Page 22 of The Love of My Afterlife
I get off the bus at Paddington, and as the summer evening breeze hits me I realise that I am drunk. I don’t drink often, so the cocktails have really hit me, and I find myself stumbling down past the library, tripping over thin air around every thirty seconds.
“Delphie? Delphie Bookham? Goodness, is that you?”
I look behind me to see a lanky man jogging over to me. How does he know my name? And why is he running after me?
I speed up my walk, managing about two meters before my lack of co-ordination means I go tumbling onto the pavement.
“Nooooo!”
The chaser catches up while I’m still splayed on the ground. Relief softens my shoulders as the glow of a streetlamp reveals that my “assailant” is actually just the man I met this morning at the library. The one who helped me out with all the books.
“You silly goose!” the man says, holding out a hand to help me up.
I ignore the hand because I can get up myself. Except that everything seems to be swaying the wrong way.
“It’s me, Aled!” the man says, holding out his hand again.
I have no choice but to take it. He yanks me upright, surprisingly strong for someone so skinny.
“I’m fine now!” I say brightly to Aled. “Thanks for the help. All the best to you and yours!”
As I make my way down the street, I immediately careen into the wall, bouncing off it right into a bollard. This walking-straight thing is not working out for me at all. Aled catches up and steadies me.
“How far have you to go? Let me walk you. Unless it’s more than a ten-minute trek, in which case I’ll call us a cab. I’m returning from my crime lovers’ book club at the library.” He thumbs backwards towards the old library building. “And, frankly, I’m shattered. People are bloody exhausting.”
I give him a sideways glance and point over the road. “I only live down there. And I agree. People are exhausting.”
“Exhausting but necessary.”
“Not necessarily necessary,” is what I intend to say but it comes out more like “Not nesha neshararraaa.” Somehow Aled seems to understand.
“Come on. Let’s get you back, you enormous pisshead.”
I let him angle me towards my house and only half listen as he tells me more about the books he gave me today along with a few others he could recommend. “How Do They Sleep at Night?isn’t in stock, but I could order it in and it’ll be at the library within seven to ten days.”
“I probably won’t be here in seven to ten days,” I mutter, uncertain of anything after tonight’s disaster.
“Off on your holidays, are you?”
“Something like that,” I say, realising that we’re now right outside my front door.
“Bye then!” I call out, but Aled doesn’t leave.
“Wait. Do you have stairs, Delphie?”
“Just a single flight. I’ll be fine.” I wave him off.
He pulls a face. “In the book we discussed at club tonight, the first murder victim was pushed down the stairs and the police didn’t even investigate it because she was an enormous pisshead like you.”
I muffle a tiny burp. “If I let you in, you could murder me.”
Aled laughs at the idea, and I notice that when he laughs he does so with his whole body. “Imagine. I’m not the type. I’m a vegan.”
I’m not sure how that reasoning adds up, but I agree that he doesn’t look the type. And even if he did murder me, Merritt would probably send me back down to Earth again to humiliate me for her own amusement.
I knock on the front door before remembering that I have some keys because I live here.
“Give me your keys, love,” Aled chuckles. I root around in my purse and hand them over.
