annashay 
by Mike Fox
THE FIRST TIME I met Davy a single word dropped into my mind—orphan. It was the air he had, not just of someone without family, but of someone adrift from life itself. He was friendly, almost welcoming, when I said I was moving in to the flat above. But there was a distance, an aura of separation, as though whoever lived upstairs didn’t matter too much, because the world the rest of us inhabited wasn’t the right place for him, never had been.
I wondered what he’d think when my punters began to arrive. I was careful who I saw—no adverts, mainly over fifty—but he didn’t seem bothered. He worked shifts and so, I suppose, did I. From early on there was an understanding between us, and I knew he was okay. More than that really. I was never interested in the “perfect” people.
‘Is this any use to you—I’ve got two of them.’
He’d wandered out into the hallway while I was unpacking my belongings from the van I’d hired. He was holding out a small cafetière, newish looking.
‘Thanks, love, that’s kind. I’m Paula, by the way.’
‘And I’m Davy.’
I took it, though I already had one. Sometimes what you’re accepting is the gesture. A few weeks later I realised he’d given me the best and kept the other for himself.
He turned back into his flat and I was left with his image, like an imprint in the air he’d vacated—a man probably in his forties who looked as though he’d stepped out of an earlier decade. It wasn’t just his hair and clothes, but how he carried himself, one of those people who absorb what’s around them when they’re young, then suddenly stop absorbing.
Later, once I’d got everything out of the van, I could hear him moving about downstairs—not noisy, but it meant he’d be able to hear me. Whoever had converted the house into flats hadn’t spent much money. I’d soon be familiar with the shape of his days, and he mine.
*
A couple of weeks passed, and I’d made my flat as liveable as it was ever likely to be. I hadn’t seen him again, but something about that meeting in the hallway lingered. I brewed some coffee, filled two mugs, and took them downstairs. After I knocked on his door there was a creak, then a rustling, and when he opened it I could see I’d got him out of bed.
‘Sorry…’ I began, but he just smiled—the smile of someone difficult to surprise.
‘No worries, I’m on nights this week.’ He gestured to an old leather sofa. ‘Have a seat.’
He took the coffee from my outstretched hand, thanked me with an inclination of his head, and squatted on the edge of his mattress. We regarded one another.
‘Do you work nearby?’ I asked.
He sipped his coffee.
‘The hospital—Royal St Augustine.’
‘That’s where all the media go if something’s kicking off, isn’t it? I’m impressed.’
‘It is, but don’t be impressed—I’m a cleaner there, though sometimes I get turned into a porter if A&E goes manic.’
He said this casually but with a certain emphasis, as if he’d learned to foresee the disappointment of others and chose, where possible, to pre-empt it.
‘Bet you see some things, though.’
He looked at the bare floorboards for a moment before answering.
‘Sometimes it feels like the whole world’s coming there—all stressed out and all in need of sorting. What about you?’
‘I think you know already. I used to be a social worker. These days I see men.’
‘I guessed.’ He took another sip of his coffee. ‘Is it safe—for you I mean?’
‘I’m used to it, and I don’t just see anyone.’
He nodded, and something made me want to explain further.
‘I built up slowly, I don’t advertise, and I only see older men. Nothing kinky either. It suits me.’
Davy looked at me searchingly, just for a couple of seconds, then smiled in the quiet way he had.
‘Good for you.’
We chatted on a bit longer, but really that was our first conversation. And the start of a pattern. Davy wouldn’t intrude, but he’d be around. And in his way I think he liked it that I was.
*
I could always sense things, even when I was little. It has its downsides, but I’m right more often than not, and at times I’ve needed to be. As a social worker I’d visit the sort of estates you wouldn’t go near at night. It helped if you could suss people and situations quickly—transferable skills, you might say.
*
‘The other kids listened to my essays—they went quiet. Even the tough ones.’
Another morning coffee, and I was telling Davy about my schooldays. He was nothing if not a listener. And I’d noticed the books on his shelves, faded hardbacks from an earlier time, maybe inherited—the sort most people offload on the nearest charity shop. They were arranged geometrically, even artistically, some upright some flat. Today one lay open by his sofa.
‘That says a lot.’
He considered me for a moment.
‘Did you read them out or did the teacher?’
‘Usually I did. It was the thing I could “do.” You know how at school there’s the one who can do art, or the one who can do gym and so on? I was the kid who could do English.’
Davy pursed his lips as though taking this in, but didn’t comment further. I sometimes wondered why he asked the things he did, and what sort of answers he expected.
*
I’d begun to imagine him at the hospital, cleaning up stuff most people would pay to avoid, pushing patients on a trolley, being kind in that remote way of his. Probably no-one who worked there would know much about him. He didn’t seem to need to talk about himself the way most people do. But there’s something magnetic about that, don’t you think? You can’t help wondering what’s behind it.
*
My friends, my old friends, had thinned out, then more or less dispersed—my choices, their choices. One of them, halfway through a psychology course, told me I was living my life in sections. It rang true, and I had a feeling Davy was the same. You could glimpse the child in there, and the teenager, and the young man, each held separately within, each somehow apart from the person he’d become.
I knew by now that something must have happened. He was one of those men who have no sense of themselves in relation to women. You could see it in everything about him—never aware of possibility, never thinking there might be some appeal. But there was a yearning—so strong that when we talked I could feel it in my body. What you’ve been need not be lost, I wanted to say.
*
The cassette recorder stood alone on his window sill. It caught my eye in that sparse room. Davy, his living space implied, was not the type to accumulate things.
‘I didn’t think anyone used those anymore.’
I pointed and gave him a teasing look.
He smiled, with the hint of apology I was growing used to.
‘It’s a bit of a relic, isn’t it? I’ve just brought it over from my uncle’s place. I was his only living relative and I’m trying to clear his stuff. I realised I’d left it there when I stayed with him as a teenager.’
‘He’s died?’
‘A couple of weeks ago.’
‘I’m sorry, love. Were you close?’
‘He was like a dad to me when I was a kid.’
We both stared at the recorder again. Davy kept his eyes on the dusty little object as he spoke.
‘I wanted to be a musician once.’
‘What sort?’
‘A guitarist—like everybody else back then.’ He paused and looked into himself. ‘I sang a bit too. Wrote songs.’
I knew immediately how much he was telling me—a dream downgraded to an admission of failure. I wondered why he’d taken it so hard. Perhaps he’d invested all his hope in that one thing. Or perhaps he’d never believed it was really possible. He sat a few feet away, suddenly in his own little bubble, and a thought came to me.
‘Was there a girl?’
He held my eyes for a moment, except it was as though he was looking through me and back to another time. Then his focus returned, and along with it that apologetic smile.
‘You should have been a shrink.’
‘Someone else said that.’
Actually lots of people had said it.
‘You’re right, though. She was way ahead of me and she had ambitions. She went up north to study and stayed there, so that was that.’
And she’s still with you, I thought. Here in this room with us now.
*
Another week, another coffee. It was always me who came down, never Davy who climbed the stairs. He was so unlike the men I’d known before I got into all this. I’d nudged him to tell me about his uncle.
‘I found a will amongst all the junk—he’s left me his flat.’
‘Do you think you’ll be moving there?’
‘I think, probably. He always said I was welcome anytime.’
We both sipped our coffee.
‘Is it far from here?’ I asked.
*
The bastard who started choking me was an ordinary little man. Some punters loiter in your mind—the lonely, the bereaved, the divorced. Although they’ve come to me they really want a wife, and though I don’t let them get close I at least try to be kind. But I wouldn’t have given this one another thought if he hadn’t turned rough. When I pulled his hands away he slapped me, and I must have found a lot of strength, because suddenly I’d pushed him off and we were both on our feet, me shouting, him saying what did I think he was paying me for.
And then there was Davy, suddenly in the room, and me with nothing on, and both of us shoving the little sod down the stairs. By the time I’d chucked his clothes and shoes after him I realised I’d managed to pull on my nightie. Sometimes your body just takes over.
Davy looked at me and I could see he was shaking. We both were.
‘Are you okay? Has he hurt you?’
I think I made some sort of joke, trying to reassure him, and then it was like he realised where he was and felt he shouldn’t be there. He looked me over, as if he was trying to reassure himself, then turned and went back downstairs.
I didn’t expect to be able to sleep, but the sobbing took me by surprise. I heard it as if it was another person, but it wasn’t, it was me. And Davy was in my mind, not the punter, as though my thoughts had got tangled.
And then the door opened, and he was standing there. I lifted the duvet and he came in, in his clothes. He didn’t touch me, but I could feel the warmth of his body and his quietness, and I slept, until morning. And the morning was different to any morning I’d ever known.
oOo
Related stories: Going Out Somewhere and Backgrounds.
Mike Fox’s stories have been nominated for Best of Net and the Pushcart Prize, listed in Best British and Irish Flash Fiction (BIFFY50), and included in Best British Stories 2018 (Salt), His story, The Violet Eye, was published by Nightjar Press as a limited edition chapbook. His new collection, Things Grown Distant, featuring photographic illustrations by Nicholas Royle, is available for pre-order from Confingo Publishing www.polyscribe.uk.
