Page 7

Seven

Monday 7am

Tom

Tom dreamed he was in Central Park with Charlie. He was hot, but he felt a cool breeze on his face. His sketchbook was on his lap, and his box of pencils and pastels sat on the ground next to the blanket Charlie had found in the flat. For some reason he found it hard to look down to see what he’d been drawing, but it was probably Charlie. These days he mostly drew Charlie. What had begun as a drawing and printmaking project about people and the way they lived in their homes had become a project about two men in love. Tom could draw Charlie every day and never capture his essence. We are different people in different situations . He had seen Charlie face down a man with a gun and not break a sweat. He had seen fiercely competent detective Charlie. He had seen nervous Charlie, afraid of saying the wrong thing to Tom’s daughters. He had seen Charlie embracing art and poetry despite feeling like an imposter. He’d seen naked Charlie, so turned on that he could barely speak. And he loved all those Charlies. Tom had seen Charlie at the Rainbow and thought him beautiful. Tom still thought him beautiful, but now he was so much more.

There was suddenly a cold sensation on his cheek and then on his forehead. Charlie must have brought some of his favourite iced coffee and be using the plastic cup to cool him down. He wanted to drink some of the awful stuff, slurp it from between the ice cubes, but when he reached for the drink, it was gone. His arm fell back against his side and wouldn’t move again. Tom couldn’t see Charlie in his dream, but he knew Charlie would be there. They would have a conversation about how Charlie shouldn’t consume so much sugar, and Charlie would laugh and say he ran on sugar. Maybe they would decide to go for a run before it went dark… except Tom thought it was probably too hot for running, and his leg… There was an excruciating pain radiating from his right leg, consuming is body in flames of agony.

The dream began to break up. Central Park was on fire. The trees lit up like giant matches and little flames raced across the grass. Charlie had disappeared and left Tom to burn up. That wasn’t right. Charlie wouldn’t leave him, Tom knew that. Charlie would walk through fire to save Tom, he knew that. He’d heard Charlie’s voice. All he had to do was find him.

He tried to move and screamed from the pain. He heard strange, disconnected noises: alarms, bleeps, running feet, his own voice. Someone spoke to him and the pain began to recede, leaving him floating again.

Charlie

Charlie walked back to the flat through streets which should have been empty and quiet but weren’t. Sirens were almost non-stop, though always seeming to come from the next street. There was shouting, too. Charlie only met one actual shouter: a white man in battered clothes and trainers with his feet sticking through the holes, shuffling along the pavement and cursing someone only he could see. The sun had begun to rise in a clear sky, foretelling another beautiful day. As he got closer to his destination, he was joined by a few early dog walkers. The air smelled fresh, not as fresh as at home, but not the recycled air he expected from one of the most crowded bits of the planet.

He didn’t know how long he’d slept with his head on Tom’s bed, but his light-headedness suggested that it hadn’t been long enough. The nurse who’d found him had been alarmed at his presence, then annoyed. In the end, she had threatened him with a call to security when he refused to leave. He had begged her to look up Tom’s “In Case of Emergency” contact details, but she stuck to the relatives-only line.

“So, where are these fucking relatives?” he’d asked.

“There is no need for profanity,” she said, and that was the end of their conversation. He’d left without waiting for an escort from security guards, telling the nurse that he would be back. Her expression seemed to say not on my shift, sunshine.

The pavements were wide, and the streets wider, wide enough for double parking as well as street trees. It wasn’t how Charlie had imagined Harlem when he’d heard that’s where the apartment was located. The apartment blocks were often grubby from diesel fumes, but most were highly ornamented and elegant. And the flat the art foundation owned was big and full of light, far bigger than the tiny Manhattan apartments he saw on the TV and in movies. Best of all, there was a Dunkin’ Donuts on the corner. In less than a week, he had eaten his way through most of the menu. Tom laughing at his sugar-and-carb addiction.

When he arrived back at his apartment block a man sat in a parked car leaning his head against the window. It was the policeman, Brody Murphy.

Charlie knocked on the window and Murphy started into wakefulness. His face was creased from sleep, with stubble blurring his chin and cheeks. He opened the car door.

“Mr Rees. You’re back.”

“Have you been waiting?” Charlie asked. Murphy blushed and nodded. “Then it’s a good job I woke you up.” Murphy blushed harder.

“I, um, the hospital…”

Charlie decided life was too short to wait for the end of the sentence. “Lock the car and come and have some coffee.”