Outside Charlie's Flat
She hadn’t known, not really, that she should be able to find it until she was standing in front of the building. There had been an element to pure luck of it; there was no particular reason she ought to have seen the name of his street, and less still to have remembered it. She had not, in the least, intended to note it down; she had not really intended to see Charlie Ewing again.
Yes, of course – he was a competent mechanic. The piece he had installed at the factory continued to work well – unexpectedly well, and although that was naturally due chiefly to the design, that it had been installed at all owed a good deal to Charlie. And, in fact, she was not… entirely sorry to have spent the tenth with him. That was – it wasn’t how she had intended to pass the night, of course. She had sent Adelaide an apologetic note, and had not corresponded further when Adelaide had sent one back inquiring as to how she was feeling.
It was, Chrysanthe felt, cowardly, but she had thought it best to put the entire night behind her. Contemplation of it – of how much she had drank, of the sort of things she had said, of what she had done and where she had ultimately slept – was not in the least wise. Chrysanthe knew a good deal about putting such things aside, and she had thoroughly intended to. The only part which was hard was that she did not quite regret it, not as she knew she should have.
All the same, here she was. It was pure chance that someone was coming out as Chrysanthe went in; he glanced at her, but held the door when she strode purposefully towards it. It clicked shut behind her; Chrysanthe set her hand lightly on the railing of the stairs, and breathed in deeply. Then she began to climb, quickly and steadily making her way up towards the fourth floor.
There was, Chrysanthe reminded herself, every chance he was not home. It was scarcely even evening; she had hurried over, as best as she could, thinking it likelier to catch him now than later. She was sure he spent every evening busying himself with debauchery of one sort of another, except, she supposed, for those he spent ensconced in the deep mechanical workings of processing plants.
Chrysanthe came up to the fourth floor; she knocked, and then, heart pounding in her chest, she knocked again.
Charlie opened the door, and Chrysanthe scarcely gave him time to breath. She held a hand out between them, shears clenched tightly in her fist, and swallowed hard, looking down to meet his gaze across the doorway. “I need your help,” Chrysanthe blurted out. She grimaced, and then went on. “Please.”