Chapter 5.1

 

Despite her burning curiosity and simmering anger, Roisin managed to keep it together after a scalding cup of the strongest coffee Paul's personal, don't-use-this-food kitchen cupboard could provide. She didn't feel the slightest bit guilty about it, either, deeming it the least he could do for all the lies he'd given her since she stood on his doorstep. How could he pretend he didn't know who she was when he'd been staring at a magic statue of her for who-knows-how-many nights? She felt a complete twat about her acceptance of him now. No wonder he'd been so generous with his spare bedding and his free bag of chips.

She spent the afternoon rage-painting a portrait of him being inflicted by boils, is a vague homage to William Blake's 1826 watercolour, but casting herself as Satan and the block of weird stone as the weeping onlooker. It used up one of her treasured canvasses, true, but it made her feel better. That, at least, was a benefit of being an artist. Whether one was trained as a visual artist of a master of the written word, one could produce a masterpiece out of some channelled righteous anger. Just ask any scholar of Shakespeare: His sonnets were generally regarded as the finest ever written, but anyone taking the time to study them could see they were plainly the result of a lust-driven nerdy Incel.

She managed not to rage at him the moment he came through the door but continued to paint; this time slightly more productively by depicting a small illustration of the Angel of Vengeance tearing the skeleton for the living body of a penitent. She was quite pleased with how it turned out, despite it being on one of the pieces of plywood she'd found in a skip. She took a photograph with her phone and posted it to her LinkedIn profile. Unlike the other social platforms, LinkedIn was reserved for professional users looking for work contacts and casual overnight hook-ups during overnight business trips. She also uploaded it to her Etsy shop, although the commission they charged these days was crippling to actual artists, rather than the sellers who bought 'handmade' work wholesale from Chinese factories.

She heard him make a cup of tea in the kitchen, the spoon clinking against his ridiculously stained mug which, in hindsight, she should have washed while he was out, because she refuted his hypothesis that it was the many years build-up of tannin in the inside that made his drinks so flavoursome. He'd offered it to her that first night, so she could taste the difference, but she'd declined politely for fear of contracting something horrid. She should have just smashed the mug on the pretence of seeing an insect in it and to Hell with the consequences. His measured tread made the floorboards creak as he returned from the kitchen, followed by the gentle click as his bedroom door closed behind him. There was the gentle thud of his mug being put down, then the creak of his bedsprings as he made himself comfortable. He'd either picked up a book to read or was staring at the sculpture of her, she decided. Probably while rubbing one out during either occupation.

Another hour, during which she alternately fielded scam offers for her painting on Etsy ("Would you accept a thousand euros on a Cashier's Cheque? and send it directly to my wife, who's serving on an oil rig in Zimbabwe") and tried to become invested in the characters of the limited series on Netflix; top ten list, and she could both hear Pauls gentle snores and see them vibrating the water in her home-made paint pot. Only then did she get out the wood she'd scavenged and begin work making a stretcher large enough to paint a lying serpent on. She had no compunction against using the hammer and nails she borrowed from him the day before, and within minutes he was pounding on her door, all but pleading for her to let him, and the rest of the neighbourhood, sleep in peace. "The landlord will throw us out if he gets complaints from the people downstairs," he called through the closed door. "And I have no desire to move."

To give him his due, he made no attempt whatsoever to open the unlocked, unbolted door, seeming to respect the rules he'd laid out for her on that first night. She respected that and mentally gave him a Brownie point for keeping to his work, leaving him only at minus several thousand for all the lies he'd told her.