One Hundred Names (Special Edition)

had ever experienced, to explode. When Kitty finally came out of hiding and opened the door, the floors and walls were black, stained with smoke and her landlord, Zhi Cheng Wong, was standing on the stairs surveying the damage.
    He glared at her angrily and it was only then that she realised she could be held partly responsible for this.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, trying to hide behind the door and pull her T-shirt down lower to protect her modesty. ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘You must stop this.’
    ‘I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m sorry. It will. You won’t even know this ever happened. I’ll make sure it’s all cleaned and painted. Promise.’
    He barely stayed till the end of her sentence and went back downstairs to work. Kitty found it an odd time to wonder when he ever slept.
    Fully dressed and still shaking from head to toe, she downed three cups of camomile tea and sat at her kitchen table, jumping at the sound of everything around her. It was 3 a.m., it was still pitch-black outside and she was absolutely terrified. She called Sally, whose phone was off, and then she phoned Steve.
    ‘Can I stay with you tonight?’ she asked, her voice still shaking.
    ‘What’s wrong?’ He was suddenly awake.
    ‘I’m fine,’ she said, trying to be strong. ‘It’s just another stupid joke. Firecrackers. Outside my door. The place is a mess and Zhi wants to kill me but I’m fine. It’s no big deal. Actually, I should probably stay here – it’s not as if they’re going to come back –
but—’
    ‘Uh shit, did they hurt you?’
    ‘No, I’m fine, honestly, I’m fine. I’m just a little shaky.’
    ‘You need to call the guards.’
    ‘No, I can’t do that.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘I just can’t.’
    ‘Okay. Fuck. Okay. Well, there aren’t any spare beds here, everyone’s home.’
    ‘What about the couch?’
    ‘They’re not like the other guys I shared with, Kitty, they’d go mad if they found you on the couch. We have fucking house rules here.’
    ‘Oh. Well, what about the one in your room?’
    ‘No. Eh. No. Em. Can’t really do that.’
    ‘Stevie, who’s that?’ Kitty heard a groggy voice in the back-
ground.
    ‘Oh, of course, I’m sorry. Katja is there. How silly of me. I’m fine, Steve, I’m sorry for disturbing you, I shouldn’t have called, I just—’
    ‘Kitty, shut the fuck up for a second and let me think,’ he snapped.
    She shut up.
    ‘Okay. Come over here. You can sleep in my room. Katja and I will go to her place, okay?’
    She heard Katja say something, then the phone was moved and a muffled conversation continued in the background.
    ‘Yeah, that’s what we’ll do,’ Steve said into the phone. ‘Come on over here.’
    ‘I can’t let you do that, Steve, I don’t want to kick you out of your own house.’
    ‘Well, have you any other ideas?’
    She hadn’t. She hadn’t had a good idea for over six months; she was all out. She couldn’t call Bob. He would be distressed enough as it was without her landing on his doorstep. Sally wasn’t answering her phone and she didn’t want to just turn up at 3 a.m. when she had a husband and an eighteen-month-old child asleep. Kitty’s family were hours away in Carlow and she had never gone home crying to them over anything. She contemplated a booty call to Richie but very quickly changed her mind. Steve was all she had right then, her only option.
    ‘Okay,’ she whispered.
    It was not how she’d planned their first meeting: Kitty red-eyed and exhausted at 3.30 a.m.; Katja, clearly exhausted from being woken in the middle of the night and then tossed onto the street by some idiot woman who was a friend of her boyfriend’s, though she still had enough energy and politeness to hide whatever anger she was feeling and replaced it with a sympathetic look. They were whispering at the foot of the stairs, barely a conversation, just a handover of a bed.
    ‘You okay?’ Steve asked.
    ‘Yes, I’m so sorry about this.’
    ‘It’s fine. I’m not sure when I’ll be back tomorrow so …’
    ‘I’ll let myself out early, they won’t even know I was here. I’m really sorry about this.’
    ‘If you see Alice and Dave, don’t tell them anything. It’s none of their business. Tell them I’ll talk to them later.’
    ‘I won’t see anyone, I’ll be gone before they’re awake. I’m so sorry about this.’
    ‘Okay,’ Steve quietly opened the door. It made a difference from his other rental properties, where coming and