Free Lovers and Newcomers by Rosie Thomas

absurd layers of vest and straps. Towels coiled with clothes and grit mound beneath us. Water laps at the very rim of the bath.
    I hear myself gasping with laughter. ‘There’s going to be a flood.’
    ‘Fuck it.’
    He drags me with him as he strains to reach the taps and stem the tide.
    In the quiet that follows, there’s the sound of voices.
    ‘Oh, sweet Jesus.’ Selwyn slumps back against the side of the bath.
    I’m already on my feet, spitting building rubble out of my mouth and frantically raking fingers through my hair. I pull my clothes into a sort of order and plunge out of the bathroom.
    Colin and Katherine and Polly are all in the hall below. They’re laughing and exclaiming and apparently having some difficulty in taking off their boots and coats.
    Polly glances up and sees me on the landing.
    ‘Colin’s been getting the eye from a nice young chef,’ she calls.
    ‘I had to carry these two home, just about,’ Colin says drily.
    The hall clock chimes. It’s four o’clock in the afternoon.
    Luckily, they’re all too busy and happy to notice anything.
    I run down the stairs, relief all but cancelling out guilt.
    Ben and Nicola
    The boy climbed the flight of stairs that led straight up from the street door. With the usual smell of warm grease from the café following him, he leaned briefly against the thin ply of the flat door and juggled a bunch of flowers, a brown takeaway bag and a carton of milk. He twisted a key in the Yale and the door sighed open. He nudged it further with his hip and wriggled into the dark, confined space beyond.
    ‘Nic? ’S me.’
    No answer came but he shouldered his way cheerfully onwards past the coat pegs and the parked Hoover and a stack of cardboard boxes. The light in the main body of the flat was slightly brighter. There was only one room, L-shaped, with a kitchenette and a partitioned bathroom that would not have passed a health and safety inspection with flying colours. To excuse this Nicola’s Greek landlord told her that he was not making formal rental, no, more like place for his own family, and cheap for now while he wait for his cousin to come and fix up.
    Nicola was sitting in the armchair at the end of the room farthest from the unmade bed, next to a window overlooking a row of lock-ups and the fading leaves of a plane tree. Her knees were drawn up to her chest. Ben saw that she was wearing her grey holey jersey and leggings, for about the fourth day running, but she had pulled a little skirt on over the leggings and her hair was freshly washed.
    ‘Hi, babe, you OK? Look, I got you these.’ He held out the flowers, yellow and white daisies that he had chosen from a green enamel bucket outside the grocer’s at the end of the road. ‘And some soup as well, properly healthy, bean and something. It might have got a bit cold but I can heat it up again, easy. Or would you rather have a cup of tea? There’s milk.’
    Nicola gazed up at him, her wide eyes expressionless. He was uneasily conscious of wanting to placate her, although he didn’t know why she should need this treatment. She had been a bit off, lately. He kept looking up and finding that she was staring at him. When he responded with his wide, frank smile she’d blink, and quickly look away again.
    ‘Not bad out,’ he went on. He put down the takeaway bag, and the milk and flowers.
    Nic stirred, unwinding her legs and biting off a yawn. ‘How was work?’
    ‘Yeah. It was good. You know, average.’
    ‘Did you speak to him?’
    ‘He’ was the editor and manager of the local listings and events magazine where Ben worked part time. Ben wanted to be a writer, like his mother had once been, and even though what he mostly did was go out to the post office or ring venues to check the times of the week’s gigs, he insisted that this was the perfect pathway to literary success. Ben had been saying for a couple of weeks now that he only had to ask and he’d get a proper slot, like a column of his