Scruffy Buttons

by Chris Castle

(Continued)
     He told her to go and lie down for a while and get a little rest. When she cried it took it all out of her. It was like each tear was a unit of strength leaking from her. He sat with her while she fell asleep and then stayed with her a little longer to watch her. He put his hand to her cheek and stroked her skin as her chest rose up and down with the sequence of her breathing. He probably loved her deeper than ever when he had the chance to watch her sleep, he thought. There was something so simple about it. He rose up out of the bed and wandered into the other rooms.
     It was true they had done a bonafied number on the place. There was nothing left. After a little while he opened the door and stood out on the stairs smoking a cigarette. He listened to the faraway noise of the city down below. He heard cheers and the distant sound of a bottle breaking; he heard angry cars beeping their horns for a fraction too long. He heard the low hum of the bars as they upped the wattage to prolong the night into the next morning. He was suddenly relieved he didn’t have to be inside all of that. He knew he wanted to head down to the local shop but was suddenly terrified of making that short walk into all that commotion.
     Stan stepped back inside the flat and walked back into the bedroom where she still slept. He looked past the bed and onto the walls. He noticed one of the walls had a thin line running down against it. He made his way over to it. It was a thin strip of card that bridged the division between the bedroom wall and the kitchen. He bet that if the kettle boiled he could hear it straight on through. He tapped the wall once more, a little harder and then noticed it wavered. For some reason he pulled at it. Hell, put it down to the thieves, he thought as he lifted the partition to one side and discovered a cardboard box, realising the thieves had missed something after all. Stan was bewildered, yet felt certain that the box held something magical.
     The walk to the shops after that didn’t seem that hard after all. Energised by what he’d found, he had thought nothing more of the city and instead gently took the keys from Jen’s purse and headed off down the road two steps at a time. He walked down the side street and into the twenty four-hour shop soon enough. He collected the bottle of rum and picked up some pop. The lights burned bright along the plastic tubes but even that did not shake him now.
     He got back to the flat before it had started to get pitch black. He loved this time of day because there was still so much possibility left. You could start a whole new night off and not come back until the sun came up if you wanted to. The bottle of rum felt good in his hand, cool against his palm. The other stuff weighed heavy against his fingers, cutting off the blood. He bounded up the stairs and then remembered she was asleep. He swore quietly and padded his footsteps for the final couple of feet. Stan twisted the key slowly and then stepped inside, taking the path he imagined the thieves had chosen. He tried to see where their imaginary footsteps would have landed, tried to breathe in the same tight, exhilarated fashion he imagined they had, half waiting to be caught. He made his way into the bedroom and his heart suddenly flipped, imagining the strangers coming across Jen. For a second he was paralysed with fear as terrible images flooded into his mind. He shook them off and tried to keep the good buzz he had set up.
     He made his way to the end of the bed and tapped her on the bottom of her leg. Then he lightly shook her ankle, the chain rattling, filling the spaces in the room. He knew that she did not like to be woken up with a face looking directly over her. The first time he did this she nearly knocked him clean out in the panic. For a second she smiled back to him, and then remembered where they were and pushed herself up quickly. He moved back, unaccustomed to seeing her act so sharply.
     "How long have I slept for? What’s the time, when are they due—"
     "Relax," he said, feeling doubly good now he had more news to tell her. "You’ve only been resting twenty minutes. I just popped out. I picked up some supplies. I’ve got something to show you."
     Jen frowned when she saw the drink and the cigarettes and barely registered the food by the side.
     "We’re not celebrating anything," she said flatly, looking angrily at the bottle a second time.
     "I want you to see something in the living room, come on."
     For a second she did not move from where she sat. She looked honest-to-god sick with worry about this thing. For a horrible second Stan thought she wasn’t going to rise out of bed, as a protest about how things had gone but then she nimbly pushed her legs out, stroking her eyes and climbing from the bed. He took her by the hand and led her to the living room. He didn’t feel the need to cover her eyes because he figured she’d still be too heavy with sleep to really take any of it in.
     They moved into the centre of the room where he had laid the box out. He had put down both their coats on either side so they could sit down and work out what this meant. His heart beat fast as she looked at the box. He couldn’t wait for her to sit.
     "What the hell is this?" she said as she reached into the box. She never swore unless she really had to. Strict parents. So when she swore he knew he was in real trouble. He watched as her hand reached into the open flap of the box. It turned out to be a turban, as red as blood in her hand. It looked as if she held a wasp’s nest covered in blood.
     He stood up quickly and went to the other room for the supplies while she thought over what had been found. He came back, laid out the rum, the pop, the snacks. He could see she was confused by what he had discovered, as much as she was when she opened the door to see nothing earlier in the day. He handed her a drink.
     "We shouldn’t be drinking now. We have a lot to deal with." She sipped her rum even as she said the words. By the time she listed what was still to be done she had emptied her glass and he was already filling another. He opened the pack of cigarettes.
     "We can’t smoke in here." She said, looking more alarmed at the smoke than the mysterious box.
     "We’ll say the robbers smoked. That the room was filled with smoke when we got in here." That seemed to settle her. It made sense. They might have been anxious. He handed her over the pack. He knew she couldn’t not smoke when he was.
     He reached over and lit the cigarette for her. As always when they smoked together they sat and let the smoke gather in a silence. He sipped his drink, which he had deliberately made strong to settle any nerves and then asked what she made of the box.
     "I have no idea," she said, the faint hint of a smile coming across her for the first time. "Do you think it’s a sex thing? Or just & I don’t know, a collector’s thing, like cards or vintage posters? Maybe that’s the one thing that will be good for them, saving these. Maybe this is the one thing they really value, the one thing they treasure. Maybe when they walk through the door and see what’s happened their hearts will break thinking they’ve lost this box and then we’ll say it was the only they didn’t take, that’ll take the edge off of what they feel."