‘They’re not all comfortable with that,’ Gabriel said without elaboration.
‘I get that. But if it’s raining or cold or whatever. They’re welcome, if you want to do that.’
‘Not afraid some homeless person is going to infect your house or kill you in your sleep?’
‘Good god, no,’ responded James with genuine scorn.
Gabriel gave James a long, assessing stare. James pursed his lips but endured the evaluation.
Gabriel’s gaze drifted from James to take in the whole bedroom – the simple furniture, the uncluttered shelves, the bed that had been lain on but not slept in. A wardrobe, closed, with a belt hanging from the handle. No pictures. No ornaments. It was like no-one really lived here; or like the man who did had no real place in the world. Like he was only temporary.
‘Let’s have a cup of tea,’ Gabriel suggested, wanting suddenly to not be in this lonely room.
There was a beat before James rose from his chair by the window. ‘Okay.’ He walked past his tenant and into the kitchen, where he busied himself putting on the kettle and throwing teabags into cups.
Silence reigned while the tea was made. James pushed a cup into Gabriel’s hands. He sipped at his own tea, steam curling around his face, after they both sat at the table.
‘You have questions,’ said Gabriel.
‘It’s not my business,’ said James.
‘If you’re going to have random strangers in your flat at all hours, it’s reasonable to know more. More than you’ve worked out, at any rate.’
‘Homeless people. Two or three times a week. You talk to them, sometimes you give them things. Food. Books. Batteries, even. Sometimes after that, you go off for a while. You came back this morning smelling like the Thames at low tide.’ James tilted a subdued smile at him. ‘It’s not a problem.’
‘It’s not your business,’ said Gabriel mildly.
‘Like I said,’ James shrugged, ‘I can see you’re helping them, and they’re helping you with… is it a missing persons case? So anyway. If I can help, feel free to ask. That includes medical attention, if any of your friends needs a doctor.’
‘They can go to the clinic.’
‘True, but a lot don’t come, not on my shifts anyway. I know it’s not straightforward. People don’t always trust something official, like a clinic on the National Health. I only keep first aid supplies at the flat, but the offer stands.’
Gabriel nodded, pretending that his heart rate hadn’t pushed up several notches. His mind was going through a strobe-flash of good idea/bad idea/it’s under control/it’s getting too big for me/they trust me to keep their secrets/people are vanishing, maybe dying/I should do this alone/I promised to help/he wants to help me/he wants to help.
‘Thanks. That could be useful. If it’s convenient for all concerned.’
‘All right.’ James seemed relieved. ‘Whatever’s good for you.’
Gabriel noticed James’s cup was already empty. He reached for it, and James surrendered the cup, almost apologetically, at having drunk it so quickly. Gabriel flicked on the kettle again. He finished drinking his own tea as he prepared a second cup for his landlord, then another for himself.
‘You drink a lot of tea,’ Gabriel said to James, to have something to say, and felt inane for making the observation. He bloody knows his own tea-drinking habits.
James didn’t seem to mind. He smiled, a boyish expression that made his solemn face instantly sunnier. ‘Aye.’
Gabriel found himself smiling easily back. ‘It’s very English of you,’ he teased.
‘I fake being English very well. I’ve painted a birthmark in the shape of Westminster Abbey on my right buttock and I once filled an awkward half hour gap in a conversation with a wounded American soldier with apologies about the weather.’
‘Brilliant camouflage,’ Gabriel agreed, fetching milk from the fridge. He left the teabag in James’s cup for a minute longer than he brewed his own, the way James liked it, and took both cups to the table.
Gabriel set James’s cup down right next to his hand. Gabriel’s fingers brushed against James’s wrist for a second. James’s skin was cool to the touch. It made the hair on Gabriel’s arms stand up, like with a faint touch of static electricity. It was thrilling.
Gabriel skirted around James, closer than he needed to, closer than was polite, so that his flat stomach skimmed past James’s strong upper arm and his elbow, before Gabriel sat opposite him.
For a while, they drank in companionable silence.
Then James set his once more empty cup down. ‘I see the way you look at me, Gabriel.’
Gabriel made himself keep looking James in the eye.
James’s mouth pulled into an unhappy scrunch. ‘I’m not good for you. Like that,’ he said. He seemed regretful.
‘I’m sorry if I bother you,’ Gabriel replied, wishing he’d had better control. But they had been laughing together again, and it had been so nice, and frankly, he hadn’t been able to help himself.
Well, learn to help yourself. Idiot.
‘It doesn’t bother me. To tell the truth, I like it. But it’s not fair on you. I’m not… I’m not in a position to…’
‘James, it’s fine. I’m not your type. I get it.’ Gabriel shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘Look. I don’t want to move out–’
‘I don’t want you to move out,’ said James hastily, ‘And it’s not that you’re not my type.’ He pushed his hand through his hair in frustration. ‘Inasmuch as I have a type. You’re lovely.’ He winced. ‘You are. Lovely. Gabriel. But I’m not. I’m fucked up. I wouldn’t be any good for you. I could hurt you.’
‘No you couldn’t. I can see what kind of man you are.’
James shook his head. ‘I could. I might. I don’t know. I don’t know what kind of man I am these days, or what I’m capable of. I know I’m… dangerous. I could be a danger. I should have warned you before you took the room. But I liked you right away, and I needed a lodger. You made me laugh, and I thought… Anyway, I’m sorry. If you want to stay, I’d like you to. I promise that I won’t ever put you in harm’s way, even if I have to lock myself out of my own flat. But we can only be friends.’
Gabriel took a deep breath, then another. ‘I’m not frightened of you.’ He’d lived on the streets for months at a stretch, with all the hazards that implied. He wasn’t scared of much: of his own mind, sometimes, which had concocted gruesome imaginary friends in his childhood, and the things that had happened to him after those apparitions.
‘I am,’ said James bleakly. ‘I’m frightened of me.’
Gabriel didn’t understand.
‘But I can help you with your missing persons thing, if you want that,’ James continued. ‘I’d like to, if you’re okay with it. With me. Helping.’
‘It’d be good to have some help, to be honest,’ said Gabriel. ‘Whatever’s going on is bad and getting worse. And, well,’ here he tried a lopsided smile, ‘If you’re a bit dangerous, that could be a good thing. To have some of the danger on my side, if you know what I mean.’
Hell, Gabriel didn’t even know what he meant, but the idea of having James helping him out with whatever this whole mess turned out to be made him feel, if not precisely confident, then less vulnerable. The idea of having someone at his back was novel and appealing.