Imperfect Strangers

by David Staniforth

  Several of the office girls mutter the words get on now, their eyes rolling as they do so.

  “Good for you, Colleen,” Kerry congratulates, before throwing Martin another stab of her eyes.

  He’s already slipped rodent-like into his sanctuary and you just know he’s standing there, his back to the door, thinking he had a lucky escape. He won’t be out here for the rest of the day.

  “I wish all men would forward-slash,” Kerry declares, loud enough for Martin to have heard it from the safe side of his door.

  “They do though, don’t they?” Colleen runs a finger over the pearls around her neck, and then checks the set of her hair as if she’s just been engaged in a physical tussle.

  “No, Colleen,” I correct, looking quite serious, but making certain there’s an air of humour in my voice. “Evidence on tiled bathroom floors indicates that most males of the human species spray sideways.”

  All the women in earshot start laughing and nodding with agreement. I have to wipe tears from the corners of my eyes, I’m laughing so much. Always prepared, Colleen rushes forward with a box of tissues. As I take a tissue, my phone rings. Colleen gives me a raised eyebrow look that tips to the phone, which I infer to mean, shall I?

  Colleen picks up the receiver and listens in silence. I can hear the voice at the other end. It sounds distant and pathetic. “Steve?” I mouth. Colleen nods before giving me the, shall I, look again.

  She draws a breath of preparation when I nod. And then, in what for her is a shout, blurts, “Steven. Just forward-slash, will you.”

  CHAPTER

  9

  I’ve been lying here for hours, thinking about Sally, while watching the luminous finger count away torturous minutes. Finally the alarm rings. Rather than turn it off, I watch the little hammer swinging furiously from one silver dome to the other, the spring uncoiling as the hammer slows, until, eventually, it gives up the fight. Muted daylight would creep around the edge of the heavy green curtains were it not for the burn of the sixty watt bulb. I’ve been wondering, as I’ve stewed in my bed, if this is the day my life will take a turn for the better. Was it really less than a week ago that my heart struck like that hammer, fast and furious, as I listened to the music that’s already escaped my memory and left me feeling wound down.

  Things need to change.

  I rise from the bed and pad across the landing, scratching a boil on my bum through y-fronts, which have worn and washed baggy and grey. Today is my birthday. It is also a Wednesday. Mid-week. Today, I will have a shower. Bath on Saturday night, and a shower on Wednesday afternoon. Strip wash on the days in between. Waste-not-want-not. I should bathe everyday, just to spite the old bitch.

  The bathroom door proves difficult to open this morning. Inch three through to five has a springy resistance, as though the door is attached to strong elastic. Beyond five inches the door’s movement firms to the point of immobility. Frosty air escapes the room and strokes my cheek like a kiss of death as I attempt to peer through the gap. Seeing nothing, more so, knowing there’s nothing in there that could be blocking the door’s movement, I firm my shoulder against the panel and push more vigorously. Gradually the door moves a fraction. Suddenly it gives, and I tumble into the frigid room. Sprawled on the floor, I turn to see a triangular patch, torn like a tongue from the lino, and realise I should have glued the small rip before it got any worse. As with most things, I ignored it, pushed it to the back of my mind.

  Things have to change.

  What would Sally make of this? And like the kitchen, it’s as if I’m seeing the state of this room for the very first time.

  The ripped lino does nothing to worsen the look of the room. It matches the peeling blue paint on the walls – blue which was once duck-egg, but has now yellowed toward a rancid hue bordering on vomit-green. The numerous gaps where the paint has peeled show plaster peppered with a sooty looking mould. Amber stripes descend the toilet’s white pan. I’ve often intended to clean the bath, but the vignette of grime around the tub gives the room its finishing touch and perfectly accents the ginger line descending from calcified-tap to fossilised plughole. I let it get like this thinking She wouldn’t be able to stand it and would go away. She didn’t.

  Having spent twenty minutes in the bathroom, showering, shaving and towelling myself dry, I now feel even more depressed. A girl like Sally won’t want me. Why would she? The thought unwinds my spring further. Appetite for life is a wound up clock spring. This philosophical realisation fails to please me in the way it once would have. My uniform still feels a little damp, but to be honest I don’t really care. The curtains are still closed, and the naked bulb still harshly lights the room. My reflection stares back at me from the mirror of an old wardrobe. Solid oak, like the furniture downstairs. Once quite valuable, sought after but now extremely unfashionable. I had considered selling it. I had considered selling all the old stuff, but in my usual style I left it too late. Maybe I’ve left it too late to change, and if I can’t have Sally, I wonder if I can even be bothered to. Maybe I should stop winding myself up; let my spring go so slack that I eventually stop. How long would it take before someone discovered me? Unwound. No longer ticking.

  Outside a dog barks, a deep loud boom that makes me start. Another dog, higher in pitch, joins in. Shoving a mountain of clothes to the wall with my foot, the once white pants on top tumbling like a crest of polluted snow, I open the curtains. The two dogs are on the other side of the road, no longer barking but now growling, playing tug-o-war with a chicken carcass. Mrs Seaton is on this side of the road, lounging on top of a car, watching them with contempt, her tail swishing over the windscreen. I once read that dogs can choke on splintered chicken bones. Good, I think, one less mutt to crap on the pavement. A glimmer of pale-yellow light presses against the ashen clouds. I wonder if the light will break through, or are the clouds strong enough to hold it back. Maybe today will be a turning point. Maybe not. If this day gives me no hope at all, then tomorrow I will go to bed, stay there, and slowly unwind.

  The sock drawer is empty. I close it and turn to the pile of unwashed clothes. Kneeling before the pile, raising socks in turn to my nose, I discard the worst smelling into a separate pile. The least stinking are the pair I wore yesterday, and though the big toe of my right foot pokes through a gaping hole, I settle for them.

  Down in the front room – I refuse to call it living room – following the usual routine, I open the cover of the topmost book from a pile of five. The library stamp inside tells me I have three more days to absorb the text. I select the one I’ve not yet read – ‘One Hundred Uses for Pieces of String’ – and slip it into my workbag as I make my way into the kitchen. I then take out my lunch box and my dead father’s tartan flask – his fishing flask (the one and only thing I have never returned to the sideboard). I put an empty sandwich bag into the lunch box, throwing the used one towards the bin, and put the box into my bag. I tip the dregs of tea from the flask into the sink and flick on the kettle. I’m like a robot, going through the exact same thing, each and every day. Programmed. Stuck in a rut. Wind the clock up, check the time, wake up and turn it off. Wind the clock up, set the time...

  A plastic clacking sound comes from the back door. Sure enough, when I look down Mrs Seaton’s head is pushing the clear plastic flap against the house-brick that I place there to prevent her daytime entry. When I’m out at work – no problem – she can come in and go out as often or as little as she likes, but when I’m sleeping, she’s out. The instant I push the brick aside, Mrs Seaton slinks through and scampers into the room, her tail erect. She stands before me, looking up, mewing loudly.

  “Come to wish me happy birthday, have you?” I pick up the parcel from the counter: the parcel I wrapped for myself, yesterday, in red paper with blue and yellow balloons. I rip the paper away and unwrap the cellophane from a jigsaw box as I move from the kitchen to the front room. “Did those nasty doggies choke yet?”

  Mrs Seaton mews her reply as I settle
onto the sofa. I push the food cartons to the floor, then sitting before the coffee table, lift the lid from the box and begin extracting edging pieces. Consulting the lid, pushing the fragments of blue-sky to one side, I start at the bottom. That part of the picture has lots of small detail. Small details always provide a good start, and the bottom of this puzzle has white water rushing over moss-skirted rocks. There’s an interesting mix of turbulence. Referring to the lid – an action mother would have considered cheating – the bottom edge soon grows. The mantle clock counts the passing moments with a pounding tick. Occasionally Mrs Seaton reaches up and paws the pieces as I shuffle them around each other.

  “No, silly,” I tell her, tapping her paw in mock chastisement. “That’s a piece of sky. Mother was much better at these than you. She’d have done the sides too by now.” Life is like a jigsaw. She’d say things like that on her better days, on the not-so-bad days, the days when she would actually talk to me. Sort the pieces, Keith, she’d say. Put them in the correct order; take them one at a time, and the rest will fall easily into place.

  Yes, life is a bit like a jigsaw. But you don’t get a picture to follow as an example, and the pieces won’t always fit where you’d like them to fit.

  “Ah, there it is, hiding amongst these fragments of trees.” I see the man’s hands on one piece, a section of the willow basket on another, and a length of fishing rod on another. I push these to one side, determined to save that section of the puzzle for last.

  The piece of boulder slotted in, I sit for a while as if gazing at a distant memory.

  Hiding.

  With a shudder I glance at the clock. “Time I was off, Mrs. Seaton.” Suddenly I feel excited. Wound up tight and ticking away. “Don’t want to miss her, do I? Not today.”

  Watcherupto? “What are you up to?” I correct her droning voice. “You really should pronounce your words properly.” Whoeryerseein? “Pro-nun-see-ate! Who. Are. You. See-ing? I’m seeing a girl, mother. A beautiful, wonderful girl called Sally. And when I see her, if things go well, who knows I might talk to her. And if that goes well... well, we will have to wait and see, won’t we?”

  We will won’t we? Can’t hide sins under cardboard sheeting. End in trouble it will. Y’mark m’words.

  CHAPTER

  10

  How old had we been? Eight? Nine? Ten?

  “Come on Keith,” said Heather Unwin, taking me by the hand, as she led me down the garden path. Her garden path. The garden next to mine, which being so shambolic, often fell victim to Mother’s scorn.

  “Just look at these weeds,” she would snarl, as she carefully cut dandelions from her own lawn. “A kind of cleansing, this act, which would always be done with a sharp slender knife.” On such occasions she wore two pairs of gardening gloves: a small tight fitting pair, which were waterproof, underneath a pair made of tough, impenetrable-leather, the cuffs of which covered half the length of her forearm.

  “Any wonder m’lawns such a mess w’that shambles next door?”

  She’d scowl at the fence separating the Unwins’ garden from ours. At times such as this, when mother was tending the garden, complaining about the weeds, I said nothing. There was less chance of catching some of the blame if I kept a low profile. I’d just take the extracted weed from her, run and put it in the bin, fetch back a handful of compost to fill the hole, and wait patiently for the next weed.

  “There,” she’d say, “Grass’ll soon grow back, ‘n’ nobody’ll be able t’tell.”

  Nobody will be able to tell. Just like nobody can see a bruise if it’s covered with hair.

  That day, though, the day Heather Unwin led me down the garden path, Mother was not in the garden. She was indoors, no doubt cursing all the neighbours for generating the dust that collected in the home she so diligently cleaned. “Fires burning and soot billowing, all day long when it’s not even cold.”

  Up until the moment when Heather appeared, I’d been content, bouncing my football in the covered passage between our houses. Not being allowed in the house during daylight hours, the passageway is where I often found myself. And, even though it had stopped raining at least twenty minutes ago, I remained there, bouncing the ball, over and over. B-doyng, B-doyng, B-doyng, over and over – the timing of the bounce and resulting echo as consistent as the tick of a slowly unwinding clock.

  “MY MUM SAYS: WILL YOU STOP BOUNCING THAT BLOODY BALL!”

  Heather yelled the words much louder than she needed to. She did it on a purpose, did it to make me jump. She laughed viciously when I flinched. The ball drummed to a halt at my feet. She yelled that command at me as if she were an adult. Yelled it with much more authority in her voice than a girl only four months older than me was entitled.

  “S- S- Sorry,” I finally managed. It was the worst my stutter had ever been. It wasn’t nerves, though; it was excitement. Little did I realise at the time, but my stutter was to get much worse. Heather laughed. I blushed. My face felt hot, and it prickled. Maybe she felt sorry for me then, because she walked into the passage, took hold of my hand, and told me to not look so sad.

  “Why don’t you go indoors when it’s raining?”

  I’m not allowed, I thought, but shrugged my shoulders rather than tell her that Mother cleans in the day, and I’d be in the way, and I’d likely get some what-for.

  “Why don’t you go and put some dry clothes on?”

  Again I shrugged. “Can’t be bothered.”

  “My mum says it’s a shame.” She did not say what was a shame, just that it was.

  “W- Would you like this?” I asked, fumbling in my trouser pocket. I found it on the floor when collecting the clear plastic halves for my model making, but Heather didn’t need to know that. “I got it from the machine, that’s...” I drew the ring from my pocket and presented it to her in my outstretched palm. My hand shook and the cut-plastic ring seemed to exaggerate the tremor. “I w- w– I w-wanted a toy soldier, b- but I got this.” It was lie, and lies are bad, but I didn’t want her to think it had been on the floor. I didn’t want her to know it was a prize that had been chucked by another boy in disgust at receiving something intended for a girl.

  Heather smiled and looked as if she had been about to take it from my hand, but she stopped herself. She then stepped back a pace and placed her hands on her hips. “That’s not the way to give a girl a ring. You have to kneel on the floor, just one knee, and then offer it to me.”

  I looked along the length of the passage, towards the pavement. Feeling safe that we were alone, I turned back to Heather and knelt on the floor. My hand shaking, I held the ring aloft in my outstretched palm.

  “You have to ask me.”

  “W– Would you like this r-r-ring?”

  “You have to say with this ring I thee wed.”

  “But I d– d–…. I d– d–”

  “I do too. Thank you.”

  Heather snatched the ring. I never had a chance to finish saying: I don't want to. But it was too late, she had the ring on her finger and she was looking at it with pride, her fingers outstretched. What will Mother say when she finds out I’m married?

  Heather then held out her hand to me, beckoning with wavering fingers that I should take hold.

  I reached forward and gently gripped her fingers while rising to my feet. They felt soft and warm. Her fingers were delicate and had perfect nails that were all pink and shiny.

  “Come on,” she said. “Now we’re married, I need you to do something for me.”

  The grass on Heather’s back garden was tall. Up to our knees. Mother’s grass was perfectly manicured, cut every other day throughout the summer. It would have been amazing to roll on. But I was not allowed to play on it, on account of the fact that my heavy, clumsy feet would ruin it. Mother’s feet were larger than mine, though, so I never fully understood why it was that mine should be heavier. Still, I did as I was told and stayed off the grass. I would have what-for if I played on it. I already had more than enough what-for as it w
as.

  “Algiyer wot fer,” she would say if, after receiving a scutch, I even dared to ask, what it was for? And then, scutch again. Harder, with more force, knuckles this time, just above my ear. I stopped asking why, and just took the punishments when they came.

  Heather's socks, which in the passage had reached to her knees, smoothly covering her calves with brilliant white, had now fallen to her ankles, weighed down with wetness. My trousers were also heavy, so heavy I had to put my left hand in the pocket to prevent them from coming down. There was no pocket in the left though, just a fringe of frayed material where the pocket should have been. While others held me down, Paul Frazer had ripped it away and run around the schoolyard shouting that it smelled of pee.

  It did not smell of pee.

  One thing I could positively say is that my clothes and me were clean. Too clean! Painfully clean. Scrubbing brush and Vim clean.

  Heather held my right hand, but we were apart, our arms at full stretch. She stood there a moment like that, her socks, no longer a gleaming white, but a murky-pale-grey, and bunched above her pristine black shoes, water droplets on the surface glinting like beads of glass.

  Her head was tipped forward, looking down on a cardboard box that had been opened out, laid flat, like a sheet. It had been put there recently. I figured that, because it was dry and the shed door was open. I glanced over my shoulder, at the passage, at my ball, but as she pulled me closer and looked into my face I looked at the cardboard. There was no way of telling what kind of large object had been delivered in it, because, apart from an arrow and the words: this way up, it was plain. The edges had gone a little blotchy, swollen with moisture from the grass.

  My neck felt hot: hot and sticky. Icky. Uncomfortable.