Solace & Grief by Foz Meadows Read Free Book Online Page A

floors. Descending via the nearest flight of stairs, she saw that several massive metal columns supported the upstairs level, while in the dead centre of the warehouse, under the skylight, someone had, at some time or other, set up a kind of lounge room.
    ‘Kind of’ really was a necessary qualifier.
    A patchwork square of rugs covered the sunlit area: dark green shagpile, a natty red-and-orange Persian, a couple of lurid bathmats, something sleek and striped with white, blue and purple, a children's play-mat with cars and streets and houses patterned on the fuzz. There was also a spiral-bearing hangover from the seventies featuring what could only be described as heliotrope, several smaller rectangles, and biggest of all, a flat, black rug dotted with hundreds of tiny stars. On top of the rugs was an equally eccentric collection of chairs, lounges, cushions and beanbags in varying stages of decay. Two wooden dining chairs faced a dilapidated, low-slung couch, while a mound of soft, coloured things lay heaped against a dark red armchair so ancient that the leather was cracking and the stitches pulling away from the metal studs.
    In the middle of this disarray sat a round wooden table covered with chipped mugs, either half-full or empty, sticky glasses, ashtrays, a couple of homemade bongs, a scattering of feathers, rocks, shells and small bones, and for reasons better left unsaid, a sheep skull around which someone had seen fit to tie a broad pink ribbon.
    ‘You survived, then,’ said Manx, emerging from behind a column. Despite the silence of it, his arrival wasn't startling: rather, it made Solace feel more at home than if she'd been tiptoeing privately around someone else's house.
    ‘Apparently.’ She cocked an eye to the lounge. ‘Nice rugs.’
    Smiling, Manx sat down on a beanbag and invited her to do likewise. It wasn't clear if he'd been asleep or not – his hair was messy, but not much more than it had been earlier. Barefoot, he'd changed into a mustard-coloured singlet and some faded green cargo pants, which made him look a bit like a cocky lieutenant from a film about Vietnam. Solace glanced upstairs.
    ‘Who else came back?’
    ‘You, Electra, Jess, Evan. And Glide, but he left much earlier than everyone else. Did you meet him?’ When Solace shook her head, he shrugged. ‘Never mind. He's a weird bloke. Probably asleep upstairs. The others went to their place. Places. I mean, some of them live together, but not all.’
    Remembering her conversation with Paige, Solace had a premonition. ‘Out of idle curiosity, which ones?’
    ‘Harper, Laine and Paige. They've got another housemate, I think, but we've never seen him. Why?’
    ‘No particular reason.’ She bit her cheek.
    Manx chuckled. ‘You met Paige, then? That explains it. How she and Laine manage not to kill one another is a source of ongoing speculation. The bigger mystery is how Harper puts up with it. Still, it seems to work. Somehow.’
    ‘Sorry for getting drunk,’ said Solace. ‘I've never actually, you know, with the group home… ’
    Manx waved a hand. ‘Don't worry about it. Evan's usually worse. In fact, we all had a bit too much last night. Electra hasn't stopped snoring. It's like a motorbike rally up there.’
    There was a pause, during which Solace contemplated these sleeping arrangements, blinked, opened her mouth, stared at Manx, and pointedly didn't ask the obvious question.
    ‘No,’ he said, and then, when she raised an eyebrow, ‘seriously. No . We just don't have that many mattresses – good ones, anyway. It's a bit like Dawson's Creek, you know, that show where the characters were always sleeping in each other's beds? Not that I ever actually watched it, and okay, yes, they pretty much did all end up sleeping together, but before that –’ He stopped. Solace was grinning broadly. Manx gave an embarrassed cough and fell silent.
    There was a moment of peace. From upstairs, Solace could hear the drifting sounds of