Read Online The Fly Guy by Colum Sanson-Regan - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Colum Sanson-Regan
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rain. Next to the table there is a rail of clothes and on the tabletop sits a pile of materials.
“There’s food in the fridge. I have to go out.”
Gregor takes the black case and points to a mobile phone on the green marble.
“If you want to call me, call me. It’s the only number.” He turns to Ula and Franz. “Whatever she wants.”
They nod, Ula enthusiastically, and Franz languidly. Gregor walks from the kitchen out to the hallway. The door shuts.
Franz looks her coolly up and down, and Ula comes to her, arms outstretched. “Gregor is right, you are beautiful. We’ll take care of you. You are going to look amazing sweetie,” she says. Lucy holds her dressing gown tight around her.
“I have nothing … nothing to wear.”
Franz says, “I’ve got it darling. Let’s start comfy, the high fashion can wait. Let’s find out what you like. We can have some fun with it. While the cat’s away.”
He turns to the dining table and picks up an armful of clothes and materials. He is smiling now, patting and stroking the clothes on his arm.
“Take your coffee darling, shall we adjourn to your boudoir? Ula, can you bring some of those sweet pastries? We can do fitting and pastries. Upstairs?”
* * *
Gregor stays the first two nights with her in the house, both nights wishing her good night before going into his room and closing the door.
When he is in the house, he is walking in circles around the central plinth in the kitchen talking on the phone, or typing on his computer in the TV room. Once she opens the door of the upstairs gym room and sees him on the running machine, his muscular frame keeping a steady rhythm, sweat making a V down his broad back, while some singing woman is being judged by four people behind an elaborate desk on the huge TV screen.
The rest of the week, he is gone.
During that first week Lucy spends a lot of time in bed, sleeping for hours and hours during the day, moving from one side of the double bed to the other, waking up sideways, looking from underneath the thick duvet at the cream walls, the cushioned window seat, the portrait of the little girl on the brink of tears. Her muscles ache and her head pounds.
At night she goes downstairs and sits in front of the big flat screen switching between channels. At these times, late at night in the empty house, she gets an urge to call Archie, to score a baggie or some pills. In her mind, he’s still lying in a pool of blood in his vest and pants, his nose cracked in the middle, fire rising up the walls around him as he blubbers and moans.
She wishes sleep would come. Hours stretch. She wants something to surrender to, something to drown in. When sleep does come, she dreams, and when she wakes, she remembers her dreams. It’s been a long time since she has, and she doesn’t want to. She longs for the dreamless blackness, the escape from her mind.
By the third night alone, she’s been through every drawer in every open room, searching for something to take. The vain hope that Gregor has a stash of something keeps her looking, and she checks and rechecks, but she finds nothing. On the shelves are books and art pieces, and when Lucy opens the drawers they’re all empty, but for the instructions for the television entertainment system in the TV room and a pair of leather gloves still in plastic wrapping. In the kitchen behind the cupboard doors there are stacks of plates and rows of glasses, upside down, never used.
On the evening of her fourth day alone in the big house, Gregor is back, preparing some food and putting clothes through the wash. There is a box on the marble plinth in the kitchen. Popping out of the top of the box are celery stalks, foil wrapping, and the tops of wine bottles.
Lucy takes a bottle and opens it immediately. Gregor sees this and smiles, taking glasses from the shelf. Lucy pours and starts drinking. Gregor picks up his glass and takes a sip.
When the spinning of the drier finishes he takes the
“There’s food in the fridge. I have to go out.”
Gregor takes the black case and points to a mobile phone on the green marble.
“If you want to call me, call me. It’s the only number.” He turns to Ula and Franz. “Whatever she wants.”
They nod, Ula enthusiastically, and Franz languidly. Gregor walks from the kitchen out to the hallway. The door shuts.
Franz looks her coolly up and down, and Ula comes to her, arms outstretched. “Gregor is right, you are beautiful. We’ll take care of you. You are going to look amazing sweetie,” she says. Lucy holds her dressing gown tight around her.
“I have nothing … nothing to wear.”
Franz says, “I’ve got it darling. Let’s start comfy, the high fashion can wait. Let’s find out what you like. We can have some fun with it. While the cat’s away.”
He turns to the dining table and picks up an armful of clothes and materials. He is smiling now, patting and stroking the clothes on his arm.
“Take your coffee darling, shall we adjourn to your boudoir? Ula, can you bring some of those sweet pastries? We can do fitting and pastries. Upstairs?”
* * *
Gregor stays the first two nights with her in the house, both nights wishing her good night before going into his room and closing the door.
When he is in the house, he is walking in circles around the central plinth in the kitchen talking on the phone, or typing on his computer in the TV room. Once she opens the door of the upstairs gym room and sees him on the running machine, his muscular frame keeping a steady rhythm, sweat making a V down his broad back, while some singing woman is being judged by four people behind an elaborate desk on the huge TV screen.
The rest of the week, he is gone.
During that first week Lucy spends a lot of time in bed, sleeping for hours and hours during the day, moving from one side of the double bed to the other, waking up sideways, looking from underneath the thick duvet at the cream walls, the cushioned window seat, the portrait of the little girl on the brink of tears. Her muscles ache and her head pounds.
At night she goes downstairs and sits in front of the big flat screen switching between channels. At these times, late at night in the empty house, she gets an urge to call Archie, to score a baggie or some pills. In her mind, he’s still lying in a pool of blood in his vest and pants, his nose cracked in the middle, fire rising up the walls around him as he blubbers and moans.
She wishes sleep would come. Hours stretch. She wants something to surrender to, something to drown in. When sleep does come, she dreams, and when she wakes, she remembers her dreams. It’s been a long time since she has, and she doesn’t want to. She longs for the dreamless blackness, the escape from her mind.
By the third night alone, she’s been through every drawer in every open room, searching for something to take. The vain hope that Gregor has a stash of something keeps her looking, and she checks and rechecks, but she finds nothing. On the shelves are books and art pieces, and when Lucy opens the drawers they’re all empty, but for the instructions for the television entertainment system in the TV room and a pair of leather gloves still in plastic wrapping. In the kitchen behind the cupboard doors there are stacks of plates and rows of glasses, upside down, never used.
On the evening of her fourth day alone in the big house, Gregor is back, preparing some food and putting clothes through the wash. There is a box on the marble plinth in the kitchen. Popping out of the top of the box are celery stalks, foil wrapping, and the tops of wine bottles.
Lucy takes a bottle and opens it immediately. Gregor sees this and smiles, taking glasses from the shelf. Lucy pours and starts drinking. Gregor picks up his glass and takes a sip.
When the spinning of the drier finishes he takes the
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