“Okay.” I cut him off laughing, feeling exasperated just listening to him. “I get the point.”
He looks at me earnestly. “Look, Lucyna, I know you barely know me, but honestly I’m not a serial killer, sexual predator, drug addict, or raging alcoholic – yet.” A mischievous grin etches onto his lips. “Oh, and I don’t smoke – any more - scouts honour.” He does a two-fingered salute, and I laugh at him. “Ask anyone - I’m a pretty normal guy, well, except for a fairly serious caffeine addiction.” He taps his cup. “Seriously though, I have two other bedrooms just sitting there empty. And I live in Chelsea. It’s a nice place – so what do you say?” he asks, hopeful eyes gazing at me.
I look at him for a moment. I know why he’s doing this and I also know what I have done by saving him. But what is done is done, and I can’t change anything now, and if I’m being honest, probably wouldn’t if I had the time again. Then knowing there would never be an instance in which I would say no, as this will mean I get to spend more time with him before I’m taken back home, I say with absolute delight, “Yes, that would be wonderful,” and struggle to control the beaming smile that’s etching itself across my face. “Thank you so much. It’s really kind of you.”
He beams widely. “Great. That’s settled, then.” He shakes his head. “And don’t thank me. Like I said, it’s the least I can do for you after what you’ve done for me.”
“It was nothing.”
“No, Lucyna, it was something. It was huge. I’d be dead right now if it wasn’t for you.”
How very true that is, and he doesn’t even know the full extent of it.
* * *
We spend the rest of the morning through to the afternoon talking, well mainly me asking James question after question, wanting to learn all I can about him. There’s nothing I don’t want to know. And obviously I can’t tell James very much about myself, so every time he asks me a question or tries to steer the conversation in my direction, I do a great job of side stepping and pointing it right back at him.
The nurse comes back mid-afternoon with his discharge papers. I leave the room whilst she helps him dress, then I follow behind carrying his crutches whilst the nurse pushes him in a wheelchair into the lift and outside to the waiting taxi.
It takes about an hour to get to James’ house from the hospital. We don’t really talk much in the car, so I spend most of the time looking out of the window, watching the outside world whiz past before my eyes.
When we arrive at James’ house, he pays the driver, and I help him out of the car and hand him his crutches. He hobbles up the path, struggling to use them for the first time, and I follow behind, gazing up at my new home. Funnily, considering how many times I’ve been here, I’ve never seen the outside of James’ house, but then I guess I’ve never had reason to come out here before. It’s an old three storey red brick town house, a big bay window downstairs and a bright white front door with frosted glass panels. It’s homely.
James unlocks the door and I step inside the wide hallway, my shoes tapping loudly against the oak floor amid the immediate quiet. And the warmth and safety of James’s home radiates over me, wrapping comfortingly all around me.
I cannot begin to describe how happy I feel, hardly able to believe that I’m actually going to be living here at James’ request. I have been here so many times, but obviously he is unaware of this. Now, I’m here because he wants me to be.
James slumps down awkwardly onto the sofa in the living room. He leans his crutches up beside him, reaches over and pulls the footstool before him and lifts his potted leg to rest on it.
And I’m just stood here gazing at him, remembering how he was sitting there the very first night I came to visit him, remembering the countless times I’ve sat next to him in that very spot back when I existed only for the dead.
He sighs and rakes his fingers through his hair. “Okay,” he says sounding slightly breathless, “my bedroom is the one at the front.” He points his finger upwards at the ceiling. “So feel free to take any of the other two on that floor. I’ll show you upstairs in a bit if that’s okay? Journey home’s just done me in.” He lays his head back onto the sofa and glances up at me.
I take a seat on the chair across from him. “Don’t worry. I’ll find my way round just fine.” Of course I will. I’d know my way round this house blindfolded.
“There is a bedroom up on the top floor with its own living area and bathroom. I’d offer you it but that was, erm . . . ” He pauses and rubs his eye with the palm of his hand. “Well it was my dad’s and he, erm – well he passed away recently and it’s still full of his stuff so. . . ” He looks down and shrugs.
“I’m really sorry, James, about your – dad.” I have to stop myself from almost saying Max’s name.
“Thanks.” He nods.
And it suddenly occurs to me – how would James feel if he knew the truth, if he knew I was the one who took Max to Heaven, that I was the one who took his father away from him? A sick feeling washes over me.
“James.” He looks up at me and I can see the sadness he tries to hide, buried deep in his eyes I have to restrain myself from getting up and going over to him and wrapping my arms tightly around him. Once again knowing I’m partly to blame for his sorrow, I grip my fingers into the plush chair, momentarily distracted by the soft feeling. He lifts his questioning brows and now, forgetting what it was I was initially going to say, I say instead, “Just to have a place to stay is wonderful. Thank you again. It really is kind of you –”
He dismisses my words with his hand. “Like I said, I owe you, big time.”
James picks up the remote control and switches the television on. My eyes drift to it and I watch as he flicks through the channels. He finally settles on one. There’s a music video playing. As I listen, I hear the band’s singing about not going somewhere, or something – I’m not sure.
I glance at James to find his eyes on me. And that’s it, I’m hooked right into his gaze. And for those few seconds I can feel a charge buzzing off me, infusing me with such warmth, and feelings so intense, I can barely control them.
I force a blink, and when I open my eyes again, James’s is looking at the television. “I like this song,” I say, wanting to say something, anything, to cover the awkwardness I’ve probably just created.
“Yeah, Oasis are awesome,” he says, turning the volume up slightly. “Especially this song, ‘Don’t Go Away’. It’s one of their best. Well, it is in my opinion anyway.” He smiles.
“Oasis?”
His brows knit together. “Yeah – Oasis – the band that’s playing on the TV now.” He points to it with the remote control. “You never heard of them?”
I shake my head. Oasis? I thought that was an isolated area of vegetation in a desert which surrounds a spring, not a music band.
He looks surprised. “I thought everyone had heard of them.” A sceptical expression plays on his lips, and I worry that maybe I should have just said I had heard of them. But then music’s never really been of interest to me. I never got it before, never understood why humans love it so much, well not until I started feeling that is. And as I’ve recently discovered, music’s all about feeling. You have to feel the music, to understand it.
“I saw them in concert a couple of years ago, not long before they split,” he enthuses. “They were amazing live.”
I nod. “Yes they seem – great. This song is – great –” I trail off.
He glances at me and laughs, then turns the volume lower as the song comes to an end, and asks, “Lucyna, do you have anything – I mean any clothes or belongings that you need to pick up from somewhere?”
I shake my head.
“You don’t have anything?” He sounds astonished, and not in a good way.
“No.” I wrap my arms around myself. “When I left – well – home – I kind of left in a hurry.” Which is pretty much the truth. “So, I only have these.” I trail my hand down my clothes.
He rubs his forehead. “Well you’re gonna need some stuff. Do you have any money?”
I shake my head.
“No worries. I’ll lend you some till you get sorted so you can get some new clothes and things.”
“Thank you,” I say, feeling abashed and not really understanding why I feel this way. “I will return the money as soon as I can,” knowing how essential money is to humans.
“No rush,” he reassures me. “And you can’t stay in those, they need washing.” He points at the dirty marks on my clothes, forcing me to look down at the clothes that I somehow came to be wearing when I turned into this human-ish being. “You’ll have to borrow some of mine while you wash them. They’ll be too big for you, but they’ll have to do you for now. I’ll go get you some.” He reaches for his crutches.
“Don’t get up. I’ll get them.” I shift forward in my seat. “Just tell me where your clothes are?”
He rests his crutches back down and says, “There’s some clean stuff in the dryer.” He points toward the hall. “Help yourself. Stick your clothes onto wash as well if you want whilst your there.”
I get up, and even though I know where the utility room is as I’ve seen James wash his clothes there many times, I still ask, “Whereabouts is it?”
“Straight down the hall, through the kitchen, first door on your left.”
I end up wearing some black jogging trousers. I go for those as they have a drawstring on the waist which means I can tighten them to fit me, but the legs are trailing on the floor. And I pick out a black t-shirt with a motif on the front, which is also pretty big on me. I put my own clothes onto wash, recalling how I’ve seen James do it before, and then return to the living room.
He looks up as I enter. “Rolling Stones,” he says nodding at the t-shirt I’m wearing. “Good choice.” Then his eyes move down to my legs and he laughs. “Bit long for you. They need turning up.”
I look down at my hidden feet unsure as to what he means.
I glance up and catch the questioning in his stare, but all he says is, “Here.” He motions for me to go sit on the footstool beside his leg. He reaches down and cups my leg with his hand, lifting it to rest beside him, then begins turning up the hem of the trousers. And I’m frozen. I am literally afraid to move in case I do something stupid, something not in keeping with normal human behaviour, because currently my whole body feels like it’s going to explode from the touch of his hands on my skin.
He rests my leg down and motions for the other one. I lift it up without saying a word, curling my fingers around the edge of the stool for support, because now adjoining the explosive feeling, I’ve also got these little tiny bursts of energy that keep shooting up my leg each time his skin grazes against mine. I can feel my face growing hot.