Pull The Door After You

“You don’t know him.” I bristled. “Uncle James bought him for her. My parents used to call him the Somerset Bastard; he was always a bit drunk and lechy.”

“And what’s that got to do with anything? It’s a doorstop. Either put it at the kitchen door or take it to the charity shop and be done with it.” Carmen’s words were cutting as she poked his nose with her finger.

“You’re sure you don’t want to stay the night?”

“I’ve an early start for the train in the morning. I’ll see you when I get back.” She got up and poured the dregs of her mug down the sink before giving me a kiss. She paused as she pulled the kitchen door behind her.

“His eyes do follow you, to be fair.”

***

The darkness was void of everything, except for the sound of the building settling like a bird gone to roost. I kicked my legs out across the bed, summoning a static rustle. I’d grown unaccustomed to an empty bed since meeting Carmen; we were in one or other of our places most nights. I should have asked her to move in sooner. Even balmy nights felt cool, without a human oil heater beside me. I hunched myself in, trying to warm just the small bit of mattress I was sleeping on. For a moment, the ruffle of my hair against my pillow sounded like her stuttering snores. I kept swishing my head over the cotton. With each swoop I felt I was beckoning her closer.

A door swung whining and its catch clicked closed, echoing up the hallway of my flat.

My head halted mid-toss. One ear strained into the gloom, the other yearning to fold in on itself like a daisy at dusk.

The searching ear was met by the laboured drag of body weight along the floor. The slow shuffle stopped and started, gathering all its might to make its next move. Soon the shuffle grew surer, smoother—though no faster—punctuated by a pendulous, muffled slap. My body petrified, mind ticking through every possibility: Carmen, a thief, an injured moggy that had wriggled in the toilet window.

The shuffle stopped. The shadow of my bedroom door leered into the corner of the room, pissed. The shuffle hissed into life again, a steam train leaving the station. It edged around my bed. Soon I felt a tug at the bedsheet, a persistent tension as something hauled itself up onto the mattress. A draught wound itself around me as the thing burrowed in under the duvet, letting my hard-won warmth out into the night. My skin danced in anticipation of its touch, rippling and prickling across my muscles.

A downy digit ran itself up my spine. A snuffling started at the nape of my neck, nestling up into my hairline, taking a reviving breath. As it ventured around to my jaw, a cold pointed pressure leant into the small of my back. Its bristling fuzz was ferreting at my earlobe now, rooting around my tragus like a truffle pig. Still those fingers scrabbled up and down my vertebrae, as if counting a wad of derby day winnings.

I flinched as the flap of a satchel smacked my thigh, tendons flickering like a thoroughbred’s haunch. The sniffing moved to the tip of my chin. The wiry leg of a spectacle frame cut into my cheek like cheese wire. I could feel the hot breath that would have fogged their lenses, had they been there. The metallic menace of the prod at my pelvis seared right down to my toes. At last, that whisper came, as affable and western as cider and cheddar. Exactly how I’d imagined—knew—he’d sound after all these years.

“Well, ‘ello again.”