The Stranger's Voice by Grace Harper

Author:Grace Harper [Harper, Grace]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grace Harper
Published: 2017-03-07T18:30:00+00:00

Callum

Her hand trembled in mine. Something didn’t add up. If she was this scared to see her parents, then why was she here? It was my hope I would find the answers I needed inside the house where she grew up. I had a perverse desire to see her bedroom and make out on the bed. Somehow, I didn’t think Adaline would be up for that. She rapped on the glass of the front door and pushed the handle down to go inside. She didn’t let go of my hand while we entered the house. The smell of freshly baked steak pie hit me square in the face. I hadn’t eaten a pie in a long time. My mouth watered in reaction to the smell of chips too. Someone in the house was eating their lunch, and I wanted to snatch it out of their hands and eat the lot. My dormant fat boy was yearning to escape.

My desire to eat junk food never went away, I’d replaced one habit with another. There were days when it took an iron will not to stuff my face for hours on pure carbohydrates. Fortunately, I had enough discipline not to binge. Instead, I binge exercise instead.

The small hallway had clothes, shoes and debris all along the skirting boards. It looked like the blue jumper, by my feet had been there a while. The thick layer of dust coated the arm that was inside out. Did Adaline have to live like this when she grew up?

“Try not to look at the shit lying around, they live like fucking animals,” Adaline had said before we turned the corner into the living room.

The two people I saw sitting in armchairs were the last people I imagined for Adaline’s parents. Adaline had style, elegance, and standards far higher than the man and woman staring at me dumbfounded. In tandem, they looked from me to Adaline and back again.

“Is this your fella?” The woman said. Her mouth was crammed full of chips, she sprayed half eaten potato all over her top.

“Mum, this is my neighbour Callum, he gave me a lift here,” Adaline said. I wasn’t positive, but there was a weariness to her voice I hadn’t heard from her before. I’d seen her after three hours sleep, four nights in a row and she never sounded this tired.

“Did you bring him here to fix the boiler, like I asked you?” Her dad asked.

He’d finished his fish and chips and was scrunching up the paper into a tight ball. His bulbous nose was dripping, he wiped his nose with the back of his hand and threw the paper at the bin by the TV. He missed and did not try to get up and put it in the bin. Instead, he settled into the back of his armchair and interlinked his fingers over his large belly.

“You didn’t ask me to fix your boiler. If you had, I’d have told you to fix it yourself,” Adaline said and picked up the chip wrapper.

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