Bitterhall by Helen McClory (story books to read .txt) 📕

forward and closer to one another and cried with laughter and the barstaff poured shots in lighting rich with shadows so that the drink gleamed as it fell.

‘I love this,’ I said, meaninglessly, and knocked back as much of my beer as I could without drawing attention. We hadn’t had sex yet. No, I know, almost on the first night, after the club. But we were having it that night and the knowledge of that hung awkwardly between us. We drank our drinks and went back too early to mine, with the light still up. The excuse was to show him something on Netflix. Two of us walking against a stream of folk going out. I wanted to be past this, at the point where holding his hand would be as natural as breathing, before the point handholding gets dropped. As it was we walked close, by necessity. The air between us was blue and sharp and the hairs on my arm were up.

‘You’re so close to the park,’ he said, and I wanted to die, on his behalf I wanted to shove us both into neural oblivion, I wanted to skip all steps to the aftermath, in bed, sweaty and fulfilled preferably. There was my doorway, like a bad joke. I stood next to him hunting for my keys, trying not to make the bad joke. Up the three flights. I’d never noticed before how cathedral-like the staircase was, how like a cathedral or an ancient nunnery in some old film, all shadows and echoes and tight steps. I see shadows everywhere, you’ll say. Like granting the thing that was watching us a space to watch us from.

‘Fancy a drink?’ I said, hustling far away from him in the kitchenette that connected to the living room, which had fairy lights and pink candles belonging to Vee, and photos he could look at while I cracked a beer. It’s always this way. I sighed, regretting, wanting. The blank of him and the bulk of him. Then he looked at me. And he had that hallowed desire there, that’s not pretence, that’s not pushing itself. That’s almost a tremulous thing. The warm domestic air of the room did nothing to diminish it. I touched the counter with my fingers, picked an earring out, and another.

‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Come here.’ So I did.

Tell me, is it ever how it is in the films, when they slam in through the door and spill their passion everywhere bright and assured? But this was close. We stood together. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I want to kiss you, is that all right?’ and I responded by kissing, and the human-electrical storm that had been gathering and setting my teeth on edge just cracked open the sky.

What was he like, in bed? Like any man who cares what his partner wants to feel. Generous. Quick to respond. Quiet, which I wished he wasn’t – so much. He slept and I joined him, knackered both. My flatmates came back in the small hours. Tom was still there, asleep. I touched him with my foot, and he woke. His face close again in the dark. Better that way, when I couldn’t see it all.

‘You hungry?’ I said.

‘Fucking starving,’ he answered.

Hours later, I stood in the kitchen, drowning in apprehension, throwing out wax cheese wrappers and an emptied biscuit box. My fucking heart was going to get broken. It signalled very clearly and from a long way off. But, I told myself, better just relax into it, for now.

The Person Asleep Is With Many Others

The body sleeping didn’t stir when we first tiptoed in but did a little when we began rummaging. It was true I had seen the book in there earlier. Tom had been reading it before bed. Not the first time. I’d seen Tom with it several times over the course of the weeks he’d been living there. I hadn’t asked about it and it only held slight professional interest in that it was handwritten and a little old, but Tom was so engrossed I didn’t want to pry. Anyway, nineteenth century, outwith my remit. I’d thought at first he owned it, only he’d usually put it back outside on the kitchen table or the living room. It appeared to move without much human intervention between the two places and nowhere, sometimes gone for days, sometimes popping up on the counter or on the stand by the door where the keys and post hung out. That Tom read at all surprised me. I’d decided it was some book the house kept in common. And so it was, kind of, though Badr didn’t bother with it.

There in the dim room Daniel put his hands on the top of the chest of drawers and I opened Tom’s bag.

‘Will he mind?’ Daniel whispered. He stood there, looking at Tom. I looked at them both and tried not to allow myself much room for speculation. As you can imagine, I speculate wildly. It’s almost something I can taste. I didn’t answer Daniel because I didn’t know. I found the book with my fingers. Rough cloth. I took it gently out the bag.

‘We’ve disturbed him,’ said Daniel.

‘Anyway, it’s your book, right? Don’t worry about it.’

Tom was moving about on the bed. A stripe of light over him. His sleeping face frowning, and then, a slow inward breath switching, to hhhhhahhhhhhhuuh, the eeriest noise. Daniel and I straightened and stood watching, frozen, unsure of our mission then, the easy centre suddenly dropped. We waited. I passed Daniel the book and at this, Tom shifted violently, throwing one shoulder, hands in the sheets.

‘No!’ he cried out. ‘Give it here!’ but he was still asleep. He made the noise again, then rose into a seated position, stiff upright and opened his eyes, which were blankly blue and staring. He made fists with the duvet, and his face contorted with anguish – I don’t like to use such words, but that was all I could call it.

‘The