Jenny Valentine - The Ant Colony

Mick said to nobody in particular, “Why are we here?”

I didn’t know if he meant there, in Isabel’s room, or in London, or even alive, and I had no idea of how to answer him.

I got up and tried to see out of the windows. There was a spiral staircase down to a tiny yard, like five hay bales side by side. There were window boxes crammed with rainbashed petunias. Inside, Isabel’s sofas matched the curtains and the carpet was a pond-weed green. There were a couple of paintings on the walls, of ships and insipid landscapes, and they might have some value to an old lady, but they didn’t mean anything to me. The most interesting thing in the room by a mile was a clay head on top of a bookcase, a peaceful man with a wide nose and closed eyes. I liked the tight curl of his hair, the fingerprint marks of the hands that had made him on his skin.

Isabel came back with the drinks and sat down in the chair next to Doormat. I stayed standing until she told me to stop it and then I knelt on the floor.

There were crisps in a bowl on the coffee table. I didn’t eat that many because the sound of them was too loud in my head and I didn’t want to fill the room with crunching. Mick was on to them like only he knew it was the last meal in the building. Little bits of crisp littered his beard like dandruff.

Isabel said there were more in the kitchen and he should go and get them.

Mick looked like his bones were melting. “Can’t the new boy do it?”

“No, he can’t,” Isabel said. “And his name is Country.”

I wanted to leave. “My name is Sam,” I said, but nobody took any notice.

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