‘I smashed your window on purpose.’
‘If I take this food can we call it even?’ He sounded exasperated.
‘Why are you getting mad at me when I’m giving you something?’
‘Because I don’t enjoy keeping score. Life isn’t a tennis match. It can’t be measured in meals, or tools, or favours done. I would like to just get on with being me, behaving in a manner that means I sleep at night, without having every little thing noted down in your book of neighbourly transactions.’
‘I haven’t got a fridge,’ I blurted out, interrupting. ‘And really don’t want to cycle through the dark with a massive hotpot to find someone else to give it to. Okay? So, will you please take the damn casserole before my hands start blistering?’
Mack looked at me in surprise, allowing me to seize the moment and squeeze past him into the kitchen. ‘And the least you can do is finally invite me in!’ I crowed, dumping the pot on the worktop and waltzing into the living room beyond.
Then I looked – properly – at the living room. My crowing fizzled to a weak chirrup.
‘Wow. Your side is the exact opposite of my side.’
Mack’s living room contained an ugly black leather armchair and a side table with a laptop and a dirty mug on it. That was it.
‘Where’s all your stuff?’
More to the point,what do you do in here all day, with a laptop and nothing else?
Mack, standing in the doorway between the kitchen and living room, shifted onto the other foot. ‘I keep most things upstairs. Stops me getting distracted when I’m working.’
‘Must be an important job you have. Either that or a really boring one.’
‘Thanks for the casserole.’ He coughed. ‘I’ll drop any leftover leftovers round tomorrow.’
I looked at him, wondering. Remembered his office was supposedly upstairs. Remembered how he’d poked his nose all round my house before I could stop him.
I made it to the landing before he caught up with me, but I wriggled under his arm and threw myself through the nearest door, landing on my stomach in what was quite clearly Mack’s bedroom.
A bed, a wardrobe. A book on the floor beside an empty glass.
I pulled myself up. ‘Well, that wasn’t a lie. You do keepmost thingsup here, in the strictest sense of the word.’
He glared at me. ‘I don’t like clutter.’ ‘Are you undercover?’
‘No. I’m not undercover. I currently don’t have many possessions. And I prefer it that way. Thanks again for the food. Now, will you please get out of my bedroom?’
‘What if a friend drops by? Do they sit on the floor?’ I headed back downstairs. ‘Do you have two mugs, or do you share?’
‘We manage,’ he said, voice tight, herding me onto his doorstep.
‘Right. Okay. Well, enjoy the chicken,’ I said, turning round to see the door already closed.
* * *
Later that night, I listened to the water gurgling through next door’s pipes and replaced my smug grin with questions: why was Mack living in a ramshackle cottage in the middle of nowhere, supposedly working all the time at this mystery job? And if he ‘currently’ had no possessions, where had they all gone?
He seemed to be a kind man underneath his grumpiness and need to keep a distance. He noticed things; he was thoughtful and generous.
I wondered if I’d ever be able to ask Mack the question I had asked Dawson: how long have you had no friends?
* * *
That Friday, I washed my bedding in the bath, feeling a little like my grandmother must have done in the days before washing machines, pounding and pummelling, not sure where the steam ended and my sweat began.
Someone knocked on the front door. A quick dash to the bedroom window revealed a sleek, shiny car parked a safe distance from the junk. An identical car to that driven by a local crocodile-slash-property-developer. I waited, holding my breath (because crocodiles had an acute sense of hearing). Another knock, louder this time. Was I being cowardly? Maybe. But I’d decided not to waste any more of my life in the company of people who made me feel inferior. Especially on my afternoon off.
