• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 419 0

short sojourn with Mary he had noticed she followed a series of routines. For instance, in the evening she cooked, she ate, she washed, she dried, she brushed the floor, she emptied the bin, and while the kettle boiled for tea she covered the leftover food with clingfilm and put it into the fridge. It was always in that order, and it was a pretty innocuous thing to notice, but noticing the innocuous was one of the things that had made Sam great at his job. She wasn’t a clean freak but she liked everything in its place, possibly to a pathological degree. If he put his book down for more than five minutes, it mysteriously appeared in the magazine rack, which, considerately, she’d left close enough for him to reach. The second he dropped the remote, it found its way to the left-hand side of the coffee-table on the TV guide, which was placed so that its edge met the rim of the table. Weird. Her CD collection, which was vast and too far away in the corner for him to see, appeared to be in alphabetical order, and a disc was only out of its case when it was playing.

Her friends were right: behind her calm exterior she was anal, but it wasn’t overt. She was also painfully honest in both word and deed. When he smelt she told him so. When she promised she’d close her eyes while she helped him to wash, she didn’t open them once, even when she somehow swallowed some suds. He had guessed that she’d given up any attempt at lying years before as her expressive face would have given her away. In that respect she was nothing like him.

Every night before she went to bed she adjusted a photo on the wall – the one closest to the door of her son and the damn dog. She never straightened any of the others, and it was always the last thing she did before turning out the light and leaving him with the glow of the television, as per his request.

She had noticed a lot about him too. He didn’t like questions but then again neither did she, so that was OK. Still, he could sidestep an uncomfortable or uninvited query as well as or better than a seasoned politician, while she was forced to resort to rudeness. This irked her. He liked American soul, R&B and gospel singers, but she’d known that already. When he laughed she’d noticed that his nose crinkled, his jaw stuck out – he unconsciously covered it with his fist as though he was suppressing a cough – and in that moment the darkness lifted from his eyes, if only briefly.

He could play the guitar too. During his first day on her floor Jerry Letter had arrived with a package that turned out to contain a very valuable instrument, which he’d had shipped from the US. She had helped him to sit up, if only for a few minutes, so that he could examine it for damage. When he told her it had been Scotty Moore’s she was impressed, and he was impressed that she knew who Scotty Moore was. This pissed her off until he apologized for presuming her ignorant. He had proved himself stubborn as he only asked for help when he was desperate for the loo and unable to travel the distance unaided. He laid the guitar on his chest and strummed and, although he messed up a lot and cursed under his breath, she enjoyed listening to him; as he was loosening up now, he improved each time he picked it up.

She noticed he was what her father called eagle-eyed. It was annoying when he pointed out her foibles, which she had no idea were so many, but it was also interesting, if not a little disturbing, to have a mirror held up to her face. She liked that he seemed relaxed in her care and that he didn’t pander to her past. If he thought badly of her he said so, while most people tiptoed around her, afraid of breaking the shell she’d constructed around herself.

“Why do you work in a bar?” he’d asked, out of the blue, that very morning.

“Because I do,” she answered, yawning and clutching her morning mug of coffee.

“You’re better than that,” he said, as though he was interviewing her for a job rather than taking up half her floor.

“Excuse me?” she’d said, annoyed at his arrogance.

“It probably made sense once, but not any more.” He