ME & THE MONSTER

Yeah, people-watching wasn’t a patch on shower-screaming.

But it was interesting anyway. Anna Harris, a waitress at the Rose Café in Central London, prided herself in having become an expert on it over the years.

There wasn’t much to do that morning in the café. She’d already washed and stowed all the dishes away, and she’d just served the only customer, sitting at the corner table by the window.

She was watching him now.

A young man somewhere in his twenties, sipping at a steaming cup of coffee. Black-haired. Attractive, she realised with a start. Very much so. She noticed the graceful way he sat back in his chair, the blush on her colleague Natasha’s cheeks as he smiled at her.

Anna’s overactive imagination – she would’ve wanted to be a novelist – was already spinning. Who was he, she wondered? A film star? A crook, of the charming kind of type? An heir to a huge fortune, maybe. Yes, why not. Or perhaps – just perhaps -- a talented musician?

She wouldn’t have guessed, but only two of those things were true.

*

“Doesn’t it ever bother you, possibly not having enough muscle for the job? You’re only a small chick, after all, Carrows.”

I sighed. Being one of the few female trainee firefighters at the Park Royal Fire Station in London was proving to be no picnic. I’d only been here for a month and I was already discovering the usefulness of developing a sharp tongue, something that, unfortunately, didn’t come to me naturally. But hey, you know what they say. Fake it till you make it.

“Hey, Wilson,” I said between pants. “Doesn’t it ever bother you, very definitely not having enough brainpower? For life in general, I mean, not just for the job. You’re a a big moron, after all.”

Teeth clenched, I did another push-up, my heart hammering with the effort. Being in high physical form was of the utmost importance, now that we’d started the recruits course.

My fellow trainee smirked. Small beads of sweat glistened on the blond stubble of his upper lip.

“Ooh, she’s feisty. Just how I like ’em.”

I rolled my eyes. He didn’t really know me at all.

“Oh, shut up, will you.”

I pushed myself to my feet and jogged towards the next part of the circuit: the racetrack. Wilson was right, unfortunately: I was smaller than the majority of students here.

But I was one of the fastest runners.

That’s the upside of having demonic genes, you see.

“You going to practise for the bleep test?” Wilson called out after me. “You know you’ve got to reach the eight-point-six mark to pass?”

“I know, smart-arse,” I called back. “Not keeping me up at night.”

I’d always excelled at sports in school. I’d joined the after-school athletics club and had won all the races in PE. I collected all the tacky plastic trophies, which I’d proudly arrange on the shelves in my bedroom.

So it made sense when, fresh out of high school, I’d summoned courage and announced to my parents I wanted to enrol in the fire academy.

Let me just say that they hadn’t been too pleased about it.

“Firefighter?” they asked, in dismay. “But – won’t you have to – rescue people? Find lost cats? That sort of thing. Isn’t it too …” -- a hint of embarrassment in their voices --“selfless? We’ve talked through this before, dear. Maybe you should try your hand at something else?”

“Like what?” I muttered. “You don’t want me to be a vet either.”

I’d longed to be a vet since I was eight and my neighbour Sophia had had me over for tea at hers one day after classes. Her elderly Yorkshire terrier Rudolph had sprung off the sofa, knocked down a lamp, and broken his leg.

We’d both burst into hysterical tears and had run all the way to the nearest vet’s. The vet had cleaned the wound and tenderly bandaged the dog’s leg; Sophia had felt dizzy at the sight of blood and had to wait outside, but I’d marvelled at it. I wanted to be like that, I decided. I’d be like that one day, skilled and gentle and wise.

Guess what? My parents said a huge, fat, adamant No.

Mum pointed a finger at me, gun-like.

“That – empathy of yours,” she said, in a low, disgusted voice, as if she were being forced to say a particularly vulgar swear word. “I don’t understand where it’s coming from. We didn’t raise you to be like that, Rae. And please don’t go on repeating those things in public.” With other demons, I guess she meant. “It might cause a few raised eyebrows.”

“You could try politics, perhaps?” Dad suggested. He grinned. “Cheat, steal, lie, repeat. Nice and simple.”

I hadn’t wanted to disappoint them. How could I, when I owed everything to them? I’d duly applied to Birmingham University for a double major in History and Politics, but I’d found it so unspeakably dull I’d dropped out after the first semester.

No, if I couldn’t be a vet, I’d be a firefighter. Much as I loved my family, they’d have to put up with it.

Coach Jenks was now looking out on the racetrack. By his side, hands on hips, moustached, stood Head Fireman Williams.

“Who’s she?” he asked, nodding with his chin. The wind carried his words over, so that I could hear them speaking. “Little redhead over there.”

“Rae Carrows, sir. Good, isn’t she?”

“You could say that again.” He let out a low whistle. “Runs like the Devil.”

*

In a flat on Oxford Street, a young man was trying to slip out of a bedroom undetected.

He picked up his shoes from where he’d left them the previous night and tiptoed through the door. He’d only got as far as the corridor when the floorboards under his feet gave a mighty crack.

Shit.

“Kal?” a sleepy female voice said. “Is that you?”

The man sighed under his breath. He’d forgotten how batlike her ears were. Now he had no option but stay for breakfast, have some godawful stale pancakes and play happy couples. But what she didn’t realise was that he didn’t do couples, and he only played when it suited him.

“Yeah,” he called back, resigning himself. “Needed the toilet.”

He pushed the door open and stepped inside the bedroom again. In the half-gloom he could make out the outline of a girl, curled up on her side. She smiled at him.

“Hey,” she said, and there was a faint whining edge to her voice. “No good morning cuddle this time?”

He flopped down on the crumpled bed beside her, this man somewhere in his twenties with his black hair and lazy drawl. She twisted herself around him. He could still smell himself on her skin.

“Morning, Maddy,” he said.

“Maddy? I’m Tess, nutjob. Maddy is my sister.” She stared at him, a puzzled frown on her face. “I haven’t introduced her to you, have I? D’you know her or something?”

The man paused. Across his mind flitted memories of Maddy’s long hair, long smile and long legs wrapped around his waist.

He said, clear and calm: “Nah. Must have mixed the name up with someone else's, I guess."

Then he threw an arm around the girl and began to hum under his breath, absent-mindedly, in a voice like distant thunder.

It was a beautiful voice, low, rumbling, velvet-smooth.

It was a beautiful voice in which to lie.

“Has nobody ever told you,” she said, snuggling into him again, “that you sing just like an angel?”