***
Just after 6pm Ken had announced that he’d better be off as he wouldn’t be able to get home and be sober for when Mandy got home and he didn’t want to have another row with her if he could avoid it. Harry nodded in a knowing way as if he understood exactly what Ken meant, and that he somewhat agreed with him.
Even though wanted to say to Ken that it would probably be better if he were honest with Mandy said that he had been in the pub having a few drinks with friend instead of pretending of pretending that he had just come in from work it would probably be better in the long, Harry said nothing. For one thing saying so would’ve broken some unwritten rule where you agree with whatever a mate says about their partner regardless of whether you agree with it or not. And secondly pointing out someone else’s duplicity while remaining silent about his own unmentioned lies, which were equally about laying the impression of being something he wasn’t, would make Harry a huge hypocrite.
For someone in Harry’s position not liking hypocrites may to some have appeared to be counter intuitive, it was one of the things that Harry clung to that he thought gave him sort of moral fortitude. While he may not always have lived up to such high standards he did try to be consistent, and he tried so he tried to justify his little slip up with Susan.
The moment the door to his pokey little bedsit, Harry rested his back against the door and breathed a sigh of relief. It was almost 7pm and he had gotten through yet another day without any word regarding his illicit encounter with Susan in London and, more importantly, without discovering his little secret. Well it wasn’t so little as to be one of those forgivable secrets that one often kept like not returning a library book or eating the last of the biscuits. This was a big secret that could probably get Harry into a lot of trouble and had resulted in him starting something of a new life that had been ‘born’ no more than two years previously when a beloved part of his previous life had come crumbling down around his ears.
It was one of things that, like a lot of secrets, began small with him trying to step away from the life had known and the friends he had once held dear and start to look into the dark unknown that represented the fresh start he was looking for. That was partly how he had met Ken, Harry had been drinking that same pub he had just come from and then two sort of just bumped into each other. It was busy that day, as Harry remembered, and they had just started chatting about this or that. It soon grew out of that and into a weekly thing.
In all this time Harry never mentioned to Ken what he was hiding, or even that he was hiding anything at all, and tried to reveal just enough of his life before they met to keep Ken from becoming suspicious, but not enough for him to work out Harry’s dirty little secret. In any case here behind closed doors, and away from the prying eyes of outsiders, Harry felt at least a little bit secure in his grotty little bedsit. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to allow him to relax a little bit and not to worry too much about being discovered.
There were times when Harry really hated having to come back to this dive, considering what he had been used to previously, especially since it always seemed to be far too empty and isolated. But there were other times when he felt more relived to be back here and able to close the door on the outside world and be somewhere where only he knew his secret and there was no one around who could find him out.
It wasn’t completely secure of course, being a kind of self-contained room in a larger house that was made up of five other such rooms. Each of which had their own kitchen, for what it was worth being so small there probably wasn’t even enough room to swing a gerbil. While Harry considered not having to share a kitchen with anyone else being a considerable bonus there was one major drawback, all the rooms shared a communal bathroom and a separate toilet that could be used if the bathroom was in use the time of dire need. And at first Harry, being a rather shy and, especially recently, private person had been more than a little nervous of such an arrangement. While there was a lock on the door, there was the no small matter of getting to and from it when he wanted to shower and the like.
But it didn’t take him long to work out the routines of the other tenants and manage to organize himself in such a way that he would be undisturbed as much as possible. Otherwise, it very much suited his needs for the time being, but he would have to find something else if he were to move to London.