Page 21 of The Man Upstairs

“I’m an insurance clerk. I order stationery and process paperwork, in the main.”

“A lot of it, from the sounds, if it keeps you busy.”

“Yes. The harder you work, the more work appears on your plate, don’t you find?”

I loved how he spoke to me like I was a valuable worker, not just a girl at a pizza place, working shifts around college. He was right, though. I’d taken on more and more since I worked there. I was the one who was always dashing around, with more and more responsibility piled on top of me.

I chanced a probing question.

“What did you do before? I somehow doubt you’ve been an insurance clerk all your life.”

“Really?” He laughed. “I thought I might be fitting into Worcester life quite comfortably by now.”

I laughed with him, enjoying his company.

“Actually,” he went on, “I was a professor of English, from Oxford.”

“Wow,” I said, and I could imagine him there for real, standing before university students giving lectures. “You must have studied hard. I know Oxford is tough to get into, let alone teach at.”

“I always loved English. I wanted to be Hemingway when I was younger. As it turns out, I spent most of my time trying to help other people walk in his footsteps. Ironic. Some of them have been very successful. I can only imagine I’m a much better teacher than author.”

He looked so proud of his students. I wished someone would be that proud of my achievements one day.

“Are you a writer? Do you still want to be?”

“No, no. I haven’t written for a long, long time. I have had more pressingpursuits.Some not all that honourable.” He laughed a sad laugh, masking it with sarcasm. “Maybe I should take it up again, now I’m just an insurance clerk. Who knows? Maybe I could surprise fate and become a fresh incarnation of Shakespeare.”

He didn’t look convinced in the slightest. He looked depressed as hell. Like he’d been cast into the pits of his past life. My next question seemed obvious.

“What made you change your career? Why leave Oxford?”

He took another bite of pizza before he answered me.

“Plenty of things, all of my own doing.” He sighed and looked me in the eye, as if he was weighing me up. “A sinner has to pay for his crimes. Some people spend their penance in prison. I chose to spend it in Crenham Drive. It’s worse here, I suspect.”

I laughed at that. “Is Crenham Drive really worse than prison?”

He sighed. “No, of course it’s not. It’s just where I chose to up and leave to.”

“What did you leave behind?”

I knew I’d overstepped the mark at that. His eyes dropped, and he cleared his throat.

“A great many things.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“No need,” he replied. “But that’s a rabbit hole we don’t really want to explore.”

I did want to explore it. I wanted to dive right in like Alice and get to the depths. Get tohim.There was only one way to do that right now… I stayed silent, and it worked. He spoke again after another bite of pizza.

“When I first arrived here, I was a little loose tongued. I got drunk in the Brewery and stupidly told people more than I should have done. I know there are whispers still circling.”

I looked at him.

“People say a lot of things around here. The rumours are rarely true.”

“I’m sure there are plenty of rumours about me thataretrue. No smoke without fire, as they say.”