She’s never asked me a personal thing before and I didn’t know how to take it. I mean whether to tell her to mind her own business or what. Because my business is my business and nobody else’s. Right? But it was cosy in the kitchen and her face was very pink and for the first time I noticed a mesh of lines under her eyes so maybe she is old enough to be Doggo’s mother after all.
I got the job with her through Mrs Harcourt, who I do on Mondays. I thought they were friends but now I think it’s more like mere acquaintances. I only had to write one lot of references for the first woman I cleaned for, the American woman, and after that it was word of mouth. Easy as pie. I would never dare to have a cleaner, even if I had a house. To have someone you hardly know in the most intimate corners of your house. To trust someone, who could be anyone, like that.
They’re so completely different in their attitude, Mrs Harcourt and Mrs Banks. Mrs Harcourt treats me like dirt. When I arrive first thing on Monday mornings there’s always a tower of greasy pans waiting for me from the night before. ‘I don’t like to put them in the dishwasher,’ she says. ‘They’ve got a very special finish that needs the personal touch,’ and she does a charming laugh. I wish she could hear herself. And the vacuum’s always full so I have to empty it out before I can even start on the carpets. And once she asked me to change the sheets in the master bedroom as she will call it and when I did I found that she’d come on in the night.
Anyway, I sat there looking at Mrs Banks’ pink face and feeling guilt expanding like a balloon inside me. She was as good as me at the waiting game though and eventually it was me who cracked and said, ‘Yes, I prefer living alone.’ She looked down and her hands were jumping about as if electric shocks were shooting through them. I couldn’t stop myself staring at the table mat.
She said, ‘I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, Lamb, but you do … you do have somewhere, don’t you? I mean you’re not homeless.’
I tried not to laugh but I did laugh a bit, then I said, ‘No, of course not, I have a very nice home,’ seeing the inverted commas flashing.
But then I felt insulted. I mean why did she think that? Do I look homeless?
As if she was reading my mind she gave a reassuring smile and said, ‘Not that you look homeless,’ and then I, contrary Mary as my mum used to say, thought, what does homeless look like? She said, ‘It’s just that you never mention anyone and Neville said he asked your address and you were evasive and I asked Margaret Harcourt if she knew and she said come to think of it she didn’t. So I just wondered.’
I was starting to feel pretty narked. All these people discussing me behind my back. Getting into my space. ‘Does it matter?’ I said.
She thought for a minute. ‘Well it might be handy to be able to get in touch if … but no, I suppose it doesn’t matter very much,’ she said, ‘just as you like.’ I felt like getting up and stomping out of there but somehow I just didn’t have the energy. She smiled. ‘Sure you won’t have something? Nice yoghurts in the fridge.’ Her smile was a kind of surrender.
‘K,’ I said amazing myself. Maybe I was surrendering back. It was a kiwi-fruit yogurt, low-fat, and I have to admit it was good. She smiled with satisfaction as I ate it and I thought, well at least it will shut her up. It really gets on my nerves people trying to get me to eat. It’s all about them, that’s my theory, it makes them feel better about stuffing themselves if they can see me eat. Then Roy came in asking, ‘What’s acid indigestion?’ and she said, ‘Oh dear, has the video finished?’ I escaped and did the ironing.
When I left Mrs Banks’ no one was out there waiting. It was OK. Just because I’d said I’d be at the Duke’s Head at fiveish I didn’t have to be. I wandered about a bit. I went for a walk in the park and stood by the duck pond. The water looked hard and green like enamel, with arrow ridges stretching out behind the ducks, as if everything was frozen – but it wasn’t. Then a brown leaf circled down from a tree and landed on the surface and everything flinched and got moving again. And noises started though I hadn’t realised it was quiet. I thought, God, Lamb, get a grip. Does that happen to you? Everything stopping and then starting up again?
There was a baby in a padded suit throwing crusts to the ducks only the ducks weren’t looking. They were on the verge of sinking anyway with all the bread they’d already had. Pigeons were jumping round the baby’s feet and he shrieked with laughter and overbalanced. He just sat there in the middle of the flock with his legs stuck out in front of him. He started tearing into the bread himself but his mother picked him up under her arm and hooked the bread out with her finger like it was going to choke him to death or something.
Even though it was so cold I sat on a bench. I was thinking about when I first left my mum’s friends’ house. There is a time which is a blank – but sometimes certain things come into focus. Almost like the shreds of dreams. They swarm below me showing me how far there is to fall. The colours down there are terrible.
There was a warehouse. It wasn’t winter but it was cold. I hadn’t been sleeping rough long. I met a girl and we got talking. She took me to where she slept. We had to climb through a fence with a sign that said DANGER UNEVEN GROUND! and pick our way across the dangerous ground, holes and oil shimmering rainbows even in the dark.
Inside the warehouse was a great space, like a cavern you couldn’t see the edges of, and in the middle a blazing fire. It was so thick with smoke I didn’t see how many people there were straightaway. More and more gathered as it grew late. People smoked, shot up, drank cider, dogs scratched and yawned. Someone played a guitar and two girls started dancing, twining a scarf about each other’s necks. I lost the girl I came with, she was with some man.
In the morning cold light leaked from the roof on to the sleeping heads. I got up and went out for a pee, picking over the litter of bottles, needles, rags of cloth. I went back to get my stuff and a guy called me over. He was shooting up. ‘Give us a hand,’ he said. He’d tied a sock round his arm. The needle probed the grey flesh but he couldn’t find a vein. I tightened the sock for him and watched the needle pierce a slow green worm of vein. I saw the light come into his eyes. He offered me some crack. I balanced for a moment on the point of saying yes. Trying it. Why not? Wanting what? Maybe to belong.
I looked around. No one would care. But others were waking by then, two smoke-faced girls kissing with wet tongues, an old man pissing against the inside wall. It was not me, not for me. I could not get dragged in. I got up and left there fast.
See, it is best to be alone.
Six
I got my balance back by concentrating and by luck. You can’t control the outside things but sometimes they go right. For a week the sun shone every day. Mrs Banks didn’t notice the scorch-marks on the table, or if she did, didn’t connect them to me. Mrs Harcourt had a Jacuzzi thing installed in the en-suite bath. Mrs Brown-Withers bought a much better hoover and even Mr Dickens stayed off dodgy subjects and was quite cheery. I hadn’t turned up at the Duke’s Head to see Doggo – and nothing bad had happened. He hadn’t stalked me or turned up outside Mrs Banks’ house again. He’d melted off into whatever world it was he belonged to. I was off the hook.
Helped by all these things, I got myself back on the high wire, arms out, poised, eyes straight ahead, because whatever you do you must not look down. Everything was fine. Fine and balanced. OK, so I sometimes felt lonely. I took the whole Doggo episode as a warning. He had nearly messed things up for me. Or I had nearly let him.
Sometimes I did lie in bed and wonder what would have happened if I had gone to meet him. What would have followed from that? Not that I regretted it. Not that I even liked him. It was surprising how often I wondered. But then so little happens in my life I do wonder each thing to death.
I’m not really lonely. It’s just that sometimes when I’m free the cellar isn’t big enough, the city isn’t big enough. I get restless in my bones. One low bright restless afternoon I scuffed my boots on the path all the way into town
which is miles. I went to the reference library. I love the serious/sleazy atmosphere in there. Two main types of people – students studying and dodgy old men looking at the racing pages and clearing great chunters of phlegm out of their throats into their hankies.
The old men had all the papers out. I never read the papers anyway. Who wants to know the news? I like to read the books. Not the fiction, the lies – but about things, real things in the world. But this time I got a book down without even looking what it was and sat with my chin resting on my hands as if I was reading, but really I was miles away. Couldn’t tell you where but it was peaceful.
In the library it’s like the world has gone into slow motion, drowsy and warm with people rustling papers and murmuring to each other. It reminds me of school, how some summer afternoons you could practically drop off to sleep listening to the teacher droning on and on. It’s safe too. You’re not alone but you’re anonymous. Nobody will bother you as long as you are quiet.
This could be my life. An easy job that earns me enough money just to live and leaves me room to concentrate. A pillow on which to lay my head. Peaceful afternoons in the library minding my own business. Small and private and one thing after another thing with nothing strange. There are worse lives than that.
The man next to me smelt homeless. I tried to work out the different elements of that smell. There’s old grease, pee and smoke all mixed up, a kind of trousery jumble-sale smell. I sneaked a look under the table. The hems of his trousers were all frayed over his swollen-bunion-shaped tennis shoes. His nose was like a huge hairy strawberry. He caught me looking and leered so I could see the last few pegs of his brown teeth. I looked down and pretended to be engrossed in the book which turned out to be about lighthouses.
It was OK. Then suddenly a voice said, ‘Lamb?’
I shrieked. A librarian looked over, her eyebrows shooting into orbit. It was him, Doggo. My mouth went dry. He sat down beside me. I scooted my chair away, screeching it against the floor.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ he said.
‘Go away,’ I hissed. He looked up from behind his shades at the librarian and huddled into his jacket. We sat in silence for a minute. The old man had the racing pages open and was marking horses.
‘What do you want?’ I said. ‘How did you know I was here?’
‘You think I’m here because of you?’ My hands were shaking so I could hardly turn the pages but I flicked through the book anyway, seeing nothing.
‘Why are you here then?’
‘You mean some dumb-fuck like me who can’t even read?’
‘I didn’t mean that.’ There was a pause. I looked at him. ‘Can you?’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Read.’
‘Oh fuck off. The cat sat on the mat. Yeah, I can fucking read.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘Sarky bitch. OK, yeah, I followed you.’
The librarian was staring and the old man openly listening. I shut my mouth. I was thinking hard. As I’d walked into town I’d maybe had that feeling that someone was watching me, that sensation between the shoulder blades, that feeling of eyes. I’d even turned round once but seen no one. Thought, don’t be paranoid. Who’d want to follow you? Who do you think you are, the centre of the universe? as my mum used to say.
I made sure to keep breathing. I made sure to keep calm, seem calm at least. Not like he could do anything to me in the library.
‘I didn’t say a thing to Mrs Banks,’ I said, ‘if that’s what you’re scared of. But if you don’t leave me alone …’
‘Shhhh,’ he went. I looked up. The librarian’s face was all pursed up. Doggo was going to get me chucked out at this rate. If I got chucked out they might not let me in again and it was one of my best places when it was cold. I smiled at the librarian but she didn’t smile back.
‘Come outside,’ he whispered.
‘No. Go away. What do you want?’
‘I want help.’
I looked at him then and got an unwanted glimpse of myself in the mirror shades.
‘Help?’
He nodded. His mouth looked very soft amongst the glossy black of his beard.
‘Look, let’s get out of here. That bitch hasn’t taken her eyes off me.’
‘Who do you think you are, the centre of the universe?’ I said. Then I felt sorry. He was right anyway, she hadn’t. He looked younger than I remembered. Maybe not much older than me. Young and jumpy and needing help from me. No one had ever needed help from me.
‘You a student?’ he said.
‘Yeah. Why?’
‘What in?’
I focused my eyes on the book.
‘Lighthouses.’
‘Lighthouses? You can’t be a student in lighthouses.’
‘Lighthouses is only part of it.’
‘Yeah?’ He pulled the book away from me and flicked through, stopping at a dingy photo. A lighthouse with a seagull in front of it like a flying moustache. He lost the wariness for a minute. ‘When I was a kid I wanted to be a lighthouse keeper.’ He moved his chair nearer to mine and even though it was warm in the library I shivered. He smelled like tobacco and mushroom soup.
I strained my thigh away from the warmth of his. It was weird though because when he said that about wanting to be a lighthouse keeper I remembered that so did I once. I wanted to live in a lighthouse on a rock, only not be bothered with the lights and shipwrecks. I just liked the idea of being in a tower of rounded rooms with waves crashing against it and nobody else for miles.
‘You coming outside then?’ he said. He stood up. The librarian had her eyes fixed on us now like she was waiting for a scene. It was a moment of choice, like a hinge, a door swinging this way or that. Saying no might have been the end of it, the door swung shut. On the other hand he might just have gone out and waited for me anyway. I looked at his soft mouth. He needed my help, he actually said that, my help. I stood up.
I shoved the book back on a shelf, probably not the right shelf. I couldn’t think straight. Old strawberry nose looked up and practically winked, probably thinking I’d been picked up, maybe he’ll try his luck next time.
It felt very strange to be walking down the library stairs with someone. I’m so used to walking alone with empty air all around me and now there was someone by my side. Someone I didn’t know. It felt like the world was tilting.
Seven
When we got outside the library he stopped. There were two dogs tied up. I was about to say how mean of someone to leave two dogs tied up like that but he crouched down to untie them.
‘They yours?’ I said instead.
He just gave me a look. One of the dogs was tiny and bright-eyed. It did a frisking dance of pleasure; the other one, the same sort only bigger, dragged itself up and yawned.
‘What are they?’ I said. ‘What make?’
‘Jack Russells.’
‘So what do you want?’ I said. ‘What help?’
‘You never fucking turned up,’ he said.
‘I’ll just go back in if you talk to me like that.’
He stared at the ground for a minute. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Yeah.’
‘So?’
‘Mind if we get out of town?’
‘Where?’
‘Just out of town.’
He looped the leads round his wrist and started walking. I didn’t have to follow him. It was another chance. I could have gone back up the library steps, but I didn’t. It was OK as long as we were in public. Nothing he could do to me in public. I was in control. And any minute I wanted I could walk away.
We hurried along, taking the whole width of the path, the two of us and the dogs. A woman with a double buggy had to steer into a doorway to give us room. She flicked me the filthiest look I have ever seen.
‘Normal’ Doggo said, tugging at the lead of the little one who was skittering about under our feet and tripping us up. The other one just plodded along with his head down. ‘What’s he called?’ I said.
> ‘Gordon,’ he said. I nearly laughed. I mean, Gordon and Norma. We kept on walking for a bit till we got out of the city centre.
‘Where are we going?’ I said.
‘Pub?’
‘If it’s money you need I can’t help you there.’
‘Let’s get to pub,’ he said.
I was watching the way he kept looking round everywhere as if he thought he was being followed. His hands were blue with cold. He had LOVE and HATE tattooed on his knuckles. Not the usual blurry home-made schoolboy effect, ink and a compass point, but ornate lettering and in a different colour on each knuckle. The fancy letters were stretched out over his knuckle bones. He saw me staring at his hands. ‘Want to take Norma for a bit?’ he said.
‘K.’ It felt nice holding the lead with a live creature on the end of it, like a sort of connection. She didn’t notice the change though, just kept looping about and tugging and stopping to sniff at stuff.
We got to the Duke’s Head and had to sit outside because of the dogs. It was freezing. We sat in what they laughingly call a beer-garden where there were some kids skate-boarding about.
‘So?’ I said.
‘Just get a couple of pints in,’ he said.
I don’t know why I did. Being ordered about by a complete stranger is not my usual thing. I stood there a minute wondering whether to tell him where to go. ‘What about some crisps and all?’ he said.
When I got back with the slopping pints and a packet of prawn cocktail, I said, ‘What do you want? Apart from the pint.’
He slurped half his drink in one go, then ripped the crisps open. He crammed about half in his mouth and shoved the packet at me. I took a crisp and nibbled the edge.
‘Well?’
‘You got a place?’ he said.
‘Yeah, sort of.’
‘Not one of them student halls?’
‘No.’
‘You sharing?’
‘No. No. I like to be alone.’
‘Good.’ He got his tobacco out of his pocket and rolled a fag.
Now You See Me Page 4
