The Room on the Second Floor by T A Williams

but that doesn’t prevent me from having interests outside of Mercator’s projection. Besides, my mum was Catholic, so we had a calendar with the saint’s names on each day.’
    ‘I’d like to meet your mum.’
    ‘You’d what?’ This was unexpected. Not unpleasant, just unexpected. ‘You really want to meet my mother?’
    ‘Yes.’ The comment had just come out by itself, but, on mature reflection, he didn’t see why not. ‘I mean, things are sort of serious between us now. You know, moving in together and so on.’
    She took a sip of wine. This was certainly not what she had been expecting. But if that was what he wanted… ‘If you’re sure, I’ll give her a call. She will be delighted.’
    ‘Besides, it’ll be good to see what she looks like. It’ll give me an idea of what to expect when you are old, wrinkly and grey.’
    ‘You always were a charmer, weren’t you?’

Chapter 12
    Back in Toplingham, the big seduction, as Duggie had put it, was not going swimmingly. Roger, at Linda’s request, had brought Jasper with him. As he had chosen to walk the two miles to her flat, both of them had arrived in a state of near exhaustion. The distance had not been the problem. Jasper the dog was tired out after non-stop sniffing and peeing. Roger arrived with his arms half pulled out of their sockets by the vast strength of the animal. Jasper’s idea of walking to heel was to drive forward for all he was worth, while Roger desperately hung on behind with both hands.
    No sooner had they arrived, than they both collapsed. Roger dropped onto Linda’s new sofa, Jasper onto the antique Tabriz rug, left to her by her grandfather. Roger slumped back, almost horizontal. Linda poured him a glass of carefully chilled Chablis and looked on anxiously. He gulped it down and accepted another. In his laidback position, he seemed about to spill it at any moment.
    ‘At least it’s white wine,’ she told herself. She was also worried about the dog. It was surely only a matter of time before Jasper recovered his strength and decided to chew a hole in the fine and very precious rug. Add to this the fact that the new cooker needed constant watching to avoid the cottage pie burning to a crisp and Linda was not her normal calm self. She felt flustered and frumpy.
    Roger thought she looked gorgeous. She had tied her hair up, and it accentuated the curve of her neck down to her shoulders. She was also wearing earrings, something he had never seen on her before. Another few glasses of this excellent wine and he would definitely tell her so. He swigged back a large mouthful. Linda felt conflicting emotions. On the one hand, less wine in the glass would make less of a stain if he did tip it on the rug. On the other hand, she had rarely seen him drink more than a glass of wine before, and this was already his second. Nevertheless, her sense of hospitality forced her to offer him a drop more, all the same.
    ‘Do help yourself to more wine, if you’d like some, Roger.’
    At that moment, the ringing of the timer had her rushing back to the cooker. When she returned with the news that dinner was served, she was concerned to see that he had taken her up on her offer. He was sporting a nearly full glass.
    ‘Fantastic.’ He looked happy. ‘I am so hungry I could eat a horse.’ With this he drained the whole glass and leapt to his feet. He startled the dog as he stumbled dangerously close to the bushy black tail. However, to her relief, he avoided any of the obstacles between him and the dinner table. As she turned to pull the dishes out of the oven, she heard him thump down on his seat. This was closely followed by an even louder thump as Jasper dragged himself closer to his master before collapsing once more on the floorboards with a loud sigh. She spared a thought for the inhabitants of the flat below. Then she remembered with considerable relief that they were away on holiday. The other bit of good news was that the dog and the Tabriz