Page 63 of Love and Loathing

He was in the doorway to the kitchen. He stepped out of the way as she approached. She walked past him, went in, smiled brightly at Roscoe. “How’s the cake?”

He looked up halfway through a bite. Wiped a crumb of icing from his lip and said, slightly muffled, “Good.” He gave her a thumbs up.

“Excellent.”

Aubrey was eating nothing. Her own stomach was churning acid. The cake wasn’t vegan anyway. She’d got Roscoe the one he liked best. A granola bar for herself. She picked it up from the table, shaky fingers fumbling with the wrapper.

“And how are you, Aubrey?” she said briskly. “Life good?”

“Not particularly.”

“Roscoe says you’re volunteering here. If you’ve got time to spare, they could use you down at Refugee Action.” She was aiming for sarcasm, but it came out brittle, like dried up coral, crumbling to shards. And she couldn’t get the damned cereal bar open. Her fingers were freezing, numb. “You could make up some packs. It’s quite easy once you get the hang of it.”

“Maybe I’ll do that.”

“Excellent. Well.” She gave up on the bar, shoved the mangled, crumbling thing into her pocket. “I should get going.”

“You’re soaked,” said Aubrey.

“Yes. Goodbye.”

“Evie—”

She walked out, fled down the stairs on trembling knees, and burst into the rain.

The rain had stopped the next day, the weather quite fine, but the church hall felt colder than ever. Evie walked down the now-familiar row of tables, the now-familiar musty smell of the damp old place in her nose. She sneezed, turning her head, protecting the bundle of jumpers she carried.

They were sorting clothes today. As cold as it was in the church hall, a tent would be colder. Winter coming, and refugees arriving by the bus-load. All these donations had been collected from around London, people dropping them off all morning. Old coats and wellingtons and gloves and scarves. Jumpers and trousers. Little baby clothes. Printed with pink bunny rabbits. She sniffed, told herself it was the cold.

She dumped her armload onto the sorting table and began separating the piles.

“Someone told me you’re in charge.”

She jumped a mile and looked up at Aubrey, heart stopping then bursting like shrapnel, splintered fragments falling on ruined earth.

“I’ve come to volunteer,” he said when she did nothing but stare at him. He was in a long, dark coat, open over what might well have been the grey jumper he wore that day at Conyers. He looked so out of place in the busy chaos of the church hall, among all the odd-smelling old and tangled clothes. A celebrity at a soup kitchen, ready for the photo shoot.

“You said I should come,” he reminded her.

“I…um…” She nodded down the room, pulse echoing in her ears. “Get a pile of clothes from that lady at the end. Find space on a table. Sort them into women’s, men’s, and children’s.”

“Right.”

He went and did it. Stood at a table halfway down the room and got to work, back to her, sober, black-clad shoulders looming at the corner of her eye as though they were a screaming, glaring fairground ride, not discreetly expensive designer tailoring.

Three hours went by in a sort of swooping, rushing eternity, seconds tortured into month-long stretches, hours pulsing as quick as a camera flash. Aubrey worked. Got more piles of clothes to sort. Carried the sorted piles to the packing stations.Said brief, polite things to the other volunteers when required, but was otherwise silent. Once or twice, she looked up and met his eye.

When everyone was leaving, he carried the heavy tables to the side, took the big boxes to the van, then stood at the door, waiting. Evie stacked the last of the chairs away, found herself with nothing to do, and walked slowly to the door, shrugging into her coat, bicycle helmet in her hand. They walked outside together.

“Thank you,” she said. “Though I didn’t really mean it. About you volunteering.”

“I know.”

She looped the bicycle helmet strap over her wrist and began to button her coat. Aubrey was frowning at her. He looked away, then back at her, and, still frowning, said: “I want to ask you to dinner.”

Adrenaline pinged through her, but she tried to keep her surprise hidden. The last button done, she looked at him. “Why?”

Several replies seemed to cross his mind, from the irritated to the beseeching. While he was still choosing one, she continued: “Because you’ve already decided how things would go between us. So I’m not sure why you’re bothering.”

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