Twisted Agendas

by Damian McNicholl

  Five minutes later, Todd entered and walked up to them, his eyes fixed on her hair. “Didn’t recognise you for a sec’.”

  “You like?” Piper touched her hair self-consciously.

  His eyes cut to Danny and then he turned back to Piper. “I thought you were studying at home today.

  “I needed a break.”

  Todd set his satchel on the table. “Thought we had a deal, dude.”

  Danny looked at him nonplussed. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Weren’t you supposed to let me know when you were stopping by here and she and I’d show you around together.”

  “I’m not showing him round here today,” Piper said, before Danny could reply. “I took him to a few spots round the city this morning and came here for a drink as an afterthought.”

  “That’s why you took the day off. Sightseeing?”

  Piper sighed. “No.”

  He turned to Danny. “How’s the flat hunt going?”

  “I’ve been looking hard, believe me.”

  “You wanna beer, Todd?” said Piper. “My treat.”

  He ignored her. “Tried any agencies yet? They’d find you something real quick.”

  “Danny’s welcome to live with me as long as he likes,” said Piper.

  “Live with you, huh?” Todd laughed, but it was hard and sharp. “How come you’ve never made me that kind of offer?”

  Window shopping

  Notices were posted all over the dusty window of the corner shop and Danny stopped to read them when he came out from buying the milk. They were the usual assortment of temporary work positions he’d seen before, ads from carpenters and plumbers, housewives offering their services as a babysitter and an old handwritten plea for information about a lost two-year-old calico cat. The words ‘SHARE HOUSE WITH FRIENDLY OWNER – IMMACULATE CONDITION’ jumped out at him as he came to the last row of ads. Posted eight days ago, he assumed the room would already be rented, but memorised the telephone number and called when he got home.

  An answering machine picked up. The female’s voice very posh. He didn’t leave a message. His father, an expert salesman, taught him leaving messages was the hallmark of an amateur, ceded unnecessary control to the other person who might never return the call. The post dropped with a clatter through the letterbox. He found the local newspaper among the pile and scanned the accommodation section, immediately spotting the same ad among the classifieds. Now nervous the owner would be inundated with responses, Danny called again, blurting into the answering machine he’d recently moved to London, that he was solvent and leaving both Piper’s landline and his mobile number.

  For an hour, he lay on the couch willing the phone to ring like a lovesick teenager. It rang just before eleven, but it was only his mother who’d confused the week his course was scheduled to begin. By twelve, the woman still hadn’t rung. He went to Oxford Street to buy a pair of trainers. On his return, a light was blinking on the answering machine.

  “Hello, this is Julia Ralston calling for a Danny Connolly,” the voice said. “I’ve had a large number of responses, but if you’re still interested I’ll be at home until three.”

  He checked the time and picked up the phone.

  “Ralston, hello.”

  “Danny Connolly here. I left a message that I’m looking to rent.”

  “You sound Irish.”

  Her statement made Danny’s heart skip a beat. Some English people, especially the posh ones, didn’t like the Irish. “I’m from Northern Ireland.”

  “With that accent, I’d never have guessed.” She laughed. “I’m just showing someone around the place now.”

  He wondered if he was being given the brush-off. “When can I see it?”

  “I’m making a decision soon. Can you hold a minute?” Without waiting for his reply, he heard a thud as the receiver was set down, then heard her call out to someone to go out and take a look at the garden. “Sorry about that, when can you come over?”

  “Right now.”

  “I’m leaving for work in five minutes.”

  “When, then?”

  “Eight tomorrow morning.”

  When she gave him the address, Danny couldn’t believe it. The house was also on Chumley Street.

  He waited ten minutes until he was sure she would have left and then went in search of the house. A woman wearing sixties-style, pitch-black sunglasses came out of a house and climbed into an old Jaguar as he was crossing underneath the railway bridge. Unsure if it was the owner, he crossed the street to the antique shop. He checked out the displays until the car drove off and then made his way to the address he’d been given. It was the right house and he was surprised. The home looked bizarre, its brick façade was painted powder blue, the front door dark purple.

  An eight-inch gap in the net blinds on the front window proved too tempting. He took the two strides comprising the width of the front garden and drew up to the window. Unlike Piper’s home, the interior was open plan. An oversized sofa and two large armchairs occupied nearest the window, and just beyond was a dining table and chairs, in front of a set of French doors through which he could see part of a large garden and an ornate wicker chair.

  “You looking for something?”

  An old woman stood on the pavement watching him. She wore a gingham nylon housecoat and gaudy headscarf. Part of a fat pink hair curler peeked from underneath. Danny blushed.

  “No-one’s home.”

  “You just missed her.”

  Danny came out to the street.

  “I’m Julia’s neighbour.” The woman nodded to the house next door. “You can give me a message and I’ll make sure she gets it.”

  “There’s no need.” He started to walk away.

  “Fine, I’ll just tell her an Irishman was lurking at her door.”

  Danny stopped abruptly and turned round. “She’s looking for a tenant and I’m meeting her tomorrow about it.”

  “You’re wanting to rent from her?”

  “Aha.”

  “Last one got thrown out on her ear. Blimey, such a row they had.” The woman clamped her mouth with her hand. “Goodness, I shouldn’t have mentioned that. It’s just you seem like such a nice young man.”

  Crap humour

  The house was untidy and she felt exhausted. Julia wished she hadn’t spent the night at Katie’s after her shift had ended. She should have come home. Her girlfriend’s mattress was unbearably soft and Julia always slept with one eye open because Katie’s children might burst into the room in the early morning and catch them in bed. The relationship was totally inconvenient. And yet every time Katie rang and said her husband was going out of town, Julia couldn’t resist and made the forty-minute drive to her house in Godalming.

  After forcing her coat into the stuffed cupboard and yanking out the hoover, Julia began to vacuum until she realised it wasn’t sucking up any dirt. The red light was blinking. She opened the canister and had taken out the bag when the doorbell rang. She stashed the hoover and bag behind the sofa and waved her hands about to dispel the cloud of dust. CDs were scattered on the floor beside the stereo and she considered swiping them underneath the cupboard with her foot but then figured there were too many.

  Her face smacked into an invisible wall of cologne when she opened the front door. He gripped her hand more firmly than a secondhand car dealer.

  “Gosh, this is really lovely,” he said, as he crossed the threshold.

  Julia made a mental note he might be a liar or just desperate to move. His inability to keep his eyes fixed on hers suggested reserve or shyness. The smile was broad and engaging, so engaging she’d returned it before she remembered her strategy to keep everything formal until the interview concluded.

  “Let me show you around and then we’ll have a chat,” she said.

  After a tour that didn’t include her messy bedroom, she took him out to the garden, fragrant with the perfume of jasmine. Shrubbery, including two wine-red Barberry bushes and hydrangea
s, was in urgent need of trimming. A portion of the trellis running along the wall jutted out at an angle where it had broken away from the post. He followed her to an elevated brick patio in the garden’s middle furnished with a wrought iron table and pair of fan-backed wicker chairs. Julia had bought the chairs on impulse, fancying the idea of sipping ice-cold wine during hot summer evenings. Flanking each chair were five-foot rubber plants still in their original plastic nursery pots.

  “These are lovely.” Danny reached out and gently touched one of the leaves. “My mother loves plants.”

  “They don’t need any attention, which I like.”

  “I hope you don’t mind me saying but they’re root bound. They need to be transplanted.” He looked around the garden. “Your grass and shrubs could do with fertilising as well.”

  “Really.”

  “I’d be glad to do that if you… if we decide I should move in.”

  From the other side of the wall Julia heard a noise. Her nosy neighbour was in her garden.

  “It’s much hotter than I thought,” she said. “Let’s go inside.”

  She invited him to sit on the sofa, excused herself and then went to her bedroom where she rummaged energetically through her bedside drawers until she found a notebook. As she was coming down the stairs she saw him slam her novel shut. He slid it back on the coffee table so hurriedly it continued to glide and finally dropped on the floor. Julia picked it up without comment.

  “I couldn’t resist looking to see what you’re reading,” he said, the attractive hazel eyes much more noticeable now his face was scarlet.

  Julia set the notebook on top of the table. “Do you like the room?”

  “Very much.”

  She disliked Irish accents but, now they were talking in person, his accent was not as harsh as it had sounded on the telephone. And he was meeting her eyes now.

  “The rent’s £320 due on the first of every month.”

  “Inclusive?”

  “Except for the telephone, which we’ll split down the middle.”

  “I have a mobile but I’d like to be able to use the landline, too.”

  His sense of fairness was appealing.

  “Do you need a deposit?”

  “Oh I… one month’s fine.” She picked up the notebook and wrote ‘deposit’ and ‘will split phone bill’. “How long is your course?”

  “Five months.”

  “I was looking for someone to take the room for a year, minimum.”

  He shifted and crossed his legs. “There’s a chance I’ll stay longer. It all depends.”

  “On?”

  “I’m sorting some things out at home.”

  He averted her stare and rubbed the tip of his nose, signs her training indicated he might be hiding something. Julia underlined the words she’d written in the notebook and began to doodle directly underneath them.

  “Where are you living now?” she asked.

  “Down the street.”

  “Why are you leaving?”

  “It’s a box room.”

  “Have you got a reference I can ring?”

  “Would my mother do?”

  “Conflict of interest, wouldn’t you say?”

  “What about her friend in Guildford?”

  “What’s your current landlord’s number?” As he tendered it, Julia considered if she’d maybe been too direct, a result of her work training. She also wondered if she was being tough because he was Irish. Julia didn’t consider herself prejudiced but knew the tendency lay just beneath the surface. She decided a joke might set him at ease.

  Raising her eyebrows so they formed perfect arches, her way of conveying exaggeration or leg-pulling, she said, “Best I find out if you’re in the IRA before I let you move in, eh?”

  His face turned scarlet again. He unclasped his fingers and laid one hand on the armrest as if in preparation to leave. She’d miscalculated, angered him and she didn’t have anyone else. She’d lied when she told him she had others interested, a ruse Clive suggested to make the house appear more desirable. The only other person she’d interviewed was a middle-aged woman and Julia terminated the interview when she’d offered her a glass of wine and the woman declined saying she was Plymouth Brethren. She would have to begin the entire tedious process again. Advertising and keeping the house obsessively tidy.

  “I meant that as a joke.”

  He laughed as he eased forward on the sofa. “No offence taken.”

  “Room’s yours.”

  He made no attempt to leap at the offer.

  “You don’t need to sign a lease and I’ll even skip the deposit.”

  “That’s very nice of you.” He placed his hands on his knees. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a couple of things.”

  “Of course.”

  “Did you have a prior tenant?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why’d she leave?”

  “How did you know it was a woman?”

  “I came by yesterday to check out the house and bumped into one of your neighbours. I didn’t get her name. She was old.”

  “That’ll be Mrs. Hartley. What’d she say?”

  “That you threw the last tenant out.”

  It was Julia’s turn to blush. She laid the notebook on top of the novel and began to align the books’ edges. “I don’t know how Mrs. Hartley would know that. She’s a lovely old woman but a little strange also.”

  “She heard the two of you arguing a lot.”

  “The woman renting from me last was a piece of work. It’s true, I did ask her to leave. But I gave her notice and she didn’t take it.”

  It was her turn to squirm. His eyes riveted on hers like he was trying to determine her veracity.

  “That sounds fair,” he said. “I had to ask.”

  “Absolutely.” She felt it safe to arch her brows now and smiled. “Danny, there’s no need to worry. We’ll get on, should you decide to move in. I hope you will.”

  Once Danny had left, Julia knocked on her neighbour’s door and rang the bell twice. The old crow didn’t answer. About to leave, she happened to look toward the front window and saw the lace curtain move. She waved. A moment later, the door opened.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Hartley said.

  “I’ve been interviewing tenants and… ”

  “Is that what you call it?”

  Julia regarded her angry face. “I really don’t know why but we seem to have got off on a bad footing.”

  Her neighbour folded her arms and peered toward the sky. “My son’s moved away for starters.”

  Julia tried to make sense of her neighbour’s remark. “I’m not sure what that has to do with me.”

  “I intend to get him back.”

  She wondered if her neighbour was perhaps mental and not just eccentric. “Mrs. Hartley, I’ll come to the point. You informed someone I threw out my previous tenant.”

  “I wouldn’t rent to any bloody Irishman if you want my advice. They’re all terrorists. Look what they did to poor Lord Mountbatten.”

  Julia ignored her outburst. “I dislike it when people say things about me that aren’t true so I’d appreciate if… ”

  “My tea’s getting cold.” Mrs. Hartley went inside and slammed the door shut.

  A letter to Ma’am

  40 Chumley Street

  London, W6

  Dear Queen Mother,

  It’s been a little while since I last wrote. I sincerely hope your collarbone is mended now from the fall and your leg is also feeling better because I noticed you was wearing a heavy bandage in a photograph I came across recently.

  Before your accident, I was ever so glad to read you were able to visit the Queen Mary Clothing Guild. You have been such an inspiration to us knitters through the years, Ma’am. Martha, my friend, who’s doing poorly, was saying she’d love to do a bit of sewing for the Guild again but her fingers are just not up to the work.

  My late husband’s first anniversary is just around the corner. I
’m sure you still miss your husband, our dear departed King. Don’t you find nighttimes worst of all? My cat Percy is such a comfort.

  Not much has changed in this part of London since I last wrote. Well, except I’ve got an Irishman living next to me now. My opinion of the Irish is the same as Princess Margaret’s, Ma’am.

  Well, that’s all my news for now. I look forward to seeing your smiling face on the telly again soon.

  With loyalty and affection, I remain yours,

  Agnes Hartley

  Settling in

  The guests were all Julia’s friends. He’d invited Piper, but she’d arranged to study at Todd’s flat as her exams were starting the following week.

  “You must return to the gym, Julia,” Sonia Berg said, as Danny refilled her wine glass. “You will get more thick around the middle.”

  “More thick, Sonia?” Julia said. Her eyebrows arched in the manner Danny now knew conveyed fake annoyance. “Is this your way of saying I’m already fat?”

  “Sonia, make sure you close the front door on your way out, will you?” Clive said, a man whom Danny thought seasoned his conversation with too much double entendre.

  The doctor’s eyes crinkled in befuddlement. “But I am not leaving yet,” she said.

  “Could have fooled me, darlin’,” said Clive. “You just insulted the hostess.”

  “This was not my intention. I do not mean you are fet in the middle, Julia. I meant you will get fet. You comprehend now?”

  “But working out’s so bloody boring,” Julia said.

  “This Burgundy schmeckt, but so many sugar grams.” As if to underscore her point, Sonia held her glass up to the overhead light. After she set it down again, she looked over at her boyfriend, a hospital porter who kept leaving the table between courses to wander about the room and look at things. “Jean-Pierre, you must return to the table, please.”

  Fine-featured, with a haughty air and kneeling beside a stack of CDs on the floor, he glanced at her and then shrugged. He turned away and continued reading the CD booklet he had in his hand.

  “Sonia, will you speak German to me after I begin my course?” Danny asked.