Page 113 of Bare
'When you find Mark, tell him Neil Ashworth from English says he's sorry he didn't ring him back then.'
'I will tell him. Close the door behind you.'
He closed the door behind him. Walked down the corridor past the history block. Looked into the classroom where Mark Holbrook had once taught. A Year 8 class was in it now, heads bent over exercise books, a supply teacher at the front. The room was the same room. The rain was the same rain. The building had not changed. He had. And Mrs Webb, it turned out, had been changing alongside him the whole time, as buildings change around people who stop seeing them.
The conversation happened in May, on a Tuesday, over pasta that was better than usual because Rory had finally learned to salt the water.
'Move in with me while we look for our place,' Rory said.
Neil's fork paused. 'Move in?'
'Here. My flat. Or your flat. Or a different flat. I don't care about the flat. I care about the waking up.'
'The waking up.'
'I wake up in your flat three nights a week and you in mine four, and every morning I have to work out where I am. Where my toothbrush is. Which counter the moka pot's on. I don't want to keep working it out. I want one counter. One toothbrush. One alarm.'
'You don't use an alarm.'
'You're right on that one. I use you. You wake up at six regardless of circumstance. You're a human alarm clock.'
'That's not romantic.'
'It's efficient. And I want it every morning. Same bed, same person.'
Neil ate his pasta. Thought about counters. About toothbrush locations. About owning a flat.
'Freddie needs a room,' Neil said.
'Freddie could have a room. Here. The box room. Kieran and Carol are starting uni in Manchester in September. They'll need somewhere. The box room becomes Freddie's room.'
'You've thought about this.'
'I've thought about nothing else for three weeks.' Rory set down his fork. 'The Cologne cheque. From Serena. I've been sitting on it since February. That's the deposit.' He picked up his fork again. 'I've measured the box room. Eight by ten. Enough for a single bed, a desk, and a bookshelf. The window faces east. Morning light. I've priced a new mattress.'
'You've priced a mattress.'
'A good one. Children need good mattresses.'
'Where did you read that?'
'Gemma told me.'
'You've been talking to Gemma.'
'Gemma rang me on Saturday and said, and I quote, "If you don't ask him to move in soon I'm going to do it for you and nobody wants that." Then she told me about mattresses. And a special pillow. For kids.'
Neil pushed his pasta around the plate. The kitchen was Rory's kitchen, the kitchen where the garlic burned on Wednesdays, where Kieran left cereal bowls with the devotion of a man building a monument to laziness. The kitchen he'd walked into months ago and never fully left.
'What about the studio?'
'The studio stays. My studio, my work. We need a house. Ours. A kitchen, a bedroom. Ours.'
'And your painting?'
'Bare goes in the bedroom. The two figures go above the sofa.'
'The bedroom?'
