“I don’t know why—” he says.
“I should leave.”
“Please don’t,” he says. He sits, wipes his fingers on his napkin. “That call, it’s thrown me.”
I shrug. “Not surprising,” I say.
“I’d like you to stay,” he says. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“All right,” I tell him. “But don’t get violent.”
“I won’t.”
“If you do,” I say, “I’ll kick the shit out of you.”
He grins. Doesn’t believe me.
He’s never been aggressive before. I try to avoid men who are. But I’ve learned to deal with them just in case.
I can look after myself.
I teach self-defense classes when I’m not working.
I’m not scared of James.
* * * *
7:39 p.m.
“We should clear up that mess,” I say. “The carpet’s a state.”
“Just leave it,” he says.
“It’ll stink.”
“That’s okay.”
“It’ll stain.”
He’s quiet.
“You don’t care if it stains?”
He shakes his head.
“Your Mum’s carpet anyway,” I say. “Her problem. That what you’re thinking?”
“No,” he says. “I have other things to think about.”
“Then let me do it,” I say.
“It’s our anniversary, Tina,” he says. “You can’t clean the floor tonight.”
I sigh. If I can’t clean the carpet, I might as well eat. “What’s for pudding?” I ask.
* * * *
7:40 p.m.
He thinks I’m joking.
I don’t push.
He already looks like he might cry and I don’t want to send him over the edge.
“Why did you stop working?” I ask him.
He looks at me, eyes dark and uncomprehending.
“You said you used to be a postman.”
He nods. That’s it, though,
I have to help him.
“Were you a postman for long?”
He plays with his fork again.
I anticipate another clatter.
“Five years,” he says.
“Did you enjoy it?”
“Yeah.”
“So what happened?”
“They let me go.”
Another topic I shouldn’t have introduced. I’m on a roll.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say.
“Me too,” he says.
And as I’m watching, he slams the fork into his hand.
Screams.
I scream too.
He wrenches the fork back out.
Blood’s leaking out of the four holes he’s made, running together, tracking down the back of his wrist.
“What the fuck?” I say. “What the fuck are you doing?”
His mouth’s open and he’s panting.
“He’s after me,” he says. “Don’t look at me like that. He is.”
“That’s maybe so, James,” I say. “But put the fork down and let’s see what you’ve done to your hand.”
“It’s okay,” he says. “I feel better.”
“It doesn’t hurt?”
“It does,” he says. “But it takes a little pain to let the evil out.”
* * * *
7:42 p.m.
Holy shit.
I’m torn between legging it out of here and making sure James is okay. He needs to go to the hospital. Leave him here on his own and God knows what he’ll do to himself.
Between last year and now, he’s turned into a headcase.
Presumably there was nobody on the phone. He made all that up about somebody telling him he only had thirty minutes to live.
This guy who was after him was a figment of James’s fucked-up brain.
But the phone had rung. Someone had called.
I get to my feet.
* * * *
7:43 p.m.
“Where are you going?” he says. “Don’t leave me.”
He’s cradling his hand now.
“I’m going to check something out,” I tell him. “I’ll be right back.”
I walk over to the phone. Punch in the code to find out who just called.
And hear: You were called today at 7:30 p.m. The caller withheld their number.
So much for that theory.
* * * *
7:44 p.m.
“Let me take you to get your hand fixed,” I say.
“No.” He shakes his head hard.
“Then let me look at it.”
He thinks about it. Then relaxes. Holds his hand out to me.
It’s a bloody mess. The puncture wounds have coagulated, though. The blood’s stopped flowing.
Not that deep.
Good.
He’ll be okay.
“You got a first-aid kit?” I ask him.
“No,” he says.
“Antiseptic wipes? Plasters?”
He looks vague.
“A clean cloth? Water?”
He grins. “Of course.”
* * * *
7:46 p.m.
So I’ve got the stuff and I’m cleaning his hand.
He winces like I’m scraping my nails on his heart.
“How come you had to do that?” I ask him.
For a moment he forgets to act pained. “Huh?” he says.
“Stabbing yourself. Seems. extreme.”
He shrugs.
“You do that often?” I’ve never noticed any scars.
“My feet,” he says. “The soles of my feet.”
Ow.
“To let the evil out?”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” he says.
Thing is, I do.
I do.
Me and razor blades, we go way back. Not that I’m going to tell James, though. None of his business.
He’s my business, not the other way round.
I opt for, “You’d be surprised.”
He gives me a look, winces again.
“You said he was after you,” I say, dropping the cloth in the bowl of water.
“This is going to bruise.” He flexes his fingers.
“I expect so. Who’s after you?”
“I can’t say.”
“Maybe I can help,” I tell him.