He Wants Read Free

all the time.
    â€˜What do you like for breakfast?’ asks the man. ‘I can offer you Sugar Puffs, Coco Pops, Chocolatey Cheerios, Golden Nuggets, Golden Puffs and Honey Wows.’
    â€˜All I really want is a fag,’ says Sydney, ‘first thing.’
    â€˜Oh,’ says the man, closing the door of the breakfast room.
    They climb the stairs, and when they get to the top, the man opens a door and shows Sydney into a front bedroom. Sydney thinks at first that he has been shown the wrong room because this is a child’s bedroom, a young teen’s bedroom, with an astronaut on the single duvet, but the man says, ‘Everything’s clean. The drawers and the wardrobe have been emptied for now, so there’ll be space for your things, but I don’t want to change too much in here in case Martin comes back. If he came back and wanted his room, I’d need to ask you to leave. You’d get your deposit back.’
    Sydney nods and goes to the window, looking out at the village green, at Barry who is still on the bench.
    â€˜It’s cold out,’ says the man, ‘but that radiator’s on.’
    Sydney, standing warming his legs, asks the man about the rent. He keeps him talking about the bills and the cost of living, but still Barry does not move away, and in the end Sydney has to say to the man, ‘Is there a back garden?’ The man looks delighted.
    He takes Sydney out through the back door, next to which, on the patio, there is a rabbit hutch with a young rabbit inside. The hutch looks brand new. ‘Martin’s always wanted a pet,’ says the man.
    He indicates an empty flower bed at the near end of the garden. ‘Sweet peas,’ he says. ‘They’re his favourite.’
    â€˜It’s not the right time of year for planting sweet peas,’ says Sydney.
    â€˜I put them in last spring.’
    â€˜Well, if they’ve not come through yet,’ says Sydney, ‘I don’t think they’re going to.’
    The man gazes down at the cold soil as if watching it. ‘We’ll see,’ he says.
    They make their way down an increasingly muddy path to the vegetable patch in which the man has planted rhubarb. ‘Martin loves rhubarb,’ he says, surveying this plot in which, by March, he should have six square feet of the stuff.
    â€˜If you don’t mind,’ says Sydney, ‘I’ll leave through your back gate.’
    â€˜Oh,’ says the man. ‘Of course.’ He walks with Sydney to the gate, where he jots down his phone number and hands it over. ‘Call me,’ he says to Sydney, who will not.
    The gate brings Sydney into an alley. He walks down to the far end, coming out well away from the house and the village green, and then he remembers his dog, which is still waiting outside the man’s front door. He can’t walk up the street to the front of the house because Barry will see him. He turns around and goes back down the alley, retracing his steps. When he arrives at the man’s gate, he peers over it, scanning the garden, the patio, the rear of the house. The man is not there. Sydney leans over and lifts the catch, letting himself into the garden. He walks up the muddy path, in between the well-tended plots, watching the back windows. The man is not in sight. Only the rabbit in the hutch is watching him. He could knock, but it would be a whole lot easier to just get in and out without having to explain himself, without being noticed. He can see – through the patterned glass in the back door – that the kitchen is empty. He tries the handle. Finding the door unlocked, he goes inside, back into the warm house. The man’s boots, muddy from the garden, are on the doormat. The kettle is boiling beside a clean cup, inside which a dry teabag, a shiny teaspoon and the tiny white dot of a sweetener are ready, waiting for the hot water. Sydney stands still for a moment and listens but hears