Weather Watchers by Jason Jawando
It Seemed Polite (Chapter 1)
Ever wondered what burning cauliflower smells like? Here’s a hint: it is exactly as bad as you imagine. Seriously, there’s no need to test this. It’s no worse or better than you think. There’s nothing to gain from trying it out. You might think it won’t do any harm, but someone will smell it, and that person will never thank you.
The smell hit me just before I opened the front door. It was there when I stepped onto the concrete slab outside the door: the subtle aroma that says your lodger’s trying to get himself thrown out again. In the time it took me to take a step, put the key in the lock and twist, my nose was ripped back, and pushed against my forehead, while someone forced the most noxious gas into my nasal passages.
Inside the house, the hall and the downstairs rooms were filled with smoke; Stephen was outside the kitchen, waving a tea-towel in front of the smoke alarm; inside the kitchen, a pan full of cauliflower was on the hob, merrily generating more smoke.
‘Pan must have boiled dry,’ Stephen said after I’d taken the pan off the hob, tipped the contents in the bin and opened all the windows.
I left him to clean up the mess. I’d had enough crap to deal with already.
Shortly after he moved in, I wrote a list of things Stephen knew about or could do.
Knowledge of politics: Nil.
Knowledge of finance: Nil.
Knowledge of social media: Good, but not very useful. 2
Knowledge of culture: Has a profound, but tedious, grasp of East European detective programmes.
Knowledge of geography: Nil, apart from the city’s pubs and takeaways.
Cooking ability: There’s a reason for him being familiar with takeaways.
Gardening ability: Ok if he can be bothered.
Decorating ability: Quick, reliable and completed to a high standard.
That last one was a surprise and I found out when he did the entire house for me as an apology for spelling the initials AVFC on the wall with darts.
The profound mystery here is why a man with his skillset was working in a warehouse rather than, say, as a painter and decorator.
‘There are some irregularities about my qualifications,’ he told me.
‘I didn’t think you needed any.’
‘No one’s complained. Well, apart from that one woman and she was impossible.’
‘By impossible,’ I said, ‘do you mean she asked to see certificates, rather than accept your mumble that you knew what you were doing?
‘I do know what I’m doing.’
‘You could always get the qualifications.’
‘Like you say, though, you don’t really need them.’
Let’s clear this up, now. Stephen was living with me, not the other way round. It was my house, and I only let him move in because I couldn’t afford to pay the mortgage alone. It was in 2013. Graham left me, the same week I was forced to reapply for my own job and accept a pay cut. I took a lodger out of desperation. I blame Carl, a mate of Graham’s who had a couple of buy-to-lets. He came round to collect the things the Graham hadn’t taken when he left.
‘Get into property, Hannah,’ he said, ‘always got something to fall back on then.’
‘I’m sure my bank manager’s desperate to give me another mortgage.’
‘Don’t worry about buying somewhere new,’ he said. ‘Your spare room would be great.’
He was talking about the downstairs, front room that Graham had used as his hideaway, the room where he used to pretend he was working from home when he was actually sexting a woman from Lower Gornal he’d met on a course.
‘I’ll think about it,’ I said.
‘There’s a guy rents one of my places looking to move on.’
‘I’m not sure I want to take in a lodger.’
‘I’ll be honest, Hannah,’ he said. ‘You’ll be helping me out. I’m looking to do the place up, do something a bit more high-end. Stephen, I’d vouch for him one-hundred-and-ten percent, but he ain’t high-end. Know what I’m saying?’
I didn’t know what he was saying, but he bought Stephen round, two nights later, to look at the room.
‘You ain’t fussy, am yer?’ Carl said to Stephen.
Stephen said nothing.
‘His gear’s in the van.’
‘Van?’ I asked.
‘Not got a lot, have yer, mate?’ Carl said. He opened the front door. ‘You got something to wedge this open with?’
There was a footstool in the living room, not ideal, but a proper wedge wasn’t something I’d ever felt the need for.
When I came back with the footstool, Stephen was carrying a large box from the van. A short, balding bloke was standing by the gate. He took the box from him and carried it into the house. ‘Where do you want this, love?’
‘I’m not sure.’ I said.
‘Front room,’ Carl said, as he walked past with a smaller box. I stood aside: it seemed polite.
Ten minutes later, Carl drove away, leaving Stephen, a room full of boxes and his balding mate.
While Stephen began unpacking, this bloke made a cup of tea, helped himself to some biscuits and sat in front of my TV.
‘You live near here?’ I asked.
‘Billy,’ he said, offering me his hand. ‘Nice biscuits.’
Billy stayed in my living room for the rest of the evening, munching my biscuits, drinking my tea, and slating my taste in TV. I didn’t see Stephen for about two hours. I haven’t seen Carl since.
I put up with Stephen for three years; everything came to a head over 24 hours. The 12th December 2019 was perhaps a bad day at the office. There had been rumours for months, words floating in and out of management meetings: challenging environment … environmental challenges … strategic restructuring … restructured strategy …
Some people blamed Brexit, others Corbyn: some people blamed both. That day there was an announcement. The MD dialled in on a video-call from London: he would have come in person, but there was a serious meeting with the firm’s accountants about the serious situation they were facing and the serious, no very serious, decisions they had to take, and the upshot was a 20% staff reduction at our West Midlands HQ. Twenty percent that’s the lower part of my body, from the feet up to perhaps just above the knees.
I phoned an employment agency and arranged an interview for the following day. I should have booked a day’s leave, but you know, your boss has just told you that you might not have a job in three months, and you realise you haven’t had any sick since you started. And then my friend Anita texted me.
Anita left Wolverhampton at around the same time as Graham left me. These two events were coincidental. She got a job in London, with increased responsibility and a massive pay rise; he got a massive ego and a permanent boner with the woman from Lower Gornal. Anita and I had promised to stay in touch with each other, the way people do. We were connected via Facebook and all that, but apart from liking each other’s holiday pictures, more accurately, me liking hers, and sending messages on birthdays, we hadn’t had any real interaction for three years. But, she was back in Wolverhampton and wanted to meet me tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow the same day I was meeting the agency. We were meeting at lunchtime, and the interview was in the morning. That’s ok: I could get it all done in an hour. Hell, I could even text her if I was going to be late.
After I’d got changed, I sat in my room for half-an-hour, trying to think of something to distract me from the smell that was loitering around the ground floor. I gave up eventually and went back downstairs to make the point that this was my house, and I wasn’t going to be driven into solitude by a bad smell or a bad lodger. And I went back downstairs because it was too quiet. Stephen was on the sofa looking at the Situations Vacant column in the free paper, but one of his Sherlock Holmes DVDs was sitting on the floor next to him, showing how he’d really spent his day. Benedict Cumberbatch wasn’t in this, incidentally: Stephen prided himself on the obscurity of his taste. Jeremy Brett, Basil Rathbone? Stephen liked to pretend he enjoyed something called Приключение шести наполеанцев – staring Russia’s most renowned Shakespearian actor – without subtitles.
‘Any chance of the rent you owe?’
Stephen stretched his left leg and rested it on the footstool, immediately in front of the sofa. ‘Warehouse didn’t call.’
‘Shitty zero-hours contracts’ I said. I moved the footstool, leaving his legs dangling in mid-air, and returned it to the space between the bookshelf and the back wall. ‘Forcing you to sit on your arse all day.’
‘I keep busy,’ he said.
‘Sign up with an agency,’ I said.
‘Nah, I’ve tried them before. They muck you about too much.’
‘You’re right. Let’s all waste our lives dossing on the sofa.’
He pulled his legs up to his chest. Stephen was twenty-seven, and about six-feet tall, but he could curl up for hours on my two-seater sofa in a way that would give a much shorter person backache. Sometimes, he would have an amazing burst of energy and do something like redecorate my entire house in a day. Mostly, though, he was a waste of space.
‘You’re wrong,’ he said. ‘I’m not a waste of space.’
‘Don’t interrupt my thoughts like that.’
He said nothing. Probably waiting for me to ask him how he did it.
‘If you’re hellbent on staying here all day, you could at least do something useful,’ I said.
‘I thought about mowing the lawn.’
‘Your thoughts don’t impress me,’ I said.
‘Not much point this time of year.’
‘Whereas staying at home watching this –’ I held up the DVD box – ‘is so productive. It’s not like it would take all day.’
The garden was five metres wide and about fifteen metres long, most of it was paved, but there was a patch of lawn at the end closest to the house. It would take about ten minutes to mow. If you used a scythe.
It wasn’t meant to be like this. I didn’t want much. When we were looking at houses, we saw a semi in Finchfield that I liked. It wasn’t excessive, and it wasn’t even out of our price range. Graham preferred a detached house in Tettenhall that we shouldn’t have even looked at.
‘It’ll increase its value in no time’ he said.
I wanted a home, not an investment opportunity.
‘No one has a home in Wolverhampton,’ he said.
We ended up with a two-bedroom terrace, three if you count the downstairs front room that ended up becoming Stephen’s room.
‘Easier to get rid of when we move on,’ Graham said. And to be fair, when he did move on, if I’d been in the semi, one lodger wouldn’t have been enough.
The lodger I did have was obviously not going to do very much the next day. I looked at the DVD box I was holding. Beneath the Cyrillic script, a man with a black jacket and white shirt-collars under his chin sucked on a pipe stared past the camera. I opened the box an and saw a disc with Benedict Cumberbatch’s face on it.
‘It tells us about the zeitgeist,’ Stephen said.
‘If zeitgeist means getting a steady job and paying your rent on time…’
I couldn’t finish this because I got a text from Anita:
Hey, Chick, cn we meet at 11.30 nstead? x
I sent a short reply: No.
Stephen was still talking ‘… a lack of moral certainty, which manifests itself in …’
‘What are you on about?’ I asked him.
My phone beeped again:
Thnx x
‘You want to get a better ringtone,’ Stephen said.
I went into the kitchen to call Anita. She was really sorry, as ever, something had come up, and I was ever such a sweetie for rearranging at short notice.
‘Anita, I can’t rearrange.’
She laughed.
‘I’m not joking.’
‘But you just said you could.’
‘Read my text,’ I said. ‘Read it properly.’
Silence. ‘Hannah, what’s wrong, sweetie?’
‘Half-twelve, as agreed,’ I said, ‘or we can just cancel it.’
‘You’re not normally this passive-aggressive.’
‘Half-twelve.’
‘I’ll just tell him I’ll be late.’
I hung up then. She wanted me to ask the obvious question, but I knew it would wait.
‘You know, people think he made all this stuff up,’ Stephen said when I went back into the front room. ‘Arthur Conan Doyle. He knew someone, another doctor, who could tell you everything about a person by the mud on their shoes.’
‘Are you going to do anything about getting a decent job?’
‘I’ve got something that tides me over,’ he said. ‘I can look for a job anytime.’
‘But another time, you might be busy looking for somewhere to live.’
‘I’m happy here.’
I shook my head. ‘I can’t force you. But how can you be happy spending your days watching this crap, while you wait to find out if you have a shift?’
‘You wouldn’t kick me out, would you?’
I picked up the TV remote and flicked a handful of channels: nothing but weather reports.
‘I reckon they just guess, really,’ Stephen said.
‘So, there was this Victorian doctor who could tell your inside-leg measurement by how much mud you had on your right shoe, but twenty-first century meteorologists just guess?’
‘I didn’t say anything about inside-leg measurements.’
The doorbell rang. Twice. ‘Get that,’ I said.
It was Billy, Stephen’s mate. He plonked himself next to me, and put a brown, A4 envelope on the arm of the sofa. I noticed he had a black eye, but I tried not to stare.
‘You don’t want to watch that,’ he said.
‘The TV news?’.
‘That election crap. They make it all up.’
Stephen nodded ‘I reckon that’s true.’
Billy’s blackeye was throbbing while he spoke. ‘They’re still going on about this EU stuff, but we never really joined.’
‘So what was that referendum about three years ago?’ Stephen asked.
Billy’s blackeye looked like it was about to explode. ‘It was just a big hoax. I read it on a blog. Seventy, eighty, whenever it was. Government back then wanted to join, but French wouldn’t let us, on account of the War. After that, Blair, Cameron, whoever it is, they just went over there once a year, had a few selfies outside the EU building, and say they’ve been in negotiations, but we’re gonna get shafted. Eventually they came up with this Referendum bollocks. Fixed it so everyone voted to leave so they don’t have to tell us we wasn’t ever in it in the first place.’
‘What happened to the eye?’ Stephen asked.
Billy picked up the envelope and turned it in his hands a couple of times, without looking at it. He put it back on the arm of the sofa, but kept his arm resting on it. ‘Just a misunderstanding. What you two up to?’
‘Hannah wants me to go to some employment agency,’ Stephen said.
‘Nah, they’re a waste of time those places, I reckon,’ Billy said.
‘Unless you’re looking for a better job,’ I said.
‘All they do is send applications off for you. You could do that for yourself. What you really got to think about is how to do a proper sales pitch.’
‘She’s not looking for anything,’ Stephen said.
‘Why you going to an agency then?’
‘I might be looking,’ I said. ‘Just in case.’ A low grumbling sensation from my stomach made me realise I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. ‘I’ve had enough of this.’ I went to the kitchen.
‘Got any biscuits?’ Billy shouted through.
Why not? I hunted the back of the cupboard and found a packet of gingernuts that might have been there when I moved in. I went back into the living room and chucked it at him.
‘How old are those?’ Stephen asked.
‘I don’t worry about the sell-by date,’ Billy said. ‘It’s just a plot by the EU to make us buy more.’
‘Thought we weren’t really in the EU,’ Stephen said.
I walked back into the kitchen and began boiling some water, while I hunted for a bag of pasta that was still within its use-by date, EU or not. It was difficult to find anything substantial some days. I knew Stephen helped himself to anything he thought I wouldn’t notice; I think I turned a blind eye to it, because it was difficult to justify buying some things when you’re only cooking for one. If a jar of sauce contained enough for two, it was a relief to know I could use half and he would take the other. The problem came when he had opened the jar and used half, and then used a quarter, and then an eighth.
‘How gbouthigh?’
‘What?’ I looked round and saw Billy stuffing three biscuits into his mouth with his right hand, while his left held the empty packet and the mysterious envelope.’
‘ghow about this? I was just thinking. About how you could sell yourself.’
‘I’m not that desperate.’
‘Hannah, sorry I don’t even know what you’re surname is –’
‘Morris.’
– ‘is an experienced and capable professional. What is it you do?’
‘I think I’m ok.’
‘Ste,’ Billy shouted into the living room. ‘What do you think?’
Stephen wandered into the kitchen. ‘I suppose it depends on what kind of job she’s looking for.’
‘I could see her as an estate agent.’
‘No way,’ Stephen said.
‘Think about it, you know. A lot of places use women now. Reckon a nice smile and a bit of leg –’ he turned to me – ‘no offence, Han.’
I gave the pasta a stir.
‘You’ve got to be hungry though,’ Stephen said, ‘to work in sales.’
I found a tin of tomatoes: I added it to the remnants of the pasta sauce and decided it could do with some cheese. I looked in the fridge. ‘Great,’ I said, rescuing the small chunk that was rattling around in the packet. Stephen turned red and disappeared back into the living room.
‘You want to think about getting some more when there’s only a bit left,’ Billy said.
‘Food critic, employment advisor, is there no end to your talents?’
Billy opened one of the drawers and began rooting inside. ‘I reckon the trick is to think big.’
‘What are you looking for?’
He took out a spoon and helped himself to some of the sauce I was preparing.
‘It would be easier if you weren’t holding that envelope,’ I said.
‘See, I reckon people will only ever be disappointed in you. If you tell them you’re great, and you’re just half-decent, they can live with that. Tell them you’re half-decent and it turns out you’re shit …’
‘Or, just don’t be shit,’ I said.
He licked the spoon clean and then tried to take another dip. I put my hand across the pan and stopped him.
‘Just remember what I said about sell-by dates.’ He went back into the living room.
While I cooked, I could hear them whispering. Odd words don’t have to tell her … just don’t want to get you in too deep … and you’re ok with that?
The meal finally reached a point where it wouldn’t take anymore cooking. I went back into the living room.
‘Billy’s just been telling me about the bloke who threatened him.’
‘I told you not to say anything.’
‘Hannah’s ok, aren’t you, Han?’
‘Hannah’s not very interested,’ I said.
‘You aren’t?’ Billy said.
‘She is,’ Stephen said. ‘You’ve got to be. Corruption and how the government lies to us and stuff. He’s done a blog, haven’t you?’
‘Shush,’ Billy said.
‘Oh, come on,’ I said.
Billy clutched the envelope to his chest.
‘Is that something to do with it?’ Stephen asked.
‘I wish I could tell you. I really do,’ Billy said.
‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘A shopkeeper bunging the binmen a couple of quid to take the extra bags be puts at the side of the bins?’
Billy shook his head, but his blackeye began throbbing again. ‘I don’t want to risk anything else.’
‘You can trust us, though,’ Stephen said. ‘Can’t he?’
‘Absolutely not.’
My phone rang.
‘Don’t answer it,’ Billy said.
I looked at the display. Anita. I thought about answering just to annoy Billy, but let it go to voicemail, rather than face two lots of whining.
‘They can track your location,’ Billy said.
‘Who can?’
‘Anyone can,’ he said. ‘They can track your location through your smartphone, if they’ve got the right equipment.’
‘Or they could just come round here, what with it being my house and everything.’
‘But it’s not mine. No one knows I’m here.’
‘So why would they, whoever they are, be trying to track you through my smartphone?’
‘I keep mine switched off. Unless I need to make a call.’
‘Am I ok to access my own voicemail?’ I asked.
I left them debating it and went into the kitchen to listen to the message.
‘Hey, babe, just checking you’re ok. You sounded a bit, I don’t know, bit needy, when we spoke earlier. I mean, it’s OK if you want to reschedule for twelve. No need to apologise. Ciao.’
I deleted the message and went back in to see what Stupid and Contagious were up to.
Stephen was looking closely at Billy’s blackeye. He turned to me. ‘Do you think this will turn purple overnight?’
‘How the hell would I know? Do I look like a doctor?’
‘Doctors –’ Billy said.
I interrupted him. ‘Don’t feel you have to stay. Either of you.’
‘I do need to go soon,’ Billy said.
‘She isn’t saying you have to rush off,’ Stephen said.
‘No, no,’ Billy said. ‘I’d stay all night, but it wouldn’t be a good idea. Need to keep moving.’
I looked at him, slouching on my sofa, the envelope now resting on his stomach and wondered what he would look like if he ever stopped moving.
‘You know where the door is,’ I said.
‘That’s the thing …’ Billy said. ‘Is there another way out of the house?’
‘You’re kidding,’ I said.
I looked at him. He pulled the envelope tighter to his chest, and the purple swelling around his eye throbbed.
‘Are you scared?’ I asked.
He shook his head.
‘Is it whoever gave you that?’ I pointed to the blackeye.
Silence.
‘Is there someone waiting outside for you?’
‘I just need another way out of the house?’ he said.
‘Is that a yes?’ I asked.
Stephen jumped up.
‘Sit down,’ I said. ‘Don’t pretend you’re going to go outside and have it out with anyone.’
‘I don’t think I was followed,’ Billy said.
‘You don’t think we’re in the EU,’ I said.
‘I just need another route out of here.’
‘I’d love to help, but the chimney was blocked up before I moved in.’
He looked at the fireplace, and I thought he was going to suggest unblocking it. He thought for a moment. ‘Do you mind if I use the bathroom?’
‘Are you planning to crawl out via the u-bend?’ I asked.
‘It’s upstairs isn’t it?’
It isn’t. It’s downstairs, past the kitchen in the extension. I pointed him the right direction. He took his envelope with him.
‘We’ve got to do something,’ Stephen said.
‘I can open the window,’ I said, ‘or spray something in there, when he’s gone.’
‘I mean like finding out who threatened him.’
‘He needs to go to the police,’ I said.
Billy came back into the room, envelope still clutched to his chest.
‘I’m going to have to ask,’ I said, ‘what’s in the envelope?’
‘This? Nothing.’
I laughed.
‘Nothing important, I mean. It’s nothing to do with what we’ve been talking about.’
That was possible, if only because neither of us had a clue what we’d been talking about. The envelope seemed important, whatever was in it.
‘Could you look after it?’ Billy asked. He hesitated, looking from Stephen to me and back again. After weighing up his options, he handed it to Stephen.
‘Mate, honoured you’d trust me with it. Whatever it is.’
‘I’m trusting both of you. Can you both look after it?’
‘No way,’ I said.
‘It’s just an envelope.’
‘That’s the last thing you should lay on anyone.’ I shook my head. ‘Tell someone you’re trusting them.’
‘It’s nothing for you to worry about. Just need someone to keep hold of it for a few days.’
‘And that doesn’t sound in any way dodgy.’
‘It’s just till the next time you see me.’
‘Does this mean you’re going?’ Stephen asked.
‘I’m still not sure about the front door.’
‘There’s no other way out of this house,’ I told him.
‘What about the back?’
‘He can use the backdoor,’ Stephen said.
‘The backdoor,’ I said ‘You could walk down the alley that brings you out onto Owen Road, approximately eighteen inches from my front door, unless you’re planning to sleep in the garden.’
Billy chewed his finger while he thought about his options; Stephen put his right hand to his forehead and pushed his hair back. He hadn’t realised yet, but his hairline didn’t quite spring back into place. Another five years … I didn’t want to be in that situation long enough to see Stephen go bald.
‘There’s always the back fence,’ I said.
‘Brilliant,’ Stephen said. ‘Where does that lead?’
‘I was joking.’
‘One of the gardens, I reckon,’ Stephen said. ‘What’s the next street along?’
Billy’s eyes lit up.
‘Why not?’ I said. ‘The neighbours won’t object to a strange bloke wandering through their garden.’
‘Is it Brickkiln Street?’ Billy asked.
‘No,’ Stephen said. ‘It’s Beverley Street, Kimberley Street. Something like that.’
‘Tell you what, why don’t you hop over the back fence and find out,’ I said. ‘Be sure to let us know when you get there.’
Billy shook his head. ‘Only use my phone in emergencies.’
While Stephen and Billy went into the back garden, I turned my attention to the TV. Somewhere at the lonely end of the dial, one of the nostalgia channels was showing a rerun of a 1980s detective show. Broadcast in the 1980s, but set in the 50s, I think. Poorly focussed shots of light-blue panda cars and long raincoats were just what I needed to distract me from the madhouse.
Half-an-hour later, it reached a mini cliff-hanger and twenty-first century ads blared into the room, the loud music and bright colours threatening a headache. Stephen hadn’t come back, so I want outside to see what he was up to.
I was surprised they were still there. They were looking at the fence. ‘If you’re going to leave this way, you’ll need to climb over that,’ I said.
‘Just not sure it will take his weight,’ Stephen said. He grabbed the top of the fence and tried to test it. It didn’t budge.
‘There’s only one way to find out,’ I said, ‘but if you break it, you can explain it to the neighbours.’
‘You haven’t got any stepladders, have you?’ Billy asked.
‘He’s scared there might be a dog,’ Stephen said.
‘You’ve got two choices,’ I told them. ‘Climb over the fence and you might fall six feet, or you can use the alley down the side of the house, and someone might see you leave. Although I can’t imagine anyone being interested.’
‘I could give you a leg-up,’ Stephen said. ‘You’d be putting your weight onto me, instead of the fence, then you could jump down onto the other side.’
‘Just don’t upset the neighbours,’ I said and left them to it. The nonsense was making my looming headache more likely. When I got to the end of the garden, instead of going back into the yard, I turned round and watched. Billy had his left foot in Stephen’s hands, while his right leg was dangling on the other side of the fence; his own hands were supporting his weight on the top of the fence. I turned away again. As I did, I heard the fence creak, followed by a crash, shouts and a dark barking. I looked round. Stephen was trying to peer through the fence. A light came on in one of the houses behind mine.
‘You ok?’ Stephen shouted.
I heard a garbled reply and watched as Stephen scurried down the garden. He stopped when he reached me.
‘Just so long as he doesn’t bring my name into it,’ I said.
‘I’m really worried about him.’
‘He deserves everything he gets.’
‘The blackeye?’
‘Maybe not.’
‘I’ve never seen him like that. Normally shrugs everything off.’
We went back indoors. To be fair to Billy, the blackeye did look serious. Perhaps it was an accident; perhaps he had been winding someone up: his caginess hadn’t made me any more sympathetic.
We got back inside, and I went to the bathroom to get some painkillers. There was a phone hidden inside the medicine cabinet. Why wouldn’t there be? It wasn’t mine and it didn’t look like Stephen’s, which left Billy – another one of his conspiracy theories. It was more expensive than I’d have imagined. Not the latest i-phone, but something similar, a model off the top spec. Why had he left it behind? That was the thing: he hadn’t left it behind; it was placed at the back of the cabinet, nestling against the paracetamol. I took it back into the living room, intending to ask Stephen to explain it. I had second thoughts: expecting a coherent explanation from him might be too much. I pocketed it at the last moment.
Jason Jawando writes prose and drama. He lives in the UK and has an MA in Creative Writing. See his website: Jason Jawando | Wolverhampton-based writer writes about writing (wordpress.com) or follow him on Twitter: @JasonDJ