Page 73 of Pas de Don't
“Who is it?”
“It’s me,” came Alice’s voice. “And I brought backup.”
“Let us in, please.” His mum.
Marcus sighed against the door, then stood to walk back to the couch. He’d been ignoring Alice’s calls and texts for days, and apparently, she’d run out of patience. And brought in reinforcements. Another few pounds and he jumped backwards, unsteady on his feet.
“Let us in,” Alice called, “right now.”
“Okay, okay,” he muttered again. He fumbled for the lock and pulled open the door to reveal her standing in the hallway with herhands on her hips and her mouth pulled into a thin, worried line. Behind him stood his mum, looking just as concerned.
“You’ll wake the neighbours knocking like that,” Marcus grumbled.
Both women looked him up and down and wrinkled their noses. “And you’ll wake the dead smelling like that,” Alice replied. “Did you already get a new job at a distillery?”
Marcus shook his head and turned around, walking away to throw himself back on the couch. He’d been lying here for the last week, and he didn’t see any reason to change that now.
Alice and his mum followed him into the living room, and he ignored the matching looks of shock and concern on their faces as they looked around.
The coffee table was cluttered with takeaway containers, each with a plastic fork or chopsticks sticking out of it. The almost-empty whisky bottle stood, cap off, next to a few empty beer cans, and the muted TV played sitcom reruns from the late 1990s.
“This is so much worse than I imagined,” Alice said under her breath. “Leanne, can you turn the lights on?”
Light flooded the room, and Marcus groaned in protest, burying his face in the sofa cushions. He heard someone enter the kitchen, and the sound of the tap running. A moment later, he felt a pair of fingers pinch the ends of his socks and transfer his feet to the floor, then someone sat on the couch.
“Drink this, please,” Alice said, and he turned to see she was holding a large glass of water in front of his face.
When he didn’t respond, she sighed and said tartly, “We can go back outside and bang on the door again if you like.” Marcus grunted and sat up, and his head pounded again. She thrust the water at him, and he took it. He sipped it, only realizing then that his mouth had felt like it was full of sawdust.
“Thanks,” he muttered into the glass. Marcus looked up to find her surveying him closely with a concerned crease between her eyebrows. His mother had lowered herself carefully into the armchairacross from him and was watching him too, her face unreadable. He took a few more mouthfuls of water, feeling his head unfog a little as he drank.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner, but you know how show weeks are. What did Peter say to you?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. How did the run go?”
Alice looked at him for a moment, and he could tell she was wondering whether to insist on an answer to her question. “It went fine. The mood’s pretty grim, seeing as we just lost three dancers in the space of a few weeks, but we put on a good show. Sold-out crowds, every night.”
He nodded, wishing Alice hadn’t mentioned ticket sales. They sat in silence as he finished his water, then he closed his eyes and lay back against the pillows.
“Have you eaten anything lately?” his mum asked.
Marcus closed his eyes, trying to remember. “Nah.”
His mother tsked disapprovingly. “Right, then. I’m making cheese on toast. I assume you have cheese and bread?”
“Probably.”
“Good. Alice, are you hungry?”
“Starving. Dancing men to their deaths is hard work.”
While his mum busied herself in the kitchen, Alice went to the tap and poured him another glass of water.
“Have you heard from Heather?”
Marcus shook his head, and his temples didn’t throb this time. He was still so furious at Heather he didn’t know what he’d say if she contacted him. She hadn’t given him the chance to find out.
“She looked pretty miserable any time she wasn’t on stage,” Alice said. “And no one will tell us the full story of what happened. Why didn’t Peter send her back right away?”
