What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours(18)
I loosened the knot of his tie a little, just a little. It still looked neat, so he couldn’t complain.
“Nah. I don’t even know them as well as you do and I can tell they’re just thinking.” A casual overview of all their main emotional attachments reveals that Noor and his ex have been better parents than they realize; while Day and Aisha appreciate strength, lack of it isn’t a deal breaker in the matter of whether they respect a person or not.
—
ALL WAS QUIET on the Matyas Füst front for a few months; I kept an eye on that situation (among others) and read that the reporters who managed to get a sound bite out of Füst all got the same one. He was completing his anger management therapy and was still preparing his apology. This sound bite was paired with another obtained from YouTube woman: Looking forward to it.
It was around that time Ched and I started talking again—not often, but enough. I’d be entering or leaving the House of Locks, the phone would ring, and it would be Ched. He described his current existence as a cycle of drills and chores, and was so tired he’d fall asleep mid-sentence. It was good to speak to him, not just because it was him but because he didn’t know the first thing about the incident that had rocked my household. When I gave him a brief outline he said: “Oh, you know the apology Füst’s preparing is going to be a song, right? And that song is going to become an anthem of repentance. It’s probably going to be called ‘Dress Made of Needles.’”
“Nice—I’ll go down to the betting shop tomorrow.”
There was something else I wanted to talk about while I had him on the line. When I answered his phone calls he needed half a second to adjust his greeting, and it sounded as if he was disappointed that I was the one who’d answered. Well, disappointed is too strong a word. It was more as if I wasn’t his first preference. Which was fine, except that I’m the only other person who has keys to his house. His mum’s been trying to get a set for years without success.
“So what’s going on? You met someone?”
“Not sure,” he said. “I . . . think so.”
“And this person has keys?”
After a lot more questioning he eventually confessed that he hadn’t given a set of keys to anybody else and had never actually met this woman in person, but was fairly sure that she had keys because she sometimes answered the phone when he called. When he said that I adjusted my position so that I was able to watch all the open doors and I said: “That’s wonderful, Ched. I’m really happy for you.”
“Don’t overreact,” he said. “She’s a nice voice at the moment, nothing more. Like one of the ones that sing. Except that she just talks.”
“Did you ask her how she got in?”
“Of course.”
“Well, what did she say?”
“She encouraged me to think of a better question.”
I glared at Boudicca; no wonder she’d been filling out lately. “Maybe she feeds your fish too.”
“Haha, maybe. But while we’re talking about this, could you do me a favor? I don’t think she wants to be seen, so if you let yourself in and happen to notice that she’s around just leave immediately, OK?”
“OK, Ched. No problem.”
Just another day in the lives of two boys from Bezin. Still, I checked every room in Ched’s wing of the house before I left. His alarm system’s in working order and none of his valuables have moved. For now.
—
CHED’S PHONE GIRLFRIEND earned me the first direct smile I’d got from Aisha in weeks. “You stupid boys,” she said, lovingly. A string of text messages appeared on her phone and her smile vanished as if it had never been.
“Brace yourself,” Noor shouted from the next room. “It’s Matyas Füst’s apology.”
Day wasn’t ready to leave her bubble bath—“Oh no, no apology for me, thank you,” so Aisha grabbed a couple of foam stress balls, jumped onto Noor’s lap, and said: “Go.” We watched and listened to Matyas Füst singing a song about a girl who walked the earth in a dress made of needles that she couldn’t remove without maiming herself. People with good intentions kept trying to pull the needles out and give her something soft and warm to wear instead, but the needles pricked their fingers so much that they gave up. Then the girl met a bad man who drove the needles in deeper. Not with a hammer, but with his hands, for the thrill of joining his own torture to hers. Luckily, luckily the bad man managed to bleed out before he could kill her—it turned out his bones were magnetic(?). I might have misunderstood that part of the song, but whatever it was about his bones, they drew the needles from her and into him, he died in the utmost agony, the end. I kept waiting for Füst to wink, but he didn’t.
“My favorite thing about this song is the way it starts out all about her and ends up all about him,” Noor said, as we refreshed the page and fat red love hearts accumulated in the comments beneath the video.
Matyas understands
This is exactly how I’m feeling today
Thank you Matyas
Think we can all agree he shouldn’t have done it in the first place but now he’s done the decent thing
We forgive u
All I could say was: “Amazing.”
How did it go from “Füst should apologize to the woman he beat up” to “Füst should apologize to his fiancée” to “Füst should apologize to us”?