The Things I Know(31)

Grayson stared at her. ‘No, I wouldn’t do that. I never tell a lie. Ever.’

The two stared at each other for a second or two.

‘I believe you.’ Hitch opened her mouth, about to say more on the importance of this honesty, when her mum came into the room from the kitchen. Hitch jumped up and began clearing the table of the now empty teacup and saucer.

‘There you are, Hitch!’ her mother tutted, as if addressing a wilful child. ‘Is she annoying you? She can sometimes forget that she’s here to serve breakfast and nothing else, isn’t that right, my love?’

Grayson looked at her. ‘No, she’s not annoying me. We were just chatting. She’s . . . really, really great.’

‘Is she now?’ Her mum spoke softly, as she pulled her head back on her shoulders and looked at their guest with her head cocked to one side.

‘I don’t know her very well, but if I had to say so, then, yes, I would say she is great.’

Grayson held Hitch’s gaze and it was all she could do to laugh behind her palm as she busied herself with brushing crumbs from the table, aware of her mum standing with her mouth flapping, quite unsure of how to respond.



Once Hitch had tidied the guest room with Grayson watching her from the chair in the corner, they stood in the field as she shook a fine powder in and around the chicken coop.

‘What are you doing?’ he said, wrinkling his nose.

‘I have to make sure I cover all the joints between the wooden planks and their perches, anywhere the red mites might be. They’re horrible little things that live in all the cracks and they come out at night and suck the girls’ blood and feed on them. It can kill them. I heard on the grapevine that a woman in the next village has them and so I’m taking extra care. I put this powder down and it means that, if we get any of the little pests, they have to crawl through this to get to my girls and the powder will finish them off.’

‘I’ve never heard of red mites.’

‘Well, you’ve never kept chickens!’

‘No, I don’t think they’d fare too well on the balcony and I don’t think they’d like it in the basement.’

‘You have a basement?’ This wasn’t something she’d envisaged for a flat.

‘Kind of.’ He sniffed. ‘Not so much a basement as an area of underground car park where each flat has a kind of cage.’

‘It sounds spooky!’ she said with a shudder.

‘It is a bit, I suppose. The pipes leak and leave slimy, greenish puddles on the path. And it’s quite dark, but I don’t mind it down there. In fact, I like it. Sometimes it’s preferable to listening to the incessant cackle from my mum and aunts.’

‘It’s good to have a refuge.’

‘Do you have one?’

‘Here, I suppose. This is where I come. When everything feels a bit noisy.’ She clambered out of the coop and fastened the door.

They stood side by side and watched the plump-chested chicks, their feathery, crested heads pecking at the grass, listening to their bock, bock noise, exchanging the sound at regular intervals, which made it sound a lot as though they were chatting.

‘Yes, Daphne, we see you!’ Hitch tutted lovingly, as the hen came over and jutted her head back and forth. ‘It’s nice having someone to do chores with. My mum would kill me if she knew I was letting you help out. You’re supposed to be our guest, paying for the privilege.’

‘Do you let other guests help you out?’

‘Nope. Never.’

‘I’m glad.’

She looked him steadily in the eye and wondered if he felt the same burst of happiness she did at nothing more than the admission of this shared, special, yet mundane thing. He bent sideways, to tentatively pet Buddy’s ears, and she noted the way in which her dog panted and stood close to his leg, accepting his touch.

‘Are you sure this is better than being at your seminar?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know what the seminar would be like, but I can’t imagine having a better time than this.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ She whistled and Buddy ran to her side. ‘So tell me about your house.’

‘It’s a flat, not a house.’

‘So tell me about your flat!’ she tutted mockingly, but her eyes smiled.

‘It’s in a large block, one of six identical blocks that stand quite close together like dominoes. Everything is grey and the actual flat is small.’

‘Cosy?’ she asked with optimism, this one word making the whole idea more palatable, like honey in hot lemon or a spoonful of sugar after medicine. She wanted to paint a pleasant picture of his life.

‘Constricted,’ he corrected.

She felt the smile slip from her face.

Grayson continued, ‘And you already know about the storage cages in the basement – rows of them along the outside walls, all caged in.’

‘What do people keep in them?’ She was having difficulty imagining the dimensions.

‘All sorts. Ours is quite neat and everything fits, but some of them are overflowing with things people have shoved into every gap. I think it’s because, for someone like Mr Waleed, who had to pack up his whole life and come to England, it must be hard to find a place for all the stuff inside. As I said, the flats are small.’