The Bird Room by Chris Killen Page A

of Darren’s house; they are icy black and unyielding.
    I followed her out of work and onto the tram.
    (When they come out, when they stand on the doorstep and have their tearful ‘final goodbye’ scene, I’ll stand up and make my presence known. I’ll go over to them, say something cutting and then somehow knock Darren’s fucking teeth out.)
    We rode the tram out of the city and into the winding redbrick residential area. Kids on bikes. Cornershops. King Size cigarettes. Bent old women. Shopping trolleys. I sat one carriage down, watching her through the little tram window.
    (Once I’ve somehow knocked Darren’s fucking teeth out, Alice will smile. She’ll fall in love with me. Miraculously it will stop raining and someone in the distance will cheer. This will become the story we tell our grandchildren at Christmas, everyone laughing when they hear it and clinking their sherry glasses and clapping me on the back. ‘Oh you!’ they’ll say encouragingly, finding me roguish but endearing.)
    Then the door opens.
    The door to Darren’s house opens.
    Alice steps onto the path.
    A woman comes out, not Darren but a woman in a long ill-fitting jumper. The jumper has a bad likeness of Michael Bolton knitted into it. The woman has copper-red hair. It’s Alice’s mum, it has to be. They have the same blackeyes, the same pale skin, the same slight crookedness to them. Their necks bend like flowers stood in bottles of vodka.
    This is Alice’s parents’ house and Alice’s mum is handing her a shoebox.
    Why did she lie?
    Her mum is standing in the doorway in a Michael Bolton jumper.
    Her parents are not abroad.
    I want to jump and wave and scream. I want her to know I’ve followed her here, that I don’t trust her and I still think there’s a bloke called Darren somewhere who she used to live with and who she’s screwing on the side.
    But instead I just stay crouched behind the car.
    I feel awful enough to buy some cheap supermarket flowers on the way back home.
    In time she’ll tell me everything; about her mum, her ex-boyfriends, her life before me. She will open up slowly, like time-lapse photography. She will begin to feel safe and comfortable and start telling the truth. She will start to need me.
    But for this to happen, I must give her space.
    I must be quiet and calm; not jealous or possessive or judging.
    Most of all, I mustn’t scare her away.
    (I know it’s not been long but I don’t know what I’d do if she left.)

When Alice comes she pulls me tight against her, so I can feel the trembling of her body, her arms and legs wrapped around me, her hair in my face, her chin digging hard into my shoulder. This is what turns me on the most. It makes me come too. I’m not like Will, probably turned on by some kind of out-of-body sex image; a graphic full-on porno vision of himself ‘slamming it into some girl’. What I want isn’t visual. What I want is cloudy and indistinct. It exists somewhere at the centre of her. It is the part of her that wants me too.
    She stays lying on top of me afterwards, with her head resting against my head.
    I feel safe, buried underneath her. If we could somehow just continue to stay like this – if we could find a way to never have to eat or drink or leave the room, andif this was a goal we could realistically work towards and achieve, like we could somehow write off and apply for it, a kind of ‘sex bursary’ or something – I think I’d be happy.
    We don’t talk for a long time.
    It’s Sunday. Early afternoon.
    â€˜I’m going to ask you something,’ she says.
    â€˜Okay,’ I say.
    â€˜And I want you to think about it really hard and then answer truthfully.’
    â€˜Okay,’ I say.
    A pause.
    â€˜Do you love me?’ she says.
    Christ.
    We’ve only been together two weeks.
    We’ve not used the word before. I’d be