Chapter 9: No Photographs

I packed in four minutes while Cillian stood in the doorway of the bedroom with his arms folded.

Trevor sat on the couch in the other room with his head in his hands.

He did not come in. He did not say sorry.

He said, once, "You're going to regret this," and then he said nothing at all.

I took my toothbrush, my laptop and the green dress for the eighteenth.

On the way out I took Trevor's grey hoodie off the hook and dropped it on his lap.

"Yours," I said.

Cillian carried my bag down the stairs.

His rowhouse was in Kensington, on a street of brick fronts with half the windows boarded.

He unlocked a steel door and flipped a switch, and a bare bulb came on over a hallway of bare plaster.

"I told you there's no kitchen," he said.

"You did."

There wasn't. There was a sink on a pallet, a fridge on the floor and a staircase with a new oak rail.

I looked at the walls as we went up.

The walls were smooth and white with fresh paint.

There was not one photograph or frame on any of them, and no nail holes where any had hung.

"No pictures," I said.

"I took them down when the plaster dust got in."

"All of them?"

"I'm a very thorough man." He opened a door. "Bedroom's the only room done."

It was a plain room with a big bed made with grey sheets, a lamp, and a window onto the street.

He put my bag on the floor and stood in front of me.

"Rule three," I said.

"Is dead."

"You wrote it in a restaurant."

"You wrote it on a delivery slip."

He lifted a hand and took the pins out of my hair, one at a time, and set them on the dresser.

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