Cages by David Mark (reading fiction TXT) 📗

as if he’s trying out gestures he’s only seen performed on the amateur dramatic scene. ‘It’s OK, Annabeth. You don’t need to make me understand. I’m your friend. I care about you. Don’t tell me, it’s fine, but let me help you. Comfort you …’

‘Fuck off,’ she says, nastily, and it feels so good to say that she does it again. It fills her with something other than the creeping chill of panic: lights a fire in her. She sees herself: vest and jeans, sweaty and barefoot, slamming things around in her living room and bellowing obscenities at her favourite author. Likes what she sees. Suddenly likes being Annabeth.

‘I’m in this too,’ says Rufus, stopping in front of her. ‘It’s unnerving to watch, Annabeth. Disquieting, even …’

‘Disquieting! Who says these things, Rufus? Who tells somebody they’re feeling disquieted?’

Rufus considers it: angling his head as if draining water from his ear. ‘Writers, Annabeth. People who can articulate themselves without smashing stuff.’

She glares at him, sick to her gut. Assesses him with eyes that seem to penetrate all the way through to the marrow in his bones. He’s taller than she is and as her eyes travel upwards she notices all the imperfections. Sees the frayed collar, rubbed raw by the stubble on his neck. Sees the line of fat below his chin. The space by his ear where an errant hair curls out like a question mark. There is something in the flaws that she finds improbably endearing. She has spent months imagining him to be pristine and cognitively immense: that his every phrase and gesture would be the work of a dazzling mind. Up close, he’s an ordinary man. He’s baffled and scared and he doesn’t know what’s going on. For the first time, she wonders if this might at last be a safe place to deposit her secrets. His books have made it clear: his views on right and wrong, good and evil, crime and punishments, are far from fixed.

She raises her hand to her head. Wipes the sweat with her bare hand. Rubs at her arms. She feels all twisted up and directionless. Looks down at a sudden pressure on her arm and feels his warm, dry hand at her elbow. She flicks her head up. He’s smiling, softly.

‘Don’t,’ she says, and just saying the word causes her to fear a loss of control. Her eyes are hot: there’s a stone in her throat. She can feel her lip quivering: a candle-flame near an open door. ‘Don’t touch me, I’m all sweaty, I must feel disgusting.’ She stops, her nose running. Gives a silly smile, feeling the fury dissipate to be replaced by an overwhelming urge to be looked after. She wants to lay down. To have a blanket pulled up to her chin. To have her hair stroked until she forgets about Griffin Cox’s gift. And yet she fights it. She despises this sudden weakness: this obscene need to be coddled like an infant. Would rather stamp and thrash and gnash her teeth than see herself mollified like some hysteric.

‘Just sit down,’ he says, gently, and steers her to the sofa. She hears footsteps, and then he is back with a glass of water. He presses the glass to her forehead, rolling it back and forth in the chilled sweat on her brow. Lowers himself until he is looking up at her, proffering the glass, insisting she take a sip, and another.

She’s exhausted, suddenly. Her thoughts swirl like ash and ripped paper. She cannot get a hold of herself. There’s a sudden ringing sound in her ears: high and obnoxious, like an electric charge being passed through wire. Her teeth hurt: her fillings seeming to leak a greasy, metallic taste into her mouth. It feels as though the temperature in the room is dropping through the floor. She can feel lightning in the air. Can feel the soft hairs on the nape of her neck begin to rise.

‘Whatever it is you need me to say or do, I’ll do,’ says Rufus, softly, and it is hard to hear him over the low, thrumming pressure beating in her head. She tries to see past him: to see if the sky beyond the glass has turned purple. Thinks of Ethan, walking home. Can taste the nearness of rain.

‘Not now,’ she whispers. ‘Tell them I’m not well. I can’t …’

Rufus takes the glass and places it on the floor. Helps manoeuvre her into a comfortable position, as she slides into a foetal curl. She feels him stroke the wisps of hair from her face. Hears his knees creak as he stands and returns the glass to the kitchen. She feels drunk. Feels absolutely hammered, truth be told. Has done since he showed her the snow globe and her thoughts filled with Walter.

‘He knows something about me,’ she mutters, into the fabric of the sofa. ‘It’s a message.’

‘Then you report it,’ says Rufus, kindly. ‘Tell your boss you’ve been threatened.’

‘Then he’ll tell,’ says Annabeth, simply. ‘He’ll tell what he knows. And then I’m, not just out of work, I’m finished.’

Rufus doesn’t reply. She keeps her eyes shut, drifting as if hanging on to a branch in a choppy sea. Part of her wants to shut down. Shut up. But God how she wants to tell him the truth: to finally unburden herself of the weight that she carries like so many twists of iron.

She shifts position. Opens one eye. Through the mist, she sees him. He’s got his back to her, staring out of the window. She becomes aware of the drumming of raindrops: millions of hard droplets striking the glass. Feels the temperature drop some more. Sees him place his big hands on the windowsill, knuckles down. Can see him thinking.

‘Don’t tell me,’ he says, turning slowly. ‘I don’t need to know. But he put this in my bag. He wound Suggs up until he went for him. I never saw anybody go near Cox, so whatever injury he sustained,