She suggests her local pub, which is just down the road from her flat and very old-fashioned, usually only frequented by the over-sixties who have been going there for the past thirty years, but it will save her feet. He says he’ll see her in an hour.
Courtney lets herself into the flat. Kris has been living with her since January and already the flat smells like him. Una’s once rose-scented bedroom is now filled with his drum kit, old vinyl records, an amp, stereos and other paraphernalia. Her bathroom cabinet is crammed with his aftershaves, razors, toothpicks, hair gels and mouthwash. It was only supposed to be a temporary thing because she knew, by September, she’d be off with Una, travelling the globe. And now she feels trapped. She doesn’t want to see the world by herself, but she certainly doesn’t want to go with Kris. She sighs. The problem is her parents. They have such a great marriage – the love they have for each other is still as solid today as it was when she was a kid. They make each other laugh all the time. When she goes home to visit them it’s not unusual to see her mum doubled up with laughter in the kitchen and her dad with a smile on his face, happy that he can still amuse his wife. He often embraces her mum when she least expects it and plants a kiss on her neck. After growing up around such love, Courtney knows she’ll never settle for anything less.
Kris is sprawled on the ugly brown sofa, his legs hanging over the arm, watching TV, his head resting on the bulldog cushion she and Una had picked out at Ikea when they first moved in. She wants to yank it from under his greasy hair. He has a large rip in the knee of his jeans, exposing his hairy legs. Kris doesn’t have a job. He spends his time either gigging or ‘working on new material’. It’s a constant cause of irritation to her, especially after a day like today. He pays half the rent with the money he makes from his gigs so she can’t complain. She feels like his mother sometimes, especially when she hears herself nagging him to be tidier, or when she’s picking up his dirty pants from the bedroom floor and throwing them into the laundry bin, which he always ignores.
‘All right, babe?’ he says, without looking up from the game show he’s watching. ‘What shall we do for tea tonight?’ Which means, ‘What are you going to cook?’
‘I thought you had a gig.’
‘Nah. That’s tomorrow.’
Her heart falls. ‘Oh, right. Well, I’m out tonight. I was going to grab some chips at the pub.’
He looks up at her then, disappointment written all over his face. He’s pretty, she’ll give him that, his large blue eyes fringed with dark lashes, which are, quite frankly, wasted on a man. And he makes her laugh, when he’s in the right mood. At first they’d been all over each other but now, even though they’ve been together less than a year, they seem to have fallen into a comfortable, slightly boring routine. She knows it isn’t love. It’s laziness. Neither of them can be bothered to go out and meet someone else. She only let him move in because she’d needed a flatmate when Una got the live-in carer job.
‘Oh. Who with?’
‘Peter.’
He swings his legs around and sits up straighter. ‘Peter? Peter who?’
She explains who he is as she shrugs off her jacket and kicks off the uncomfortable pumps that pinch her toes. They’re part of the salon uniform and she hates them.
‘Can’t I come too? He could be a weirdo. How do you know he didn’t meet Una that night and cave her head in?’
She blanches at Kris’s insensitivity. ‘For fuck’s sake.’
His eyes widen. ‘What? I’m just saying. He could be a murderer.’
‘You said you thought Una fell and banged her head.’
He stands up and goes to where she’s hovering by the kitchen sink. He takes her hand. ‘We don’t know anything for certain.’ She knows he doesn’t believe a word of it and just wants to accompany her to the pub to check out Peter for himself, to see if he’s a threat. She can’t be bothered to argue. She’s done in.
‘Fine. Come too. I’m meeting him at seven.’
He grins in response. ‘Great. I’ll change my top. I’ve been wearing it for three days.’
‘That’s gross.’
‘What? I’ve had a shower every day. The T-shirt wasn’t dirty. I’m saving you the washing.’ He winks at her to show he’s joking.
While Kris is in the bathroom she changes out of her work clothes and into her ripped jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt. She shakes out her long ponytail so that her red hair spills down her back, way past her shoulders. Then she adds a touch more lipstick and she’s ready.
They take a slow walk to the pub, her arm linked through Kris’s. It’s been a warm day but now the sun is going down she can feel the chill in the air and she’s suddenly grateful for the warmth of Kris’s body next to hers.
The pub is quiet for a Thursday evening, a few regulars sitting at the bar with their malodorous, ageing dogs at their feet. A group of pensioners are playing darts at the other end. Courtney hasn’t been in for ages, preferring the bars in town, but she used to come a lot as a kid, usually with her dad when her mum was out shopping. He’d usually settle her and her brother in the corner with a cola while he chatted to his mates over a pint. Nothing has changed. Even the heavy, dark wooden furniture and photos of horses or farmland on the tobacco-stained walls are the same.
‘How do you know what he looks like?’ asks Kris, in a loud whisper, as they head for the bar.
‘Um. Maybe because he’ll be the only other young person in here.’
Kris laughs and pulls an oh-yes-silly-me face.