The Bird Room by Chris Killen Read Free Book Online Page B

shatter like a tower of toppled pint glasses, and everyone will cheer and look over, and even the fruit machines will stop rattling and blinking for a second.
    â€˜Come on,’ she says, trying to get my hand out from under my arse by tugging at my jumper. ‘Don’t be such a coward.’
    And before I can stop myself, I’ve said it. I’ve told her that I’m scared to touch her in case I do it wrong and she doesn’t like it, and I’ve told her that I’m scared she will all of a sudden tell me to fuck off. I’ve told her how I feel like I need written permission before I can become comfortable enough with a person to know they won’t mind me.
    Her smile doesn’t go away.
    Her eyes don’t stop looking sad when she smiles.
    She doesn’t say anything either, but she reaches for her bag and searches around in it and takes out a till receipt. She asks if I have a pen, which I don’t. So she gets up and goes to the bar and comes back with a biro. She turns the till receipt over and writes something on the blank side. She chews her lip a bit as she writes.She hands the receipt to me. In curly black biro it reads:
    To whomever it may concern ,
     I hereby give the bearer of this note
written permission to do whatever the hell
he likes to me and I promise I won’t mind.
In fact, I’ll probably like it quite a lot .
     Very Sincerely ,
     Alice Holborn
    After I read the note I stop sitting on my hands and take a big swig of my pint.
    â€˜You can’t have always been like that,’ she says, squeezing my fingers.
    â€˜I wasn’t,’ I lie.
    â€˜So what happened?’
    I can’t tell her the truth – that I’ve never really had a girlfriend before; that every person I’ve got involved with, I’ve scared away through jealousy and paranoia and the fear that I’ll screw things up. I’m determined to make this work. I will reconstruct myself as a steady, stable and rational human being. I will be whatever she wants me to be. Alice, I’m yours if you want me.
    â€˜I don’t know,’ I say.
    â€˜Sometimes, if you want to do something, you should just do it,’ she says, letting the lights above our table settle and glint in her eyes.
    She sighs. She shuffles slightly. The receipt is in my wallet and my wallet is in the back pocket of my jeans and my jeans are hanging over the chair next to the bed. I move my hand from her hip and put it between her legs from behind. I push my middle finger slowly inside her.
    She doesn’t wake up.
    She doesn’t mind.
    In fact, she probably likes it quite a lot.

We are laughing at the neighbours.
    â€˜Does this happen every night?’ Alice says.
    â€˜Most nights,’ I say. ‘You’ll get used to it.’
    The woman neighbour is making a squealing sound.
    The man neighbour is making a grunting sound.
    â€˜Help me,’ the woman neighbour is saying. ‘Help me. Help me.’
    â€˜How can I help you?’ the man neighbour is saying.
    Then more squealing, more grunting.
    â€˜It sounds like they’re arguing and having sex at the same time,’ I say. ‘A sex argument.’
    This makes Alice laugh. She curls up against me, puts her mouth on my chest and bites softly. I tickle her under the arms and she squeals. She blows a raspberry on my stomach.
    â€˜We should have a sex argument sometime,’ she says.
    â€˜Okay,’ I say. ‘Help me.’
    â€˜How can I help you?’ she says.
    I make a squealing sound and she puts her hand over my mouth.
    â€˜Shh,’ she says, ‘they’ll hear you.’
    Then she makes a loud grunting sound.
    â€˜When I was little,’ she says, ‘when my parents were still in the country, there was this couple next door who argued all the time.’
    She’s never spoken about her parents before. Or her childhood.
    â€˜But that