Page 37 of Happily Ever After
About an hour or so later, I was alerted to Jay’s presence outside the window by The Master who bit me lightly on the wrist and then leaped off my lap to stand by the wall. When I looked up, there was Jay’s dark form outside, his face smeared against the glass like a cartoon villain.
‘Knock it off.’ I opened the window next to him, to avoid breaking his nose. ‘And come in.’
Jay put both hands on the lower sill, hopped, and swung his legs inside. The rest of him followed, wearing his gardening clothes, and boots. He had a rolled-up newspaper under his arm.
‘What’s that? Ancient court reports that prove that the Templewood estate should belong to some distant relative with whom we were previously unacquainted?’
Jay gave me a straight stare. ‘It’s to put down so I don’t get mud on the carpet.’ He spread the paper on the floor and stepped onto it. ‘Told you. Life’s not like the books.’
By carefully spreading the papers, he crossed the room and sat down on one of the leather sofas that I was using to pile books on. He looked at the dust-ridden volumes as he moved them onto the floor.
‘Wow. These look like riveting stuff.’
‘Almost not at all.’ I sat down on one of the more comfortable armchairs, and The Master plopped back up onto my lap again. ‘So, how are you?’
‘I’m…’ Jay pushed his hair back with both hands. ‘I’m fine. I’ve not seen you about lately?’
I waved at the window. ‘Weather. Plus Lady Tanith is now giving me ultimatums about finding these diaries and/or marrying Hugo to secure the succession, preferably both.’
‘Well, that’s this weekend taken care of.’ Jay leaned back on the sofa. ‘What are you doing next week?’
‘Stop it, she’s serious.’ I looked at him, casual and relaxed with one leg folded over the other, gobbets of wet mud dropping from his boot onto the paper. ‘What about you?’
‘What about me?’
‘In all your tortured darkness.’
‘Ah, yes, that.’ Jay leaned forward and made a squeaking noise which made The Master prick up his ears. ‘I may have exaggerated a wee bit.’
‘You’re dark,’ I observed.
‘Not tortured though.’
I remembered his face, that night in the storm, sitting in the icehouse. He had looked tortured then, face drawn and he’d been hunched around himself as though in pain. Plus, being out in the middle of the night in a storm was a bit of a giveaway. ‘I think you might be,’ I said softly.
Jay pushed his hair back again. His hearing aids were in, and I wondered if he did the hair thing subconsciously, to show them off. To let everyone know that he wasn’t perfect. As he raised his arms, his sleeve fell back and the tattoo on his wrist became lines, telling a story I didn’t yet know.
‘OK, maybe a little bit. But nothing terrible,’ he said. ‘Being partially deaf is bad enough, but it’s not really torture-worthy, just a pain. Great when I don’t want to listen, though. I take my aids out and, bang, people can rant away to their heart’s content and I’m practically oblivious.’
The Master jumped down from my lap and up onto the sofa beside Jay, looking into his face with those huge blue eyes. Jay smiled and began stroking the creamy back.
‘It’s the tattoo, isn’t it?’ I asked, still gentle. ‘You want everyone to think that your hearing is the problem, but it’s that drawing on your wrist, that’s what it’s all about.’
Jay stopped watching The Master and looked at me, a sudden, direct look that held – something, a depth and an assessment, as though he was trying to work me out. ‘I take it back. Those books did teach you something worth knowing,’ he said. His voice was level, but quiet.
‘Not so much the books, more meeting different people every couple of weeks. I had to learn to sum people up fast, you see. Too many of them thought we were Travellers, so we got a lot of resentment and downright hatred, when people thought we were the vanguard of a load of others who were going to come and camp in the middle of their town or village. You needed to be able to spot those people and steer clear. Most people were fine, though. Friendly, up to a point.’
‘Ah, I see.’
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ I waved at the flask on the table.
‘Not if Mrs Compton made it, no. I think that woman wants to be the last man standing as the world crashes and burns, and she’s not above arsenic and petrol bombs to make sure it happens.’
‘I made the tea.’ I stood up and poured us two plastic cups of tea. ‘Returning the favour from the other week. You made me coffee.’
‘I did.’
The cup formed a barrier, as I had hoped it would. It had worked for me talking to Jay; somehow having something to do with your hands made opening up easier. I sat down on the chair opposite him.
