Page 29 of Pride and Privilege

She couldn’t believe he had done it forher. Not after how she had treated him. Maybe he pitied her a little. Maybe he saw her a bit like a bedraggled kitten he’d found mewing pathetically behind a bin, something he couldn’t just leave there, not without feeling annoyingly bad about it, so he’d taken it home, and made it all snuggly and warm with a big fat dish of cream…

Except… All the time they had spoken in his office—or at least,afterhe learned the reality of her situation—he hadn’t seemed condescending. He hadn’t tried to mansplain poverty to her and how if she just stopped buying avocados it would magically start raining money. (She never bought avocados). He’d listened. And he’d seemed genuinely curious. And been funny and clever and charming while doing it. Self-aware enough to get her jokes, to laugh at himself in turn. And, of course, while doing all that, he had looked how he looked, his voice that deliciously warm crisp voice, with the dripping irony and the velvet chocolate richness. And he… Well… Might the young, gorgeous, aristocratic millionaire genius with the nice manners possibly be her type?

It didn’t matter if he was.

She was nothistype. Perhaps her face had briefly caught his eye. Perhaps he’d once found her tolerable, good enough for a one-night stand, anyway. But by now he realised the shoddy, dowdy mess that lay underneath. If he was attentive and inquisitive, it was because he was a smart, curious guy and she was a curiosity. A walking, talking headline in the newspaper:Cost of Living Crisis Pushes Thousands into Poverty…She wasan exotic animal, a Victorian circus freak, her flat a foreign destination on Roscoe Blackton’s poverty safari, a hushed David Attenborough breathing:See how the poor live, the cramped conditions, the ever-present threat of starvation…

She wandered over to the glass window wall of the living room as she mused, the glass half-mirrored by the night outside. The dark reflection showed a pale girl, hair a mess, in creased charity-shop clothes.Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the commonest of them all?Because that’s what she was, in every sense of the word. A common girl, no class or breeding, no money or education, and a million just like her in the world.

Very muchnotRoscoe Blackton’s type.

She looked out into the dark, not really knowing if she was facing north or south or east or west. But he would be out there somewhere at this very moment, in a sleek black car, heading straight to the heart of the truth of her. Her room, her life, her bed…

She hadn’t realised when she agreed to this quite what it was she was giving up. Privacy. Self. Any kind of pretence that she was in any way like him.

Her life would be laid bare. And he would see that what shehadand what shewaswere the same.

Nothing.

Roscoe let himself into Poppy’s flat with the key she had given him. He wriggled it just like she’d told him he’d need to, but it still took a few goes before it turned.

The door opened onto a hallway that looked… Well. Small, obviously. A little grubby. But otherwise quite normal: cheap laminate faux-wooden flooring, white walls, and a flimsy shoe rack that was cascading absolutely enormous men’s trainersall over the floor. No rats. No peeling wallpaper. No dripping mould.

The air smelt of takeaway curry, a fact which was explained by the man he found in the living room, sitting on the sofa with a plastic container of what looked like chicken in something orange, and a huge naan bread spread over his other knee, no plate. The football highlights were on the TV. To Roscoe, who normally spent his nights alone and working, it initially appeared an inviting scene. He might have been tempted to grab a beer and join in. But the man gave a sort of grunt as he looked Roscoe up and down, not seeming particularly happy about what he found. “You’re him, are you? Poppy’s work friend?” He was big and fair-haired, with the bulk of a guy who once used to work out hard but hadn’t in a while.

“Yes. Hi.”

“I’m Dave,” said Lecherous Dave.

Roscoe would have shaken his hand, but the man made no move to stand up, and instead forked out a large piece of bright orange chicken then said, “You screwing her?”

“Excuse me?”

“Poptart. You her boyfriend or whatever?”

“No.”

“Not gay, are you?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Pretty big favour she’s doing you, letting you stay here while your place gets renovated.”

“Yes. She’s…nice like that.”

Dave snickered. “She’s nice alright. Did she explain the situ here? My place. My rules. If you’re here instead of her, then her chores are yours. She does”—he waved a hand carelessly in the air—“everything.”

“Everything?”

“Yeah. Gotta earn her keep, hey.”

Poppy had warned him he would likely want to kill Dave. He just hadn’t imagined it being within five minutes of meeting him. Was it possible to drown someone in a takeaway-sized tub of curry sauce? He was willing to give it a good old college try.

“Anyway, she said to tell you there’s nothing to eat.”

“Right,” said Roscoe and walked into the kitchen. Anything seemed preferable to further conversation with Dave. He’d already picked up his phone to order a takeaway before he remembered. Twenty pounds. That was his food budget according to Poppy. He’d thought she meant for each day until she laughed and said, “A week, Roscoe! Twenty pounds a week!”

Which was…impossible. But did explain why she had fainted in his office.

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