Only a Monster(Monsters #1)(3)

‘Ruth!’ Bertie complained. ‘I cooked those mushrooms.’

‘Mmm—mmm—’

Gran’s dry voice sounded from the stairs. ‘Do I want to know?’ she said.

‘Anyway, got to go!’ Joan said, before the whole family could start up. ‘I’ll see you later.’

And now Uncle Gus and Aunt Ada were coming down the stairs behind Gran. ‘Go where?’ Uncle Gus said.

‘She has a date!’ Ruth called to him.

‘Wait, I want to hear about this!’ Aunt Ada called back.

Joan fled the kitchen. ‘Talk to you later!’ she yelled from the hallway.

‘A date with who?’ she heard Ada ask the others.

‘That boy she has a crush on!’ Ruth said.

Bertie belted out in song: ‘She’s going to kiss her summer crush in front of the medieval textiles!’

Joan cracked up. ‘Bye! Goodbye!’ she shouted, and shut the door.

She was still smiling as she walked up Lexham Mews. She turned onto Earl’s Court Road and then Kensington High Street. It had been a warm summer, and the hazy air promised another hot day.

A message from Nick popped up just as Joan got to the café: I’m on the Tube! Joan took a deep, happy breath. He was running early too—less than fifteen minutes away. She bit her lip. She still couldn’t believe she was about to spend a whole day alone with him.

She got a cup of tea at the counter and took it over to a table by the window. Sun streamed in, warm against her face. She went to message Nick back, and as she did, she felt a rush of air as the door opened behind her.

There was a thundering crash then that would have caused an eruption of jeers in Joan’s school lunchroom. Joan turned, along with the rest of the café.

A man was standing in front of an upturned table, eyes wide and bewildered. Bits of broken plate and glass lay strewn over the floor. He blinked down at the mess, as if he thought someone else had made it. ‘I want to buy flowers,’ he mumbled.

A waiter near Joan groaned. ‘Not this again.’ He raised his voice to one of the other staff members. ‘Ray, get the vacuum out! That drunk’s back!’ To the man he said, wearily: ‘You can’t get flowers here. I keep telling you. There hasn’t been a florist here for years.’

Joan stood slowly. She’d recognised the man. ‘Hey, he isn’t drunk,’ she told the waiter.

Mr Solt was Gran’s neighbour from up the road. Last week, he’d wandered into Gran’s house in this same confused way. His daughter Ellie had been in tears when she’d arrived. He has dementia, she’d said to Gran. It’s got so much worse since Mum died last year. He doesn’t even know what year it is half the time.

‘Mr Solt?’ Joan went over to him, her shoes crunching on broken glass. There was glass everywhere. Mr Solt was wearing soft slippers; inside them, his feet were bare. He must have walked all the way from his house wearing them.

‘Where’s the florist?’ Mr Solt’s face creased in confusion. He was a big man in his seventies—bald, with hulking shoulders. Right now, though, he was all hunched up like a little boy. He looked like he wanted to cry.

Joan tried to coax him back from the glass. ‘Why don’t I call Ellie?’ she suggested to him. ‘She can get you some flowers, and you can go home.’ She glanced at her phone. Nick would be here in around ten minutes. ‘It’s all right,’ she said to the waiter over her shoulder. ‘I’m going to call his daughter.’

She touched Mr Solt’s arm, tentative, and, to her relief, he allowed her to guide him away from the glass and out the door.

Outside, it was a sunny day with a rare cloudless blue sky. It was early enough that most of the shops on Kensington High Street were still closed.

‘Let’s find you somewhere to sit,’ Joan said to Mr Solt. But when she looked around, she couldn’t see any benches. She settled for the strip of wall between the café and the bank next door. ‘Do you want to lean against the wall while we wait?’ she suggested. Mr Solt blinked at her. ‘We’re going to wait here,’ Joan explained. ‘I’m going to call Ellie, and we’re going to wait for her.’

Mr Solt stood there, still staring down at Joan without expression. Joan felt a strange sense of unease then. Something terrible was about to happen, she thought, and then wondered why she’d thought it.

‘Mr Solt?’ she said.

He staggered, and his hands shot out, grabbing Joan’s shoulders. She jerked back instinctively, and his heavy grip tightened.

And then it was weirdly like they were scuffling, even though Mr Solt was only trying to get his balance back.

Joan looked over her shoulder, trying to see through the café windows, but she was angled away, closer to the bank. A motor vroomed tinnily to life from inside the café. A vacuum cleaner. Joan looked the other way—the way Nick would walk up. But Kensington High Street was emptier than she’d ever seen it.

Mr Solt bore down on Joan’s shoulders. Joan’s legs shook with the effort of holding him up. She was ridiculously reminded of the time she’d tried to take the mattress off her bed and had collapsed under its weight. She’d had to shout for Dad to get it off her, and he’d laughed so hard afterward he’d had to hold on to the door frame.