and guffawed at Said James’s dirty jokes.
I stopped in front of his bed. “I know you.”
The man looked up from his newspaper. It was definitely him. The squitty face, the shock of ginger hair, the air of insouciant lechery — all were unmistakable.
“Don’t think we’ve met,” said the window cleaner.
“You fell,” I said. “You fell at my feet.”
“Sorry, pal. Don’t remember nothing about it.”
I nodded toward the cast and pulley. “You broke your leg?”
“Nah, I’m doing his for shits and giggles. What do you think?”
“Sorry. It’s just that you seem… I don’t mean to be rude but you seem absolutely fine.”
“Why shouldn’t I be?”
“You fell five stories.”
“Then I’m made of tough stuff, aren’t I?” Evidently irritated, he made a big deal about returning to his tabloid.
“Yesterday,” I said, “just after you’d… landed.”
“What?”
“There was something you were trying to tell me. You kept saying that the answer is yes.”
He snorted. “Did I? Well, you do funny things when you’ve had a knock, don’t you? Can’t have been thinking straight.”
“You’ve got no idea why you said that to me??”
“Mate, I can’t even remember.” His next look began as truculence but shifted halfway through into one of recognition. “Don’t I know you?”
“Ah,” I said. “So it’s coming back?”
“You’re off the telly,” he said. “You’re a little boy.”
My heart sunk. “I was,” I snapped. “I was a little boy. Not anymore.”
“I remember your show. What was it you used to say?”
Now I just wanted to leave. “Don’t blame me. Blame Grandpa.”
The window cleaner started to chuckle, then abruptly broke off. “Wasn’t very funny, was it?”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Come to think of it, that show was a real shitcom.”
“It’s always nice to meet a fan.”
“You’d better hop it. Visiting hours are over.”
“Well, I’m sorry for bothering you.”
“Your mate’s waiting.” He nodded behind me.
“What?”
“Over there. By the door.”
He was right. Standing on the other side of the ward, just by the exit, someone was watching us. He vanished through the door as he clocked me but I’d already seen enough to be able to recognize him as the man from Peter’s office. Mr. Jasper.
The window cleaner turned to the soccer results with the air of a reader who does not wish to be disturbed. I left and went outside into the cold but, if he’d ever been there at all, Jasper was nowhere to be seen.
I cycled home, my mind clamorous with unanswered questions.
Abbey was up, flicking through an encyclopedia of divorce law. My landlady worked in some mysterious capacity for a city legal firm, although the precise details of what she did there always eluded me. I’d asked her about it several times, desperate for any excuse for a conversation, but she was always evasive on the subject, saying that it was too depressingly humdrum to talk about. Whatever it was, I was in no doubt that she was bored of it, as she had complained to me on more than one occasion about wanting to do something better with her life — something more noble, she said, something worthwhile.
“Henry! I was getting worried.”
“I was at the hospital.”
“No change?”
“No change.”
“Sit down. I’ll get you a coffee.” Abbey was up on her feet and into the kitchen before I had a chance to protest. “Two sugars, right?”
I said a grateful yes and sank into the sofa, relieved that the day was drawing to a close.
Abbey pressed a hot mug into my hands and I thanked her. She was wearing a baggy T-shirt several sizes too big for her and I’m a little ashamed to admit that I wondered whether she was wearing anything beneath it.
She sat cross-legged on the floor. “Henry? Do you…” She trailed off, embarrassed. “Do you notice something different about me?”
“Not sure what you mean.”
“I mean is there anything different about me?”
Grateful for the opportunity to admire the contours of Abbey’s face without her thinking I was gawping, I gazed for a minute or two, uninterrupted.
“No,” I said at last. “Not that I can see.”
She tapped the side of her nose and at last I saw what she meant — a flash of gold, a small, discreet stud like an expensive outbreak of acne. My first thought was that she’d had it done to impress someone — some square-jawed hunk at work, some broad-shouldered pin-up of the assizes.
“You like it?”
Too tired and guileless to lie, I said: “I prefer you without.”
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “I thought you might like it.”
“It’s just that you’ve got such a lovely nose it seems a shame to spoil it.” Even as I said it, I could feel myself turning pink.
“Have I really?” she asked. “Have I really got a lovely nose?”
I was just about to stutter out some reply when rescue arrived in the insistent peal of the telephone. As I picked up the receiver I looked back at Abbey and saw that she seemed almost as grateful for the reprieve as I.
“Hello?”
The voice, cracked with age, seemed faintly familiar. “Am I speaking to Mr. Henry Lamb?”
“You are.”
“I represent Gadarene Glass. Would you be interested at all in purchasing a new window?”
“Haven’t you called before?”
“I have, yes.”
“The answer’s still no,” I snapped, “and I thought I asked you last time not to bother.”
Click. The hornet buzz of the dial tone.
Abbey rolled her eyes as I replaced the receiver. “I don’t know how they get this number.”
I yawned. “Think I’ll go to bed.”
“Sleep well. But Henry?”
“Yes.”
“If you need to talk…”
“Of course.”
Abbey smiled. As I turned to go, I saw that she was touching the side of her left nostril, running her fingers over the stud, suddenly, sweetly, adorably self-conscious. I stole another look and felt something unfamiliar, something strange but wonderful, begin to flutter in my chest.
If I’d known at that moment all that was to come, I would have stamped out those feelings right then. I’d have those flutterings at birth.
