Chapter 34: Ordinary Things - The Night Market

The flat had fallen into a hush, broken only by the gentle throb of distant city traffic from a cracked window and the whirring of the air-con shifting through its evening rhythm. Somewhere, far below, an ambulance siren cut across the skyline – not unusual, not even worthy of attention.

Laik sat on the edge of the sofa with a throw blanket gathered across his lap and a fresh gauze bandage stretching across his side. He still moved as if he expected pain to surprise him, and it did in sporadic flares, but his kind healed quickly, and the worst was now behind him. There was a careful stiffness in his movements as he reached for things on the coffee table before him, keen not to antagonise the injuries. The lights were low. Two floor lamps provided a pool of warmth and not much else.

He was bored.

A couple of books were spread on the coffee table before him. One by George Henry Borrow and his travels through Wales, one on the life of the Forest Poetess Catherine Drew and a worn hardback of Paul Tinto’s Trouble in Spiritland. He had started each of these when the previous failed to ensnare his restless mind, only making it a few pages in before moving on to the next.

He was just leaning back, eyes half-lidded and drifting, when the flat door swung open with a shove of one boot and a muttered, ‘Oh shit, nearly dropped it.’

Pepper backed her way inside, balancing a pair of pizza boxes in one hand, her phone tucked between her shoulder and ear. To make matters worse, a cloth bag with a few bottles of wine dangled from her fingertips on the other hand, joined by a second protruding paint brushes and stems of plastic flowers. Her coat was sliding off, and her hair was half falling out of a messy knot.

Laik straightened up. ‘Are we under attack again, or . . .?’

‘No,’ she said, nudging the door closed behind her with a hip. She set the wine and the boxes on the table. ‘You’re about to be, though. You’ve got pepperoni and peppers, but mine is goat’s cheese and caramelised onion.’

‘Onion? What on earth did I do to deserve that?’

Pepper smirked at him, the phone still pressed to her cheek. ‘Yes, hi, it’s Pepper Montgomery again. Just checking in on Claire. Uh-huh. No, I’ll hold.’ She covered the microphone as best she could. ‘Do you want me to read you the list?’

She made a beeline for the bedroom, already tugging off her coat, tossing the bag of craft materials onto the bed and kicking off her shoes as she went. The door stayed ajar, her silhouette changing in the dim light as she peeled off her day like a second skin.

Laik leaned back, trying not to wince as the bandages around his arm tightened. ‘You look like a girl who’s just buried a body.’

‘That would have been a damn sight easier. Trying to organise the makeover for the Night Market is a nightmare. Meetings, budgets, meetings, signoffs and more meetings. Now I’m free, I’m desperate to do something normal,’ she called from inside. ‘You know. Pizza. Wine. A night of absolute denial.’

She emerged a moment later in pink flannel pyjamas, barefoot and scrubbed clean of make-up, her eyes tired but clear. She collapsed beside him on the sofa like it owed her rent.

The phone call came back. ‘Yes? Oh, okay. No, that’s good.’ Her voice softened, low. ‘Right . . . well, that’s better than . . . the alternative. Thank you. I’ll be visiting tomorrow. Okay, thank you. Bye.’

She hung up and dropped the phone onto the sofa, blowing out a slow breath.

‘Claire?’ Laik asked.

Pepper nodded, tucking her feet under herself. ‘Yeah. Still no movement. Still breathing. Doctor said her vitals are “holding steady” – which is a polite way of saying nothing’s improved, but on the bright side, things aren’t degrading. If there is a bright side, but, y’know.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He reached for a bottle of rosé from the bag and snapped the cap loose with one hand.

‘Don’t be. I think if I have to deal with any more people today, I’ll start throwing chairs.’

He poured two glasses and handed hers over with a small toast. ‘To surviving.’

Pepper clinked her glass to his gently. ‘God, I hope so.’

They both took a mouthful, then cracked the boxes open and took a slice of pizza each. Pepper flopped back onto the sofa with a dramatic sigh. Her legs stretched lazily over Laik’s lap, which he very much noticed but didn’t respond to.

‘Aw yeah, that’s the stuff,’ she said, mouth half full. Even Laik found it difficult not to sigh in delight. Most of what he had eaten on the medical floor was ‘nutritionally balanced’ to aid recovery.

‘How you holding up?’ she asked, eyes lingering on the patchwork of dressings somewhat longer than he expected.

‘It’s just annoying. Happens every time I take a few knocks, I’m just impatient to get things done.’

Pepper gestured to the wounds and the spotted purpled flesh.

‘This counts as a few knocks, does it?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘I would hate to see what gets you laid up in bed for a time, then.’

Laik fought the urge to follow that up, and instead reached for the pizza.

‘You, uh . . . gonna be okay for the fight?’

Laik’s chewing slowed before he finally nodded.

‘Yeah, of course,’ he bragged. ‘No problem at all. Right as rain. Takes more than this to put me down for good.’

‘That’s good, then. I’m just worried that you aren’t being careful, pushing yourself too much to get better. I think you need to be at your best for, for Horus, ’cause he, uh . . . I mean you, you should be careful, being that, he’s like—’

‘I get what you mean,’ Laik mercifully interrupted.

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. Thanks.’

Pepper blushed and hastily drowned any further attempts of embarrassment with wine.

They ate in such peace that Laik barely trusted it. The kind of peace you found in the eye of the storm and didn’t dare look too deeply into in case it vanished, and the wind and rain began anew.

‘I have an idea of what we should do.’ Pepper got up, still sore from the crash, making her rising require a little more effort – and ibuprofen. After a minute she emerged from her bedroom and waved a thin blue box before him.

‘No,’ he stated, unimpressed. ‘No, no, no. Absolutely not.’

‘Absolutely yes. It is a classic,’ Pepper retorted.

‘I don’t care if watching it is the only thing stopping the world blowing up, I’m not going to endure watching Interview with the bloody Vampire.’

‘That’s because you’re afraid you’ll like it.’

‘You are pushing me, woman.’

She snapped the case open with a careless shrug. She made good on her threat.

‘And I’m also pushing the disc in. So unless you can get your ass from that sofa, all the way over here so you can eject it, then we’re doing this – and you are not going to complain.’

Laik softly cursed, watching her circle back round to the sofa and take the remote control. ‘Fine. Alright. You win.’

‘Yes I do. And I’ll accept your apology graciously when the time comes.’

She passed him his glass with a devilish smile, placed her legs over his once more, and started the film. Before long she was launching popcorn into her mouth with the accuracy of a sniper. And Laik found his attention being pulled from the screen to the woman opposite. Watching her silently mouth the dialogue that had been ingrained in her memory. Elaborate on why a line was so perfectly delivered. And explain how a young Kirsten Dunst acted way past her years.

He smiled despite himself.

‘What?’ she said, catching him.

‘Nothing. You just—’

‘Don’t ruin it,’ she muttered, looking back to the TV, but there was colour in her cheeks. She judged the weight of the remote in her hands, thoughtfully. Then, she softly asked:

‘What happened back there?’ she asked. ‘At the crash. The big bad in you didn’t show.’

Laik’s jaw worked before he spoke. ‘It wouldn’t come. I tried, believe me. I needed it. But it just . . . didn’t wanna know.’

Pepper blinked. ‘You mean it refused?’

He nodded. ‘It’s like something held it back. Or maybe it was afraid.’

Her brow shifted.

‘I used to be angry all the time,’ he said, quieter now. ‘Angry at what happened to me, angry at how the world saw nothing wrong in it. Then people would come at me like they had something to prove. Heard a reputation of something nasty and wanted to see if it were true. Didn’t matter who I was . . . they just wanted a fight. So, I gave them one. I stopped holding back. Let the thing take over, as if I didn’t have to sweat about being responsible for the outcome. It was simpler that way. Just took everything out on the poor sods who put themselves in front of me. Basically justified what I did. They got what they wanted. Didn’t like the results, though.’ He paused, shifting his weight, like the memories itched under his skin. ‘When Mortis took me in, he said I could be useful. Pointed me at the right people, and the thing inside . . . rampaged.’

‘The Sins . . .’ Pepper dragged her nail along the circumference of the glass.

‘Yeah. Doing what it does best. But I hated that, being all I was known for, this explosive, uncontrollable monster dwelling beneath the surface. That ain’t me, you know? It never was, not before my parents . . .’ he swallowed hard, blinking in the gloom, ‘not before they made me this way. And now, that fury I relied on? It doesn’t come as easy anymore. I think it knows I’m so, so tired. Tired of needing it. Of carrying it around like some awful inheritance. I never asked for it. It was forced on me. And I . . . I hate it.’

She looked at him with damp eyes.

Laik took a long pull from his glass, the wine catching the light.

‘They say the Rose can cure anything. Illness, curses, the supernatural . . . It’s the only shot I’ve got to be rid of it for good. I don’t know for sure if it’ll work, but I have to try. I need to know who I am without this thing in me. You use it to save your sister, and then it’s my turn. After that . . . maybe we both get something that looks like peace.’

Lost in thought, Laik didn’t see the look of dread on Pepper’s face, which had struck her like a lightning bolt. Her stomach wrapped into a tight knot and yanked, hard. Should she tell him? She had to. He had a right to know. She had overheard from the Archivist that the Eternal Rose could only be used just the once, meaning they would have to make a painful, unfair decision.

Laik’s salvation versus Claire’s life.

And she wanted so desperately to confess what she knew.

Would he be furious? Would he hate her for already knowing, for waiting for some imaginary perfect time to impart this information? God, she didn’t know. She didn’t know.

The words nearly spilled out. Her lips even parted. Her fingers gripped the hem of her pyjamas as if to brace herself.

But she looked at him again – his bruised face, the tired softness in his expression painted by the luminescence from the TV screen. The flicker of hope he barely dared to hold on to.

And she couldn’t do it. Not now. Not tonight. She didn’t want to be the thing that broke him. Couldn’t.

So she swallowed the truth like a blade and forced a smile that the light mercifully hid the details of.

‘We’ll do this,’ she said, her voice almost steady. ‘It’ll work. And we’ll look back on it all, and we’ll laugh.’

And God help her, she wished it could be true.

They sat together in the glow, passing popcorn, murmuring jokes, rolling eyes at awful one-liners, until sleep grew pressing. Eventually, Pepper’s head found his shoulder. He didn’t move away.

By the time the credits rolled, both of them were fast asleep, resting against one another, empty glasses forgotten on the coffee table.

And for now, in that moment, in that precious, fleeting tranquillity, the disaster waiting just beyond the horizon felt a world away.