Slip of the Knife

FOURTEEN. SLEEK RATS

Callum was exhausted. His room was small and dark and warm, warmer than any room he’d been in for a long time. Although it was summer they had the heating on and he couldn’t have the sheet over him without getting clammy. But the tiredness was partly because he hadn’t been alone for over nine hours. He didn’t think he would miss being alone so much.

It was a tiny room, half the size of the smallest cell he’d lived in. The single bed took up most of the floor and faced a bookshelf and a white plastic wardrobe with one door missing. He had to walk sideways to get around to the window.

Two of the kids had slept in here. Their bunk beds had been moved to the end of Sean and Elaine’s bed. The yellow wallpaper had bits of stickers on it, half a spaceship, a lion’s mane and legs, the face missing. In the corner Elaine had tried to wash off a scribble of black felt pen.

The window in Callum’s room looked out over the street. It’s better this way, said Elaine over dinner, because now the kids won’t get woken up with the noise of cars in the street. Better this way. As if she was trying to convince herself. She was slim for a mum of four, brown hair, shiny. When she bent forward at dinner her shirt fell open a bit and he saw her bra. Nearly jumped her there and then.

They’d lied about him to the kids. The oldest girl, Mary, told him while they were out of the room getting the wee ones bathed. You’ve been away in Birmingham, she said. You’ve got a lot of problems. She was tiny, hands so small they didn’t cover his palm. Everything she did was cute. When she spilled milk all over the floor it was cute. She smiled at him a lot, set an example to the others. The toddler, Cabrini, liked him too but the atmosphere was still tense. Elaine was nervous and Sean never took his eyes from him.

Who could blame them.

Callum sat up in the bed and dropped his feet to the floor, holding the curtain away from the wall with one finger, watching the cars speed past outside, craving the fresh cold radiating from the glass. A woman passed by, head down, jeans too tight for her, showing off all her lumps and bumps. He thought about masturbating to get to sleep but someone might come in and find him.

It was so warm, the curtains, the carpet and the heating on. He was used to walls breathing cold, to pulling the prison blankets around himself to stave off the chill. He didn’t know if he could stay in this heat; he could hardly draw a breath in it.

It was dark outside. Across the road, on the step of a close mouth, he saw something move and thought it was a rat. A couple of rats. But they were shiny, caught the orange streetlight, sleek. Feet. A pair of feet hiding in the dark doorway, shuffling to keep warm. Someone was watching the street.

Sweat prickled at the nape of Callum’s neck. His fingers began to tremble, making the curtain quiver. He dropped his hand but stayed where he was, trapped, tearful, panicked and alone.

He sat there all night, sleeping in small nervous bursts, his head lolling against the wall, craving the cold from outside the cluttered little flat.