She had reached the kitchen door and again I found myself unable to move towards her. If I didn’t look into the room, I could block my mind to the reality. But I couldn’t prevent an image searing itself on my brain: a splatter of tomato across the floor. I’d dropped a tin a few days previously (possibly longer than that). She was only in there a few seconds, but her expression was different when she came out. She didn’t look at me. Perhaps she couldn’t. She rested the tips of the fingers of one hand on the end of her nose. She came towards me, laid her other hand on my sleeve, and exerted a small amount of pressure. She pulled the front door towards her and manoeuvred herself out, into the fresh air, and the hand that remained gestured at me to follow.
‘Let’s go next door,’ she said when we were standing next to each other on the path. ‘Let’s go and have a cup of coffee.’
I knew what she wanted. She wanted to get as far away from my house as she could. She wanted to put distance between her and it. She wanted to remove the smell of it from her skin. But it wasn’t what I felt, despite the incapacitating block of humiliation that was lodged, rigid, in my belly. I felt the shame emanating from the bricks, and I wanted to stay close to my house, to protect it and shore it up, to reassure it.
‘I’ve got things to do,’ I said. ‘I haven’t got time for coffee now.’
She looked over her shoulder and then back at me. The left sleeve of her dress had a smear of dirt above the cuff. She inhaled deeply and said in a rush: ‘I’ll help you. I’m going to help you. Even if we just started with the kitchen, we could make a difference to your quality of life. I’m not sure it’s safe for you to cook in there. I mean do you use those microwaves?’
‘Not yet, but one day I intend to.’
She shook her head. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. Microwave popcorn; I’ve always wanted to try that. And there’s a Sainsbury’s ready meal – Singapore noodles – and it’s the only way to cook it. They only need mending, a part or two.’ I felt suddenly fierce.
‘But if you wanted a microwave you could buy one. I mean, I think you can get them for about thirty quid now. The ones you’ve got in there have been thrown away for a reason. They don’t work. You could electrocute yourself trying to use them. Or set fire to the whole house. It would go up like a tinderbox. And the smell . . .’
When I didn’t respond, she said, ‘Can I ask you, Verity – are the rooms upstairs the same?’
I tried to smile. ‘Same as what? Full of microwaves?’
‘Full of so much stuff.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘No. No. No.’ Her expression said she didn’t believe me. ‘No,’ I said again.
She stared at me, fiddling again with the strings on her dress, twirling them around her finger. ‘It’ll take us no time at all to clear it out. You only have to look at it with objective eyes, and you’ll see when it comes down to it, it’s all worthless. It’s just rubbish.’
‘It’s not just rubbish,’ I said. ‘It’s not worthless. I agree it’s out of hand, but there are books here, documents, things, that I need. Some of these things are precious.’
The pity for my house and my possessions, the loyalty, had strengthened, turned to something rigid like iron. I didn’t care if I never saw her again.
But she took a step towards me then and rested her hands on my shoulders. I don’t know whether it was the smudge on her forehead or the look in her eyes: compassion, kindness. And it turns out that rigid thing wasn’t iron at all because I bowed my head. I think my eyes were tightly closed; I felt a strong surge of motion sickness, as if the earth and the sky were changing places, and whatever compass we hold in the centre of our chests to tell us what is up and what is down was spinning out of control. She said, murmuring, like reassurance, not provocation, almost like a lullaby: ‘You need to want to do it. You need to want to change. It has to come from you. But if you want me to help, I’m here.’
I felt myself sink into her, her hands like struts. If she took a step to one side, I knew I would fall.
She let me rest there for a minute or two. I could hear the street cleaner coming back. And then she tried to pull away, ducking her head to try and look into my eyes. ‘Do you want me to help?’ she said.
And, with the ground unsteady beneath my feet, and her hands still braced against me, all I could do was nod. And when I’d nodded once, it was easier to nod a second time and then a third, and then I found I couldn’t stop.
Chapter Eleven
A tin of Del Monte Peach Slices in Light Syrup, sell-by date APR 2008
Perishable, adjective. Liable to persish; subject to destruction, decay or death. Of a foodstuff or other organic substance: naturally subject to rapid decay.
The following day, I got up, dressed and walked Maudie early: a series of actions determined more by muscle memory than intent. It was warm, the beginning of June, and I sat by the pond, dog at my feet, to delay my return. The water was busy, fanned with ducklings and other fowl. A heron perched over by the reeds on one leg. The male swan swung past on patrol. As I stood up to go home – I could think of no alternative – I noticed in the scuffed grass beneath the bench a small shoe, soft green with a tiny button as a clasp; a baby must have kicked it off. Useless on its own. I picked it up and, though the day was to be quite momentous, when I think back on it, it’s the smooth spongy feel of this shoe in my pocket I think of first.
She had told me 10 a.m. and it was twenty past when I reached my gate. I had dressed smartly, in one of my jacket and skirt arrangements, my own form of armour, but she was clad in a faded navy boiler suit thing not dissimilar, now I think of it, to the protective clothes SOCO later wore to remove the evidence from her house and garden. She was on my front path when I walked up, unravelling some of the tarpaulins and peering underneath.
‘Ah,’ she said, laying down a piece of timber. ‘I thought you’d done a runner!’
I let a beat pass, tried to smile. ‘If only.’
She raised her head, looking at me doubtfully. Her hair was pulled back in a scrunchie and her face without make-up looked pinker than usual, her eyes rounder, less upturned. ‘Listen – all this . . .’ She pointed to the planks, and bicycle wheels underneath. ‘Tom’s right: it’s a fire hazard.’
I clambered past her and put the key in the door. She’d left a red bucket on the step containing bleach, a canister of kitchen spray, black bin bags, newspaper, J-cloths. I stepped over it. I had it in mind suddenly to close the door after me, but I could hear her steps behind, the scrape of the bucket; I smelt a waft of bergamot and lime. I turned sharply. Perhaps it was the new haircut, the uniform aspect of her overalls, or the determined set of her jaw, perhaps it was the weight of the fortnight in which I hadn’t seen her, but it was like being jostled by a stranger, an enemy. I began to try and push the door into her face, but she was stronger than me, and I was restricted by the lack of room in the hall. I minced back a few inches and she managed to get in.
‘We’re not going to do anything you’re not comfortable with,’ she said, shutting the street out.
I took a sharp breath through my nose, feeling myself shudder. The house felt stuffy, thick with warmth, almost solid. A weak light picked out the cobwebs that laced the cornices; in patches the wallpaper had bubbled and blistered. As if through her nostrils, I could smell a rancid sweetness.
‘I know it’s hard.’
I forced myself to nod.
‘The kitchen, then? It’s what we’ve agreed. Yes?’
The restrictions in my throat prevented me from speaking. She waited a few seconds until I managed to move my head, then gave a confirmatory nod and shuffled her way towards the back of the house between the boxes of kitchen equipment on one side and the vacuums and garden furniture on the other.
I followed her and stood in the doorway as she manoeuvred along the gully between the table and the counter, and put her weight into pushing open the back door. The cupboards were full and the table and other surfaces crammed wit
h excess packages and tins. Small electrical appliances – some kettles and toasters, a food mixer, etc – took up a portion of the floor space, and my collection of pots, saucepans and utensils were heaped along the counter and on top of the stove. Food had been left out. The walls were grimy with dirt. The splatter of tomato sauce was, dismayingly, much more extensive than I’d remembered, flooding down the door of the oven, and over the floor and back up across the cupboards.
After taking a few deep breaths at the open door, she put on her rubber gloves, asking if it was OK to make a start on the fridge?
I must have made some sign of agreement, because she filled the bucket with soapy water and unravelled a black bag from the roll and then, kneeling on some newspaper, began to remove items from the shelves. ‘I’m going to throw away anything past its sell-by date, Verity. Is that OK with you?’ An answer seemed not to be needed because, her face half averted, she continued to put food into the bag: a lettuce and a cucumber that just needed the outer layers removed, a packet of butter, and an only half-used tin of Carnation milk; and then, with small clinks, a jar of black olives, and raspberry jam, and anchovy paste, some pickled walnuts, a bottle of mayonnaise, and products I had, in truth, forgotten about, including a green slab which I think, a few months previously, had been a half-price packet of Wiltshire cured ham.
I was trying to breathe. I knew I should be thankful, and yet I was unable to summon up any sense of gratitude. As the bin bag filled, I began to twitch my head, and fidget with my hands, my shoulders knocked against the doorframe and I took a step into the room, my hands gripping the wooden backs of the stacked garden chairs, and then a step backwards. I rolled my foot against the edge of the bottom microwave, pinning it there. I rubbed my hand across my ribcage, to try and still what felt like impossibly rapid movement. I swallowed several times. It had got warmer in the room, despite the open back door. A vegetal, sulphurous smell filled my nostrils.
She washed out the fridge with soapy water and then she sprayed it with Mr Muscle, scrubbing at it with a J-cloth. She put a few things back – a jar of Nescafé, an unopened carton of long-life orange juice. Then she stood up and, without asking, reached over to open the cupboard next to the fridge.
She peeled apart another bin bag, taking some time to rub one end to separate the sides, and began dropping in tins – baked beans, chicken soup, peach slices in syrup.
I pushed forwards and snatched out the tin of peaches. ‘These are fine,’ I said, sharply. ‘There’s nothing wrong with these.’ They were Faith’s favourite. She liked them with Ambrosia Rice Pudding. I’d got both in for her when I thought she was moving back. Ailsa was probably about to chuck that away too. I reached past her and began searching the cupboard.
‘These are all rusty, Verity, past their sell-by date. They’re spoiled.’
I’d found the Ambrosia rice and I held both tins to my chest. ‘You’re being over-zealous,’ I said. ‘No one cares about sell-by dates. They’re just a way to make us buy more things than we need.’
Now I had stood up to her, I felt quite aggressive. ‘I don’t mind you throwing some things out,’ I said. ‘But this is just ridiculous.’
She folded her arms, her yellow rubber hands clamped in her armpits. ‘I understand. It’s part of it, don’t you see? You’re both attached to and overwhelmed by your hoard. You’re fearful of the emptiness associated with clearance. This stuff – you see it as part of you. You’ve used your hoard to avoid confronting emotions that are difficult for you, to funnel anxiety, and it’s hard, Verity. It’s hard. All that anxiety is going to come flooding back. The grief for your mother, the row with your sister. But I’m here and we’ll do it together.’
I didn’t like the way she spoke: the practised use of ‘your hoard’, the overly dramatic repetition of ‘it’s hard’. I didn’t like her bringing my sister into this. She had done some research and was enjoying the sound of her own voice, her intellectual engagement with the subject. She was pleased with her cod psychology, her sense of herself as my redeemer.
‘I can tell you’ve been on Wikipedia,’ I said. ‘What did you search? Hoarding Disorder? I’ve watched the TV shows. This isn’t what this is.’
‘It’s something like that.’
‘It isn’t. I’m not that kind of person. I’m not ill.’
‘No, you’re not. You’re a wonderful, highly functioning individual. I’m sure the reasons for this go deep, way back into your past.’
‘Like what?’
‘You’ve told me about your mother’s anthropomorphism of inanimate objects. I’ve been thinking too about that story you told me. The time you and Faith filled the wardrobe with old men’s clothes – her reaction to that. She was touched and must have been cheered up for a bit but in your eyes the stuff made all her grief for your father disappear. I can see how very early on you associated possessions with keeping emotions at bay. But Verity’ – she gestured to the room – ‘it is a condition. It’s not normal. Isn’t it helpful to know that it’s a psychological disorder, that you don’t have to live like this, that we can do something to combat it?’
‘A “psychological disorder”? Our culture’s obsessed. It’s all a matter of definition, Ailsa, and you can only define something by what society considers “normal”, which is itself contingent on the whims and subjective values of the time.’ I was, as I often do, taking refuge in language, but my voice sounded unnaturally brittle. ‘I mean for goodness’ sake, homosexuality was considered a “psychological disorder” until the1970s.’
‘But if you’re not happy, if it’s impairing your quality of life . . .?’ She trailed off, eyes cast down. She didn’t know how to speak to me now; none of this fitted within the parameters of the friendship we had forged. She didn’t have the sophistication; the education. I felt the mean vindictive satisfaction of that thought, an internal venomous glee at using her own insecurities against her.
‘I am happy,’ I said.
‘OK.’ She began to wind up the roll of bin bags; they didn’t coil flat, but bunched and bulky. She gave up and put them down, still not meeting my eye. My triumph began to fade. ‘The only thing I do need to say,’ she said, ‘is that the externals at least, the fabric of the building, the drains, the front garden – before our party, I’ve promised Tom . . .’
I drew myself up, pushed my shoulders back. ‘None of this is any of Tom’s business.’
She moved her hair away from her face with the heel of her hand. ‘Well it sort of is, isn’t it? We share a party wall, the drains. He’s unhappy with the smell. He thinks there’s some sort of serious damp issue, or a blockage. He’s talking about bringing in the council. So far I’ve managed to persuade him that we could deal with it quietly between ourselves. But if you and I can’t come to some sort of compromise.’ She blinked, as if clearing her eyes. ‘I’m worried about how far he might take things.’
Her head on one side, she rubbed her fingers, small circular massage movements, into the crinkled lines across her forehead. Something black, a small piece of gunk from the lid of a jar, adhered to her cheek. She picked up the roll of bin bags, and her eyes flicked to the kitchen door. Mentally, she had already walked through it.
And it seemed, with an acute, sudden intensity, vital that she shouldn’t. I dropped the rice and the peaches back into her bin bag. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
I reached down to fish the J-cloth from the bucket and, turning away from her, crouched to begin rubbing at the tomato on the oven door. It was dried on, engrained, but I kept at it, using my nail to dislodge the edges. It was disgusting how long I’d left it. Not days, or weeks, but months. Maybe years. I didn’t turn round; I hardly breathed, but I heard a top cupboard open and the rustle of plastic, and finally a reassuring clunk.
She worked all day. I won’t say I found it easy. She piled anything she considered ‘rubbish’ in bags along the front path, and I admit that, while they were there, I felt connected to them by invisible elastic, highly consciou
s of their presence, and drawn to them, rather as if it were Maudie she had taken outside and left, feeling that nobody would expect me to let them stay out there for long, that there was a deadline to their exile.
In the kitchen, where piles had multiplied and plastic bags bloomed, clear space began to appear. The table and chairs became accessible and the floor tiles were revealed beneath their screed of dirt to be a terracotta red. The cupboard doors were scrubbed down with less success – perhaps the detergent had been too strong because some of the old cream gloss paint got stripped away with the grease, and the streaks of dark pine underneath looked a bit like mould. But God she worked hard. I don’t know why I find that so hard to admit. All those sentences I’ve just written in the passive. Anything to avoid placing her at the centre of it. My own muddled resentment and guilt, I suppose.
Late in the afternoon she went out into the garden, perhaps just for air, but after a few moments she poked at the pile, unpeeling the Herberts’ shower tray and glass panels and carrying them, one by one, into the side return on the far left – on the boundary with Sanjay, my neighbour on the side. He’s lived there for years, and never complains. She had already brought out some of the garden furniture from inside the house and in the small clear space she erected a metal table, using a brick to balance out its uneven legs, and sprang apart two of the wooden chairs.
I’d been watching her from a window in the bedroom, where I’d been banished after a dispute over a SodaStream, but she called me down then and by the time I emerged, had made us both a cup of coffee, using the last remaining kettle, the lone jar of Nescafé.
‘How do you like that?’ she said, putting the tray down on the table. ‘Your own little outdoor area.’
Bees buzzed in the undergrowth. Tiny midges whirled in shafts of light. In the linked arms of trees, blue tits darted and squeaked. From afar, the garden might look abandoned, but close to, it seethed with life; woodlice lurked, ants scurried, worms uncurled. Even on a dry day, it was damp.
Finders, Keepers: The mesmerising new thriller from the author of LIE WITH ME Page 12
