Chapter 3.4

 

"I'm the new tenant?" Roisin gave him a half-smile. "Roisin Giuffre? You must be Paul."

He sniffed and pushed his glasses slightly further up his nose. "You sure?"

"Sure of what? My name?"

"Funny name."

"It's Gaelic? Irish?" She shook her head, her brow creasing in consternation. She suspected she knew where this conversation was heading.

"No, I mean, I know that. I'm not stupid. It's a funny name for a bloke, I meant."

She nodded. "Yes, it probably would be. Good job I'm not a bloke, then, isn't it, 'cause that would be weird."

Paul, for she assumed it must be her new housemate Paul, said nothing and continued to stare at her, so she gestured with her one free hand. "Are you going to let me in or what? Otherwise, you owe me a deposit and three month's rent."

"Oh, yeah. Right." He took a step back and turned to one side, as if that would make a difference to how difficult it would be to pass him. He made no effort to help her with her rucksack or portfolio, leaving her to manhandle the huge portfolio through the door before her, causing it to bang against her knees. She grimaced through the pain, let go of the art case and turned sideways the get her and her two carry bags through and past him. It was a good job he was thin, that's all she could say. The proximity of their chests as he made no effort to help her left hardly enough for a whisker to pass through. He smelled of old beer and even older sweat, though at least there was no reek of tobacco smoke, either from him or from the house.

Her foot caught on something and she looked down. A piece of stone as big as her head. She could have done herself a serious injury on that. She nudged it with her toe, sending up a plume of dust, but it didn't budge.

"Hey, careful." Presumably-Paul tugged at the sleeve of her arm. "That's two hundred euros' worth of Portland Stone, that it. Don't damage it."

"I can guess which one of us would come out the worse for wear," Roisin replied, "and I don't think it would be my foot."

"Yeah, but you might chip it." He closed the front door, plunging the hallway into what would have been darkness had there not been a fifteen-centimetre square window in the front door. Reaching past her, he clicked a light switch on the wall

Roisin looked around. The hallway she stood in was a little under three meters long divided into two lanes. The right-hand lane, there the piece of stone sat like a lumpen gargoyle, terminated in a blank wall which probably concealed the original door to the rest of the house. The left side was occupied by a set of stairs leading up to the first floor, and the parallel ceiling above them came far too low for anyone coming down.

He noticed her stare. "You have to mind your head," he said, displaying a scab just below his hairline. It can be a bit of a surprise if you forget."

She nodded. "I can imagine." There was a blank wall to her left, papered in the sort of wallpaper which was in vogue when her mum was her age, if her mum had lived in a working men's club. The carpet underfoot, for want of a better word, was of a sandy brown. At least, that was the colour of the dust coating it. What colour it had been when it was first laid was anybody's guess.

Presumably-Paul indicated the stairs. "You'd best come up, I suppose." He waited for her to move but she hesitated. "I thought this was a shared house?"

"It is." He indicated the boarded-up door opposite the entrance. "The downstairs people have a separate front door through the gennel."

"The gennel?"

"The alleyway at the side of the house. You probably didn't notice it because they share it with the next house along. I don't see them very often, but they do bang on the ceiling when the telly is too loud. Their ceiling," he amended. "Our floor."

"Right. Only I thought we had the whole house to ourselves. The listing said two floors."

"That's right." He nodded. "Theirs and ours. There is another floor in what would have been the attic, but Steve rents that, so it's generally locked."

"Steve? Who the Hell is Steve?" She frowned again. "I was told I'd only be sharing with one other person."

"Yeah. Steve isn't here much. He drops in about once a month to pick up his mail. He's all right, actually. Decent sort of bloke."

Roisin had a sinking feeling this wasn't going to be the start to the new life she was hoping for. "And there's no garage."

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