 well-thumbed women’s fiction novel. 1 purple sari hung on the front of a wardrobe. 2 pairs of slippers, 1 brown and large, the other floral and small, lay on the carpet by the radiator. On 1 pillow of the double bed lay what looked like 1 neatly folded, pastel nightdress, along with 1 little teddy bear holding a red heart.
0 of the football bravado as Tahoor stood quietly and ran a hand over the purple sari whilst I fiddled with the bleed key. I wanted to hug him, especially as the rest of the house looked less well cared for, with dust and a frozen meal carton on the kitchen unit, amongst a pile of unwashed cups and dishes, and crumbs on the floor in the lounge, which needed a good tidy.
5 minutes, near midnight, putting the world to rights with Brandy and Snap, as they lay on my hands and conducted my words by waving their baton-like front legs.