Page 48 of Crying in the Rain

Ade stayed where he was, pinned against the wall with his foot positioned to stop the door from closing. “Get your things and leave.”

Fergus shifted his weight onto his left hip and scratched his head in seeming puzzlement. He attempted a genial smile, but it only made him look more sinister and intimidating. There was no gentleness or humility behind that smile. No emotion whatsoever in his eyes.

“Remember when we went to see the therapist?” Fergus asked.

Ade didn’t answer.

“Well, do you, or are you too stupid to remember anything without your little checklists?” Fergus looked around him and gave a mocking shrug. “Where’s your tablet today, Adrian? Och, you haven’t broken something else, have you? You clumsy boy.” He took a step closer and trailed his fingertips lightly over Ade’s cheek.

Ade’s breath hissed out of his nostrils, hard and fast, but he fought the instinct to close his eyes and stared right back, unblinking, as he said again, slowly and clearly, “Get your things and leave.”

“Is that what you want?” Fergus asked, his fingers and thumb now positioned over the yellowing bruises on Ade’s jaw. He squeezed. Ade clenched his teeth tight so he didn’t respond to the spike of pain that shot up into his skull. “Well, is it or not?”

Fergus clamped harder around Ade’s chin. Unable to speak, he nodded slowly, forcing Fergus’s hand up and down.

Fergus gave him a pitying smile. “If I go this time, it’s for good, you know that?”

Ade elbowed Fergus’s arm away. Immediately, his other hand rose and struck Ade’s cheek.

Ade recoiled, but that slap seemed to ignite some vital light that had been too long extinguished.

“It ends as it began,” he said resignedly, conclusively. It was a risk to challenge Fergus, he knew that well enough, but the resolve that had brought him into the bright new morning and then wavered with the passing of the hours had returned, as dazzling and invincible as the sun. For just outside the door, where Ade could see him but Fergus could not, was Kris.

Ade nodded towards the pile behind Fergus. “Everything out of my bedroom is in the suitcase—you can keep it—and the rest is in the bag and the shoe box.”

Fergus spun on the spot and took in the curious collection of items. He turned back to Ade. “What would I want with your shitty stereo? It’s about five years out of date.”

“Take it or don’t take it. I’m not bothered either way.” That kind of talk would normally have ended with him being dragged by his hair to wherever Fergus decided suited him best.

But not this time. Fergus could feel the power being snatched away from him and was confused for real. He poked a finger at the shoe box. “What’s in it?”

“Nothing important,” Ade said dismissively. “Just the odds and bobs you left lying around my living room like you owned the place.”

“We’ll let the courts decide that one, shall we?”

“It’s my apartment, Fergus. My name is on the deeds.”

“And how did you pay the mortgage when you went whoring after your career in radio?”

“I’ll send you a cheque.” Ade took his phone from his pocket and checked the time, trying to appear nonchalant, hoping it would hurry Fergus along.

“Where’s your watch?”

“It stopped working.”

“When?”

“It’s irrelevant. Could you hurry up, please? I have things to do.”

Ade’s masquerade of confidence was slipping, as Fergus now had the shoe box in his hands, and for one awful moment, it looked as if he was going to open it. The rest of Ade’s potentially very short life was dependent on what happened next. But then Fergus put the box under his arm and picked up the suitcase. As a parting shot, he swung the suitcase into the TV, which fell, screen down, onto the floor.

In the doorway, he stopped and looked back, sneering at the TV and the pictures on the walls. “You can keep everything else. It’s all worthless junk anyway.” And on those words, Fergus Campbell finally left Ade’s apartment and soon after left the building.

***

Kris

“You can comein,” Ade called far too brightly as he picked up the TV and carried it through a doorway.

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