Glancing out the window of the flat, Linden thought that London looked inviting today--vaguely overcast, but with the sun shafting through frequent breaks in the clouds. Bo should have had no trouble making his way into the city, and despite the irritating reason for their meeting, Linden was looking forward to it with more than a little anticipation. He was also going to be quite late if he didn't start walking, and so he closed the curtains against the weak sunlight and pulled on his coat as he navigated the narrow hallway.
He paused for a moment at the door to the sitting room and peered inside. The flat was a small and boxy thing, just two bedrooms, a sitting room, a single washroom and a kitchen. His mother had nevertheless succeeded in filling it past capacity with knick-knacks and clothing and playbills. Just now, Anne Jinxsley was sitting in her usual saggy chair of red velour, her spectacles hanging around her neck, yesterday's Times held perhaps half an inch from the tip of her nose. Bing Crosby sang smoothly over the radio set on a stool beside her chair. She paid Linden no mind, and he turned and eased open the outside door.
"You're going out," Anne said, in a tone laced with subtle hurt. "You're barely here a month, and you're always going out. I barely see you while you're here."
Linden drew in a breath before looking at her over one shoulder and summoning up a smile. "That's not true. I promised to meet someone. And I was home last night." Anne frowned at him over the top of the newspaper, and her lips tightened just enough that Linden had to suppress a flinch. "And the night before," he said.
"It's exactly true." The hurt in her voice adopted a edge of petulance. "I can't imagine why you wouldn't want to spend a little time with your own mother, Linden."
Exasperation triumphed over good sense. "Probably because we'd run mad after a day or three of sustained company?"
"That's terrible to say."
Only terrible because it was true, Linden suspected, but he had no intention of arguing the point. "Back before you have time to miss me," he said instead, and he slipped out the door to the punctuation of his mother's derisive snort.
He locked the door securely behind him, and with a flick of his wand, he took the extra precaution of fastening the chain on the inside. Anne would never do it herself, but Linden could endure accusations of paranoia so long as he felt she was safe. Glancing at his watch, he swore under his breath and took the stairs two at a time down to the first floor, where he headed out to the street and let the door swing shut behind him under its own momentum. Fortunately, the shop at which he had agreed to meet Bo wasn't far, and within ten minutes' brisk walk he had turned the last corner and could see the sign of the place at the end of the block. He was scarcely five minutes late, all in all, and he hoped that Bo knew him well enough by now to forgive him.
