A Fluffy Tale 2: Warm & Fuzzy (12 page)

With the trolley loaded, they headed for
the checkouts, only to find long queues everywhere. Daniel appeared resigned to
it, but Spen found it almost intolerable. “We’ll get there eventually. Stop
fidgeting.”

“But it’s
boooring,” Spen whined, just to make Daniel roll his eyes.

“And you call me a kid...Kani, what’s
wrong?”

On his shoulder, Daniel’s kem stood on his
back paws, his fur erect, snarling. Myko turned to look where Kani was
pointing, and likewise bristled and snarled. “What the hell?” Spen said.
“They’re just looking at mineral water.” The only offensive thing he could see
about the green bottles was the price, since it was that fancy, rather salty,
fizzy stuff that restaurants like to serve. There had been smaller versions in
the hotel mini-bar, but like everything else in the mini-bar, they cost about
three times what they would from the supermarket.

Myko squeaked and nipped Spen’s ear. “Ow,
you little bugger.”

“Kani, stop it.” But when Daniel lifted him
down, Kani squirmed free and jumped onto the display of bottles, hissing and
spitting. People were starting to stare at him.

“What’s wrong with you two? Why would
you—” Spen stopped. Daniel’s widening eyes
registered his realisation at the same time Spen came to it. “Oh God. Kani
knows. It was in—”

Daniel turned his back on the kems and the
display. “I’m not talking about it,” he gritted out. “Look, go home, leave me
to deal with this.”

“No way. At least let’s get this to your
house before you go postal.”

Daniel glared. “You’re more upset than I
am.”

“Yeah, right.”

Daniel pursed his lips and concentrated on
dumping his groceries out onto the conveyor belt. Spen helped pack while
ignoring the dirty looks. It was pure defence on Daniel’s part.

Over Daniel’s objections he paid for a taxi
back to the house, and helped carry the bags into the house. “Thank you,”
Daniel said, sounding anything but grateful. “Maybe you should go now.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you want me to leave?”

“Because....”

“Because I might talk to you about why Kani
and Myko freaked out about bottles of mineral water?”

Daniel grabbed the bag with the cold goods
and stomped into the kitchen. Spen hefted the rest and lugged them in behind.
He found Daniel hurling stuff into the fridge. “Slow down, squirt. Don’t break
something because you’re pissed off with me.”

“I’m
not
.”
The cheese hit a shelf with a resounding thud.

“Then who are you mad at?”

“No one. Me. Just...no one.”

“Not even the person who drugged and raped
you?”

Daniel stiffened. “I don’t—”

“Want to talk about it. Okay. Then don’t.
But you can’t make it not have happened. So either face it, or face your brain
ambushing you all the time.” He pulled the leaflet out of his pocket. “The
doctor at the hospital gave me this.”

He laid it on the countertop. Daniel moved
back from it like it was a bomb with the counter down to ten seconds. “I don’t
need that.”

“You need
something
. You can’t live in denial forever.”

“Just watch me. If you’re going to lecture
me, please go, Spen. Otherwise, you’re welcome to stay and help me cook. That’s
as much entertainment as I can offer, sorry.”

“Well, since you’ve made such a tempting
offer, I’ll stay. What do you want me to do?”

Daniel flicked a finger at the leaflet.
“Throw that away for a start.” Spen put it in his pocket without protesting. “I
need a stack of cheese grated. Feel like doing that?”

“I’m the world’s best cheese grater. Let me
at it.”

Daniel sighed in exasperation. “Don’t you
ever get annoyed?”

“Why, do you want to see it?”

Daniel went to the fridge, pulled out the
cheese, and found the grater and a bowl. “Stop when you’re fed up or run out of
cheese. Or you decide you’ve got better things to do than babysit me.”

“Try harder, squirt, if you’re trying to
see what I look like pissed off.” Spen counted it a victory that Daniel
bothered to flip him off, before returning to the bags of groceries for his
cooking supplies.

Despite that unpromising beginning, the
afternoon went peacefully. Once finished with the cheese, Spen was set to
cutting up carrots and onions, and washing up dishes and pans to keep the
volume down. Daniel worked like a demon, cooking up mountains of mince for
lasagne, cottage pie, and to put on toast with baked beans. “You certainly know
how to stretch your budget,” Spen said, calculating that Daniel had made at
least half a dozen meals out of what many people would spend on one.

“Something else Mum taught us. She said we
would need to save our money for important things when we left home. I guess
she never figured it would be because she died.”

“Are you really that badly off?”

“No. But there’s no income coming in other
than what I make, and there’ll be a lot of expenses soon. Already are. Having a
salary gives us a cushion. It’s the difference between mince and beans, and
chicken and fish occasionally. I don’t want Dee and Alex to go without, or miss
out on any chances because we haven’t got the money. Mum and Dad worked hard to
provide for us, and wanted us all to go to University.”

“But now you’re not.”

“No. Not at the moment.”

Spen wiped his hands. “Daniel, try not to
get angry with me—but maybe you should consider not going back to work on
Monday. Tony’s not doing right by you, regardless of what happened last night.”

Despite the plea, Daniel’s jaw set hard.
“You can’t prove he did anything. I don’t think he did. Why the hell would he?
Why there, for God’s sake? It’s the riskiest place possible.”

Spen had to admit he had a point. “You were
only there because he forced you to be—against company regulations. You
could do so much better.”

“Not now I can’t. Give me two more months.
That’ll be nearly six months that I’ve been there, and I can look around for
more office work with that experience.”

But
you shouldn’t be getting that experience. You’re an engineer, damn it
. Spen didn’t say it out loud. There was no point...yet. “Noball’s a
terrible boss.”

“Yes. I know that. He’s not the worst thing
I’ve had to put up with by a long way. I’ll be fine.”

“I’d like to see you happier, that’s all.”

Daniel laid his knife down and stared at
Spen. “Why? Why take so much interest in me? You don’t do this to Luke or Jyoti
or anyone else who works with you.”

“Because I like you. I’d like to be
friends. And I think you need a friend.”

“Spare me.”

“You’re a hard sell, Daniel. Do I annoy you
so much?”

Daniel flushed. “No,” he muttered. “I don’t
like pity, that’s all.”

“It’s not pity. It’s...hell, can’t a guy
want to be your friend?”

“You’ve got friends. And a family.”

“So? Is there a quota? Maybe I’m short a
redhead and I need to make up the set.”

“That’s better than feeling sorry for me.”

“I do not feel sorry for you. I worry about
you. It’s different. I like you and I don’t want to see you hurt and I don’t
like to know that friends of mine are being attacked when they should be safe.
It wouldn’t matter if you were Jyoti or Luke or anyone else. I can’t help
wanting to help. I get it from Mum.”

The first smile in hours crossed Daniel’s
face. “She’s wonderful. They both are. I’m so jealous it makes me sick, and
then I feel bad because I had wonderful parents too. I was just as lucky...for
a while.”

“Still are, if you’re in good shape because
of their planning. Because of the man they made you.”

“Yeah. Um...I don’t really want to talk
about....”

“I know. Is that lasagne ready?”

Daniel cleared his throat. “Uh, ten
minutes. I’m done now. The kids should be home in an hour.”

“Then time for a cup of tea, and even a
biscuit. Mum’s cure for everything.”

~~~~~~~~

Daniel was ashamed to admit to himself how
grateful he was to Spen for hanging around until Dee and Alex came home, and
helping him dodge difficult questions about why they’d both come back early.
Spen made it all sound perfectly routine, and reassured Dee that Daniel hadn’t
put his job at risk at all. Which might not be true, but she believed it.

Watching Spen climb into a taxi to go home
hurt more than he would have guessed. With Spen, he could feel something other
than lost and rather scared. Spen made him angry, made him laugh, exasperated
him. Without him, the clouds descended again. Dee noticed immediately. “Are you
still not feeling okay, Daniel?”

“No, I’m not. Sorry. In fact, if you guys
don’t mind serving yourselves, I think I’ll head to bed early. I’m exhausted.”

“Maybe you should see a doctor.”

“I did, and it’s nothing to worry about.
Just a reaction to something I ate or drank. A good night’s sleep would help.”

She kissed his cheek. “Yes. I could make
you a boiled egg?”

“No, I’m okay. I’ll drink some milk.” He
made himself straighten up. “Did you have a good time at Mrs Reardon’s?”

“Oh yes. She’s really nice. She makes me
miss Mum even more, though.”

He patted her arm. “Yeah, I know what you
mean. See you in the morning.”

He hadn’t lied to Dee. He could barely keep
his eyes open—until he lay down. Then sleep fled from him, leaving him
rolling from side to side, willing his eyes to grow heavy and his mind to empty
without success. Downstairs he heard the quiet bumps and clunks of his brother
and sister having supper, arguing briefly, then
ascending the stairs to use the bathroom and go to their respective bedrooms.
From Alex’s room came the occasional beeps and bells from his laptop, from
Dee’s, the sounds of her typing furiously. Nice reassuring sounds, none loud
enough to keep him awake. And yet he couldn't sleep.

Kani was infected by the same restlessness,
roaming up and down the bed, occasionally jumping to the floor and giving a
miserable squeak. He missed Myko, Daniel guessed, though why he didn’t go and
play with Veen or Lili, Daniel didn’t know.

He turned over again. Unbidden, the memory
of the leaflet Spen had placed on the kitchen counter came to him. Then that of Kani hissing at the bottles of mineral water.
He covered his eyes with his arm. It wasn’t that they stirred other memories in
his brain. It was that they exposed the horrifying nothingness between sitting
in the bar, sipping wine with Tony and the other managers, and waking up in the
hospital and seeing Spen’s concerned expression. The line was sharp. On one
side, he could remember quite a lot of things—how nervous and
uncomfortable he’d felt, how the wine was crap, and feeling amazed at how fast
the others were drinking whisky. On the other, there was nothing. There was an...absence. He knew something was
missing, like seeing a hole, but having no idea what it had looked like before
the hole was there.

He knew what the missing memories had to be
about, but he couldn’t make himself fill in the gaps, put the visuals together.
He literally had nothing to reference. He didn’t know why this had happened to
him, or who had done it to him. Or what, exactly, they had done.

Spen wanted him to face up to it. But if in
facing up to it, those missing visuals made it all so much more horrific, would
he be any better off? He didn’t think so. He didn’t see any point in forcing
himself to see himself as a victim, to imagine in details what had been done.
Better to keep it off in the distance, as if it had happened to someone else.
Regrettable, awful, but not something that touched him personally. Not
something like that visit from the police, telling him the world
as he had known it for twenty-one years, was over for good. He remembered every
second of that day, and the days afterwards, in perfect, gut-churning detail.
He wished he could forget them. He never would. He didn’t want more memories
like that in his head, not even by proxy.

The quiet noises in the house stopped. His
bedside clock told him it was eleven. Normally he would be soundly asleep by
now. He’d never felt more awake, yet too tired to get out of bed and find
something to do. If only Spen was—

No. He couldn't go there either. What was
the chance Spen would ever view him as a competent adult now, especially with
him resisting Daniel’s every attempt to resist victimhood? Obviously seeing
Daniel as anything but pitiable didn’t fit Spen’s internal narrative. Too bad
Daniel wanted him more than ever now. Like his parents coming back from the
dead, Spen was something Daniel could never have.

From the end of the bed, Kani mewed
pitifully. “Come here, kid,” Daniel whispered. His kem picked his way
delicately up Daniel’s body, and nestled under his chin. Kani’s warmth was
soothing, and if it wasn’t the same as being held by someone, it was much
better than being alone and lost. He stroked Kani gently and was rewarded by
quiet trilling. The vibrations soothed him, gave himself
something to concentrate on other than the hole in his memories. Somewhere
along the line, he finally fell asleep.

“Well, Daniel, are you now completely
recovered from your overindulgence?” Tony took his glasses off. “Please sit
down.”

Daniel obeyed,
glad to be able to hide his shaking knees. “Yes, I’m fine,” he muttered, not
able to meet Tony’s eyes.

“Good. It was quite disappointing to have
to tell people that the seminar was cancelled. It left quite a gap in their
knowledge.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yes, I believe that. Such a shame to spoil
such a satisfactory work performance up to then by getting carried away with
alcohol.”

“It wasn’t—” Daniel stopped.
Admitting it was drugs—however administered—sounded much worse.
“Um, it was probably something I ate.”

“Ah. Well, I suppose that’s something we
could all fall prey to. However, we still need to fill that information gap,
and quickly. So I expect you and Spencer to turn your presentation into a
detailed handout by the end of this week, and you and I will attend the meeting
of Northern’s managers at the end of this month to give them the final rundown.
It’ll be an overnight trip on the twenty-eighth, with the meeting in the
morning next day. Make your arrangements as you need to.”