Page 33 of 56 Days
Shit.
The door opens a crack, no more than two or three inches, its rusting safety chain not even pulled taut. An elderly woman—her eyes narrowed, her white hair pulled into a tight bun, oneblue-whitehand of swollen knuckles and yellow fingernails holding a surgical mask over her mouth—appears in the gap with only gloom visible beyond.
Maura, the sixth floor’sself-appointedchief enforcementofficer.
“No visitors!” she barks.
Ciara pushes Oliver inside. “I think that’s just from midnight tonight, Maura.”
“Oh, so he’ll be leaving before then, will he?”
“Well, actually... he’s, ah, moving in. So we’ll be one household now. It’s fine.” Ciara fixes a smile to her face. “You don’t need to worry.”
Maura’s eyes narrow further still. “He’s got nothing with him.”
“His stuff is coming later. Tomorrow.”
“There isn’t room enough in there for two.”
“We’ll manage.”
“And I suppose Niall knows about all this, does he?”
“He does indeed.” Ciara raises a hand to wave and starts to pull her door closed with the other one. “Have a good evening now, Maura. Let me know if you need anything.” She shuts the door.
When she turns, she sees him standing in the middle of the living room—the everything room—looking around with great interest, and she silently curses Maura for interfering, for messing up her carefully choreographed plans.
She wanted toseehim see this place for the first time. She wanted to be able to gauge his reaction.
“So I live here now?” he asks, grinning.
“That was my delightful neighbor, Maura. If we were in East Germany, she’d have the Stasi on speed dial.”
“And Niall?”
“That’s my landlord.”
Oliver pretends to wipe this brow. “Phew.”
“I mean, heisalso myex-husband—”
“Right, right.”
“—and the father of my secret child.”
“Oh, I assumed.”
“That I had a child or that he was the father?”
“Both, I think.”
“But he lets me live hererent-freeso long as I keep sleeping with him, so...”
“Good deal.”
“You know,” Ciara says, “this joke isn’t that funny when you know what Niall looks like.”
“And what does Niall look like?”
