Omega

On the television screen the newsreader was talking about EU commissioners. What did Owain make of the European Union that existed here? I had no access to his thoughts on anything he had experienced when he occupied me.

I was pretty sure he hadn’t recently been active in my life—with one striking, intimate exception. His encounter with the girl in the alleyway had left us both with an erection.

THIRTY-FIVE

Owain got a lift from a security patrol that stopped to check his ID and offered him passage across the river. The three-man crew, which comprised a Scottish woman, an Armenian and an oriental from Solihull, were bored but jovial: they were on a dusk-to-dawn patrol, with a long night ahead of them. The fog had reduced visibility to a few metres, the patrol itself to a lengthy exercise in futility.

Ensconced in an old command post Saxon with a bronchitic engine, they took a circuitous route to the south bank, following in the wake of a snowplough. The Armenian, who spoke little English, offered him a swig of liquor from the little nest of bottles on one of the map tables. Normally Owain would have refused, but he was chilled and needed to rid his mouth of its sour taste.

He selected the only one that wasn’t coloured, swallowing the shot whole and not flinching as it raged down his throat and filled his head with the fruity chemical aromas of esters. At once revolting and liberating. Anything to keep the dreariness of the night at bay. He declined the offer of more, noticing that all three were invalids of some sort, the woman with a cloudy eye, the Armenian subject to an involuntary tremor, the Chinese with a pancake burn scar at the side of his neck and an ear that looked melted into his skull. All of them were in their forties, too worn out to be of use elsewhere.

They dropped him in front of the Barracks, the Saxon swiftly consumed by the fog as it drove away. Owain climbed the stains, feeling light-headed. Not that he was hungry; he’d gone beyond it He felt as if he were floating, a ghost drifting through the featureless limbo of some eerie afterlife.

His door key was gone from the ledge. He checked the windows: the blackout blinds were down. The door was unlocked, but as he eased it open it came to rest against the security chain.

He could feel the warmth seeping out. There was the merest hint of a familiar scent from within.

He felt an irrational urge to kick the door open, to pretend he didn’t know who was inside. To scare her. But he suppressed it and merely called in the loudest whisper he could muster: “Marisa!”

There was no immediate response. He called again, raising his voice a little, tempted once more to announce his arrival by hammering on the knocker. A dim light filled the hallway, and seconds later he saw her fingers fumbling with the chain, heard her saying his name.

As usual she wore a black dress more suited to the summer. Her hair had been trimmed, styled into a bob whose inward arcs were like commas punctuating the soft curves of her cheeks.

She immediately embraced him, pressing herself into his chest, her fingertips scrambling along the ridges of his collarbones.

“You’re back,” she said, her head in the crook of his neck.

It was the most wholehearted greeting she’d ever given him. But Owain was peering beyond her, looking down the hallway, wanting to be sure tha she had come alone. The living room door hung open, a single white cup visible on the arm of the empty sofa. No sign of anyone else.

Owain smiled to himself and said, “What an unexpected surprise.”

“Ouch!” Tanya cried, pulling her hand back from the edge of her plate, almost slopping a spoonful of black bean sauce on the carpet.

“They’re hot,” I said redundantly. “I overdid them in the microwave.”

I pulled the cork on the wine and poured out two glasses while Tanya spooned food on to our plates. She’d insisted on showering when she returned and was wrapped in her cream towelling robe. Nothing else. I’d had the heat on full all day and the house was baking.

She passed me my tray and I handed her a glass of wine. We were perched opposite one another on the big sofa with a cushion’s space between us.

“Any calls?” she asked.

“Only Rees.”

“So how was he?”

“How do you tell? He was pretty buoyant, but that could be the rise before the fall. He claims he has a new girlfriend. Keisha. Wants us all to meet up.”

“That would be good.”

“You believe him?”

“Depends on who shows up, doesn’t it?”

“My family,” I said with a weary fatalism. “One basket case after another.”

Tanya grinned at me and swallowed a mouthful of rice. “You’re not so bad. I’ve seen worse.”

I could tell she’d had a few drinks: she was slightly flushed and her eyes had a loose, relaxed look. She took another mouthful of her dinner.

“Have you spoken to Geoff?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“He hasn’t rung here.” Id made a point of checking the messages, just in case I’d missed one.