3.6

 

"You did say not to get him riled up." She pushed open the door of her new room. "No lock on the door?"

"You're welcome to put one on yourself, if you think you need to." Probably-Paul raised his hands in mock surrender. "As I said, Steve's almost never here, and I'm trustworthy."

"I'm just supposed to believe that after meeting you five minutes ago?"

"Look, I'm not stopping you buying a lock for your door, I'm just saying you have nothing to fear from me."

"Even if you are gay, how do I know you're not going to try on all my dresses?"

"One, I'm not into that and two, I don't think you even have any dresses. You don't look the type that likes to be seen in a dress."

"My type?" There was a line in this conversation where she would get either really angry or really upset and not only was Probably-Paul rapidly approaching it, but she didn't know what the end result would be. It was a few years since she'd hit anyone in anger, by she'd attended St. Pity High School in Laverstone, which had been progressive enough to add self-defence for all pupils to the curriculum. The long and short of which was, she knew how to punch someone.

He had the good sense to look sheepish. "The sort of person who likes girls," he said. "I mean, with the boots and jeans, you're dressed more manly than I am."

"Right, okay. That's fair, I suppose." She looked directly at him until he looked away. "Not that it's anyone's business, but those are the cards I was born with."

"You can't help that." Probably-Paul indicated her new room. "Double-fronted. Plenty of light. From the folder downstairs, I take it you're an artist?"

"Trained to be. I think you have to sell more than one piece to actually claim the title."

"We all have to start somewhere."

She turned. "You're an artist, too?"

"Stone carver." He wiped his hand on his trousers and held it out. "Paul O'Grady, at your service."

"Nice to meet you, Paul." At least she could stop thinking of him as Probably-Paul now. She shook his hand lightly, reappraising his physique. The loose shirt could easily be hiding some serious arm and upper torso muscles. She'd met a couple of carvers previously, one had been a woman of roughly her mum's age, and the other could have played body double for the titular Terminator in the films. His palm was hot and very slightly damp. Two shakes and he let go. Not aggressively macho, then. She stepped into her room. It ran the full width of the house and about three metres wide. It was furnished with a single wooden bed and a mattress that had seen better days but was by far not the worst she'd ever slept on. There were three shelves fixed to the wall above the plain headboard and a small dresser next to it. To her right, against the wall to the adjoining house, was a tall, heavy wardrobe of the sort that might contain a portal to another world, though for her it would more likely be Uras than Narnia. The floor was covered by a carpet so old it was threadbare in front of the door, revealing the sort of large-patterned lino she remembered her grandmother's house having when she visited as a child. The walls were covered in magnolia-painted wallpaper, but the room still smelled faintly of emulsion, and she could see discoloured patches appearing in several places under the fresh paint. She pointed to the largest one. If it were a Rorschach ink blot, she'd have interpreted it as a dog giving a piggyback ride to another dog. "I hope that's not evidence of damp." She glanced across at the right of two large windows, where the glass was partially covered by plastic sheeting and masking tape, but the wooden surround showed no signs of rot from incoming moisture.

"Oh." Paul grimaced. "I've put three coats of paint over that, and it still shows through. It isn't damp. Barry had a bad habit of drawing on the walls. I tried to cover it up so he didn't lose his deposit when he moved out."

"Wouldn't he have lost it anyway, because of the cooker?"

"No, he'd have got away with that that, because the landlord knows it was Steve who broke that."

"Was he an artist as well as a chef?"

"No. He was just a bit of an arsehole when he got drunk. He tried to prove he could draw a map of England from memory, only he used several cans of spray paint."

Paul's pronunciation of the word 'arsehole' was the first hint she'd caught of an Irish lilt to his voice. "It looks like--"

"A duchess fucking a pig." Paul nodded. "I'm just glad he didn't try to add Ireland."