The meanest Flood

full-length mirror on the back of the wardrobe door. Not an ounce of fat on him; all muscle and bone. Those black hairs on his chest and forearms and on his thighs and legs. He half-turned to see the same hair spread over his back, glistening across his shoulders. He adjusted his lunch-pack inside the skimpies, enough in there to keep a harem happy. Or a convent if they wanted a holiday from chastity.
    What he’d planned was to get to Kitty’s house around 9, 9.30, by which time she’d have dolled herself up and be waiting on the doorstep. They’d drive over to Harrogate and have breakfast in one of the posh cafes there. Then they’d shop, which was what Kitty liked to do more than anything else. They’d spend a couple of hours wandering round buying new clothes, whatever took the woman’s eye. She’d see he wasn’t a skinflint, which was the reason she’d got rid of her last boyfriend, and she’d see he had some earning power. That he could earn legitimate money from the milk-round, didn’t need to go back to a criminal lifestyle.
    She already knew he was a good lover, that he could get to the parts the other guys in her life couldn’t reach. And she’d got to him, too. The only woman he’d ever met who had made him sit up and think. The one woman who had made him change his way of thinking about the world. Ruben had always said that he was number one, that no one else even came in close second. But now that he’d met Kitty Turner he no longer thought like that. She was number one and Ruben was prepared to do anything for her.
    He put on his leather strides, sky-blue socks and new black slip-ons. He found his way through the packaging of a white polyester Double Two shirt, removed the pins and plastic clips and slipped it on. A silk tie the same colour as his socks and a brown suede jacket with his snake-skin wallet in the inside pocket made Ruben feel like the master of the universe.
    He was out of the door when he had another thought and rushed back to the bathroom to hit the Brut for the second time since leaving the shower.
    He left his flat on the Lenton Boulevard and nosed the Skoda into Derby Road, then south to Clifton, over the river and on to the quiet avenue where Kitty should have been waiting for him. He parked outside the house, watching the front door, expecting her to open it and step down the path to join him in the car.
    Nothing.
    Ruben looked at the upstairs curtains. Maybe she’d slept late and wasn’t ready yet? Was that a wave from behind the nets or a trick of the light? His mind juggling with reality?
    He drummed his fingers on the leather cover of the steering wheel, furrowed his brow and leant back in the seat.
    Expectations fuck you up. You can look forward to something so much that you believe it’s a reality before it has happened. That time he walked out of Long Lartin he expected to see a woman waiting for him with some wheels, but he ended up walking the six miles to Evesham station by himself, travelled back to Nottingham by train. The woman had left with a Londoner, guy still in his twenties. She was the gonest little girl in town.
    But Kitty was different. She’d be out in a minute. This was a woman’s privilege, that’s what his mother used to tell him, way back, when he was still in shorts. Being late. They had this idea it set up anticipation in the guy, made them look better because he’d been waiting. Got his juices going so he couldn’t see straight.
    But what if Ruben had let expectation take over again and Kitty was out on the town with some other guy while he was sitting here outside her house? How would he handle that? Ruben shook his head. He knew he wouldn’t handle it well. He wouldn’t have the normal, expected reaction that society took for granted. He wouldn’t shake his head and carry on as if nothing had happened. He wouldn’t stomach it. There’d be violence involved. Some blood.
    Christ, this was what happened if you let the inside of your head take over. Ruben had known it all along, not to entertain the thoughts. Get them out. Keep moving. He opened the car door and stepped on to the tarmac, walked up the path to her front door.
    It was locked, but he had a key and she hadn’t changed the lock. See? You blame the woman and she’s done nothing. She’ll be upstairs at the mirror. Ruben didn’t shout her name. He knew she was there because of the smell of her. When you entered the house that scent that accompanied her everywhere