Breakfast In Bed (Fully English Sequel)

Chapter 6

Silence draws and festers as I stand behind the door, waiting. Beyond it stand two mere mortals, mother and son, but they may as well be figures of the occult for I am that petrified. Their presence looms through the keyhole and crack between the floor and door, as ominous as a draught. Still there is no sound except a rustle downstairs.

I open the door.

Reece stands before the woman that spat him out, metres away, but close enough that I'm sure she feels the tension rolling off of him in waves. Shock, horror, despise, all copulating into one balled fist that he seems ready to throw at any moment.

Agnes stands petrified, eyes lowered like a shamed child. Unsure of what to do with herself, she leans on the vanity chair for support and I realise that this moment has taken her breath away. Her posture tells me that her knees could give way any moment now. She is shaking so much that I have to physically seat her down before tending to a cold-faced Reece. He too, is shaking, but his shivers come from a different place to Agnes. Hers are from fear but Reece's are from anger. In his presence, I anticipate an explosion that will scatter us both if he is not contained.

"Reece."

He dodges my touch and looks at me with betrayed eyes. "How could you?"

Mid-sentence, his voice cracks like a plate that has fallen to the floor from a top shelf.

"I didn't know."

I hiccup to keep the onset of tears from falling. When I reach out again for the second time, Reece allows his arm to be caught. Tense muscles bulge from beneath his sleeve and I squeeze in an effort to get them to unthaw and relax. His face twitches before he pulls himself from my grip and straightens up his clothes, attempts to bridge the gap between him and his mother. Instinct forces me to follow suit in matching his steps.

"What the fuck are you doing?" He grunts.

Five steps he has taken: two to the left, one forward and two to the right. I have copied every single one to ensure that there lies a barrier between him and Agnes.

"You need to relax," I insist.

"Do you think I'm some kind of animal?"

Rage drips from his words like hot wax off a candle – thick and gloopy – hardening when it falls to add to the thick pool of tension that is besetting. His chest lunges forward and I push it back just as Agnes yelps. Behind me she cowers, whilst I take the force of her son in my two hands, her breaths laboured over my shoulder.

Footsteps sound and my mother appears in the doorway with a flask in her hand.

"What's going on?"

Her voice is calm and collected, chin angled like she is asking for the time. Neither of us answer her, like petty children caught playing a forbidden game by their strict mother, our lips remained fastened. But we are still in freeze frame. Reece takes a moment to sober and Agnes and I follow his cue, all the while we field my mother's expectant gaze.

"Nothing," I answer.

My mother ignores me and looks calculatingly at Reece. "Reece? Is everything okay?"

Without any evidence, I already know she is up to something sinister. Her demeanour and eyes give her away and knowing her, that's exactly how she liked it.

"No," Reece admits. "Everything is not okay."

In her aplomb, stylised walk, she saunters into the bedroom and plants herself on the chair by the vanity mirror. The flask she is holding goes down to the surface and she clasps her fingers in a hold.