1

I remember tossing and turning a long while on the floor before I finally fell asleep, silently cursing Loki and his ability to make me feel like I was an evil overlord forcing him into menial labour. I reprimanded myself – it was exactly the reverse of that, and don't you forget it.

When I woke on Sunday morning, I lay a long while, staring at the ceiling. It was an odd perspective of the sitting room. I began to feel uncomfortable there, like I was nothing more than a speck of dust, fallen on between the cracks of the floor. I got to my knees and stood up, looking around everything. Ah, now that's more human. The door my bedroom was still shut. I had waited a while with Loki's dinner ready on a plate, but at about midnight I had fallen asleep and if he had eaten at all, I hadn't noticed. And I decided I didn't care either.

Let him suffer, the great oaf. He's had it good all this while. Maybe his resentment for poverty would vanish as a consequence of his direct involvement. No, don't say that. This isn't poverty. Sure I wasn't a well-dressed and uptight professor at an uptight school, making extensive use of an expansive vocabulary. But I was a healthy, able-bodied young woman with a mind and spirit to contend with. That would always be good enough.

But is good enough all you ever want from life?

Loki's trickery had far-reaching effects. I would not let it get to me.

Today was the day I did house-calls. It wasn't a routine thing, but some Sundays I would make a little extra money by taking personal requests from the residents of Riverside. It wasn't a very large community, but it was a thoroughly active one. Though the phone lines were down most of the time and not everybody had a car, the inhabitants of the hills had a way of getting things done – me.

I would carry the casseroles from old lady Swindon's house over to her grandchildren on the other side of the harbour, always making it a point to sympathise with her arthritis and her cat Dory, who was blind in one eye. I did the shopping for Mary Auckland, who had had agoraphobia since she was a child – this was often the most extensive process, because she invariably had me bring her load in from the Laundromat and post her letters as well. Mr Holbrooke, an elderly man who lived next to Officer Hank, had me run to the chemist's for his prescriptions every two weeks. It took up most of my afternoon, but I wasn't complaining. I made an honest buck and the people of Riverside were agreeable enough. There was an unspoken contract between my 'clients' and me. I would show up at their door between twelve and four in the afternoon, wheel my truck around to the stores and back and retire for the evening with early dinner and a TV movie.

I glanced at the bedroom door again; things would have to play out slightly differently today.

By noon, I had showered and pulled on a shirt and a pair of jeans that had been hanging on a hook in the bathroom. I knocked on my bedroom door and called for him.

"Loki? I'm heading out. I'll be back in a few hours."

Nothing.

"Do you need anything, mate?"

Silence.

"Fine, bugger off then!" I mumbled, turning to leave. It took me about fifteen minutes to locate the can of oil. I had been too exhausted when I had left it near the bushes at the door. I tipped it carefully into my tank and wiped my hands off on my jeans. I started up the truck and it went slow at first, but it rolled smoothly down to Mrs Swindon's. I pulled out a little notebook from the glove-compartment. It was where I kept track of everyone's demands. It was half-filled with scribbles in green ink. Mrs Swindon handed me a brownie in Clingfilm along with a few bills and a tray of cookies.
"That one's for you, dear." She twinkled at me with grey eyes.
I delivered the cookies on the way to Mr Holbrooke's, where I stood squinting at the prescription for a while before heading down to South Dutton. Traffic was worse than ever and it was nearly five when I returned. The tank would splutter out in a day or two. I pushed open the front door – nobody ever really locked things around here. People at Riverside weren't expecting anyone to be rifting through their personal effects and I had learned to do the same. I pulled my shoes off and carried them to the bathroom to scrub off the dry mud from the soles.

The bedroom door was ajar. Curiously, I crossed the floor in my socks and pushed it fully open.

Loki was seated on my bed, poring over something. There was a box in his lap and a number of papers and photographs in either hand.

"What are you doing?" I squawked, racing in and throwing my shoes aside.
He started and looked up at me.
I wrenched the box from his hand and slapped away the letters and photographs, carrying them to the far side of the window.
"Who told you you could look in there?" I challenged.
Loki rose to his feet, clenching his jaw. "I don't think you're in any position to tell me what I can and can't do."
I was going red in the face like a tomato. The wicked wretch! How could he! So that's what he had been doing with his time. Gathering all my personal information and acting all high and mighty about revealing anything about himself.

I trembled in anger, stuffing my things back into the box.
"You're no longer welcome in this house, Loki."
He was taken aback, "I can see you are upset but-"
"No," I walked out the door. "I'm not going to hear it."
"Paton!" He said sternly, but I was heading for the kitchen. I heard him follow me. Curse him! I should have disposed of these long ago, but like a complete and utter fool, I had stowed them away under the bed, where they lay, a constant reminder of everything I had tried to detach myself from. I had pushed the box deeper and further, but it had been ripped up and opened and its contents left out for me – like a messy cadaver with its insides hanging out. You should've gotten rid of it all.

I was reaching for the stove when Loki spoke softly behind me.

"I have tasted betrayal and it is vile."

My hand tensed over the knob.

"I was cast out by my father because I was useless to him, because I had failed to be the person that had eclipsed his eyes and heart with no effort at all. We're not so different, you and I. I carry my bitterness within me and one day I will act on it, for better or for worse. You seal yours away in a box where you think it can never hurt you. But fate has a way of undoing you, Paton. I understand this."