Felicity
House - Vancouver
The phone rang.
‘Coming,’ said Doreen her long legs striding across the room. She
whipped up the portable phone. ‘Yes.’ A pause, then, ‘It’s
okay. Come on up if you want. No – it’s fine.’ Another pause. ‘Julio,’ she
said, speaking slowly. ‘You know we’ve talked about this and you’re
not a problem. You will never be a problem. Now I’m making coffee and expect
you up here in five minutes.’ She pressed the off button, put the phone
on the bench, plugged in the jug and then rinsed two used mugs from the sink.
She should be packing, not having to deal with this.
A few moments later a knock at the door. ‘Come in, she called.
A short, dark stocky youth appeared with a band of pale hair and barbed paraphernalia
stuck into his nose and ears.
‘Here,’ said Doreen, handing him a steaming black coffee.
He took it.
‘Tell me what happened.’
The youth didn’t speak for a moment. However, when he finally opened his
mouth he let out a pistol of foul language finishing with, ‘She’s
not gonna be treatin’s me like that. She’s real asking to be done
over.’ He sucked at the coffee.
‘And what good would that do?’ said Doreen, guiding him towards the
second-hand sofa, which squatted beneath the wide window. ‘We’ve
talked about this before. Haven’t we?’
Some of the anger drained from his face.
Doreen sighed. ‘Did you tell Ria what we had discussed?’
‘She don’t listen to nobody. Especially not me.’
‘Then I will speak to her again.’
A small silence filled the room.
‘What’s we going to do when you’ve gone?’
‘You know very well. We’ve been over this many times, Julio. If you
have a problem you go and talk to Carla.’
He made a rude noise with his mouth and glared at the floor. ‘Why’s
you going away anyway?’
Doreen ignored his question. ‘It’s either Carla or back on the street,’ she
said, leaning over and looking into his face. ‘Which?’
Julio pouted and then said, ‘Yeah well, I’s not gonna be bossed about
by no girl.’
Doreen hid a smile. ‘No. Of course not.’
‘So! You’d better tell her that.’
‘I’ll speak to her before I leave.’
‘And that Ria as well?’
‘Yes. And Ria.’
‘Okay then.’ He rose to leave. ‘But you gotta know it’s
war if I’s catch that Ria anywheres near my stuff again. You hear?’
Doreen nodded and guided him towards the door. Then taking his mug she gently
ushered him out into the hall.
‘I’ll be back bossing you around before you know it,’ she said
with a quick smile and shut the door. With a loud sigh she went over to the cupboard
beside the fridge, took out a half used bottle of wine, poured herself a full
glass and then went over to the window.
A light drizzle drifted against the glass.
Christ! It was going to be good to get away from all this for a while.
She raised her glass to the congested trail of traffic in the street below.
Grazie, Ramon.
Then she drank.
Reproduced with permission from Penguin. |