'Briarwood' - Sleeping arrangements

I said my brother’s house had four bedrooms – well it has but:

1) Hector and Myra no longer sleep together. (The tall Swede casts a long shadow) – so there goes two bedrooms!
2) Hector has turned the spare-room into a ‘den’. A den! Where does he think he is: Illinois?
3) That leaves one bedroom (referred to as the ‘guest room’ – though they never have any guests), with a double bed; and when we arrived Carole was asleep in it


Well, I had no intention of sleeping with my brother (too many childhood memories – and anyway, he didn’t offer), and I felt that I did not know Myra well enough – at least not yet.

Oh, and another thing about my new landlady: I have described her as a globular person. But when, in the living room, she began to divest herself of her motorcycling kit, a transformation took place. As layer after layer was shed, she got smaller and smaller. It was like the Hendon version of one of those Russian dolls. Finally emerging from her leather shell, she stood on the hearthrug – a diminutive creature, not exactly a doll but pleasing to the eye, nonetheless. My spirits perked up. But when I learned that I must spend tonight on a blow-up mattress thing, adjacent to the fish-tank, they dipped again.

Carole, awakened by the noise we were making, woke up and entered the room in a dressing gown (it looked suspiciously like one of my brother’s). When I acquainted her of my having to sleep on the floor, I thought she might have said ‘Oh, you can’t be doing that – not with your back. Come and share with me.’ But she didn’t.

Now, everyone has retired to their warm, comfortable beds, whilst I lie here in the phosphorescent green glow of Hector’s aquarium, my head resting on that raised up bit of the air-bed that serves as a pillow, alone with my thoughts: We are buffeted by the winds of fate, thrown together like pebbles on a beach tossed about by an indifferent sea.

I draw Myra’s duvet closer around me. It smells of pipe tobacco! – Odd.