made cookies. Would you like some?’
‘You two know each other?’ asked the stranger.
And then Barbie said something that made Penny wish the earth would go ahead and swallow her up. ‘My Penny and this young man have a little thing going on. It’s real love at first sight! Isn’t that romantic?’
Marcus looked as though he’d been kicked in the gut. He reeled backwards, shooting a hostile look at Penny.
‘Are you a relative of Marcus?’ Barbie went on. ‘My Penny’s a good girl. She’s twenty-two, works in the library and has a good head on her shoulders.’
‘Great!’ the man declared, giving Marcus a smile of explicit approval. ‘So I trust she knows everything then.’
This time it was Penny who was reeling. What is it I’m supposed to know? But Marcus unexpectedly beat her to a response. ‘Of course she knows everything,’ he confirmed earnestly, and put an arm around her shoulders, squeezing her hard as if to say, Don’t say a word or I’ll crush you.
Penny nearly collapsed in shock.
‘Come upstairs with us,’ the man said.
So, without knowing what on earth was going on, Penelope found herself climbing the stairs behind Marcus and his mysterious visitor, urged on by her grandma, who was bubbling over with joy.
Marcus turned for an instant and threw her a look, with an unspoken command not to mess this up for him.
They entered his apartment, and Penny forced her face to stay neutral. Should she pretend she’d already been here? She made out that she wasn’t surprised at the transformation of what she remembered as having been a dump into a decent apartment – very masculine and lacking in frills, but clean. There was a blue throw on the couch, to cover up the holes. The punch bag Marcus had carried in a few days earlier towered in a corner. The worn wooden floor had recently been swept, and, right under the skylight, a bed had been pushed up against the wall, covered with a light-green duvet. The whole place still reeked of the white emulsion used to freshen up the walls.
The stranger looked at everything carefully, nodding repeatedly and loosening the knot of his tie a little. Finally he sat on the couch and turned to Penny. ‘So, is he behaving himself?’ he asked again. ‘With you, I mean. To gauge Marcus’s progress, I need to take a few things into consideration: not only whether he’s employed and sober, but also how he behaves with the people around him, such as his neighbours and his girlfriend.’
Penny swallowed hard, more embarrassed than she’d ever been in her whole life. Marcus stared at her, his polished-steel eyes boring into her, filled with emotions she couldn’t even begin to guess at. Suspicion? Fear? Anger? The man in the suit was also staring at her, with a pinch of apprehension and the air of a parish priest awaiting the confession of his most rebellious believer, whom he nonetheless loved and wanted to save from the fires of eternal damnation. Everyone was waiting for her to speak.
‘Well, as I already told you,’ she said finally, feigning a quiet sincerity, ‘his behaviour is exactly as it should be. He smiles at everyone and he’s an absolute angel with me.’
Penny was suddenly afraid of having exaggerated. To imagine Marcus smiling at the elderly inhabitants of the building – the same Marcus who went around with a constant sneer on his lips – seemed too absurd to believe. And to imagine him being polite to Penny, when he probably gave her less consideration than he would a microbe, was even more far-fetched; but the man, who was either stupid or a little too innocent, seemed to fall for it anyway.
‘Great,’ he said for the umpteenth time, with another satisfied smile. ‘And you, son, I beg you, keep surrounding yourself with decent people. Above all, forget that other girl. She brings out the worst in you and just causes trouble. She’s not right for you. I don’t like knowing that you requested to visit her in prison. Penny, on the other hand, seems like exactly the right kind of person. If I can be sure you’re doing well, you’ll see less of me, but if they tell me you went to see Miss Lopez or I find out you’ve made another bad move, I’ll have to report it to the director. You’re on parole. If you mess this up, they’ll make you serve another two years. That’s not a threat, son, it’s the law;