Death's Kiss by Jack Probyn

Author:Jack Probyn [Probyn, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781805200468
Published: 2023-12-18T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

It was just after eleven o’clock by the time Tomek finally got home. Six hours later than he would have liked. Still, it was better than not coming home at all, as he had done the night before.

Tiptoeing up the steps to the flat, he held his breath lest he disturb the building and wake up Kasia. But the creaking floorboards put paid to that.

In the kitchen, she had left a note for him on the counter again.

Dinner in the fridge.

The second note of the day.

The sight of it pained him, upset him. And the realisation that he had put himself ahead of her twice slapped him across the face. Was this what their father-daughter relationship was now? An endless stream of missed dinners and Post-its? Didn’t that make him just as bad as her mum who had often left her for hours on end while she went out to score some drugs? Would she be better off without him? Without anyone?

And then he realised that was a foolish thing to think. Stupid. If that was the case, then she would end up in care, and he had witnessed and experienced enough in his years to know that was the last place he wanted her to be.

Tomek wasn’t feeling very hungry, even though he hadn’t eaten anything in the office or on the way home, so he left the leftovers in the fridge. He tiptoed out of the living room and into the hallway, running his fingers along the wall for direction. They had only lived there for a few months, and he was still getting used to what the building felt like in the dark, something he’d never had to worry about until Kasia had entered his life.

Her room was at the end of the hallway, and in the soft darkness, he saw the silhouette of her bedroom door. And the thin strip of yellow light running along the bottom of it.

Tentatively, slowly, delicately, Tomek inched his way towards her room, gently wrapped his hand around the handle and lightly tapped with his knuckles. The sound was barely audible; had he not been within centimetres of it, he doubted he would have heard it. But Kasia had. Perhaps it was his rapidly diminishing hearing in his old age.

‘I’m awake,’ came the response. ‘You can come in.’

Tomek didn’t need to be told twice.

Kasia was lying in the foetal position on her bed, the blue light of her screen illuminating her delicate face. As he entered, she kept her focus on her phone.

‘Hey…’ he said, hovering in the space between the doorframe and the foot of the bed.

‘Hey.’

Still no eye contact.

‘What are you doing awake?’

‘Can’t sleep.’

Of course she couldn’t. He knew that. But the silence and awkwardness were killing him.

‘How… how was your day?’

‘Can we talk about it in the morning? I’m tired.’

The blue light from her screen flickered and flashed in her eyes as she continued to scroll from video to video on whatever platform she was using.

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Okay…’ Tomek hesitated, caught on the half-turn.

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