Whoa.
Rory sat bolt upright in bed, his teeth still feeling weird from where the ringing of his alarm clock had got in somehow and made them vibrate . . . Wait a minute.
He wasn’t in bed, and he couldn’t even see his alarm clock which, shit, was still going strong. David was going to give him that grumpy look again if he didn’t turn it off. Although it didn’t seem quite as loud as usual . . .
Shit. Was it upstairs doing its nut while he was down here? Rory jumped up, put one foot on the edge of something hard and plasticky that tipped up and nearly had him face-planting on the coffee table, fought free of some blankety thing his legs were all tangled up in, and swore again as something heavy hit him on the other foot.
Oh. There was the clock. On the floor, next to his throbbing toe. And the washing-up bowl. What was that doing there? Rory collapsed back onto the sofa and grabbed the clock to turn it off.
Lovely, lovely silence. Rory breathed a sigh of relief and took a swig from the handy pint glass of water on the coffee table. He must have put it there last night before he fell asleep. Funny, that. He wasn’t usually this organised. He had to have been well out of it last night to have done that and not remember it this morning.
But then there was the alarm clock. And the washing-up bowl. Rory couldn’t for the life of him think why he’d have put that there. It wasn’t like he’d been feeling queasy or anything. He hadn’t actually had that many pints last night—Barry had laughed at him for being a lightweight. It’d been the tiredness that’d done him in. By the time he’d walked home he’d barely had the energy to talk to David . . .
David. He must have been the one who’d done it all.
Huh. That was nice of him. After all, he’d only known Rory for a couple of days.
Rory hoped he hadn’t just paid the bloke back by waking him up again. Shit, he had to have, didn’t he? What with the alarm going off for ages and then him clattering about dropping stuff. Still, David hadn’t come down to complain yet. Might be best to keep quiet from now on and hope.
Rory got to his feet a bit more carefully this time, put the throw back on the sofa, and took the glass and the bowl into the kitchen. Then he tiptoed upstairs as softly as he could and paused on the landing.
David still hadn’t appeared. Had he managed to sleep through the racket? He had to be in the house, didn’t he? Despite all the faffing around, it was still only quarter to five, so he had to be in bed. Unless he’d gone out after Rory had got back last night, or got abducted by aliens, or . . . Rory hesitated, then carefully opened David’s bedroom door a crack.
There was David, snuggled up in the pink fairy duvet with his teddy bear, a pair of Hello Kitty earmuffs on his head. Lucy would like some of those, Rory thought idly. David’s hair was rumpled, and he was smiling in his sleep.
Aw. Rory gazed at him for a second, soppy smile on his face, then realised what he was doing and shut the door hastily. Yeah, that’d be pretty near the top of the “Ways to creep out your lodger” list.
But anyway, David was all right so Rory could go to work.
He had a quick shower and chucked last night’s clothes in the laundry bin. They smelled a bit beery, probably cos Barry got really expansive with the hand gestures when he’d had a few and last night he’d forgotten he was holding his pint glass half the time. Rory felt a lot better once he was clean and dressed in his uniform, and he whistled as he drove to the delivery office.
Best job in the world.
Rory’s good mood lasted all through sorting his mail and getting halfway through his round, but when he got to 14, The Rise, the hair on the back of his neck started to prickle. The local free paper, which came round on Thursday afternoon, was still sticking out of the letterbox wrapped round a wodge of junk mail flyers. And old Mrs. Young was always very particular about taking stuff in, which Rory reckoned was more down to her not getting a lot of proper post than anything else. He hadn’t had a delivery for her yesterday, or he’d have noticed then.
Repeated knocks on the door, first at normal volume and then as loudly as he could manage, didn’t get a reply, so Rory crouched down, pushed the paper through the letterbox, and peered inside. “Mrs. Young? You all right in there?”
Nothing. Or was there? Rory wasn’t sure if he’d heard some kind of scratching noise, or only imagined it. He called once more, and this time was almost certain he heard it in reply.
He had a peek in the living room window, but there was nobody there.
Shit. Rory sat back on his heels and considered his options. Best to try the neighbours first. Number 16 was away—he’d had to leave a note about a parcel, and the place had had that abandoned look, with windows all shut and curtains left half drawn—but number 12 was a young working couple with no kids—lots of activity holiday brochures and lifestyle magazines—so hopefully they’d be in.
He jogged down the path and up next door’s, and knocked.
It was a good old while before the door was opened by a young woman in her dressing gown. “Morning,” she said, and yawned.
“Morning. I’m a bit worried about Mrs. Young next door. Number 14.”
“Oh, is that her name? What’s happened?”
“Not sure, to tell you the truth. She ain’t away, is she?”
“Not that I know of. But we’re both at work all day, so . . .” She shrugged.
And, yeah, they could have missed her getting picked up, and God knew it was peak season for old age pensioners going on coach tours and stuff, but Rory still didn’t like it. Mrs. Young, far as he knew, didn’t do that sort of thing. And if she did, she’d arrange for someone to come round and look after the post and the papers, not leave them sticking out of the letterbox as a signal to burglars to come on in and make themselves at home. And then there was that noise—if it had been a noise. “You seen her around since Thursday?”
“Since Thursday? I don’t know . . . I don’t think so.” She yawned again. “Sorry.”
“Don’t suppose you got a key? I’m worried she might have had a fall and can’t get up.”
“No. Sorry. We don’t really know her.”
Course they didn’t. They’d only been living next door to the old dear for about a year now. “Right. In that case, you got a stepladder?”
“Why?”
“So I can hop over the side gate and have a butcher’s in the back windows.”
“Oh. Are you allowed to do that?”
“You let me worry about it, love.”
She huffed. “Okay, wait there and I’ll get the key to the garage.” She disappeared inside.
Rory stood there on the doormat until he heard the garage door clattering up and then he headed over to where the woman, still in her dressing gown and fluffy slippers, was lugging the ladder out to him.
“Cheers.” Rory hopped over to Mrs. Young’s side with it—the fence between the houses was low at the front—and held it up to the tall gate that closed off the path between her front and back gardens. No lock, luckily: it just had a bolt near the top, which was easy enough to lean over and undo from a few steps up the ladder. He moved the ladder aside and walked on through.
The first window he came to was from the living room, which stretched the length of the house, and he already knew that was empty. Rory jogged on to the next room, the kitchen, and had a shufti in the window.
That was where he saw her. Lying on the floor, her face so sunken it looked like a skull wrapped in wrinkled parchment. Rory took a step back in shock before he realised she was moving, thank God, one hand scrabbling at the lino. “Mrs. Young?” he called, hoping his voice would carry through the window.
She shifted again, this time more energetically, and he could see her mouth moving. “It’s all right,” he yelled. “I’m gonna get help.”
Rory had his phone out before he’d finished speaking, and called 999. “I’m gonna break a window and get in,” he told them after he’d given them all the details. “She don’t look so good. Just tell ’em not to arrest me when they get here.”
It was a blooming good thing she was too old-fashioned to have double glazing. Rory pulled off his boot and used it to break the pane in the kitchen door. Once he’d cleared the broken glass from the edges, it was easy enough to unbolt the door and turn the key in the lock, and then he was in.
Mrs. Young was in a right old state. He didn’t dare try to get her off the floor, in case she’d broken something. She couldn’t speak—probably hadn’t had a drink in near on two days—so after he’d nipped upstairs to grab a blanket off her bed to wrap the poor old dear in, he fetched a cup of water and helped her take sips until the police and the ambulance arrived.
They were great—thanked him for calling them, like anyone else wouldn’t have done it.
Rory was about to head off, when he remembered he ought to take the stepladder back to number 12, reminded by seeing the couple standing on their doorstep watching all the kerfuffle with wide eyes and guilty faces. The woman in her dressing gown had been joined by her bloke, in jeans and a T-shirt but no socks. “Cheers for the loan,” Rory called out, leaning the ladder up against the garage wall.
“Is she going to be okay?” the bloke asked.
“Hope so.” Whether she’d ever be coming back to live in number 14 was another matter. That’d been how it went with his gran—one fall too many and she’d gone straight from hospital to nursing home.
“We didn’t know she was so frail,” the woman said, pulling her dressing gown tighter around her middle.
“She’s in safe hands now,” Rory said, cos what else could he say?
Then he got back on with his deliveries.
He couldn’t help thinking what a narrow escape the poor old dear had had, though. If Rory hadn’t been working this Saturday, what was the chance whoever covered his round would’ve known to be worried? She could’ve been on that floor till Monday.
He didn’t reckon she’d have still been moving by then.
Rory was that rattled by it all he didn’t even stop to change out of his uniform after he got home before knocking on Mrs. Willis’s front door. He wasn’t able to relax until he heard the familiar swish of her slippers as she shuffled up the hallway.
“All right, Mrs. Willis?” he asked, as she opened the door and peered up at him from under her tight grey curls—well, more white than grey, these days. Funny to think she’d probably been as tall as him before she got old.
“Yes?” She looked him up and down. “Are you here to deliver something?”
“Nah, just wanted to check you’re okay. If you need anything, I’m off for the weekend now. I see you’ve got your posh frock on—you got a hot date?” She was wearing a black and white dress with a zigzag print Rory was pretty sure was new. He wasn’t one for noticing women’s clothes all that much, but it was the kind of pattern he’d remember. It made his eyes go funny.
“I should think not. I like to be smart. Unlike everyone else these days, it seems.”
“It’s lovely, Mrs. Willis. You’ll be turning all the blokes’ heads in the village, you will.”
She sniffed. “Not all the men, if I’m any judge. I see you moved your young man in the other day.”
“What, David? Yeah, he’s the new lodger.”
“I didn’t realise people still called it that.” She didn’t seem to approve of lodgers, but then Mrs. Willis didn’t approve of a lot, bless her.
“No? S’pose you could call him my housemate.”
She humphed at him. “I only saw him through the window, but it was quite clear that young man was light in the loafers. I’m surprised at you, though—a family man.”
She didn’t mean . . . Did she? “Nah, my loafers ain’t light.” Rory found himself lifting up a boot to show the old lady and put it down in a hurry, feeling like a prize muppet.
“Oh, I’m sure it’s none of my business. Times change. I’m not saying it’s for the worse, but I’m not saying it’s for the better, either.”
Rory swallowed. “Right. Fine. So, you’re okay, then? Don’t need nothing?”
“No, thank you, I don’t need anything.” There was a bit of an emphasis on the any, to remind him that she’d been an English teacher in her day and didn’t hold with bad grammar. Then she closed the door, leaving Rory standing like a lemon on the doormat. Bloody hell, that’d floored him and no mistake. He hadn’t even thought to ask about Mr. Willis, which he’d been meaning to cos he hadn’t seen him around lately.
Was this what everyone was going to think? That him and David were, well, living together, not just living together?
Rory wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He paused, his hand on Mrs. Willis’s front gate. Maybe he should go back and tell her he wasn’t gay?
Except, did it really matter if she thought that? Making a fuss about people thinking he was gay would feel like he was saying it was bad, which was disloyal to Mark and Patrick and Mr. Emeny at the school and Mr. Emeny’s bloke too, who Rory had never met socially but felt a vague sort of connected-ness to through the kids and the village and that.
And, to be honest, it was kind of flattering if people actually believed someone as young and good-looking as David would be with a boring old fart like him . . .
Rory gulped.
David was going to go spare when he found out.