Upperkirkgate Chapter Four: The Houses That He Makes Last Till Doomsday, Part 4

They had arrived at the house containing Jack’s flat. The garden was overgrown, the gate rusted. A cracked sundial had pride of place in the centre. Jules wandered up to it, an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He patted his pockets for a lighter.

     “Here,” said Jack, who carried one for such eventualities and for open-air concerts he never got around to attending.

     “Thanks.” Jules exhaled, and returned the lighter. He kicked at the weeds.

     “Serena gave me dandelions,” said Jack, staring at the persistent heads. “My first girl at school. She was only eight. She wasn’t to know the difference.”

     “Between?”

     “Flowers. Weeds. Much the same in some ways. A question of roots.”

     “A rose by any other name-“

     “Hey, I cornered the market in Shakespeare quotes, thank you. I’ve heard that one too often.”

     “Okay, I was just trying to focus on what you were saying.” The day grew fainter, long shadows sliding up the granite face of the house like covetous fingers, stealing the light, strips of the sparkling stone showing in between, hard as the frozen ground. Jules inspected the cracked granite sundial. “Not sure if I’ve seen this before.”

     “But you have been here before.”

     “Time passes me by. Tempus fugit, and all that. The shadow’s sort of fallen into the crack, it says twelve o’clock when it should be half past one.”

     “There’s a good excuse to be late. Are you coming in for lunch?”

     “Might as well.”

     “I’m sure I’ve got a Pot Noodle somewhere.” Jack fumbled in his pocket for his door key, fingers awkward in the cold. Jules stubbed out his cigarette, leaving it in one of the pavement cracks. They went inside. The darkness of the hallway seemed to swallow them up. The shadows on the sundial spilled onto the ground, the point of the “needle” falling into the void between twelve and one. From there, a long accusing finger of a shadow ran up the face of the building, up to the window of Jack’s room.