Now You See Me

by Lesley Glaister

  ‘Yeah,’ Greg said. ‘What we need is a drink.’

  But it was too early for a drink so they walked by a river and looked at willows and ducks. They wandered vaguely about. Other things were going on as normal: buses running; people wheeling babies; flowers flowering; birds and squirrels whisking through the trees while they walked by, leaning together to keep each other up.

  Later they went into a pub and drank Guinness for a long time and shared a cheese sandwich. She was about as drunk as she’d ever been. She hadn’t drunk a thing since before the hospital and wasn’t used to it. They walked about afterwards like lovers, their arms tight round each other’s waists. They stopped by a tree and he kissed her very softly on the lips. ‘I can’t believe I’ve only known you a few hours,’ he said.

  She looked into his face and said, ‘Me neither,’ because it looked so much like the right face. And it did feel like years had passed since she’d sneaked into his van and still more years since the crash.

  ‘You poor lamb,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You seem so lost,’ he said. ‘Can I call you Lamb?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It suits you.’

  ‘K,’ I said.

  We found a department store in the centre of town and he flashed his plastic and got me a rucksack, sleeping bag, knickers, jeans and two sweaters. He must have known I didn’t have that much stuff before. All I’d had was my old satchel, and I still had that. I didn’t feel too bad about it. They were things I needed and after all, he had nearly got me killed. We went in another pub and then to a hotel. The room had thick grey wallpaper like rhino hide and a fierce clanking radiator.

  We lay on the bed and drank tea and watched TV. When I could get the arm out of my mind and stop thinking that it could have been me mashed to death – when I could get that out of my mind it was nice to be there with him. But I was worrying because the next thing to do was to have sex. And sure enough, after a while he rolled over and started to kiss me. The kissing was OK kissing with lots of different nips and sucks and licks not just his tongue rammed straight down my throat. It tasted very much of tobacco though, wet tobacco.

  I froze. I tried not to. I don’t know why or what happened. I kept my eyes open to look at him, his narrow lapiz eyes and crooked teeth, to tell myself I wanted this. He bought me all that stuff. I had to give him something back. But he ground his groin against me till it hurt and his sandpaper chin rubbed me raw. He put a condom on and tried to do it. But I had turned to stone. It was impossible. The trying hurt me and it must have hurt him too. I don’t know what was wrong. What was wrong with me that I turned to stone like that? I do not know.

  He stopped and looked at me for a minute before he rolled away. The look in his eyes. I couldn’t stand to see that look in anybody’s eyes again. He didn’t thump or shout at me, just looked and turned away, groaned and shuddered like a dog and finished on his own. I stared at the matted smudge of hair at the back of his head until he finished.

  He fastened his trousers with his back to me. He said he was going out to make a call. He could have made the call from the room but he went out. He didn’t say, but of course it was to his girlfriend. After me he’d be dying to get back to Sammy, hummus sandwiches and all. I could just imagine her arched eyebrows winging upwards when he told her about the crash. Or maybe he wouldn’t say. Who cares?

  He came back and didn’t look at me, just lit a cigarette. There was a No Smoking sign but I didn’t like to say. We watched TV but then the news came on about a fatal motorway pile-up and I heard a din in my ears like drums. He changed channels to some football match.

  When I woke in the morning he was gone. Well that’s not true because I did wake and hear him leave at five o’clock. I turned over and pretended to be asleep because what was there to say?

  Two

  Best to be alone. Alone you can balance. You can concentrate. One foot after the other like a tightrope walker. You have to concentrate. You want no one hanging on your arm or your heart because then your balance is lost. Small and private and one thing after another thing with nothing strange. That is the way to be.

  I know no one because of that. And that is fine. You meet people of course you do. But you imagine a field around you like radioactivity. And they are outside the field, the shield. Though you have to be prepared. But sometimes a person can slip in when you’re not looking, not ready, when your head is somewhere else. Sometimes a person can hook straight in and put it all in danger – the order and the balance.

  I keep my balance like this. I clean. I live in the same place. I have lived in the same place for months now and I got the work by lying and writing false letters. It is surprising what people will believe. And it is OK the cleaning, rubbing things, sweeping them, smoothing them. Being in the houses of people and usually alone. And even to have that little money which is clean money earned cleanly. And to rest my head on a pillow that is my pillow and in the same place every night. These are important things. The things I balance on.

  I am sitting on the bed in my cellar. If you looked that’s what you’d see. If anyone could see but no one can. It looks like I’m sitting on the bed but I am way up there, balancing. Trying to get it back, the balance. Because someone got to me when I was not ready, not looking out. My arms are spread and my toe is pointed and below me is the deep and dizzy world.

  I first met him on a Wednesday at Mrs Banks’. I was hoovering the stairs, watching the fluff whisk into the roaring tube, when I got the feeling that someone was staring at me. I carried on for a minute thinking, don’t be daft but my skin was prickling with the sensation of eyes. There is no scientific explanation for why skin can feel eyes on it but it can. I switched the cleaner off and looked up. And there he was, standing at the top of the stairs. He was wearing a dressing gown and staring down at me. With the dressing gown and his beard and the landing light shining like a halo behind his head he looked like something holy.

  How dare a person be there like that when I thought I was alone? I said nothing, just stood and waited. If you say nothing the other person has to speak first to stop the silence. People can’t bear silence. I wasn’t scared. The door was behind me. I could run if I had to. I could kick.

  He stood there so long I was beginning to lose my nerve but then he broke the spell and said, ‘Who the fuck are you?’ He took a step down and I stepped back.

  ‘Who are you?’ I said.

  ‘She’s my mum,’ he said after a while.

  ‘Mrs Banks?’

  I didn’t know what to think. Mrs Banks has got Roy, who’s four, but she’s never mentioned any other children. Why should she? It’s not as if we’re the best of mates. She doesn’t look that old though, not old enough to have a son with a beard. If it was true though, everything was OK. He had a right to be there. I didn’t know what to think.

  He started coming down the stairs and I backed down with the hoover. He came a bit too close. His hair and his beard were black but his eyes were light in his olive face. They looked odd, pale silvery grey, like razor blades.

  When you’re alone in a place that’s OK, that’s good, long as you know you’re alone. But if there’s someone there, lurking, specially a strange man with such sharp grey eyes you don’t know what to think. No point being mad at him. He was as surprised as me. I didn’t know what to do or where to look. I wasn’t going to switch the vacuum on again, not with him in the house. It makes you vulnerable. A person could creep up behind you in all that roar and you wouldn’t hear till it was too late.

  I went into the kitchen and he followed. He stood there watching me while I shoved the cleaner away. What was I supposed to do?

  ‘Coffee?’ he said after a minute. I didn’t know if he was asking or offering. I didn’t know what to do with my hands so I put the kettle on. There was definitely something dodgy about him. You might think he was good-looking. Wild but clean. Drops of water sparkling in his stubbly beard and his toes pink on the floor.
But it was the clean hard glint of his eyes that got to me. He kept staring till I said, ‘Got an eyeful?’

  He nodded and did a slow smile. ‘Yeah, ta,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe I’ll go,’ I said. He shrugged, sat at the table and got stuck into the biscuits as if he was half-starved. I took a small sip of my coffee because it was the first thing I’d had all day and I needed it. He said he was surprised his mum would have a cleaner. I prickled when he said that, I mean I clean, but that doesn’t give anyone the right to call me a cleaner. I said that Mrs Banks hadn’t mentioned him to me either. He said that was because he was there to surprise her.

  I told him my name and he said, ‘Fuck off?’ I asked him his name and he said, ‘Doggo.’ Doggo! If Lamb is a stupid name, then what is Doggo?

  He stood up and I was very conscious that I was alone with him and conscious that he’d got nothing on under the dressing gown.

  ‘What you thinking?’ he said. I blushed.

  My hands were all slippery. I didn’t know what to do with them. If he was Mrs Banks’ son then it was OK and I had no right to question him – but something wasn’t right. I thought I’d try and catch him out. He could have been anyone, a breaker-and-enterer, he could have been dangerous. But he did look a bit like Mrs Banks, same colouring and a baffled look as if he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. I’ve been taking that personally from Mrs Banks but maybe it’s just a family trait. With him though the look is colder, cold metal scraping skin.

  He asked when Mrs Banks would be back. I said, ‘Didn’t she say?’ He said he hadn’t seen her yet, this was a surprise visit. He picked up a box of matches and struck one.

  ‘You don’t say a fucking word. Right?’ The flame flickered in his eyes. He let the match burn between his fingers till the flames reached his finger-ends then he dropped it. It made a little fleck of scorch on the pine table.

  ‘Why?’ I said.

  He leant forward and I said, ‘Right,’ quick. He kept striking the matches and when the flames reached the ends of his fingers I recognised the flirt and flare of pain. ‘Hey,’ I said. But he struck another match and another. ‘You’re ruining the table,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah?’ He looked at the freckled patch. ‘Oh dear.’

  I was starting to get mad. ‘I’ll get the sack,’ I said.

  ‘Shame to lose such a great job,’ he said. He went to strike another match but the box was empty. Then the phone rang and he jumped. We both stood there listening to the few rings then Mrs Banks’ voice saying Sorry but we can’t come to the phone, please leave a message, do. There was a click and a high-pitched whine. The other person left no message.

  He started moving fast, like he’d lost his nerve or something. He took some clothes out of the drier. The dressing gown opened a bit revealing the inside of his thigh, soft curly hairs. I looked away quick. I just wanted him to get out and go.

  He went upstairs to get dressed. I put the mugs in the dishwasher. I had a weird sweaty feeling, like I’d only just got away with something but I wasn’t sure what. If he would go now it would be all right. I could have my bath, I always have a bath when the house is empty. I could get everything done, get everything back to normal, only I didn’t know what to do about the table with its freckle of scorches. She was bound to think it was me. And give me the sack and I couldn’t afford to get the sack and would not get the sack because of someone else. I would just come straight out and tell her.

  He came down the stairs wearing a pair of mirror shades even though it was one of those days when it never gets light. He put a ripped leather jacket on and picked up a back-pack.

  ‘See ya,’ he said. He went for the door then he turned round. ‘Don’t fucking say.’

  ‘Why?’ I said.

  ‘Just don’t.’

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘You’ll see,’ he said and slammed off out. I went to the window and watched him slope off then sat at the table and picked at the flecks. Maybe I could sand them off or something. Or why not just tell Mrs Banks that he did it? What could he do to me?

  I should have told her. It’s just that I do try not to get hooked into other people or their stuff. Other people and their stuff can unbalance you. You have to watch out. Anyway, what was it to me if he was here or not? None of my business.

  I made sure both the doors were locked before I went upstairs to run my bath.

  Three

  He’d had a shower and left the shampoo on its side leaking out everywhere and a tangle of black hairs in the bottom of the bath, smooth head-hairs and little crinkly ones. I picked them up and examined them. Hair is such weird dead stuff, the way it streams for ever out of the pores of your skin. I chucked it in the bin. He’d left the towel wet and screwed up on the floor.

  While I waited for the bath to fill I went into Roy’s room to make his bed. You have to climb a ladder to get to the bed and it’s hard to tuck the sheet in. I sniffed the child smell on the pillow and tidied up the toys. There’s a bear made of rainbow fur with its paws chewed flat and fraying. I went out of that room and banged the door shut.

  Mrs Banks has got some aromatherapy oil to pour in the water. It turns the water into silk and smells like heaven. Must cost a fortune. Worth it though, if I was ever rich I’d get some. It says it soothes, softens and lifts your spirits. I stepped into the bath, slid down and waited for my spirits to lift.

  I don’t like looking at my body. Any of it. Especially the herring-bones of scars that line my arms, silvery thin. They are all silvery thin and old now, nothing new for ages because of my balance. My new balance. Which I must maintain. I closed my eyes and tried to see the tightrope but all I could see was the glint of Doggo’s eyes.

  I should have tried harder to catch him out. I could have done something like ask him if he was going to see Mrs Banks, in her play. A play’s the last thing she’d be in so his reaction would have told me. But maybe he wouldn’t have reacted at all. I don’t know how you read a person like him. But I could read Mrs Banks. She would never be in a play. She wouldn’t say boo to a goose – although I bet she’d say boo to me if she caught me in the bath.

  I was annoyed that he kept coming back into my head. There was no need to think about him ever again. None of my business. But there was something about his eyes. The table wasn’t that bad. If I put the mat and a vase of flowers in the middle it would be OK.

  I dipped my head underwater and felt a million tickles as the air bubbles rolled out of my ears. Then I had a sudden thought. I sat up as if someone had dropped a toaster in the water. I remembered Mrs Banks’ note. How could I have forgotten that? Mrs Banks works part-time in a building society and sometimes she’s there when I come and sometimes she’s not. When she’s not, she always leaves a note stuck with alphabet magnets to the fridge saying things like Could you sort the kitchen cupboards? or Could you tackle the ironing?

  This time as well as asking me to vacuum she’d said her bag had been stolen with her keys in it. She’d had to use the spare key to lock up and asked me if I could leave her my key till she got another one cut. I hadn’t thought much about it except, tough luck, baby, join the real world. I mean bags go missing all the time, don’t they?

  But lying there in the bath I got a clear image of the bag downstairs. By the kitchen table all the time I was talking to Doggo. I’d been so uptight about him being there and trying to keep control that the oddness of the bag being there hadn’t struck me. I lay thinking that it couldn’t have been the bag I saw, or not the bag anyway. Because how could it be there if it was stolen?

  But I couldn’t relax after that. I got out of the bath and got dressed. I went down to the kitchen and sure enough, there it was. And it was the bag. I looked inside and everything seemed to be there: make-up bag, comb, tissues, purse still with its money and cards – though no keys. I had to sit down to try to work out what was going on.

  Maybe Doggo wasn’t her son at all but a burglar who’d stolen the bag and used her key to come in and
do the house over – and I’d scared him off. But do burglars have showers while they’re at it? Or sit down to drink coffee and scoff about half a packet of gypsy creams?

  I didn’t know what to do. Tell Mrs Banks or not. It was like taking sides in something I didn’t understand. The way he narrowed his eyes at me, a kind of threat. Like I should be scared of him. Like he could hurt me. Maybe he could. I remembered the glint in his eyes. He was more like me than like her.

  If she came back and found the bag she’d be bound to think it had something to do with me and, even if she didn’t find the damage on the table, give me the sack – and I don’t want that. She’s good to work for. She doesn’t leave the place a tip like some people. She’s one of the guilty ones and they’re the best. They do the dirtiest work before you get there. She can’t have had someone to clean for long, because it soon wears off that feeling. They get blasé.

  When I went down I put a table mat over the burns and put the salt and pepper on top and it looked OK. I sat there with the bag on my lap not knowing what to do. If you clean for people you have to at least seem trustworthy, otherwise word gets round. I was sitting staring at the bag when I heard her car stopping outside and the door slamming. Then she was coming up the drive with Roy. I shoved the bag inside my jacket and rushed out saying I was late for something and didn’t stop even though she was calling after me.

  So there I was rushing along with a stolen bag that I didn’t even steal. Talk about stupid. I don’t steal, not unless you count hot water. I tried to look normal, strolling along and swinging the bag over my shoulder as if it was mine, but I felt as if it was flashing stolen stolen in neon lights.

  I was about to dump it in a wheely-bin but someone came round the corner so I walked on realising that I didn’t know who might be looking out of the windows at me. In the end I kept hold of the bag and brought it home. What I call home but with inverted commas round because home is where you feel at home and there isn’t a single place in the world where I feel like that. I hid it on a shelf under a heap of old gardening magazines dating practically back to the Second World War and tried to forget.