Dying for Christmas Read Free Page A

flanked by industrial warehouses that were considered cutting edge when they were first turned into flats back in the 1980s, but now seem oppressive, all dark brick and steel girders. Nearing the end, Dominic suddenly swung sharply to the right, while at the same time pressing something on top of the driver’s-side sunshade. A door slid open and the car dipped steeply down into a small underground car park full of pillars. He squeezed into a seemingly impossible space towards the back.
    His was the only car.
    ‘Most of the people who own these places only use them during the week,’ he explained. ‘This place is a graveyard at weekends and holidays.’
    We got out of the car and I felt alarmed when Dominic started gathering up my bags.
    ‘Not worth risking it,’ he replied, lifting out the carrier with the wok. ‘This place is locked but you can’t be too careful.’
    Waiting for the lift, I was frozen with a kind of nauseous anticipation. Too late, I wondered what exactly I expected to happen here. I remembered the feel of his hand on my wrist, my skin burning where he touched it.
    ‘We’re right at the top,’ he said when the lift arrived. He pressed a button to the sixth floor.
    The lift seemed to take for ever, probably because I was holding my breath.
    Suddenly his hand was on my face, gently stroking my cheek.
    ‘Relax,’ he said. ‘No need to look so alarmed.’
    His thumb traced the line of my nose and I wondered if he could see the fine hairs that grew there. I wanted him to kiss me, but at the same time I thought I’d die if he did.
    When the lift stopped and he moved away my face still bore the imprint of his hand.

Chapter Three
    The flat I share with Travis is in Wood Green. If you’re not familiar with London you might imagine somewhere verdant and leafy. You’d be wrong. The place is dominated by a gigantic monolithic shopping centre and overrun with fast-food outlets. If you are what you eat, the people of Wood Green are giant walking fried chicken wings.
    We live on the top floor of a Victorian terrace in the shadow of Wood Green Shopping City. That flat sees direct sunlight only between 11.30 and 3 p.m. at certain times of the year. And then only if you sit in a particular area of the living room where the television is. Downstairs is occupied by a family from Poland who have screeching rows at all hours of the night and boil meat all day long so that the whole house smells constantly of simmering fat. In a shed in the garden live three Romanians who must sleep in shifts on the two bare mattresses I’ve glimpsed through their open door. In the face of such ugliness, it’s little wonder that what Travis and I share now is less of a relationship than a holding pattern.
    I was thinking about that as Dominic opened the only door on the sixth floor, a huge, chunky, metal thing with creaking hinges, and led me inside what would once have been a warehouse space, but was now the biggest open-plan apartment I’ve ever seen. I’m looking around it now – a vast football stadium of wood floors and exposed brick punctuated by thick steel columns painted electric blue. The far wall is studded with full-length windows, two of them leading out on to a long and narrow industrial-style balcony made from metal is actually red, but appeared grey in the twilight of that winter’s late afternoon. And there, just beyond the windows, was the black void that was the River Thames. From the doorway I could make out the buildings on the other side and, in the distance, the spike of the Shard thrusting up into the dark sky. Would Travis and I have been happier, I wondered, if we’d lived somewhere like this?
    ‘Wow,’ I said, because I had to say something.
    ‘Nice, isn’t it?’ said Dominic, looking around. ‘I had it all redone when I moved in here a couple of years back. Stripped and gutted.’
    ‘It’s lovely.’
    But it wasn’t lovely. There was something intimidating about the unbroken expanse of