Page 117 of Bare
'Yes,' Neil said.
'Good. Signatures here. Here. And initial here and here. Mr Cavanaugh, both pages.'
They signed. Black pen, medium nib, the brand Neil used at school. Neil's hand was steadier than it had been for the divorce. Shirley watched both signatures land and dated them herself.
'Keys in a fortnight. The vendor is being reasonable, which is a rarer thing than you'd think.'
'Thank you, Shirley.'
'Don't thank me, Mr Ashworth. This is the part of the job I like.' She closed the folder. Looked at him once more over the glasses. 'I am pleased for you.'
Neil found he could not answer.
'Off you go. Mr Cavanaugh, Rory, it's been a pleasure.'
Moving day was a Saturday in early September. One year since the staff meeting. One year since Rory had walked through the double doors with paint on his hands, and Neil pressed his pen into his notepad and the indent started everything.
Neil found Rory's card while clearing his jacket from the hook by the door. Inside pocket. White rectangle, the corners gone soft. He held it for a moment, the address he'd memorised without intending to, the paper worn thin at the fold. Then he put it in the new jacket.
It was a Tuesday in late August. The afternoon before the moving van came. The old flat was half packed. Kieran was in the hallway on the floor, cross-legged, taping up a box of books he should have packed a week ago, and swearing at the sellotape.
Rory came out of the kitchen with a set of keys.
'Oi.'
'What.'
'Catch.'
He tossed the keys underarm. Kieran caught them without looking up. Then he looked up.
'What are these.'
'Keys.'
'To what.'
'To a flat on Oxford Road. Two minutes from the Arts Building. First floor. One bedroom. A kitchen. A shower that works on Tuesdays and not Wednesdays, according to the agent, but we'll sort that. The landlord's a decent type.' A pause. 'Actually, scratch that. There's no landlord.'
Kieran's face did the thing Rory had not seen it do since Kieran was nine years old and had been told the cat was not coming back. A small recalibration, the kind that moved the bones of a face without moving it.
'No landlord.'
'No. I bought it. Last week. Signed the papers on Thursday. It's small and not modern, but it's yours and Carol's. Uni starts in three weeks, you're not going in from my sofa, you're going in from your own front door.'
Kieran did not speak for a full five seconds. He stared at the keys in his palm. Closed his fingers around them. Opened them again, checking they had not evaporated.
From the doorway Neil stood very still. A teenager's face trying not to do arithmetic in public and failing. September and Manchester and Carol and the rent he'd been quietly dreading. All of it weighed in five seconds on a scale that had only ever added.
'Rory. You...'
'Don't start.'
'I'm going to start.'
'I know you are. I'm telling you don't.'
'You bought me a flat.'
