‘We’ll just have to take it as it comes,’ Toshiko said.
‘I never thought,’ Jack said, waving a butter knife at her, ‘that people would quit or, I don’t know, die on me due to pressure. Nervous collapse. Mindmulch.’
Toshiko sipped her coffee. ‘If you’d asked me this yesterday, I’d have shared your worries, because yesterday was horrible. But today isn’t, and it’s not going to be.’
‘You sure about that?’
‘I’m a scientist. I have graphs, with arrows on them.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘The law of averages owes us a quiet few days. A few Bartoks.’
Jack nodded. Then he half-frowned. ‘Why do we call them that?’ he asked.
He examined his bruised ribs in the bathroom mirror and flexed his arm. Not so bad.
Gwen called out something from the other room, but he couldn’t hear her over Torn Curtain playing on the stereo.
‘What?’ he called back, rinsing his razor under the tap before rubbing shaving balm into his cheeks.
She wandered into the bathroom behind him, and dropped a bundle of clothes into the laundry basket. She was pretty much already dressed for work.
‘I said, where did we put the sleeve of the Andy DVDs? And also, aren’t you ready yet? We’re going to be late.’
‘I’m there,’ he said.
‘You all right?’
James smiled. ‘Weird dreams last night.’
‘About what?’
‘Haven’t a clue. I just remember them being weird.’ He really couldn’t remember them. They were a solid aftertaste in his mind, but try as he might, he couldn’t actually bring back their content. ‘You’re very perky,’ he remarked.
‘I feel great.’ She went out again. Then she called out from the other room.
‘What? If you turn the music down, I can hear you.’
Torn Curtain dropped away a couple of dozen decibels.
‘I said Andy. The box for the Andy disks.’
‘It was there on Saturday.’
‘I know. It’s not here now.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing. Acting out of guilt.’
He was about to ask her what she meant by that when his nose tickled. He dabbed it. A tiny nosebleed, from the same nostril that had bled the previous day. James got some loo roll and blotted it. Just a tiny trickle. He peered at his face in the mirror, rotating his jaw and opening his eyes wide.
‘Stop looking, I’ve found it,’ she called.
James blinked, not hearing her. He continued to stare at his reflection. ‘Gwen?’
‘I said, I found it.’
‘Gwen!’
She poked her head around the bathroom door. ‘It was under the ficus.’
‘Not that. Look at my eyes.’
‘Your eyes?’
He turned from the mirror to face her. She came closer. ‘Look at my eyes,’ he repeated.
‘Is this some kind of trick to get me in grabbing range, because we do not have time?’
‘Gwen-’
She inspected his eyes. ‘They’re lovely. What do you want?’
‘They’re OK?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘Just for a second there, they looked like they were-’
‘What?’
‘Different colours.’
‘Your eyes?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Let me look again.’ She stared more carefully this time. ‘Two lovely brown eyes, check.’
‘The right one looked blue just then.’
‘You imagined it. Now shake your tail-feather, we got to go.’
She walked back out of the bathroom. James took a final look at himself in the mirror. His eyes were brown.
‘I just need to find a shirt,’ he called.
‘I ironed you one,’ she called back.
‘What?’
Gwen reappeared in the bathroom door and held out a clean, pressed white shirt for him.
‘You didn’t have to iron me a shirt,’ he said, taking it.
Gwen thought about that for a second. ‘Bloody hell, I didn’t, did I?’ she said, with genuine surprise. ‘Sorry. Must be the guilt.’
‘Yeah, what was that about guilt?’ he asked, pulling on the shirt as he followed her into the lounge.
‘I haven’t even been here a week, and your flat was beginning to look like someone had conducted controlled explosions of your books, clothes and crockery.’
James buttoned his shirt and glanced around. ‘Blimey,’ he said. ‘It looks like-’
‘What?’
‘It looks like… like the maid’s been in.’
She grinned, cheeky. ‘Like that, would we? Me in a little French maid’s outfit and a feather duster?’
‘You didn’t have to tidy, or iron me a shirt.’
‘I was feeling guilty,’ she replied, picking up her phone and carkeys. ‘Six days I’ve been staying here-’
‘Living. I thought it was living?’
‘Whatever it is I’m doing here, I’ve been doing it for six days, and it was starting to show. I never thought of myself as a slob, but your place was always so neat and tidy.’
‘What are you saying? That I’m compulsive?’
‘No. I’m saying I was a bit too free and easy with your home. I got up this morning and just noticed. Wine glasses on there. Plates stacked under there. Eighteen — eighteen! — mugs on that shelf. CDs everywhere. All the Andy disks out of the box, and it was Saturday we were watching those. And I won’t tell you what I found behind the sofa.’
‘Tell me what you found behind the sofa.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Was it knickers?’
‘Yes, it was knickers.’
‘Gwen, you didn’t have to straighten the place up.’
She looked at him. ‘I didn’t want you chucking me out because I was a messy bitch.’
‘I’m not going to chuck you out,’ he said.
‘You promise?’
He kissed her instead.
They were on their way downstairs to the car when her phone rang.
‘That’ll be Ianto,’ she said, taking her phone out. ‘Hello? Oh, hello Rhys.’
Gwen looked at James and shrugged helplessly.
He shrugged back.
‘No, I’m off to work right now. Fine, fine, you?’
James opened the front door as gently as he could and picked up some mail. She walked out past him onto the path, still talking. ‘Yesterday? No, no, my phone was busy a lot yesterday. That’s probably why. Sorry. Lot of important calls I had to take.’
James locked the front door and followed her down the tiled path into the street. It was a clean, fresh morning, with a golden tint to the sky.
‘No, OK. Maybe at the end of the week. Or the start of next. See how things go. All right. All right, Rhys. Gotta go. All right. Yes. Bye. Bye now.’
She hung up.
‘Everything all right?’ he asked.
‘Oh, he just wants to meet for a drink. Have a talk about stuff.’
‘You ready for that?’
‘Got to do it, haven’t I?’
They got in the car. ‘Do you think you and I should have a conversation before I have one with Rhys?’ she asked.
‘About what?’ he asked. ‘Why?’
‘About… us.’ Gwen looked at him. ‘Splitting up with Rhys is a big decision to take. For me. For Rhys too. I’d hate to make a decision like that without consulting you.’
‘OK,’ he said.
‘Moving on,’ said Jack, sifting through the papers in front of him. ‘The lights seen over Roath?’
‘Bartok,’ said Owen.
‘Really?’
‘Kids playing with a box of fireworks.’
‘OK. The reports of vibrations and “odd, persistent humming noises” in St Fagans? I’m hoping that’s not going to turn out to be another one of those harmonic tesseract thingies.’
‘Nope,’ smiled Owen. ‘Bartok. It was traced to a gang of road-menders using a poorly positioned generator. Natural acoustics did the rest.’