Free The Fly Guy by Colum Sanson-Regan Page B

that was a good experiment? Now let’s try this experiment, let’s just see what happens.” He touched the point of the needle to the eye of the tattooed scorpion, right on the jugular. “Hold still,” he whispered. The needle punctured the skin and a thin cloud of blood seeped into the chamber of the syringe. Gregor pushed the plunger all the way down.
    Martin started coming up the stairs. Alison hurriedly replaced the page on to the top of the bundle and picked up the empty cups. She was walking out the door just as Martin reached the top of the stairs. She felt flushed and avoided his eyes as she stood aside to let him pass into his room. Martin didn’t turn around. He just closed the door. Alison stood for a moment, then went down the stairs. At the bottom step she turned and called, “I was talking to my folks. I was thinking of going up to the lake for the weekend. What do you think?”
    Martin’s voice came from behind the closed door, “That sounds great. You go.”
    “I go?”
    “I can’t leave this now.”
    Alison stopped still for a few moments with her hand on the stair rail, looking up at the light coming from underneath the door. “I go,” she said.
    * * *
    That Friday, walking up the hill from the train station, Alison thought about how she would confront Martin. All day at work she hadn’t been able to concentrate. The open plan of the office meant that she could see everyone else tapping on their keyboards and talking into their phones, and she wondered what their home lives were like. None of them lived with someone like Martin, she knew that, and she cherished how different he was. But it wasn’t working out. Where was the life they had looked forward to together? Surely they hadn’t been together long enough to start ignoring one another?
    By the time she was in front of the house she was ready to go upstairs and tell him to stop his writing until they had talked this through.
    When she opened the door the warm aroma of fried garlic and spring onions mixed with fresh bread filled the house and Martin came out from the kitchen. Before she could say anything he apologized. His head was so deep in the book, he was sorry, he would make it up. He took her jacket from her and hung it up.
    The table was set. Alison sat down in front of a smoked salmon and fresh salad with a walnut mustard and goat cheese dressing. She picked up her fork and tried to remember what she was going to say to him, but he got in there first, talking as she took her first bite. He appreciated how hard she worked and he knew that it must seem like he didn’t do anything. He admired her for how hard she worked, how she put up with him, all that she was doing for them together.
    As he talked he went back into the kitchen and took the freshly baked bread rolls from the oven, putting them in a basket and bringing it to the table. He must look like a total loser from her point of view, sitting up in his room, only thinking about a world which wasn’t real, trying to describe and rationalise actions of people who only existed in his head.
    He sat opposite her. Thank you, he said, for putting up with me. I will make it up to you, he said, I promise. He picked up the wine bottle and went to pour. She put her hand over her glass.
    “I’m still driving up to the lake tonight. Are you coming with me?”
    He put down the bottle. “Ah,” he said. “No.”
    They looked at each other. There was silence for a moment.
    “I can’t now,” he said. “I’m right in the middle of it, I’ve just got to get through this next episode. I don’t want to break the rhythm.”
    “Okay,” she said. “But we need to do something together soon. Okay? I need for us to do something together.”
    “We will, I promise we will, and I don’t want to let you down. But I need to do this.” Martin looked at her imploringly.
    Alison tapped her hand on his and drew it back to cut her salmon. “Don’t look so upset. Maybe a few days apart will