Free Astonishing Splashes of Colour by Clare Morrall Page A

expect to find me? My flat? I wouldn’t let him in and he wouldn’t have a key. He might go to James and ask him to let him in. Would James do it? I’m not sure. Hovering agonizingly, I consider going to visit Miss Newman on the floor below. She’ll invite me in for cake and tea. This is unrealistic. It’s too early for cake.
    I move from one door to the other, incapable of making a decision.
    The decision is made for me as James’s door opens and Adrian comes out.
    “Ah, there you are, Kitty,” he says, as if it is normal for him to be coming out of James’s flat at 6:30 in the morning.
    “Yes,” I say and look at my feet. My shoes are covered in mud.
    “We need a talk,” he says, and he sounds like an all-knowing headmaster, a benevolent father, a big brother.
    James comes out behind him. They’re both fully dressed, but crumpled.
    “Kitty!” he says, coming towards me. He sounds pleased to see me, but I’m probably misreading him. He comes over and puts an arm round me. “Kitty,” he says again, and I lean against him. He is pleasingly warm and soft. “Thank goodness you’re all right.”
    I feel not very all right at all. My legs are stiff, my neck hurts, I have a tummy ache and I can’t remember where I left my bag with my purse and key in it. This strikes me as hilarious, because I wouldn’t have been able to get into my house anyway. I fight back a wave of giggles that threatens to ripple through me. I can imagine Adrian’s response to that. “Laughter is not appropriate.”
    Adrian leads the way and they guide me into James’s flat. I want to say, “I can walk, you know,” but what I actually say is, “Suzy’s pregnant.”

    There’s a smell of burning toast, and James dashes out, leaving me alone with Adrian. This is unfair. James is married to me and I’m partly his responsibility—even if he’d prefer not to be involved. I’m more important than toast.
    Adrian paces up and down, putting his hands in his pockets and taking them out again. There’s a dark stubble on his face and his brown eyes seem more hollow than usual. I have never seen him genuinely agitated before, and watching him makes me breathe too fast. My head starts to swim and I wish he would stop.
    “I really think, Kitty …” he says and slows down.
    His shoes are hard and noisy on the wooden floor. I worry about Miss Newman downstairs. She will be woken up with all the noise. If I wait until Adrian goes, I could slip down and see her. She might be ready for tea and cakes by then.
    He tries again. “Why didn’t you say something? It seems so— so—”
    James comes back into the room. “Go home,” he says to Adrian. “We all need some sleep. I’ll ring this evening.”
    Amazingly, Adrian turns and goes out of the door. He rarely takes James seriously, so I wait for him to change his mind and come back to finish his argument. But the front door closes behind him.
    I sit on the sofa and wait. Everything around me is unnaturally bright and hard-edged. Then James is in my line of vision. He has done it again, walked across his floor without a sound. I look up at his face, waiting for the questions, but none comes. He sits down beside me, but doesn’t touch me.
    Does he know about the train tickets? I start to sweat. Has he found out? Did I tell him?
    “Come to bed,” he says gently. “We’ll talk later.”
    Obediently, I get up and follow him into the bedroom. We undressand climb in under the double duvet. We lie side by side, neither of us moving. After a while, his body grows warm and heavy and his breathing becomes even. Poor James. He must be exhausted after his sleepless night. I move closer to catch his warmth.
    But every time I close my eyes, a tangle of colours races across my mind. Butterflies dancing in the wind, crocodiles, dark green glossy plants, cloned Peter Pans talking Russian, Suzy carrying five babies together, all laughing and being sick down her smart pink suit.
    I jerk my eyes open. I