An empire cannot stand without foundations.
And, as he gazed into that mirror, Osmosis again knew what must be done.
Danny Yates must die.
‘Danny? What’re you doing here?’ Lucy stood at the far end of the hallway, in boxer shorts and a vest, holding a TV set. Hair dangling over one eye, she gave a shapeless grin.
Danny stood just inside the flat’s opened front door. ‘This is my home too – in case you hadn’t noticed.’
Carrying the TV into his bedroom, she called through to him. ‘Used to be your home. The Great Osmo materialized ten minutes ago. As of the moment you left hospital, you no longer lived here. Of course, technically, you’ve not lived here for the last six months, but your lease was still valid, so he’s been debiting rent from your bank regardless. Did he mention that during his visit?’
Teeth grinding, Danny dug his fingernails, talon-like, into the sides of the grocery box he held pressed against his chest.
Lucy explained: ‘At first he did it coz he thought it’d be what you’d have wanted had you lived, sort of a memorial. Then, when he discovered you had lived, he just plain emptied your account and went on holiday with it. I’ve never seen him so angry.’ Her head popped round the door; ‘If I were you, Daniel, I would not go round to complain,’ then popped back again.
Her voice receded deeper into his bedroom. ‘Anyway, he’s given me your room. Is this your wardrobe? Or did it come with the flat? If it’s not yours, bags it’s mine.’
‘Lucy, how could you do this to me? I thought we were friends. Well, no, I never thought we were friends but …’
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she said against the swish of coat hangers being test driven along wardrobe rails. ‘There’s nothing personal in this but you know I’ve always wanted this room. I’m a growing girl, Danny, or intend to be. Once I’ve had my breast implants, I won’t even be able to get through my old room’s door.’
‘You’re not really going through with that?’
‘Too right I am. Soon as I’ve graduated, and earned some real money, my chest will be a whole new barrel of fish. Besides, it’s not fair that whenever some new kid moves in they always get this room, when I’ve been here the longest.’ Spring spring. Creak creak. Boing boing creak. ‘This bed’s great.’ Boing. ‘Did it come with the flat?’
He closed the front door, taking a final look around the dingy hallway. Today was the third anniversary of his moving in. On that first day, he’d inadvertently set himself alight. On the second, Lucy had electrocuted him; accidentally, she’d claimed, though laughing too readily whenever retelling the tale to friends. On the third day had been the blender incident. Subsequent events had taken a turn for the worse.
There’d been a third flatmate, Josephine. She sang; like Aretha Franklin, in her sleep – like Bill Franklyn, while awake. And she danced; like Baryshnikov, while asleep – like Barry Sheene, while awake. She acted; like Olivier, while asleep – like Olive Oyl, while awake.
Josephine Daly sold eighty million albums, won three Grammies, two Larries (and an Emmy for her X-Files guest spot as ‘Snoring Alien on the Left’) but had slept through the whole thing. She’d believed she only worked at Mr Kake’s Bakery – her day job – never accepting Danny’s attempts to tell her otherwise.
When two workmen arrived, one midnight, to put the Sleeping Diva in a packing crate and mail her to Hollywood, Osmo’d immediately replaced her with Maria, the flatmate no one had ever seen. Clearly Danny would never get to see her now.
What to do next?
The rattits squeaked in their box, oblivious to all worry. Should he give them names? George and Ira? Arnold and Sylvester? For that matter, what sex were they? No way would he be checking, his Aunt Fi having always warned that only people you don’t want to meet go round checking animal genitalia without veterinary need. And she should have known, having been married to Uncle Fred.
Danny’s index finger stroked a rodentine back. Whatever sex they were, those two lumps of scraggy fur were all he had left in the world.
Lucy reappeared from her new bedroom, for the first time noticed his grocery box and, after a pause, asked, ‘Did those rats come with the flat?’
When he left, Danny left ratless.
‘Erm, hello?’ Danny stepped forward, tentatively.
The young nun stopped writing, put the lid on her pen then placed it to one side. She slammed shut her hefty ledger and put it to one side. Chin on knuckles, elbows on desk, smooth faced, she gazed down from behind a counter so high it couldn’t fail to make you feel inadequate.
And she gazed.
And she gazed.
She blinked once.
And she gazed.
Danny found her unreadableness disconcerting, but he found anyone in uniform disconcerting, having always lived in fear of the reintroduction of National Service.
‘Hello,’ said a soft, Dublin lilt. ‘Would you be Gary?’
‘No. My name’s Danny; Danny Yates.’
‘Well, good afternoon, Mr Danny Yates. Can I be of assistance?’
‘You put homeless people up?’
‘We offer refuge to locals who’ve fallen on hard times after a lifetime devoted to this town’s maritime industries, yes. Are you a sailor?’
‘Not really.’ His heart sank like a holed tug.
‘A cabin boy?’
‘Not really.’
‘A ship’s mascot?’
‘Not really.’
‘Have you ever been on a ship?’
He shook his head.
‘A hovercraft, catamaran, or dinghy?’
He shook his head.
‘A raft, crossing the mighty Atlantic?’
He shook his head.
‘A bathtub crossing Windermere for charity?’
He shook his head.
‘Have you ever been on any vessel on any water?’ she asked.
‘I celebrated my fourteenth birthday with a pedalo ride in what’s now Osmosis Park,’ he said. ‘You had to be fourteen to go on one.’
‘Well, I suppose that’s something – ’
‘I drowned.’
Her expression told him to continue.
‘A freak tidal surge overturned my boat, smashing it to smithereens. Washed ashore, face down in mud, I was only saved by an unfeasibly large mallard repeatedly jumping up and down on my back, thinking I was attacking its nest. The action emptied my lungs of water and got me breathing again. When I started coughing, the duck jumped down, quacked one last angry quack at me and waddled off. The park keeper’d said he’d never seen anything like it. If not for that incident, I might have been a sailor.’
‘Heavens,’ she said. ‘But did the park keeper not try to save you?’
‘He’d thought about it but really couldn’t be bothered. I have that effect on people. Since then, I’ve pretty much avoided open water. But then, I avoid most things because of … incidents.’
Eyes still gazing into his, she shrugged. ‘Well, we can’t have that, can we, Mr Yates? A non-sailor