The Great Escape by Fiona Gibson Page A

in it at all. She’s glad, too, that Spike didn’t come. He still tends to slip into flirt mode, his default setting with women, which might have been vaguely charming when he was in his mid- or even late-thirties, but is less endearing at forty-eight. In fact, although Lou’s wide circle of girlfriends know him well, and aren’t averse to bantering lewdly with him, she worries sometimes that he might be starting to come across as a slightly creepy middle-aged man.
    On a whim, Lou had two Bloody Marys, which have made her feel pleasantly woozy as she takes the walkway along the river before turning up into the slightly grubbier neighbourhood where she and Spike live. But as she steps into the hallway, before she’s even climbed the narrow stairs to their flat, she senses her joie de vivre ebbing away. She inhales a vaguely unsettling scent of something germy and festering. The smell leads her into the flat where her boyfriend is curled up on the living room rug, the gas fire flickering its feeble orangey glow. Some old black-and-white sci-fi movie is on the TV with the sound down, and the rug is strewn with crumpled tissues.
    ‘Hi, love.’ Lou bobs down to plant a kiss on the top of his head. ‘It’s a gorgeous spring day out there. D’you really need the fire on?’
    ‘Yeah. I’m feeling kind of shivery.’ To demonstrate, he shivers dramatically.
    Lou straightens up and observes him. Spike has constructed a sort of nest for himself on the floor with the sofa cushions, plus her fluffy pink dressing gown, which he’s bunched up and fashioned into a fat pillow. ‘Maybe you should get out, have a walk or something,’ she suggests. ‘It’s really stuffy in here. No wonder you feel awful.’
    He looks at her with mournful eyes and dabs his nostrils with a wet tissue. ‘I don’t really feel well enough for that, Lou-Lou.’
    She frowns. ‘You seemed okay when I left. Just had a bit of a sniffle, didn’t you?’
    ‘Yeah, well, it’s more than that now. It’s a lot worse than that.’ He delves under her dressing gown where, much to her consternation, he seems to be storing yet more tissues, like a squirrel secreting away nuts for the winter months. Lou glances around the newly-appointed sick bay. Their flat is shabby, and bits have started to ping off the Ikea shelves. There’s a fine layer of dust on the TV screen, and the wicker newspaper rack is overflowing with ageing papers. Clearly deciding that Lou isn’t being nearly sympathetic enough, Spike picks up a tatty paperback, finds his page and holds it open at arm’s length.
    ‘I don’t know why you don’t get reading glasses,’ Lou offers, carefully sidestepping the collection of abandoned mugs.
    ‘Because I don’t need them,’ he mutters.
    ‘But you do! If I needed them, I’d just go out and get a pair. What does it matter? No one’s going to see, it’s not as if you’d have to wear them out if that’s what you’re worried about …’
    ‘I don’t need glasses,’ he retorts, shutting the book.
    ‘I just mean reading glasses. They’re really cheap. Poundland have them for …’
    ‘A quid. Yeah, I know! You’ve mentioned it before, many times.’
    God, have I? Lou thinks. Have I turned into the kind of person who goes on about reading glasses in Poundland?
    Several sneezes in succession curtail the discussion, and Lou throws him an exasperated glance. Perhaps she should mop his fevered brow and make him a mug of fresh tea to join the extended family of cold, half-finished teas that are dotted around him. But she picked up the Sunday papers on her way home and, rather than read them here, surrounded by snotty tissues and germs, she fancies perusing them as she takes a bubble bath instead.
    ‘D’you need anything, hon?’ she asks.
    Spike shakes his head, clearly still smarting over his eyesight being called into question. ‘No thanks. I’m fine .’
    As she runs her bath, relieved to get away from him, Lou mulls over Hannah’s