He briefly imagined bringing one of his heavy crystal awards down upon that greasy head that was staining an Egyptian cotton pillowcase in his spare room. A revenge fantasy because he’d never do it. Or could he, if pushed any further?
Would death be any kind of barrier to Ewan’s influence? Was there any way of permanently getting rid of him, besides subjugating himself to Ewan’s demands and hoping for the best? Seb had to assume that a long period of time was destined to elapse before his usefulness to a man with a unique ability to terrorize his victims was exhausted.
He checked on Ewan throughout the evening, repeatedly cracking the door to peer inside. He listened to the whistles, throat clearing and mumbles that arose from the man’s sleep. Alcohol, perspiration and the sebaceous miasmas of neglect eventually encouraged him to keep the door closed. He wished he’d opened a window in the room, but didn’t want to go back inside until Ewan was awake. God knows what might happen if he did.
Sick with apprehension, Seb cobbled together a light tea in the kitchen. When he discovered three hairs that were not his in the butter he lost his appetite.
Just before midnight, Ewan roused. Seb heard the bedroom door click open on the floor below.
He raced down to catch sight of Ewan going into the bathroom, hobbling, head lowered, shoulders slumped. After a cascading urination, Ewan shuffled back out.
Seb called out from the bottom of the staircase. ‘Ewan!’
He was ignored. Glum, haggard and hatless, Ewan continued on his way down the passage and re-entered his room. He shut the door. The muffled noise of bedsprings depressing were detectable as the uninvited guest returned his weight to the mattress.
It was the continuing contempt, the callous disregard for his feelings and rights, the man’s affected ignorance of deep social transgressions, that broke another chunk from Seb’s levee. He flooded again with a hot white anger.
He thumped down the passage and threw the door open. ‘After what you pulled this afternoon, you are not staying here!’ But even as he spoke he could see that Ewan was in no fit state to move. He was exhausted, ill and bedridden. Close to a complete physical collapse.
He’s making you responsible. Co-dependent, again.
That was part of Ewan’s strategy. Insults followed by cries for help, grandiose literary delusions swiftly augmented by a childlike vulnerability, drunken rages interspersed with an obliviousness to any injury inflicted upon the reluctant host. Ewan had never changed. The actual sight and scent of him was maddening.
His instability was also infectious. Seb knew this. It shook him up and then shook him apart. Ewan was loosening rivets in the scaffolding that kept him balanced. His own slide to despair was already in place. His entire existence was a construct of routines and activity born of self-discipline, of tight controls over his environment, counter-checks imposed upon apathy and listlessness, his potential for lazy thinking, persecution fantasies, paranoia, anxiety attacks and recourse to the drinks cabinet.
He hadn’t written a word in three weeks or addressed his correspondence. Had not shopped properly, slept much or eaten adequately. He’d lost the ability to relax since his first sighting of Ewan on Broadsands. The script of his life was being rewritten while he impotently monitored the edits.
‘Don’t even think about getting comfortable.’
Face drawn, the cast of his mouth doleful, the eyes pained, Ewan didn’t bother to defend his position. He was inside now. Try and move me was communicated by the collapsed posture upon the bed.
Seb entered the room and fought with the blinds, then angrily threw two windows open. Pitch black outside. Another night with him here.
Ewan’s sorrowful eyes watched Seb patiently, affecting innocence as if Seb were being unfair at an inappropriate time.
‘What happened? This afternoon, what was that? A fit? Are you epileptic?’
Ewan swallowed. His voice croaky, he whispered, ‘It takes a lot out of me.’
Ewan’s creepy appearances were not effortless miracles. They exacted a high price. Perhaps the processes were even life-threatening. Seb hoped so. ‘And you’re taking drugs in my house to facilitate your stalking.’
Ewan didn’t blink, but his silent admission of how difficult this awful trick was to enact encouraged Seb. For the first time since his arrival in the area, not everything was going Ewan’s way, and Seb saw his first advantage.
Until he regained his strength, or a modicum of it, Ewan would probably play the invalid card, in the same way that he’d played the poverty hand in London. Digressions until he’d regrouped and consolidated his baffling, controlling presence.
‘I want answers. You want to lie around in bed, then you’d better start talking, or you are bloody history, tonight. I don’t know who to call first, a doctor, a psychiatrist, the police, but you are out of here and this all stops, unless you start making sense.’
The threats made no impact. Ewan continued to study Seb’s face as if trying to understand why Seb would feel this way. He’d expected terror while craving awe and admiration.