Brick by Brick

Part Eight

Chapter Eight

Joel found an ironic sense of familiarity sitting at the dining table, tucking into yet another delicious meal provided by Sammy.

"This is happening too often, isn't it? Me turning up late, you looking after me."

She was across the room folding small clothes, vests, pyjamas, t-shirts, all in a different shades of pink and pastels. The news was on the TV, but the sound was muted, instead Sammy was listening to some eighties music, the twanging base guitar line was almost iconic. She looked up at him, her dark hair a veil until she pulled it back to sit behind her ear.

"I didn't realise how much I missed company. It's quite nice having company."

He digested that for a moment as it was a stark contrast to the 'what do you want?' that had greeted him when she opened the door.

"You didn't seem that pleased to see me." He ventured watching her response closely, and even from the opposite side of the room he could see her flinch. Placing down his cutlery he crossed his arms, "was someone here earlier?"

She nodded slowly, "Daniel, trying to force me to go to this damned party."

He nodded slowly his blood boiling at the thought of that man stressing her, "did he threaten you? Did he hurt you?"

She laughed at that, "hurt me? Don't be stupid, I just threw him out!"

Laughing he reached for his cutlery again, "good girl. You going to go?"

Lifting the pile of folded washing she moved across the lounge before replying, "there is no way that they are getting their hands on my little girl. So I'm hoping that IF I go, Corinne will come and look after Eleanor. But she works...I don't want to go anyway."

"Janet will always do it you know, she was quite taken with her the other week."

Sammy was staring at him when he looked up, "she barely knows me."

"She likes you, and she liked Marcus."

There he was again bringing a wave of sadness to the room, would they ever get over losing him? Sammy gave s sad smile then disappeared into one of the other rooms with the washing. Joel turned back to his food with a sigh.

It was a surprise that his name still caused such a stilted atmosphere to develop between them, because the place was a shrine to his best friend, every surface held a photo of the couple on their honeymoon, or walking in the park, there was even a picture of him and Marcus taken a few years earlier on that fateful trip to Greece. He smiled at the memory. How they'd needed that trip. Marcus was reeling after being dumped by a woman who no way deserved him, he just glad to get free, to get away from the greyness of the city.

Originally they'd planned to fly to one island, Crete or maybe Corfu and stay there for two weeks chilling in the sun, but as always Marcus' wicked sense of adventure had taken them on a long trip with a chain of ferry journeys moving them from one island to catch a second from its destination until they'd literally hopped to his chosen one. Which had been the one he'd seen in a magazine article featuring the best nudist beach in Europe. Joel had groaned at his enthusiasm to visit it, he was no prude, but he wasn't the exhibitionist that his friend was. He'd envisaged a little culture, a little more than sea, sand and copious amounts of beer. Now there was another element to add to the equation and it made Marcus alive.

As expected it was a disappointment, the only people who'd made a trip to the island to appreciate the natural living it advertised were a selection of middle aged Europeans, some stoned hippies and a group of eight Americans who were on their gap year. The beautiful and plentiful youth that in the mind of Marcus had morphed into some sort of orgy never panned out.