Lifeboat

11. Bad Coffee

When I woke up I found myself alone. I found a bowl of water, facecloth, towel and fresh clothes waiting for me.

After making sure the door had been shut firmly, I tore off the horrible dead man's outfit, the one I'd had to put up with for far too long, and washed in the cold water.

I held the new clothes up to the fading daylight, assessing them for suitability. Oh, who was I kidding? Anything would be better than what I had on before. I'd been given a long, denim coloured shirt, which could pass as a dress, and a pair of black leggings, trainers and underwear. At last.

Once I had dressed, I pulled out a piece of cord from under the mattress and wrapped it around my waist as a makeshift belt. It created an illusion of shape to my loose outfit. It smelt so good. Soap and sunshine. Wonderful.

I breathed happily as I made my way through the door and down the stairs to rejoin the others in the kitchen.

As I strolled through the door, I instantly got the feeling that something was wrong. The look on Dante's face, as he paced around the table, told me that I had intruded on a delicate moment for us as visitors.

"Can you at least give me a reason?"

Dante did not look happy. He spoke with his chin pointed upwards, his back rigid, hands clasped firmly behind his back. His newly shaved face revealed his bone structure to be finer and more classically handsome than it had appeared before under the beard growth. His still wet hair was slicked back in a man bun.

The badly-wigged woman answered, her voice low and without emotion. She spoke in surprisingly good English.

"You have to pass through to the next colony, it's as simple as that."

I watched as Dante continued his relentless pacing, seemingly determined to get to the bottom of the situation, by foot or reason, one way or the other. He didn't look at the female Neighbour while he questioned her.

"Is it true that you've invited the seventh colony guards here this evening? Am I to believe that we have been used for your own purposes rather than given the sanctuary that we sort out?"

His words had a kind of sharp edge to them that led me to believe that things were not going the way he'd planned or hoped.

Marco sat at the table with the other, male Neighbour. They simultaneously ate slices of pizza and laid down cards to some ridiculous version of the game of snap. Marco watched Dante intently, humouring his opponent in the card game with the odd grunt of defeat or sniff of victory.

Dante ceased his pacing and came to a stop an arm's length from where I stood in the doorway. He suddenly realised my presence in the room and flashed me a smile, his face broke into sunshine itself.

"Ah! Miss Poll. Could I ask you to please implore these good people to see the error of their ways and give us a chance - or at least a few minutes - to get ourselves out of the building and away before these bad excuses for human beings arrive here?"

"That depends," I answered cheekily. "What bad excuses are we talking about exactly?"

I pulled up the chair next to Marco, I could smell that he'd also had a wash and a change of clothes.

Dante went over to the cooker and flicked the switch to heat up a coffee pot.

"Well, I don't suppose you would be aware of this, but, once a welcome guard is reported dead, the local spies are contacted. So that means our lovely hosts here will very soon be swamped with agents."

I had no idea how I should answer to this, so I muttered back;
"Oh. That can't be good."

"No, little tyke," Dante sighed as he watched the steam rise from the boiling pot spout. "I can't see that it is." He poured out five small cups of coffee and carried them on a tray to the table. "There!"