Free The Fly Guy by Colum Sanson-Regan Page A

late. He’ll be here during the day and I’ll get back later. You’ll feel better tomorrow. Come on let’s eat.”
    “You don’t know anything about me. Do you even want to know anything about me? You haven’t asked about my family, or where I’m from, or Archie, or anything? Don’t you want to know about me?”
    “You can tell me whatever you want to tell me. I know about Archie, and I know that you are too good for a lowlife like him. But you didn’t like him either, did you? I mean, you wanted me to cut his throat.”
    Lucy doesn’t say anything.
    “You know,” Gregor goes on, “you haven’t asked about me either, so we will discover each other. How about that?”
    He goes back into the kitchen and serves the food onto two plates.
    “You tell me about your daddy playing swing and I’ll tell you about my mamma cooking casserole.” He sets the dish in front of her.
    As he walks around the table she says, “When are you going to let me leave the house?” The neediness, the whine has gone from her voice and the question is short and staccato, and stays in the air.
    He sits opposite her, blocking her view of the darkening garden. The dying flame in the barbecue bowl flickers on his shoulders. The statue of two-becoming-one to his right is disappearing into the thickening night.
    He eats a mouthful of the chicken casserole while looking at her. Lucy does not pick up her fork. He motions to the plate in front of her as he chews. She doesn’t look down, but holds his gaze. He stops chewing and swallows a mouthful of wine. Still looking at her, he replaces his glass on the table and turns the stem in his fingers. The sound of the glass revolving on the wood of the table is the only sound in the room. He stops. For a moment neither of them moves. This is the longest they have looked into each other’s eyes.
    Gregor says slowly, “If you want to leave, you can leave.”
    Lucy holds his gaze for a second more, then picks up her knife and fork and starts to eat. A rush of flavours hit her palate. She wonders as she chews whether she has ever eaten so well, or if the withdrawal is heightening her taste. Gregor is eating across the table, with his eyes closed and a pensive expression as if trying to conjure the memory of the taste. They continue eating in silence.
    Behind Gregor it is dark now, and the fire in the garden is out. Just the ashes of the clothes remain. Outside has disappeared and the glass doors now reflect what is on the inside.
    ***

Chapter Nine
    As the months went by Martin continued to write, to redraft what he had sent. The story grew. It began to fill the writing room. Martin hand-wrote potential plots and stuck them to the walls, with wall planners depicting timelines to make sure the episodes he was writing would make sense. About once a week Alison went inside and collected the empty cups and glasses, the plates and biscuit wrappers. She never touched the bundles of paper or stacks of books. Once she stopped and picked up the top page of one of the bundles.
    Gregor was holding a syringe to someone’s neck. The person was tied to a chair, with tape around his mouth and dirty sweat covering his face. His eyes were wide with terror as Gregor was advising him not to move, lest he miss the vein and cause some damage. He was wondering aloud if this amount was enough to overdose on.
    “It’s a combination of meth and DMT, so it’s hard to predict. It all depends on your tolerance,” he was saying. “Of course it could just go straight to your brain and cause a fatal seizure. It also depends on how clean the rig is. So let’s give it a go shall we? Remember hold still. If this kick doesn’t kill you, you’ll be on one hell of a ride; this is after all a cocktail of our best amphetamine with our best hallucinogen. It’s a shame Lucy isn’t here to see this,” he was saying. “But she will. You see I’m going to film you, so that she can see. It’s only fair, you saw her. You thought