Blowing It by Kate Aaron

city
below street level. The Underground map looked so neat and orderly, like a
model of the brain with all the hemispheres and lobes labelled, conspiring to
make us believe we understood the world better than we truly did. Scratch the
surface, and all was chaos: a trip on the tube was an archaeological dig
through plague pits and air raid shelters and even an old aircraft factory.
    “Fancy a nightcap?” I asked once we’d boarded.
    “I’ll miss my last train.”
    “So?”
    Magnus glanced at me. “You’re not too drunk?”
    I waved away his concerns. Any tipsiness I’d felt
at The Drake had long since evaporated into the night. “It takes more than a
few rum and Cokes to get me drunk.”
    Magnus’s grin turned feral. “Then I’d love one.”
    ҉҉҉
    My building was on the corner of Bethnal Green Road,
a couple of minutes’ walk from the tube station. Modern steel and glass rising
from the older brick of the original construction, a dozen storeys higher than
the surrounding buildings, it didn’t strike me as a particularly attractive or
brilliant piece of architecture. It stood out like a great, boxy carbuncle, nothing
about it seemingly sympathetic to the area at large. Then again, this was
London, the city streets typified by the juxtaposition of old and new.
    The doorman nodded to us as we crossed the foyer,
all dark wood and white leather furniture, past the curved, stainless steel
desk behind which he spent his shift. We took the lift to the seventh floor,
and I opened the door to my flat, belatedly remembering the mess I’d left in
the bedroom in my rush to get out.
    Magnus made an impressed sound as I led him into
the open-plan living room-cum-kitchen. The room stretched the length of the
flat, from the front door to the French windows leading out onto a small
balcony. I’d left the curtains open, and the City shone in the distance, the
curved shape of the Gherkin illuminated by the office lights left on inside.
    My kitchen was small, finished in high-gloss white
with stainless steel fixtures, the living room dominated by a black
entertainment centre which filled the left-hand wall, my TV housed in the
centre, surrounded by shelves groaning with books. An oversized grey sofa,
large enough to seat six comfortably, was pushed against the opposite wall, a
glass coffee table standing on a matching grey rug before it. I cleared a
couple of dirty dishes from the counter as Magnus strode over to the French
doors to look out.
    “Very nice,” he said.
    “I like it,” I said demurely. “I’m pretty much
guaranteed not to get burgled, at least.” Having lived in London for a decade,
that had been high on my list of priorities.
    Magnus turned to me and smiled. “There is that.”
    “There’s a gym on the top floor,” I continued,
taking a pair of glasses out of a cupboard and setting them on the small
breakfast bar which jutted from the wall, creating a divide between the kitchen
and lounge. “Not that I ever use it.” I’d been twice since I’d moved in, full
of good intentions which had long since fallen by the wayside.
    “You don’t need to,” Magnus said, crossing the room
in half a dozen strides and coming to a stop on the other side of the breakfast
bar.
    “What are you drinking?” I asked, opening more
cupboards. “I’ve got vodka, rum, Baileys…?” I shuffled bottles around. “On
second thoughts, scratch the Baileys. God knows how long that’s been there.”
    “Water’s fine.”
    “You’re sure?” I straightened.
    Magnus nodded.
    I filled a tumbler from the sink, apologising for
the lack of bottled water. Magnus waved away my worries and took a long
mouthful. I watched his Adam’s apple move in his neck as he swallowed.
    Silence settled around us, and I found myself
fidgeting. Deliberately, I forced myself to stop. Magnus placed his glass on
the counter. “Can I use your bathroom?”
    I pointed across the hall to the door opposite,
grateful that room, at least, was clean.