by Con Riley
If he has to be miserable about actually having a roof over his head and something good to eat for once, he might as well use the feeling to extend his antonym vocab. Grateful and thankful are a couple he tries hard to mean, but it’s only seeing his roommate approach from the other direction that truly lifts his spirits.
Kaspar calls out in English. “What are you looking so happy about?”
“I’m happy my face isn’t stupid like yours.” There. A complete sentence including pronouns is more than enough for the day. He reverts to Russian. “What about you? That grin can’t be for me. Why are you so happy?”
Kaspar takes the last laundry bag from Vanya, leaving him to carry his document folder and their supper. He jogs up the steps to their front door. “Hurry up and I’ll tell you.”
Vanya can’t quite match the spring in his step, not when he’s about to enter a place no amount of joking can make better. He delays by asking, “You hoping to see Anna?”
“No. Well, yes. She finished work before me or I would have walked back with her. I’ve been thinking about what you said.” Kaspar phrases his next sentence like a question. “I could ask her out?”
“You should. I told you. She likes you too. Besides, I saw what she did for you yesterday, sewing on a button while you still had your shirt on. Could she have gotten any closer?” It’s cute to see his one friend in London’s face flame with rosy colour. “Of course, she hasn’t heard you snore yet.”
“Funny guy.”
Vanya hesitates before saying what’s been on his mind lately. “Listen—”
“No.” Kaspar drops the bag and takes the steps down to the street again. “Don’t even start.”
“I didn’t say anything yet.”
Kaspar’s hand is firm at the nape of his neck. “You don’t have to say a word. I know where you’re headed. Your face gives you away every time you think you’re holding me back.”
“Your savings would build up much quicker if you didn’t help me out so often,” Vanya can’t help saying. “You might have a deposit for a place of your own by now if you didn’t buy me food whenever I run out or top up my Oyster card to get to the immigration centre.”
“Hush. If I didn’t help you out, who would do my laundry?”
Vanya can’t help the way his eyes steal to a window on the third floor. Kaspar’s crush is only four doors down the hallway from them, but that quick glance doesn’t escape his roommate either.
“I don’t want her washing my underpants. Not when I haven’t got into hers yet.” He gives Vanya a shake before sliding his arm heavily over his shoulder. It’s a weight that grounds him, as comforting as the scent of laundry detergent earlier. “We’ve been over this a hundred times already. If we don’t stick together, life will only be harder. Isn’t that why we started sharing a room? You being here so often while I’m out at work keeps our stuff much safer. How many times do you think you being there has stopped break-ins?”
Vanya shrugs. Theft was a perpetual problem until they started sharing.
“So I get as much out of the deal as you do. Besides, the only difference between us is that Estonians like Anna and I can work in Britain while Russians need a visa.” He glares at an election poster someone pinned to the front door of the building. A political candidate smiles out from it benignly, like his party wouldn’t shut the hostel quick as a blink if elected. “I’m legal here for now, at least. You’ll pay me back when you’re granted asylum and can get a job of your own.”
What Kaspar describes as a tactical arrangement sure feels like real friendship. Vanya nods, not trusting his voice, when Kaspar continues.
“As soon as I have three payslips, I can open a bank account here. That means I can sign a rental agreement in maybe a month. A new place is as good as ours already.” Kaspar jogs up the steps again, rips the election poster from the front door, and crumples it into a ball that he dropkicks to Vanya. His smile is wide and wicked when Vanya heads the poster into a dustbin. “Smooth move, Ivanushka. Now hurry up so I can tell you what happened at work after you left.”
Vanya slowly climbs the front steps. “This better be good,” he says while Kaspar fishes out a key it turns out he doesn’t need—the door swings open, clearly left unlocked, despite the house rules meant to keep out trouble.
“That guy came back,” Kaspar says. “The one with the black eye, remember?”
Remember? Vanya’s done little else but think about their conversation. “What did he want?”
“What do you think?”
Vanya’s grateful the light bulb in the hallway is blown so he can’t see Kaspar’s leer any clearer. “I don’t know. One of the neckties I showed him?” The next staircase is equally dim, which at least masks Go Home graffiti. It also hides his smile of pleasure. “Maybe he appreciates good taste.”
The sounds of someone getting a thorough fucking fills the next hallway. Kaspar waggles his eyebrows. “Well he appreciated something, all right. He really wanted to see you and was sorry he couldn’t.”
“And that’s what you found so funny?”
“Nope.” Kaspar takes another flight of stairs up. “What’s funny is that he thought you were a personal shopper. He wanted to hire you.”
Vanya stops mid-step. “He what?”
“He wanted you to dress him. I’m not sure he believed me when I said you couldn’t do that. He made me take his number and asked that I get you to call him. Said he’d make it worth your while if you saw him tomorrow.”
It’s tempting for so many reasons.
Finally having some money of his own is appealing. So is spending time with someone prepared to listen. But….
Kaspar must hear his sigh. Once he gets to their floor, he waits for Vanya to catch up. “I know you can’t legally work until your asylum case is decided. I’m only telling you to cheer you up. He even turned down the store’s personal shopper service. Only you would do for him.” He scans Vanya’s face closely. “He must have seen something he really liked. Maybe you should call him anyway. If older, dirty bricklayers really do it for you, you should let him take you out, see what comes up….”
“I will pay you to shut up.”
“With what?” Kaspar jokes, but it’s the real truth of his situation. “Sorry,” he quickly adds. “I didn’t mean—”
“I’d take the job if it was for real,” Vanya blurts. “I’d take it in a heartbeat. I miss shopping, and I do need cash, we both do, only maybe not so much that I’d risk getting deported.”
His words fade when they find Kaspar’s crush waiting outside their room.
Anna stands straight like she’s on guard before staggering towards Kaspar, apologising for something.
Vanya hardly hears what she says.
Behind her, their bedroom door hangs from its hinges.
“They got my room too,” she says.
He barely pays attention. Time slows as he pushes past to find their lives upturned like his bed, broken glass littering the floorboards. Time speeds up again when he sharply inhales.
Thank God he had his document folder with him all day.
Losing the evidence it contains could be a death sentence.
He sifts through what the burglars have left. Picture frames lay smashed and broken, luckily Kaspar’s family photos still intact behind glass that’s cobwebbed. Vanya turns to mention this small mercy, but Kaspar kneels for a different reason, oblivious to glass slivers, his own document wallet open.
“My papers.” He’s breathless, like he’s taken a punch to his gut. “My passport.” He digs even further. “Oh, no.” Vanya’s not sure there’s an English word to describe how he feels when Kaspar says, “They took my savings.”
Helplessness vies with Vanya’s anger at yet another setback, and Anna’s worry each time someone walks down the hallway behind her helps solidify it. A particularly violent flinch prompts Kaspar to ask her a question. “Wait… were you in your room when it was robbed.”
Her silence is an
answer.
Kaspar’s on his feet in a second, fists clenched. “Did… did they—?”
Her headshake is fast. “They didn’t stick around once I started shouting. Besides, my room’s been broken into before. I don’t have anything left worth stealing.” Her voice drops. “Not like you.”
Kaspar sounds sick. “We were so close. So, so close to getting out of here.” His gaze falls to his half-empty folder of papers. “Now we’re so much farther away.”
Anna’s touch to his shoulder turns into a hug that Vanya looks away from. It’s so reminiscent of his sister that he can almost hear her, can almost feel her small hand in his despite close to a year passing since he last saw her. Regret that he won’t get to be there for her in the future stabs as sharp as the shards littering these bare floorboards. And just like he can’t be there anymore for his sister, there’s nothing he can do to improve this situation either.
There’s nothing he has to offer to get them out of this hole any faster.
Vanya’s stare is as bleak as his outlook as he turns in a slow circle.
His gaze snags on something.
A necktie tangles around a snarl of bed sheets, pulling free when he tugs it. He wraps it around his fingers before voicing the one thing that might improve this situation.
“Did you really take that customer’s phone number?”
Kaspar frowns over Anna’s shoulder, but when Vanya says, “Maybe he was serious about paying,” he hands his phone over.
Chapter Six
Jason hesitates, razor in hand, on the morning of his first shopping appointment. His black eye has dulled from its former vivid bruising, the swelling somewhat reduced, but his face is still quite tender. He sets his razor down to one side. So what if he turns up unshaven? The personal shopper has already seen him looking much worse.
That thought persists as he pulls on an old pair of jeans.
There’s no need to dress up for someone he’s about to pay to make him look smarter. Besides, they’re not meeting until lunchtime. There’s no point wasting a morning trying to stay tidy when he could finish a project. Despite what Andrew said about him choosing to get dirty when he doesn’t have to, not all of his work can be driven from behind a desk. He needs to get his hands on a project—feel the structure of a building—before he can start delegating.
He only second-guesses his decision later when he arrives outside the same department store he’s visited twice this week already. The plate glass of the window reflects more plaster dust than ever. It also reflects that he’s the only person waiting.
His personal shopper hasn’t turned up.
Jason checks his phone. Maybe he took the text instructions to wait outside too literally. Perhaps he should wait outside the fitting rooms instead. That makes a whole lot more sense, now he thinks about it, but when he goes inside, the assistant he finds is no help, only saying, “I don’t know who you could mean. What’s his name?”
“I don’t know, I just know I’m meant to meet him here. He’s blond. Young. About so tall? Never mind. I’ll… I’ll go wait outside.” He retreats and turns abruptly. This time, instead of bumping into a mannequin, he ends up with an armful of the one person he wants to see the most.
The greeting he hears is hesitant. “M-Mr Balfour?”
“Jason.”
There’s the fair hair he just described, almost covering an eye until it’s pushed to one side. His accent’s familiar as well, gently teasing Jason when he next speaks. “Should be careful.” He disentangles himself from their accidental embrace. “‘You break, you buy’ is shop rule.” He points to a sign next to a display of glassware that bears a similar warning. Then he turns away abruptly when another assistant walks by. “Okay. We leave now.”
“Leave?” Jason snags him by the elbow, letting go right away when he freezes. “I mean, don’t we have to stay here?” He’d assumed they’d visit the store’s menswear department. “And, hi.” He brushes his palm against his jeans, like that will make up for arriving so dusty, and extends it in greeting. “Thanks for fitting me into your schedule so fast. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Vanya. I’m Vanya Petrov.” The grip on his hand is firm but fleeting before his shopper inclines his head at the exit. “Come. Should hurry.”
“Wait. Don’t you want to know what it is that I need your help with?”
Vanya surveys him from head to toe. “Can guess.” From this close, a small chip in one of his front teeth is visible. It’s a tiny imperfection that Jason notices when he’s teased again. “I’m think you need help with everything.”
He’s not wrong.
Jason follows him outside while asking, “So, you’re not tied to this store?” He clarifies his question when Vanya’s expression clouds. “You don’t have to sell me their clothes? They don’t employ you?”
“No one employs.” He’s firm about that. “Definitely not.”
Ah.
Jason was right to guess he’s freelance. “So where are we headed?” Bond Street stretches out from their left to their right, an expanse of high-end fashion outlets he hopes won’t actually bankrupt him. When his shopper doesn’t speak, looking up and down the street like he too isn’t certain which store to start with, Jason offers a suggestion. “I usually just buy the first thing that fits.”
A bus rumbles noisily past and sirens scream in the distance, but Vanya’s laughter is a loud honk that he quickly stifles. “Explains a whole lot.” At least he sounds amused rather than derisive, and his smile is much less nervous when he says, “Need to talk first. Find out more before deciding if I’m can help.”
“I didn’t realise there’d be a vetting process.” None of the websites had hinted at this. Still, Jason follows where Vanya leads, eventually crossing several lanes of traffic. They end up at Hyde Park, walking towards an outdoor café where deckchairs litter the grass, the striped fabric of their seats rippling in the cool breeze. It’s brisk enough that Jason zips his jacket. Vanya’s already several steps ahead before he calls hopefully over his shoulder. “Last one to café buys coffee?”
Jason doesn’t exactly race him, happy to lose if it means he’ll get to wrap his hands around a warm cup. Besides, the run means Vanya’s cheeks are nicely pinked when he reaches the café, and God, he’s got to stop staring at him.
Thankfully, Vanya doesn’t seem to notice. “I’m win, so you buy?”
Jason gets out his wallet. “I’m wearing the wrong shoes for running.” He looks down at his steel-capped work boots. “I could beat you if I wore my trainers.”
“Good to know.” Vanya smiles over the lid of the coffee cup after tipping in umpteen sugars. They take one of the well-trodden paths bordering the parkland. “You like to run?”
“‘Like’ is probably a stretch, but I keep in shape.”
“Can see.” Vanya glances sideways. “So, have sportswear?”
“Of course I do.” His last shopping trip was for new shorts.
“And have clothes for work—?”
Jason’s phone ringing interrupts them. He checks the screen. “I’m sorry, it’s a client.” His biggest one, in fact. “I need to take his call.” He steps off the path and answers. “Hey, Dom.”
In the periphery of his vision, Vanya sips his coffee slowly, his eyes half-lidded like each swallow is a real pleasure rather than nothing special. Jason takes a quick sip of his own, grimacing when it’s bitter. “You got my message about the buildings you wanted me to take a look at?”
Sunlight breaks through overhead clouds. It puddles Vanya in light as he crouches to watch a squirrel. It’s a distracting sight on two counts that has Jason walking closer as he gets to the point of the phone call.
“I finally got around to taking a look at one of them this morning. Yeah, the tucked-away block you thought might have potential if the access could be altered?” He pulls creased sales details from his back pocket and recites its address. “Yeah, that’s it… the one down a narrow alley? I
saw it this morning. The estate agent was useless—brought the wrong keys, so I got us in through a stairwell window, but the lower floors were locked up tight. The only space I could get to was the top floor.”
Vanya’s moved on to look at a noticeboard, his lips moving slowly as he reads. Jason follows, paying scant attention to his client’s questions. Instead he takes in minor details like the fact the Converse Vanya wears are tied with mismatched laces Jason guesses must be trendy. He stands a few feet away as he wraps up his call. “So that building isn’t a good project for you. Far too modern for your clients, and not in a good way. The building behind it was much better. That would make a perfect project. An 1800s warehouse that’s virtually untouched. Shame it’s not on the market.”
When Vanya turns, light filtering through the leaves above dapples his face warmly. “Gorgeous,” Jason says aloud and then hurries to cover his tracks. “The warehouse, I mean. Anyway, you can take the ugly one I saw off your list. Someone’s already gone bust mid-way through renovating it. There’s scaffolding still up but no sign of recent progress. It’s overpriced and boring. I wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole.”
Vanya scrutinises him closely as he ends his call, then reaches up to ruffle Jason’s hair. Dusty particles scatter. “You break old buildings?”
“Nope. I help rebuild them. I’m a restoration consultant. I like putting wrecks back together. The more rundown, the better.” Those were the best projects that made up for all the time he spent at his desk wrangling council permits. “Not that I get a chance to do much of it these days.”
Vanya’s expression slides to sceptical. “Don’t work all the time? Sure you can afford?”
“Afford what? Your time? We can negotiate that.” No way is he paying what those websites suggested, even if investing in making a better impression was important to Andrew. “Give me a ballpark figure.” He explains when Vanya’s baffled. “How much were you thinking of charging?”
“I’m think….” Vanya blinks fast a few times. “I’m think finding out what you need will help set price.”