This was the first time I had had a chance to look around his flat. In the past I would arrive at night and we would stumble blindly to the bedroom in the dark, me leaving to head home once the clock beat us and we had to say good night. The thought shocked me a little because it made me realise just how much of a mystery this man still was to me, yet at the same time I felt I knew every intimate detail of his life.
The apartment was spacious, much too spacious for a single person. And the feeling of emptiness was only exacerbated by the sparse scattering of expensive furniture. The house had the feel of a place not really lived in. If it was not for his jacket and some other clothes hanging on the back of a chair you could have mistaken it for one of those fancy show houses developers furnish to entice buyers to part with their cash. Only the wooden, slightly traditional kitchen had any kind of a homely feel. I guessed it was probably installed by the previous owner, and by the look of it, he didn't use it much. Its little touches of homeliness drew me to it and I sat down at the breakfast table, almost on instinct.
As I looked around at the austere surroundings my mind returned to the mystery that surrounded him. He had never fully explained what he did for a living. He had mentioned something about him "heading up" a legal office of about ten people in the city but that didn't make sense – he wasn't a lawyer and he had told me he had never gone to university. Looking at the furniture around the house whatever it was he did he was paid well for doing it!
I retrieved my phone from my handbag having retrieved it from beside the front door where I dropped it as I entered the night before. It was one of those new "smart phones". Yes, back then smart phones were "new"! I filled the kettle and put it on to boil, intending to make a cup of coffee (if I could find the ingredients in this Marie Celeste of a kitchen). I sat back down at the table, waiting for the water to boil and flicked through some web pages. Maybe it was something subconsciously pushing the idea to my fingers but soon I found myself on a site explaining Tarot. The memory of that night a few weeks ago when I drew the devil suddenly came to mind and I read a small paragraph about the card.
Some phrases almost jumped off the page, "submitting to another", "allowing yourself to be controlled" focus in on the physical and forgetting the spiritual", being taken in by appearances and "foreseeing a bleak future". Panic was rising in my chest when the sound of the kettle boiling made me jump. I switched off my phone, returned it to my bag and made myself a coffee.
I sat back down at the table and took a small sip before placing the cup down. I slowly lost myself in thought – a mix of reflections on him, the night before and the information about the card spun around my head.
Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder that froze me with fear then a whispered voice I knew only too well let the tension evaporate.
"I see you are finding your way around the kitchen" he said, "I like that" he added with a quiet chuckle.
