Page 22 of Indie

There was a pause. Just a slight one, but it held in the air, stark and outrageous.

“This is Indie, Mam.”

“And Indie is who?”

I squeezed my eyes tight, the movement dislodging the eyelids that seemed to have become welded to my eyeballs, probably through dehydration. It seemed they were as dry as my mouth.

“He…err.. just needed a place to stay.”

“Uh-huh?”

Bodies moved in my blurry sight. A voluptuous woman, and two kids, one taller and the other skinnier.

“Well, here are your kids. Just in case you forgot you had any.”

“Nanna! Nanna! Don’t go.” The little girl wailed as the plump woman moved from my sight.

I tried to move my head, to follow the bundle of shadows, but the slightest movement sent me spinning out of control again. I clutched at the pink unicorn which had spent the night in my arms.

“I want Mr Morris!”

My head hurt.

Chapter Eleven

Lily and Luke stood watching the man lying on my couch, inspecting him from the safety of a few feet back like he was some sort of unidentified object. Indie attempted a smile. But his brow furrowed, and all he managed was a grimace, sending Lily retreating to the kitchen.

“Mam! Mam! He’s got my unicorn. I want my unicorn back.”

“I’ll get it in a minute. Let me just finish up here.”

Breaking the eggs into the pan, I fished out a stray piece of eggshell that had come loose onto the gooey egg white. I glancedover my shoulder, watching Luke stare at Indie and Indie look back at him uncomfortably.

“Lily?” I asked the little girl standing in the middle of the kitchen floor, torn between the safety I offered her and rescuing her unicorn from the clutches of the hungover man on my couch. “Take this to Indie.”

Her eyes widened, like I’d asked her to walk into a cage of lions, but she nodded, dragging the pint glass of water from the kitchen bench and walking apprehensively into the lounge.

“Thank you,” he croaked, and she scuttled away to the safety of my legs.

Luke stared at the man before him, who had now pushed himself up into a sitting position and was sipping carefully on the water. Indie glanced at the little boy scrutinising him, his gaze shifting from the glass in a shaky hand to the disdainful stare of the nine-year-old.

“Kids. Indie. Breakfast’s ready,” I called from the kitchen, as I slid an egg on to a plate.

Luke didn’t move, standing like a sentry in the living room. Indie pushed up onto his feet, clutching the now empty pint glass, and took a tentative step forward, as if he wasn’t sure whether he would topple over again. And Luke watched, keeping his distance but never moving, not until Indie had passed through the doorway into the kitchen, lowering himself from one seat to another. Luke brought up the rear, watching Indie’s every slow, laboured movement. And then beside me, Lily moved suddenly, darting into the lounge and rescuing her pink unicorn from where Indie had left him unattended on the couch. She scooped him up into her arms, holding him tight to her chestand whispering something to him I couldn’t hear, and then she wrinkled her nose.

“Eurghh. Mr Morris stinks!”

I caught Indie’s eye, the sudden look of embarrassment.

“What of?” I called back, piling the just-popped toast onto a plate.

“Aftershave. Stinky aftershave.”

I smiled, a sudden warmth invading me, wrapping itself around me, and for the first time in weeks I felt relaxed. Too relaxed. I had an angry ex who would stop at nothing to make sure I stayed in the living hell that he’d created for me, and a bank account that proudly showed me ‘zero’ every time I peeked into it to see what I could squeeze out for food. But for a few short minutes, I was happy, and I hadn’t felt like that for years.

The table was almost silent. The only sounds the soft movement of jaws as the kids and Indie chewed quietly, a slight ding of a fork or a knife on a plate. There was a static, none of us speaking, all of us watching each other. And I watched indie. Intently. His skin showed the full range of colours, greys and greens, a flush of pink and a retreat to pale. He chased a little slice of sausage around the plate, slowly chewing and swallowing like his throat was constricted. And he’d worried the egg the entire time, not quite wanting to eat it.

Luke watched him too. For an entirely different reason. His eyes fixed on his every laboured movement and his face more stoic than Indie’s, but occasionally his lips twitched in the corners, a frown forming. It was the darkening of the eyes that took that tiny smidge of happiness away. The resemblance to his father, the tiny warning signs I usually got before a beating wasforthcoming. Luke couldn’t help it. He was a carbon copy of his dad, almost a direct imitation.