Cathexis Read Free Page B

isn’t it” she said, “but Todor loves it. I let him keep it and he allows me the piano”.
     
    “Do you play?” I said, looking at her hands.
     
    “I used to, but now I don’t have the time”. She said this so regretfully I sensed it was only partly true. “My mother is the famous pianist, Alexandra Ivankova” she added and I heard the steel wire of an unfelted issue.
     
    “Please, drink your coffee” she gestured, closing the lid on that particular discord. I'd forgotten all about it. “I'll heat it up for you” she said.
     
    “No it's fine”, gulping it down in great draughts. I sensed she might be lonely. “Just out of interest, did you approach anyone else?”
     
    “Yes, three” she said, her tongue working hard on the r. “One didn't come back, the other did but I knew I wanted you as soon as I saw you”. Her eyes danced.
     
    “Why?” She was amusing me.
     
    “I don't know” she half sang. “I just had a good feeling. I'm glad it's you”. Placing her hand on my wrist. I took her to mean Clive and me.
     
    I straddled the Ducati and scorched off, watching her in the wing mirror as she stood impenitent in the yellow ochre morning following the fumes of my exhaustion.
     
     
    Chapter 4
     
    My 33 rd birthday was spent in Crouch End, digging holes to accommodate fence posts. M8's card, Martina Navratilova, a beefy arm outstretched in volley. 'Now you are 10' in curly, pink letters.
‘
Happy Birthday Melton Mowbray, love Mork and Mindy’ (M8's girlfriend, Eve).
     
    Clive presented a homemade effort with a cut-out of Alan Titchmarsh, his eyes Tip-exed out, making him look insane.
‘
Happy Birthday Min, love Blow-off Trousers and Blow-off Skirt’ (Clive's girlfriend, Becky). Farting never ceased to make me laugh.
     
    A peculiar aspect of our job was how intimate we became with the client, pretty much from the start. The level of trust heartening, I'd frequently arrive as families were getting ready or having breakfast, knocking first even though I had keys, just to alert them. A flurry of kids, pets and dressing gowns, tantrums, domestics, confidential confessions; I'd seen it all.
     
    It was with no undue trepidation on a dewy June morning, that I slid the key into the basement door at Palladian Road.
     
    “Hello?” I shouted up the stairs, the house silent. Eventually the muffled thumps and judders of pugnacious children. The back door was locked. So, trapped in the kitchen, I searched around for popular key hiding places, peering in receptacles and corner shelves, but not opening any drawers. Something made me run my hand around the rim of the cooker hood and at the back it alighted on the metal tricks.
     
    Always a knack to unlocking back doors, I wiggled the bolts and tried the permutations. There were three locks and after much twisting and nudging, I discovered only the central one had been locked; foreigners, in my experience, were relaxed in matters of security.
     
    Today we would be excavating eleven cubic metres by my reckoning; carried through the house with buckets and barrow to the skip in the street. On cue, the hiss and clank of a skip lorry, the driver gunning the engine and stroking his bald head in consternation.
     
    I had to get Todor to move the purple Saab. The growl of Quincy's Triumph Triple contributed to the cacophony. A curtain in the top bedroom flicked and shortly after Nancy nipped out, all jangling keys and flapping sandals. The driver, oblivious to the early hour, clanged two scaffold poles onto the road. As the skip swung in the air, I spotted Todor and the children, rapt at the living room window. Nancy, next to me, her cardigan sleeves pulled over her hands. The skip landed on the poles and after Quincy and I had unhooked the chains, we braced our backs against it and pushed it to the kerb, like a super hero duo.
     
    “So that's how it's done” she said. The children clapped.
     
    We quickly settled into a routine. Me, always first to