Effendi

CHAPTER 19 9th October

“Enough,” Raf told the cat, wiping vomit from his shoes with a handkerchief taken from his jacket. Somehow a fresh one materialized in his top pocket every morning. Like eating lunch in the kitchen, it seemed ordinary tissues weren’t for people like him.

Raf shrugged and screwed the soiled linen into a ball, pushing it deep into a trouser pocket. He was alone on the roof, Avatar having agreed to take the dusty hire car only after Raf marched him to the front door.

Av had been too weak to go, even after Raf had put back the lights, wiped down the door handles and carefully explained exactly why he should. So, to save time, Raf had cheated, ramping the kid up on a foil twist of speedballs taken from the driver’s wallet.

“This will help you walk,” Raf told him. “You want that, don’t you?”

Avatar nodded, eyes huge.

“Yeah, figured.” Raf had dropped to a crouch beside Avatar’s soiled mattress, with the driver’s dropped lighter in one hand and the foil twist in his other. “Suck the smoke,” said Raf and put a flame to the foil.

Avatar gagged.

“Slowly.” Raf’s voice was soft, its tone soothing. He needed the boy out of the house and soon. Which bizarrely meant stopping Avatar from taking in too much smoke at once.

“Who are you?”

Raf stared at the boy, whose skin was as smooth as Italian leather in the overhead light. High cheekbones had become visible where there’d been adolescent softness only months before. The kid was Renaissance beautiful and part of that beauty was that Avatar didn’t yet know it. To make matters more complicated, Avatar had his sister’s eyes. Hurt and all.

Raf sighed. “I’m your boss, remember . . .”

“You fired me!”

“You kind of fired yourself.”

“Well.” Avatar’s smile was sad. “Maybe.” He rolled sideways off his mattress and stood unsteadily. Around him the cellar seemed to rock and then settle. “I could work for you again,” Avatar suggested.

“As of now, you do,” said Raf and turned the kid towards the door, watching him walk away, weak from hunger and dizzy with smoke.

“About Zara . . .” Avatar said over his shoulder.

“What about her?”

“She’s . . .” Avatar searched in vain for the accurate word. “Cool, I suppose.”

“So everyone keeps telling me.”

“She’s also in love with you.”

Raf sighed and tossed Avatar the car keys. Adding an inevitable clang to his collection of sounds.