A Lonely Man by Chris Power

Author:Chris Power
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2022-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

The next day Patrick slept through his alarm and woke up at nine, groggy and confused, with someone knocking on his door. ‘Come in,’ he croaked, and a maid entered with a tray on which he found half a grapefruit, a bacon sandwich and a silver pot of coffee. He was downstairs twenty minutes later, but no one was around. Standing in the main hall, the only sounds he could hear were a vacuum cleaner somewhere upstairs and the deep ticking of the grandfather clock, an imposing, ancient-looking device that might have kept time in this same hallway for generations, or been snatched from elsewhere on one of Sergei’s sprees – the last topic of conversation Patrick could remember from last night, and the point at which Tom had opened a third bottle of wine. He texted him now, his head throbbing as he looked down at his screen. A reply arrived in seconds: We’re back in London. The typing notification showed. Something came up. Sergei says sorry. I’ll be in touch. ‘Fuck!’ Patrick shouted. He went upstairs to pack and booked a taxi to take him to the train station in High Wycombe. He sat on the terrace steps with his bag beside him and lit a cigarette. The day was overcast and warm.

When he heard someone approaching he assumed one of the household staff was coming to tell him his cab was here, but was surprised to see it was Alyona. She sat down beside him. ‘I thought you’d gone back to London with Van— with Sergei,’ he said.

She frowned. ‘His wife’s in London. I’m staying here. Some friends are coming.’

‘You’re going to have a party?’

‘No,’ she said, sounding disgusted. ‘No one has parties any more. We’ll just do ket and have sex.’

He looked around and saw her smiling at him. ‘You didn’t get me,’ he said stonily, then laughed. ‘You did get me.’ In the distance a gardener walked across the lawn, a spade in one hand and in the other a black plastic bag that floated out behind him, bulging with gathered air. ‘Can I ask you something?’ Patrick said.

‘You can ask.’

‘Is he good to you?’

Alyona stretched her legs out in front of her and looked at her feet as she flexed them alternately up and down. ‘What do you mean,’ she said. She wasn’t smiling any more.

‘I mean does he treat you like a person and not like a thing.’

‘Yes, he treats me like a person. I—’ she began and stopped. She lifted her thumb to her mouth and bit at the nail. ‘I had this dream about us,’ she said, and gave an awkward laugh. ‘We were on the street, just being together. Then I heard this crazy loud sound and I knew there was something horrible coming for us. It wasn’t anything I could see, it was just the sound, but I knew it was coming for us.’

‘Us?’ Patrick said.

‘Sergei and me. And I knew he’d keep me safe. I believe my dreams. I’ve dreamed all kinds of things that turned out to be real.

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