IN THE HOURS BETWEEN • TC

16. Familiar Feeling

They make it home in one piece, although Timmy is still unnervingly quiet. He won't say much, even when Una asks him actual questions.

(Have you had any pets before?

No. A fish, but she didn't count.

What about the dog?

The dog?

Jean-Paul.

Ah, Jean-Claude. He doesn't belong to me. He belongs to the lady next to us.)

In fact, Timmy stays forlorn, even more so after spending extra time with Milo in next door's front garden. A whole two hours, in fact, as sunset graduates into dusk. Una leaves the two of them alone, feeling that it's not her business. She goes to shower instead, and stands there for five minutes sniffing all the bottles, trying to work out what it is that makes Timmy smell so fresh. Clean.

None of them smell right, so she washes her hair as quickly as possible, dries off, gets changed, and creeps along the corridor to Timmy's room. Glancing down the stairs to check that no one is there (and they aren't), she presses down on the door handle and slips into his room. Una pads towards the window and flattens herself against the wall, glancing down towards next door's front garden. Luckily, Timmy is still engaged in petting Milo, and she breathes out. Goes towards his dresser, but there are only a few things on top. A little pot of fake flowers, a candle that has never been lit, and a little pot of pencils that Una doesn't recognise. She guesses those are his.

Una glances over at his bedside table. Darts towards it, towards the bottle of cologne sitting on top, and removes the cap. Breathing in, she smells his big, printed t-shirts, hair that would be so curly if only he would grow it longer. She smells stumbled-over words and nervous giggles and she screws the top back on again to stop herself from dabbing her finger against her wrists.

(Because then he would know, wouldn't he? He'd know that Una had been in his room and he'd know that she was snooping around. She makes a note of the brand and sets the bottle back down.)

It's odd, being in here without Timothée, too. She finds she pays more attention to the small things. Most of the time when she's in here, she's avoiding a conversation or thinking about the quickest way to leave. Usually both.

Una gives a cursory glance at every surface, scanning the space for signs of Timmy. Annoyingly, the room is fairly bare. It's clean, which is nice, but resembles more an Air B&B than a bedroom.

He's been here almost two months but, looking in here, you wouldn't be able to tell. Una creeps over to his wardrobe and opens the door, checking for anything of interest. It's weird seeing all his t-shirts hung up neatly, one nice dress shirt at the end. He probably brought that in case he went anywhere nice. (More fool him, the Murphys hardly ever go anywhere nice. Anywhere that warrants a dress shirt, at least.)

She finds a couple of textbooks and an extra pair of battered shoes that she's never seen before. A couple of shirts that have fallen off their hangers. Una closes the wardrobe door, looks at the little pile of books on his bedside table, and goes towards them. She picks one up. Scans it. It's poetry of some sort. The next one makes her laugh.

It's a collection of Mrs Pepperpot stories, the spine old and leathery from use, the pages severely dogeared and torn in several places. Some of the pages stick together when she fans through the pages, and she doesn't want to think about what's binding them. Bits of food. Dead bugs. Snot, probably.

Yes, Una remembers this book. She used to take it everywhere with her, wishing she too could shrink to the size of a pepperpot. It's been kept in here with all the other children's books. They're only here for storage, but maybe Timmy thinks they're for him, to help him learn. In all fairness, they're probably an okay-ish level of difficulty for him.