Oh,pants. Only one guess for who that could be.
Managing to pull myself up, I snatched my glasses off the window sill, straightened my clothes and sprinted out of the bathroom, hoping at the very least to prevent him mounting the stairs.
We collided in the hallway, crashing into Mannequin Diana, who thankfully broke our fall. Righting himself, Mack hauled me to my feet.
‘Are you okay?’ He peered at me, still holding my arms with each hand.
‘What? Yes! Why wouldn’t I be? And what are you doing in my house? Don’t you knock and wait for an answer like normal people?’
Dropping my arms, he raised one eyebrow. ‘I did knock. For five minutes.’
‘So maybe I was out. Or not receiving visitors today.’
‘Or suffocating beneath an avalanche of junk. Or electrocuted by the lethal wiring in this place. Or trapped by the flood of storm water that has come in via your leaky roof, and somehow made its way through your wall and into my office.’
‘Say what?’ I blinked, my idiot, pre-coffee brain struggling to focus beyond how cold and bare my arms felt without his hands on them any more.
‘Water is leaking through the top of our adjoining wall into my office. The place in which I earn my living. Several documents are now destroyed, the floor is soaked and my laptop barely escaped with its life. If you could find it within yourself to “receive visitors”, I would be very grateful,’ he said pointedly.
‘Are you always this rude and sarcastic?’
‘While we discuss that issue, months of work will be drowning in the results of your DIY incompetence.’ He folded his arms, which were bulging with tension.
‘Excuse me! I’ve done nothing!’ I folded my arms right back at him, and made a vain attempt to stretch myself up to somewhere near his height.
‘If only that were true. For the past six years this house stood empty and derelict while managing to leave my side of the building undisturbed and intact. Now I have a broken window and a flood.’
‘I haven’t caused a flood! I actually repaired the leaks, in the middle of the night, using my own ingenuity and wits.
He sighed. ‘That’s what I was afraid of.’
‘I worked really hard! It took ages, and I got soaked in the process.’
‘Right. That would explain the hair. Now, if you’re finished bristling, can I see what’s causing the problem? That is, apart from you.’
I gaped. How dared he come into my house at whatever time it was in the morning and insult me like this?
‘How about we start with wherever you werefixing the leak?’
He didn’t go as far as making finger quote marks to frame those last three words, but his tone implied as much. I watched him climb the attic stairs, my simmering anger powering up the cogs of my brain.
‘Fine! As long as you don’t touch anything. And I didn’t think you’d noticed my hair!’
* * *
So, my rescue bin-bag job hadn’t quite turned out as planned. One side – the side nearest Mack’s house – of one of the holes – the hole nearest Mack’s house – had half peeled away, creating a sort of water slide, beginning at the hole and flowing towards – yes, Mack’s house. The water had run down the bin bag, poured onto the floor at the edge of the dividing wall, found a massive crack to gather in and presumably seeped through to the rooms beneath.
Mack looked at me. ‘Bin bags?’
‘I didn’t know what else to use.’
‘No. Not much lying around here you could use to board up a hole.’
I bit my cheek and tried to think of something to say other than sorry. I couldn’t.
‘I’m sorry. Has it really ruined months of work? I can try and help fix it, if you want.’
One side of his mouth twitched. ‘No. I don’t want.’
