‘Yes, I know. Luckily, suspicion is just that. Did you see him today?’
‘I’ll have you know that I had nothing to do with his suspicions. He questioned me, of course, and I told him I hadn’t seen anyone or heard anything. He was already asking about you, although he seemed to think you worked in the bank. I wondered if he’d got confused between you and your friend, but he’d moved on to something else before I could correct him.’
I breathe a sigh of relief. ‘Yeah, about that …’ I start, whispering the bank lie to Bernard, surprised when he just nods his agreement rather than questioning why I apparently now work in the bank. Is everyone I know so desperate for me to meet a man, that lying about my place of work is completely acceptable?
‘Anything I can do to help?’ Bernard asks, still whispering.
‘Have a rummage in that bag – wait, did you hear that?’ I say at the sound of a click in the tiny alleyway between the coffee shop and the old Hawthorne Toys building.
‘I heard something. Shall I go and check it out?’
I shake my head. ‘It’s probably just rats having a scrape at the bins.’
‘Can you not say the r-word too loudly? I’ll get shut down by the Food Standards Agency for the mere mention of the word around here,’ Leo says, stepping out of the alleyway.
Caught. Red. Handed.
‘I bloody well knew it was you.’ He looks between me and Bernard. ‘And you, Bernard. Why am I not surprised? I knew you knew something when I saw you this morning.’
‘It’s not Bernard’s fault. He was just passing by and stopped for a chat. I made him cover for me,’ I say, distracted by how good Leo looks. He’s wearing baggy plaid pyjama trousers, a plain white T-shirt with a navy dressing gown wrapped around him, and his feet are shoved into mid-calf work boots with the laces hanging open. It shouldn’t be sexy, but it is. He looks like he’s just got out of bed, and thinking of Leo and bed makes all sorts of naughty things pop into my head.
‘You’re my favourite customer – why are you vandalising my shop?’ he snaps, a frown on his face.
‘Vandalising?’ I say, my voice going up several pitches in annoyance. ‘I’m not vandalising, I’m trying to help!’
‘By graffiti-ing my windows?’
‘Graffiti?’ I repeat again, surprised by his reaction. ‘This isn’t graffiti, it’s a Christmas decoration.’
‘A waste of everyone’s time is what it is.’ He sighs and pushes a hand through his hair, making his light brown curls even more askew than they were. ‘And if it was that innocent, why are you hiding? Why are you doing it in the middle of the night? Why not come in one morning and ask?’
I fold my arms across my chest, well aware that my black coat will now have white paint on it from my hands. ‘I didn’t think you’d say yes.’
‘I wouldn’t have. That’s exactly the point. You knew I’d tell you not to bother.’
I swallow hard. ‘I think you’re worth bothering with, even if you don’t.’
He goes to reply but nothing comes out.
‘She’s not doing any harm,’ Bernard says. ‘You can’t be angry about it. It looks very pretty and I did overhear a couple of people talking about it today.’
‘I’m not angry,’ Leo sighs and sinks back against the wall, shoving a hand through his hair again. ‘I just don’t know why you’d … bother.’
I watch him, the way his shoulders sag and his back hunches over as he leans against the wall. He looks exhausted, but I’m finding him hard to read. He doesn’t look angry but his words are harsh and he seems annoyed with me, and I wonder what else I expected. I knew he wasn’t happy about the window this morning. Did I expect him to do a dance of joy at finding me out here doing it again?
‘Well, I’m going to leave you two to it,’ Bernard says. ‘It’s late and my bench is calling me.’
‘Do you want a coffee or something?’ Leo asks him.
‘No caffeine for me at this time of night or I won’t get a wink of sleep. Thanks, though. You two enjoy yourselves.’ He waggles his eyebrows at us like this is some clandestine midnight rendezvous.
‘Hey, have a rummage in that bag before you go,’ I say, continuing the thought from before Leo came out. ‘There’s a flask of tea and a sandwich in there.’
‘Oh no, Georgia, I really couldn’t –’
‘You’d be doing me a favour saving me having to lug it all the way home again. As usual, I overestimated how hungry I was.’
He pulls the sandwich and flask out of my bag and peers at it. ‘Ooh, cheese and tomato, my favourite. Thank you, Clarence.’ He brandishes the sandwich at Leo. ‘And you, don’t you be mad at my Clarence, she makes the best sandwiches in town. I’ll be having words with you tomorrow if you don’t behave yourself.’
I know it’s only a joke but it still makes something go warm inside me.
‘Clarence?’ Leo asks with a raised eyebrow as we watch Bernard disappear down the street.
‘I think he’s got his It’s a Wonderful Life characters muddled up.’
‘Clarence was the guardian angel who stopped George jumping off the bridge, right?’
‘Right.’
I can’t think of anything else to say without giving myself away. The silence between us is thick and heavy and Leo’s eyes are on the ground, concentrating intently on one of the cracks in the pavement. I look at the debris of my painting strewn around me, the bag of brushes and cans of spray paint, the stencils, the bucket of soapy water and wet patches on the concrete where I’ve splashed.
I should tell him right now that it was me the other night. This is the perfect opportunity, the best conversation opener I could’ve hoped for, but how do you begin to tell someone something like that? He’s not going to greet me like an old friend, is he? He’s going to be embarrassed, feel exposed, he’ll probably think I took advantage of his vulnerability by not saying something the moment I realized who had been on the other end of that phone.
I look at Leo looking down and he doesn’t look mad – he looks like someone who needs a damn good hug.
‘I see you’ve mastered the “telling Bernard he’s doing you a favour” trick to get him to accept help.’ Leo looks up and meets my eyes in the darkness.
‘Yes,’ I say, my voice sounding rough in the cold air. ‘You too?’
‘It’s the only way he’ll take anything. If I give him money, I have to tell him I found it in the road and it wouldn’t be right to keep it, and my mum bakes him something fresh every day and I have to tell him it’s the leftovers of what we didn’t sell otherwise he’ll refuse it or try to pay for it.’
I laugh despite myself. ‘He’s a great guy. I hate him sleeping outside in the winter like this, it’s freezing.’
‘I know. I’d give him a job in a heartbeat if I had the work for him, but …’ he makes an empty-handed gesture. ‘At least his roommates are quiet. Dead quiet.’
The laugh takes me by surprise even though it doesn’t seem like the time for cracking jokes, and we look at each other for a long moment until he shivers. ‘It is freezing. How about you? You want to come in for a cuppa?’
‘I thought you were mad at me?’
‘I am. But I can’t tell you how mad I am because my teeth are chattering and I can’t feel my fingers.’ He yawns and I can see him shivering. ‘Please. Leave your stuff and come in for a hot drink?’
‘Well, you know how much I like your hot drinks,’ I say, trying to ease the awkwardness of the situation.
He smiles at me as he pushes himself off the wall and stumbles upright, looking like each movement takes more energy than he has.
I follow him down the narrow alleyway beside the coffee shop and he lets us into the kitchen through the door he came out of. He toes off his boots and pads across the tiled floor in plain white socks to flip the light switch on.
‘So are you on some kind of stakeout?’ I ask, looking at his dressing gown. ‘Were you spending the night here to catch me?’
&nbs
p; ‘Something like that.’
‘How did you know I’d be back again? That window really bothered you so much that you’d camp out here overnight on the random off-chance that I’d come back?’
‘Sure,’ he says with a shrug. There’s a tone of finality in his voice that gives me the feeling he doesn’t want to be asked any more questions. ‘And I’m not mad about the window, I’m disappointed that you lied to me.’
I bite my lip to stop myself smiling. ‘Did you really just pull the “I’m not mad, I’m disappointed” line on me? A favourite of parents everywhere?’
His mouth tries to twitch into a smile. ‘You’re my favourite customer. I love talking to you every morning. I asked you outright today if you did the window and you lied to me point blank. I thought you were trustworthy.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say quietly. ‘It wasn’t for malicious reasons. I thought you were really angry and were going to tell me never to set foot in your shop again.’
‘I couldn’t do that. My days would be a lot darker without you.’
I think my whole body flares as red as his cheeks do.
‘Sorry,’ he mumbles. ‘I didn’t … I don’t … I mean … kettle! I can’t be bothered to fire up the coffee machines at this time of night, and Bernard’s probably got a point about caffeine at 1 a.m. anyway. There’s a kettle upstairs; stay here and I’ll go and put it on and you can tell me why you’ve decided to use my window as a blank canvas.’
‘It’s not …’ I trail off as he continues his adorable rambling.
‘Stay here. The shop’s through there, you know your way around, don’t you? There might still be some residual heat from the fire. Why don’t you go and get comfy and I’ll get that cup of tea? Stay here, I’ll be back in a tick.’
I wonder if he realizes he told me to stay here three times? I listen to his footsteps go up the stairs at the back and the creak of the floorboards above me as he walks across them. I start wandering towards the main part of the shop but something doesn’t add up. He looks for all the world like he’s just got out of bed. He had no reason to think his mysterious window painting was more than a one-off and certainly no reason for it to be worth staying the night on the chance he might catch me out. I have a horrible feeling that I know exactly why he’s here in the middle of the night in his pyjamas and why he’s so keen for me to stay downstairs, and if I’m going to push myself into Leo’s life and make sure he knows he’s got a friend he can talk to, I have to get him to talk to me first. I give him a couple of minutes and then I follow him.
I go back through the kitchen and out a side door, into a hallway that’s lined with boxes that have wholesalers’ labels on them. 100x candy canes. 100x mint hot choc pods. 100x creamer. At least he’s well stocked for the season.
‘Leo?’ I call as I start up the staircase at the end of the hallway, knowing he’s not going to be pleased to see me. ‘Sorry to be a pain, but can I use your bathroom really quick?’
He appears at the top of the stairs almost instantly, his arm holding his dressing gown open across the doorway into the staffroom, clearly trying to block it. ‘There’s a customer bathroom in the shop. You can use that.’
‘Oh, I’m up here now and that’s a really long way to go back down when you need the bathroom,’ I lie, cringing at how crap my excuse sounds. I sound like a toddler still struggling with potty training.
He stares at me for a long moment and I see the moment he gives up cross his face. He drops his arm in defeat and steps back, his head bowed as he disappears back into the tiny kitchen like he can’t get away fast enough.
‘There.’ He waves a hand vaguely towards the door next to the kitchen without looking up.
I hate being right. Maybe that’s an odd thing to hate, but in this case, I would’ve loved to be wrong. I lean against the doorframe to the staffroom and take in the sleeping bag and pillow on the floor, the open novel on the carpet and the reading lamp glowing even though the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling is off. ‘Are you sleeping here?’
He comes to the kitchen doorway, backlit by the light in there and the semi-darkness in the larger room. ‘No, I’m kite surfing.’
The deadpan tone in his voice makes me laugh, and he looks between the sleeping bag and me and down at his pyjamas. ‘Can’t really deny it, can I?’
‘Why?’ I ask softly.
He goes to answer but stops himself and thinks for a moment before speaking again. ‘You know what, I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re a customer and I’m not going to burden you with my business woes. That would be unprofessional.’
‘But I’m asking. Not as a customer. Just as a … vandal you’ve caught graffiti-ing your windows?’ I say, trying to do an encouraging shrug.
‘I thought you needed the bathroom?’
‘Oh. The urge has faded.’ I shake myself. ‘I mean, yeah. Thanks.’
I let myself into the bathroom and look around. There’s one of those rubber shower hoses that fit over the taps coiled up beside the sink with a bottle of tangerine shower gel. Both are covered in water droplets and have obviously been used recently.
He’s living here. I know he is. He’s sleeping on the floor in that freezing cold staffroom and showering in this bathroom the size of a matchbox. I poke around but there’s not much to see. A cracked mirror on the wall above the sink, a bin, a loo, a pack of toilet rolls. On a scale of enough space to swing a cat, this bathroom isn’t big enough to swing one of the cat’s fleas.
When I think I’ve been in there long enough to convince him I actually needed the bathroom, I flush the chain and wash my hands.
Leo’s waiting in the staffroom doorway with two cups of tea in his hands. ‘Come on, it’s warmer downstairs.’
I shiver as he turns away, tempted to say it’s probably warmer outside. This is a million miles away from the bright, warm, gorgeous-smelling coffee shop I know and love. This is cold and dank with a vague smell of dampness permeating the whole room. I can’t help peering into the kitchen as I pass. It looks like a tiny office that someone’s put a microwave and kettle in. The cold shiver this time has nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with how unfit this is for human habitation. This is a staffroom. It’s somewhere people walk through on their way to the bathroom. Somewhere for staff to dump their coats when they come to work. Somewhere someone would sit at the desk in the corner, next to the filing cabinets along one wall, and do a bit of paperwork. It’s not where someone should be living.
‘So this is why Bernard was whispering,’ I say as I follow Leo down the narrow staircase. ‘He knew you were here?’
‘I guess so.’
‘He was whispering last night as well. He knew you were here then too. He knows you’re always here, doesn’t he?’
This time he grunts in response, which comes out more affirmative than he probably meant it to be.
In the hallway, Leo uses his elbow to press the door handle down and pushes the door open with his back because he’s got a drink in both hands.
‘You’re good at that,’ I say, because it’s the same way I watched him walk into the shop today.
‘I serve coffee for a living. You get used to opening doors with spillable drinks in your hands.’ He holds the door open with his foot to let me go through into the kitchen, looking and sounding like his usual self for the first time tonight. ‘You don’t want to imagine the kind of messes I made in the first few weeks of opening.’
I grin as he uses his foot to slide the kitchen door open and lets us into the main part of the coffee shop, heading for the cosy sofas near the open fire in the corner. It’s usually roaring away in the daytime but there’s barely an ember left glowing now and I wrap my coat tighter around me.
Leo puts the cups down on one of the tables in front of a sofa and switches on a couple of wall lamps near the fire to give us low light. ‘Sorry, it’s too late to put the main light on. I don’t want anyone from the council getting wind that I’m still here, they’
ll probably hit me with residential property restrictions on top of everything else.’
‘It’s fine. It’s nice and cosy,’ I say, despite the fact I wouldn’t be surprised to see a polar bear pop out from behind a table having genuinely mistaken it for the Arctic Circle.
I sit down and pick up my mug of tea, wrapping my hands around it gratefully as Leo leans over the fire guard and prods at the dying embers with a poker. For a moment, it looks like they might come to life again, but they turn black and disappear into the ash instead. He sighs, groaning under his breath as he gets up and comes over to sit on the opposite end of the sofa.
‘Going to tell me why my favourite customer has decided to graffiti my shop?’
‘I was trying to help,’ I say, watching the way his hands curl around his cup as he picks it up. ‘You’re acting like I’m out there tagging swear words all over your building. It’s Christmas and I wanted to make it a bit more festive. I knew you’d say no if I asked because you won’t even let me buy you a coffee in the mornings and I didn’t want you to think you owed me anything in return.’
‘Yeah, but why? I don’t get why you care about my Christmas window. What do you get out of it?’
I bite my lip as I look at him. I wish he could just accept a little kindness, even if he thinks he doesn’t deserve it. ‘I’m not trying to get anything out of it. You said something about being up a creek without a paddle and I thought it might bring in some extra customers. I love this place. I love coming in here and talking to you every morning and I’d really miss it if it was gone.’
He thinks before he speaks. ‘I only said that to you this morning. You’d already painted it by then.’
Bugger. ‘Er, it was obvious from the day before, when we talked about the gingerbread house.’ I wave my hand in the general direction of the window where the gingerbread house is still sitting, surrounded by a half-finished painting on the opposite side of the glass. ‘We’re always told to make a huge thing of our Christmas windows, they’re the biggest window of the year and the best time to draw in new customers while people are Christmas shopping.’
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