I’m perfectly comfortable watching foreign movies because I find that reading subtitles comes naturally. I can breeze through French, Italian, and Spanish TV series without hesitation but must remind myself that I don’t really understand anything at all.

Charlie is French and comes without subtitles, but he speaks English better than most Englishmen. This morning, he is speaking French on his phone, and I suspect that he is  talking to Matis in Lille, and I try to concentrate on what is being said, but the conversation is too fast and animated. I hope that it is Matis because Charlie sounds pissed off with him.

I’m reading Death in Venice by Thomas Mann, and I’m pleasantly surprised that it’s easier to read than people make out. 

“Is everything okay?” I ask Charlie when he finishes the call. 

“Everything is not okay.”

“What’s the matter?”

“That was my brother, Thomas, and he wants to come and stay with us. I do not want him to come, but he insists.”

Charlie rarely mentions his Parisian family and if he does, he speaks of them as though they were part of another story, one that doesn’t concern me. I haven’t heard him speak about Thomas before and I’m intrigued. 

“I didn’t know that you had a brother. Is he older or younger than you?”

“He is two years older than me, but we look very different. He is tall and blonde, but I am shorter and darker.” Charlie brushed a hand through his thick black hair in case I hadn’t noticed. “My grandmother believes he is not my father’s son because he is not like the rest of us. There are no blondes in our family.”

“Your grandmother told you that?”

“She confided in me once.” Charlie slumped on the sofa beside me. “I do not want Thomas to come here.”

“What is he like?”

“Thomas is not artistic like me, in fact the opposite. He is shallow. He likes to have plenty of money and will exploit anybody to make sure he gets it. He is a bad person.”

“What does he do?”

“He has worked in a bar in La Villette since leaving school and has manipulated the owners into letting him manage it. Trust me, he is not a good person.”

“I think it is nice that he wants to come and see his little brother.”

“Putain!” He is jealous and wants to make my life difficult.”

“There is the small problem of where he will stay,” I said,  “because there are only three bedrooms, and it will become very overcrowded.”

“He will be here for two weeks, and he must sleep on this sofa.”

“I suppose he could sleep on the floor in your bedroom.”

“That will not do! I do not want to sleep in the same room as my brother.”

Charlie sat brooding and uttered what I presumed were French profanities.  

“I suppose we could ask Levi if he wouldn’t mind giving up his room for a couple of weeks and stay with his girlfriend.”

“That would not do either. Why should my friend have to give up his bed for my imbecile brother?”

A few months ago, Charlie hated Levi and made the same type of comments about him that he was making about his brother now. Once Charlie had found out that Levi was straight and didn’t fancy him, he had done his best to be nice, almost as if he wanted to be fancied after all.

“There is another solution,”! I said, “Thomas could share my double bed if he didn’t mind sharing with a stranger.”

Charlie was incredulous. “That is a shocking idea,” he cried, “I have never heard anything so ridiculous. You do not know my brother and yet you are offering to share your bed with him.”

“I’m trying to come up with a compromise because the sofa will be a very uncomfortable place to sleep for two weeks.”

Charlie stretched out and appeared to be fixated on the toes of his feet. 

“I have an idea,” he said. “I think it might be better if I give Thomas my bed, and I shall share with you for those two weeks. I’ve slept in your bed once before. Is that satisfactory?”

I didn’t really know what to say, and concentrated on my book again.

“By the way,” he said, “that is a very bad book that you are reading.”

It felt like morning but the room was still dark. Something had made me wake from the strangest of dreams.

There were five lions in the corner of the bedroom, and a man had come to entice them into a cage that he’d brought with him. He told me to cover myself with the duvet while he guided them around the foot of the bed.  

It had been a lengthy process, and once, when I allowed my arm to trail from the safety of the bed, a lion had put my arm in its mouth, unsure as to whether it should bite it off.

The man had prised the arm away and told me to keep it out of sight.

There was only one lion left, and that was when I heard the door to the apartment open and close. I needed to shout a warning to whoever it was, but I was awake now, and the lions had gone.

I checked my phone and it was 7am, and somebody had definitely entered the apartment because I could hear footsteps in the hallway that halted outside the bedroom door.

I couldn’t imagine who it might be because Levi was staying at his girlfriend’s, and Charlie was with friends in Manchester.

The bedroom door opened slightly, and a head appeared around it.

“Are you awake?”

I blinked from the light that shone from the hallway.

“What are you doing back home Charlie?”

“I couldn’t sleep and so I got the first train home.”

“Are you okay?”

“I am fine, but I thought I had better let you know that I had arrived home.”

“Cool,” I said, but I didn’t see any reason why he had to wake me because he could easily have slipped into bed and I would have been none the wiser.

“Are you sure that everything’s alright?”

“I am fine, just a little tired.”

He dumped his rucksack on the floor and came inside . 

“I still don’t get why you’re back so early.”

Charlie parked himself on the bed and looked around the room in the half-light.”

“Are you looking for something?”

“I’m sorry. I did not think and I suddenly realised that you might have somebody here.”

“There’s nobody here, and would it have mattered if I had?”

“No, but I would have been very embarrassed.”

Was my imagination getting the better of me? 

Had Charlie tried to catch me out? Had he deliberately come home early to see if I was sleeping with somebody? 

There was no reason for him to do so because we were both free to do as we pleased.

Charlie stretched beside me and rested his head on the pillow.

“Do you mind if I sleep here?” 

I didn’t know what to say, and Charlie mistook my silence as approval because he closed his eyes and started to drift off.

I looked at my phone and there was a BBC news alert that said that ‘Ukraine’s military was withdrawing its troops from Avdiivka – the key eastern town besieged by Russian forces.’ 

It didn’t mean anything to me, and besides, my mind was preoccupied with more interesting thoughts. 

The idea of going back to sleep seemed implausible. I listened to Charlie’s gentle breathing and remembered a Pet Shop Boys song that went something like

I don’t know why
It always comes as a surprise
To find I’m here with you
You smile and I am rubbing my eyes
At a dream come true

Except the dream hadn’t come true yet, and much as I would have liked to have held him in my arms and protected him, I resisted the urge to do so.

When I woke a few hours later,  the bed was warm, Charlie’s discarded clothes were scattered across the floor and he was curled up asleep underneath the duvet.