Page 12 of Night and Day
“So you’re renting this place?”
“Yeah. That’s why I’m not too fussed about maintenance. I don’t feel like adding value to that guy’s investment. He’s a dick.” Izzy stood up, placing his cup in the kitchen sink. “I’ve done a bit more downstairs, though. That’s where I spend most of my time.” He cocked his head at the doorway. “Wanna see it?”
Mia followed him to a narrow hallway. At the far end, Izzy disappeared down a flight of stairs, swallowed by darkness. Mia stalled on the first step. Following a stranger into a dark basement had an added creepiness factor, but there was no odd smell and the air felt dry and warm. It probably wasn’t a rat-infested dungeon with meat hooks hanging from the ceiling. Probably.
A light flicked on in the room underneath. “There you go.” Izzy’s relaxed voice echoed in the stairway. “Don’t trip on the last step. It’s shorter!”
As Mia descended the stairs, her breath caught in her throat. The walls were painted dark teal. The ceiling was higher than she’d expected and as Izzy pulled the curtains, the floor-to-ceiling windows flooded the room with evening light, revealing an overgrown backyard bursting with vivid green.
“Wow. This doesn’t look like a basement!” Mia crossed the red-and-blue oriental rug to where Izzy stood in front of an endless display of computer screens.
“No, it’s not like a bunker inside the ground or anything. The section slopes down to a gully,” he explained, gesturing at the view behind the window. “Lots of mosquitos but no neighbours. Some of the recent developments in Hamilton are so back-to-back that you can only see your neighbour’s wall. My brother used to build those.”
“Did you paint this room yourself?” Mia asked, turning to marvel at the strange, deep colour surrounding her. Even the ceiling was dark. “In Finland, all the rentals are white and you can’t do anything to them.”
Izzy laughed. “Same here! I had to negotiate with the owner.”
“You’ve done well.”
The room felt completely different from the upstairs. It wasn’t just colour. It sounded different, softer and cosier. That’s when Mia noticed the acoustic panels on the wall – and the guitar in the corner, behind his workstation. “Do you play?” She asked.
Izzy turned to look at the guitar, his face widening into a grin. “Yeah. Maybe we can have a jam later?”
“Maybe.” Mia swallowed. She didn’t jam with other people. No wonder Mikko compared her musical hobby to sitting on the toilet. She’d been pretty much as private about it as her bowel movements.
She wandered across the room, noting the worn leather couch, heaving bookshelves and the rack of Olympic level weights. So, that’s how Izzy kept himself looking like the Hulk.
At the far end, a half-open doorway gave a glimpse to another room. Propelled by curiosity, Mia peeked in. “Is that your...” Oops, it looked like a bedroom. A pile of laundry perched on an unmade bed.
“Sorry.” Mia backed away, bumping on Izzy’s chest as he reached her at the doorway. “I didn’t mean to snoop.”
He steadied her with a hand on her upper arm, a touch so brief it should have barely registered, yet it fired up her every nerve ending. Izzy took a step back to reinstate a respectful distance. “All good. You’ll have to go in there if you want to use the bathroom. The other one upstairs is my flatmate’s territory. You may not want to go in there.”
Mia whipped around. “You have a flatmate?”
“Yeah. Don’t worry. Deke’s okay, but his bathroom’s just a bit gross.”
“How come?
Izzy chuckled. “He collects... um... vintage porn. Which means there’s a stack of magazines with pages stuck together. And used tissues. I’ve told him to clean—”
“I get it. In fact...” She nodded at the door. It seemed her kidneys were done with the tea.
Izzy opened the door, and she padded through the bedroom and into the en-suite. To her relief, she discovered it in order with no magazines or stiff tissues. A sad bar of soap sat on the edge of the sink and a milk-bottle sized shampoo in the shower cubicle, but nothing else. He must keep his personal grooming products, if he had any, hidden in the tiny vanity. No. She wouldn’t snoop through his stuff, she decided, no matter how her fingers itched to explore everything in his house.
On the way out, she allowed herself to survey the bedroom. Apart from the laundry pile, the room appeared tidy, nearly as spartan as the bathroom. The eclectic mixture of furniture had a student flat vibe, complete with a pile of books on the nightstand. After days of airports, hotels and other public spaces, Izzy’s house felt a like a hideout. Behind the partly drawn, thick curtains, a huge bush full of pink flowers grew against a tall fence, adding to the sense of privacy.
Mia found Izzy at his computer with several browser windows open across his three screens. “Do you have work to do?”
Izzy minimised his inbox. “I edit videos for a suicide prevention charity and they’re quite particular about some stuff. I have to cut all beach footage from the latest video.”
Mia blinked in confusion. “Why?”
“Because, apparently seeing a body of water may incite a vulnerable person to drown themselves.” Izzy offered her a rueful smile. “They’re very risk averse.”
“Okay. If you need to do that now, I could go for a walk or something.”
She gestured at the stairs, but Izzy shook his head. “That’s probably not a good idea. What if you get lost? You don’t have a phone.” He pulled another browser window from the side screen to the middle one. “Anyway, I was just looking up the Dutch embassy you mentioned, and where we could stay in Wellington.”
