curtains were pulled across in there and would be for the foreseeable future. He didn’t need any students going by (they were on the ground floor) and spying his belongings. His large suitcase containing his worldly goods that the police had gathered for him might be a dead giveaway to the fact he wasn’t just going to be there overnight.
One of things that he hadn’t been able to enjoy at the hospital was his usual nightcap of a hot cocoa. It was hardly a vice, but he loved a hot chocolate, and if he ever had trouble sleeping he liked to top it up with a tot of whisky.
He didn’t have whisky here. When Keisha and George had asked him to make a shopping list for things he’d like here, he’d not added anything as indulgent as that. But he had added cocoa and the simple process of being able to boil a kettle by himself was luxury itself. He’d not enjoyed the occupational therapist overseeing things as if he were a complete idiot.
As he watched the kettle’s red light glow, indicating it was boiling, his thoughts ran to what had led him here. Whenever he thought back to it, he saw the spread of blood across the carpet tiles. The heartache it had caused him in that moment. Those images were still so acutely real it seemed impossible that it hadn’t been true. He didn’t believe it wasn’t and that was part of why he couldn’t face going back.
He decided to do a circuit of the room in a bid to forget about those things. To shake away the sense of losing a love that he wasn’t able to fathom. Everything appeared different in the dark. It was bizarre to be in a place that normally only mice frequented at this time of day; any rustle of a piece of paper had to be put down to creatures of the night.
After returning to the kitchen alcove, Clive managed to find everything he needed to make hot chocolate. He took his drink to the bedroom by torchlight and closed himself in for the night.
It was strange to be in a small cocoon, but it was also welcome. It was for a short period and weren’t cocoons the kind of place it was possible to be reborn from?
There wasn’t much in the space. There was a single bed along with a side table and lamp. The bedding was a grade up from hospital blankets and everything was beige. The carpet, the walls, the duvet cover. It was aiming to be homely while missing the point of what homely was.
There were other details that the average hotel wouldn’t feature. There was a camera for starters. If was off, Keisha had reassured him, and was only there for studies. There was also a TV monitor that wasn’t for the purpose of watching telly. Again it was for observations for particular studies. And thankfully he wasn’t here as a subject to be studied overnight. He wasn’t going to miss trying to sleep with probes attached to him.
As Clive allowed his drink to cool, he unpacked some of his things from his suitcase into the three drawers of the small bedside table. In the top drawer his personal items: his allotment journal, the joke book he liked to flick through of an evening if he was feeling blue and a few clean handkerchiefs. In the other drawers he squeezed in what clothing would fit. The rest he kept in the suitcase as there was nowhere else to house them. The police had selected an array of items and it was pleasing that they’d chosen many of his favourites (his brightest shirt, a loved tartan bow tie and his woolly slippers amongst them) based on what he’d said he needed.
It would take some getting used to and, even though it wasn’t perfect (because nothing ever would be again, he remembered), it was perfectly adequate for him right now.
Thankfully there was a bathroom, and in there Clive unpacked his wash bag and got into his pyjamas, ready for bed. He was glad there was a shower he would be able to use. If Keisha wanted him helping about the place, he didn’t fancy smelling all the time.
While Clive settled under the covers with his joke book and hot chocolate, he decided if it wasn’t homely, it was at least practical and would be much like staying in a hotel. At least the creamy, sweet hot cocoa provided