Anything For Him (21 page)

‘So,’ he said, walking to the door. ‘What do you have in to eat? Bacon? Eggs?’

I thought about what was in the fridge. ‘Neither. Cereal or milk is about the limit for breakfast today.’

‘Ah, and I wanted our first breakfast together to be the full English. I noticed a little shop down the road when I came here last night. Do you want me to go out and buy what we need?’

‘No,’ I said, a little too quickly. ‘I’ll go. You get that coffee you need.’

Before he could protest, I leaped off the bed and yanked my clothes on, my jeans tight and constricting from their recent wash. Liuz left the room, and I heard the kitchen tap gush water. With a T-shirt and sweater on, I slid my feet into a pair of training shoes and whipped a brush through my hair, excitement at doing my first ‘shop’ for our first meal together sending me giddy. I dashed down the hallway, making another mental note to get a lock for my office door, and poked my head into the kitchen.

Liuz had put the kettle on, the rumble of it starting to boil a pleasant sound, and leaned with his ass against the sink unit, arms folded across his chest. I looked at him to judge whether he was relaxed or just pretending, but he glanced over at me with that broad smile again and I knew he was going to stay.

‘I’ll just be off then. Won’t be a minute,’ I said. ‘Do you want the full works? Fried bread and everything?’

‘Please,’ he said, taking two cups off the mug tree and scraping the coffee canister across the worktop towards him.

He opened drawers in search of a spoon, I guessed, and a swell of happiness surged inside me. Liuz appeared so at home in my little kitchen. So right.

‘OK. I’ll, um, I’ll get going.’

He raised one hand while rooting in the drawer with another, and I turned away, that image firmly imprinting itself in my mind. I grabbed my bag from the living room and left the flat, almost running down the street towards the shop. He was going to stay, I knew that, but still, rushing a little wouldn’t hurt, would it?

In the shop, I grimaced at the amount of customers milling about. Since when had this place ever been so busy? A queue snaked down the centre aisle, people clutching pints of milk and folded-over newspapers to their chests, some with heavy baskets by their sides. I picked up a basket of my own and headed to the chiller, pleased to find plenty of bacon packets on the shelf. Did he prefer his smoked? I wasn’t sure so put one of each in my basket, feeling like a proper woman with a man at home waiting for me to return with the shopping. I selected a loaf of bread, some baked beans and a small bottle of cooking oil, a local newspaper – just in case there was something in it we needed to see – and another jar of coffee. If I remembered rightly, there wasn’t enough to last the day if both of us were drinking it. Come to think of it, I’d better get milk too.

I tacked myself on to the end of the queue, which had grown longer as I’d shopped, and bit back a mutter of annoyance. I missed Liuz already, imagined he’d be on his second cup of coffee by now, perhaps wondering where I was, why it was taking me so long. I went through my return to the flat in my head, me waffling about the damn queue, and wouldn’t you just know someone had a trolley full of goods ahead of me? Why hadn’t they gone to the main supermarket? Why was there only one person manning the tills? A typical Post Office scenario, but I wouldn’t storm off in a huff, leaving my basket on the floor. No, we were going to have our full English breakfast this morning, sitting side-by-side on my sofa – our sofa – knees touching.

There was a commotion up ahead. Something to do with an item not scanning and the shop assistant needing a co-worker to fetch him another of the same item. Why wasn’t the co-worker behind a till too? I tapped my foot, getting a little impatient now, and lowered the basket to the floor. To pass the time, I reached down for the newspaper, scouring the front page expecting to see a big splash about the murders. There wasn’t one. The main tale was about a resident irate about the state of the paving slabs outside her house. She’d fallen and broken her ankle, and wasn’t that what we paid taxes for, to have streets that weren’t potential death threats? In the top right-hand corner, two inches by three, was a snippet about two men being gunned down in a private residence. No names, no gory details, just that police were treating it as suspicious.

I breathed out, tension leaking away. I hadn’t even been aware of my muscles being inhabited by the rigidity of stress until it was gone. The line shifted forward, the till scanner thankfully bleeping away again. I folded the newspaper and dropped it into the basket, knowing Liuz would be pleased the events in his flat didn’t warrant anything but a tiny mention.

At last, my turn came, and I resisted making a caustic remark about the state of the service in here. Instead, I dumped my basket on the counter and watched the worker bag my things, then paid and left the shop as though the devil chased me. I didn’t like being apart from Liuz, clearly, and although I knew I’d become attached, I hadn’t realised just how attached until now. I needed to see him, to know he was there, to have his presence even if he didn’t feel like talking. And we didn’t need to talk, did we? No, we could say what we wanted just by looking at one another – or we would do once we’d been together for a while longer.

I turned my key in the lock, pushing the door with my hip – it had taken to sticking lately – and blustered into my flat. The sound of the TV filtered from the living room, a news channel if the monotone of a bored male was anything to go by, and I smiled at the thought of Liuz sprawled on my sofa, waiting for news of what had happened to reach the London masses. Waiting for me to get back.

I went into the kitchen, dumping the bags on the counter, and wandered into the living room with a casual air about me, as though I came home to having a man in my place all the time.

He wasn’t there.

I frowned and walked down the hall, checking my bedroom. Finding it empty, I stood outside the closed bathroom door and listened for sounds from within. There weren’t any, but instead of lurking about when he was having a moment to himself, I returned to the kitchen and unloaded the bags. Job done, I flicked the kettle on, noting the second cup he’d taken from the mug tree still stood on the counter with coffee and sugar in the bottom, a spoon leaning against the side. His cup was in the sink, so I grabbed another and made us both a hot drink.

With the cups full and steaming, I called out, ‘Coffee’s ready! Just going to start breakfast! Chop chop!’

I smiled, bubbling over with the new sensation of domesticity for two, popped a few sausages on a baking tray and slid them into the oven. Bacon rashers laid out on the grill pan, baked beans in a small saucepan on the hob, I selected a knife from the drawer in order to slice onions and mushrooms. Unsure if he even liked them, I put the knife down and went back to the bathroom so I could check. I knocked on the door.

‘Liuz? You OK in there?’

No response.

My heart picked up speed, and my thoughts immediately went to my office. If he was in there, I’d – No, he’d said he wouldn’t look, wouldn’t invade my private space, and I believed him. I knocked on the bathroom door again and, when silence greeted me, turned the handle and pushed the door open.

The bathroom was empty.

Spare room. He’d be in the spare room.

He wasn’t.

That only left my office, and I took a moment while standing in the hallway to think about how I was going to handle this. Was it so bad that he’d gone inside, wanting to know the other part of me? It was sweet, really, him wanting to see my work, to find out what made me tick. But what if he didn’t like what he saw? What if my subject matter shocked him? Oh, my art wasn’t ugly – different maybe, but not ugly – so I wasn’t worried about his reaction to it in that way, but him being the main focus might be a bit of a shock.

Or would it? Maybe he’d take it that I cared about him so much that I had to express it in the only way I knew how, by committing his image to the wall in paint, something tangible and not just an emotion. How would I feel if it was the other way around? I’d get that warm and fuzzy feeling that I was so adored my man thought of nothing but me, that I dominated his thoughts and he needed to paint me, wanted to paint me.

I went inside.

Liuz wasn’t there either.

Panic started as a tingle of nerves in the pit of my stomach then broadened out to a nasty set of pinches that combined into a painful knot of apprehension, growing up my windpipe and settling in my chest. I had the urge to run, to scour my flat and check the cupboards, the wardrobe in my room in case he was playing a trick on me, testing to see how much I cared. But I didn’t. I stayed rooted to the spot, telling myself he’d just gone out to sort a few things, that he’d be back once he’d smoothed over whatever the hell needed smoothing over, and we’d carry on with our lives as I’d planned, happy and content with each other.

Yes, that was what had happened. He’d just nipped out. That was all.

God, I was so paranoid. I needed to get a grip.

I lifted one hand to my chest, as though the warmth of my palm would settle the pounding throb there, the
tick-tick-tick
of the raging pulse in my neck. Taking a deep, settling breath, I stared at the mural as though looking at it through Liuz’s eyes, trying to imagine what he would see, how he would see it.

They were beautiful, I could admit that – they really were my finest work. I scanned across from the first to the last, sucking in a breath at how Liuz affected me, how even a painted image of him stirred desire within me and a longing to get to know him, every last thing. My chest hurt with the weight of my emotions, feelings surging through me at speed, and I staggered to the side and leaned my shoulder against the doorjamb.

And frowned.

Something wasn’t right. Something was off.

I cocked my head, trying to work it out. The pictures were exactly the same, the hues the ones I’d chosen, the brush strokes unchanged. So what was the matter? I narrowed my eyes, searching every inch of those pictures for the clue to what was bugging me.

There it was, what looked like a very faint smudge of black, a whisper of a brush tip, the paint barely there to the untrained eye. I moved closer to the wall, narrowing my eyes some more, cocking my head further, stomach bunching as that smudge became what it was, turned from an innocent wisp into so much more.

I stared at it for a long time, uncomprehending, then leaned closer just to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me. On the last painting, the one of my darling Liuz bound by pink scarves, was something I had never wanted to see. It was on his foot, at an angle, the use of a black biro on my artwork obscene and totally out of place. Totally wrong.

One word, that’s all it took to shatter my world.

Kilimanjaro.

Heartbreak, I discovered, was like the devil jabbing at every inch of my body with his cruel, merciless fork, over and over and over. Twisting my intestines so eating was impossible. Snatching my breath so sharply it was hard to breathe, and when I lay in bed at night, sobbing until my face puffed up like a balloon, I would have preferred someone to peel out my spine, nape to tailbone, and whip me with it than have to wake up, again, to the knowledge that Liuz had left me.

That Liuz had written the stop word.

How could he? How could he be so blinkered, so blind to what we had? We were great together. It was us against the world. The underworld.

So it was just as well I had a plan to get destiny back on track. Kilimanjaro had its uses for a while, but that time had been and gone. There was so much more to think about now, and its significance in my life was about as important as a distant planet on the outer edge of the solar system.

Three weeks after Liuz had left me, he was allowed back into his home. I didn’t know where he’d stayed in the interim, but when he moved in again, the window had been repaired and a new carpet had been delivered and fitted two days previously.

To start with, I wondered how he could go back there. To the murder scene. But spying on him, from behind my faithful tree, and watching him open the curtains and stare wistfully out at the blue sky I suddenly understood. There weren’t just gruesome memories in that place. There were also memories of lust and love, wild abandon and giving in to insatiable desires. I understood him, really I did. For in that bedsit was where we first discovered the pleasure of one another. Liuz and Hannah. It was where our lives together had properly begun.

I desperately wanted to go to him. Hold him. Remind him what it was he loved about me. But I couldn’t. There were things to be seen to first. I had to prioritise and Liuz’s safety was top of that list. Especially now he was back there.

Using the pen name Aniolku Meadows, I wrote a first-person report about the murders, being sure to add in that all payments had been settled by Biros so Beefcake’s men wouldn’t hassle him. When I subbed it to my ed, he was beyond pleased with its gruesome details and it went to print the very next day along with a picture of 78 Woodstone Road with a boarded-up windowpane.

But keeping Liuz safe was a two-step plan for there were others out there who were also a threat. People, women, who might try and take my place, and now, especially now, with this new and exciting development in my life, that risk had to be eliminated.

Officer Lederman was cool and calm when I called and asked for an appointment. In fact, he came to me. I didn’t even have to go to the police station.

But before he visited I added a bolt onto the door of my Liuz room. My paintings were for my eyes only. Liuz’s reaction had proven that the rest of the world was not ready for my work. My erotic and macabre blend of art was obviously an acquired taste, and I wished I could have introduced it to him slowly. Explained the details and the reasons for each picture. Made him see beyond the images to the emotions, the story, the way the colours and strokes celebrated my undying love for him.