slumber talk

7: Deal Me In

The rooms were long, not wide. Dusting the iron chandeliers was most definitely a nightmare. There were no doors that I could see of, save from the front one; instead there were columns and spandrels that climbed together into intricate arches, and gaping windows of the same gothic stature that filled the place with light. The floors were supple rosewood, the furnishings nickel or brass, and the hallways both cavernously empty and stacked high with indiscernible clutter.

I followed him dumbly into the large and airy living room, hitching my breath on the vision of the storm through the diamond lattice of his beautiful bay windows. The space felt so full and heavy of the years it had extracted from the trees that kept it standing, you could barely hear your own thoughts in here, let alone the clashes of rain and thunder that warred on outside.

Hassan stood behind me almost boredly as I looked around. Watching as I appraised the life he had built for himself away from the rest of civilisation and the hovel he returned to each night when he'd exhausted all reasons to hang out with Jeremy. The only indication that he was mildly affected by anything I had to say on the matter was the shrewd slant of his brows, the latent scrutiny simmering beneath his murky brown stare.

I realised what I was searching for when I found the conservatory situated directly behind him. With light pine floors and framed glass walls, it took on a verydifferent quality to the rest of the house. Light filtered out of a spideryglass dome directly onto the plants below, more specified clutter taking overthe work surfaces at the side and the space beneath the table that held them. Thebushels in their pots flourished a soft and vibrant green against the backdropof gnarled trees and sodden shrubbery outside.

There were only 6 that I could see, and each one had what looked like a cable tie secured loosely around the base, resting on the topsoil. Serial numbers were printed across the pale translucent blue.

"You can make money off of 6 plants?" I asked, feeling my eyebrows furrow as I processed this. "Do they grow that fast?"

He turned his head to eye up the plants I was looking at.

"Decoys," he said, lips upturned on a wan and altruistic smile. A hand reached up to sift self-consciously through his stubborn bedhead. "For the UKCSC."

I gazed back at him blankly. "The what?"

He sighed. "UK committee that oversees weed for recreation." A glance in my direction confirmed what I was suspecting. "Non-commercial."

"They don't know you deal?"

"Better stay that way."

I thought it unnecessary to tell him I had larger priorities than outing a small-scale drug dealer.

Travelling back to my face, Hassan's eyes turned sharp on me as he examined my dawdling form. "Ada, if you've got something to say, I'd rather you just spit it out. I haven't got all day."

I felt my throat go dry. All of my previous resolve to tackle this situation head-on had been shrinking incrementally inside my chest, like the withered, storm-bent wildlife. "I don't know where to start," I mumbled.

Hassan crossed the room in silence, house slippers leaving imprints in the rug by the hearth. My raincoat continued to drip puddles onto the floor. I hadn't really thought about the technicalities of following a hunch I had at 6:00am, post a night of horrible tossing and turning, as translated by the stained joggers I had dug out of the laundry and the sleep socks with an exposed hole at my left pinky toe after leaving my shoes by the door, and as I loosened my toggles and pulled at the PVC I realised I should've tried to come up with a plan. Bar turning up at Hassan's house and demanding some answers – which I had done, rather efficiently – I had nothing.