Imperfect Strangers

by David Staniforth

  “Really?” When Keith glances across, I realise my eyebrows have risen, matching the elevated pitch of my voice.

  “That’s why I make her go out.”

  “You make her go out?”

  “Well I have to. No choice, really. If I don’t she sits on the landing and sings.”

  “Does she?”

  “Yes. And I can’t get any sleep.”

  “And then she sits on the pavement and sings?”

  “Mostly, she does that, yes.”

  “Well, she’s not very considerate, is she? What with you working nights and all. Sounds to me like she does it on purpose.”

  Keith rolls his lower lip. A contemplative furrow forms on his brow as if he’s confused. “Still, kicking her out all day seems a bit harsh, too... Then again, if she won’t let you sleep I suppose you have little choice. Have you tried talking to her about it?”

  Keith takes a moment to answer as if he’s giving my suggestion serious thought. “I don’t think it would–”

  Don’t go silent again, I want to say, but I don’t want to make him nervous again. He hasn’t stammered for ages now so he must be feeling more comfortable, and that makes me feel more comfortable. “It would what?” In attempting to be mild, I realise that I spoke with the tone of voice a nursery school teacher would adopt when addressing a three year old.

  “It wasn’t a problem when mum was alive. They kept each other company.”

  Good, he hasn’t even noticed. “Good friends were they?”

  “I suppose they were.”

  “All the same...” I realise a note of pity has filtered into my voice, which doesn’t seem to be necessary because Keith doesn’t seem to be bothered about living with this old lady. “Now your mum’s passed away you shouldn’t really feel obliged to have your mum’s companion living with you.”

  “I shouldn’t?”

  “No. You ought to get out Keith.” He looks at me as if I’ve not finished my sentence, a kind of raised eyebrow expression that says, and? “You should get yourself a life. Not sit in with this Mrs Seaton of a night doing jigsaws.”

  “I did think of putting her in a shelter, when mother first, you know... passed on. But I kind of got used to having her around.”

  “Sheltered accommodation! Cripes. How old is she?”

  “Not sure.” In deep thought for a moment, he looks skyward and rubs at his temple. Flakes of dandruff fall to his shoulder and stand in stark contrast to the stiff black material of his uniform jacket. “She must be getting on. She’s getting a lot of grey hair lately. Especially on her chin.”

  I have to turn away and shield my mouth. He must be able to tell I’m smirking despite only seeing the side of my face. When I finally manage to control myself, I lower my hand and laughingly try to cover it up by nodding at my house: a newly built terrace of which I am tremendously proud – wonderful view of the park from the back.

  I believe a house says a lot about the person who lives there. I like to think mine reflects who I am anyway. The bricks are clean, sharp-edged, with pastel-grey mortar. The small garden has a low wall topped with a white picket fence lending it a quaint-cottage feel. The small square of ground between the fence and the house is covered with white quartz (representing snow) that sparkles under the illumination of a small lamppost that reminds me of one of my favourite childhood stories.

  “That lamppost looks like the one in Narnia.” Keith says, seemingly reading my mind.

  “Yeah.” I try to hide my surprise. “I think so, too. I used to love that story.”

  “Me too. I often fantasised about being able to escape to another world through the back of the wardrobe.” He goes quiet and really still. For a moment I think he’s in some sort of a trance and I’m almost certain he mutters the word bitch.

  “I had a jigsaw with it on.” He suddenly blurts, making me start. I’m certain I let out a little squeak.

  “I might still have it somewhere.” He continues, as if there was no gap, no silence, and no shocked reaction from me. “In the loft maybe. You can have it if you like. I’ve done it loads of times already.”

  “Oh, right. Yeah.” I must have got it wrong; he wouldn’t have called me a bitch under his breath, would he? “Yeah, a jigsaw, that’d be... great.” No need to seem ungrateful. I’ll just put it in a charity bag. What the eye doesn’t see and all that.

  “Well, this is me,” I say, once more feeling awkward and regretting that I offered him the lend of a flask.

  CHAPTER

  13

  I can’t believe how well this has worked out. Sally’s crouching in front of me. She is actually touching me, holding onto my elbow and asking me if I’m okay. She turns and watches Steve walk away. For a moment something like regret crosses her expression, but I must have read it wrong, as usual, because she definitely looks angry, or disgusted, or a mix of the two.

  “I’m b-better... than… my.... flask.” I manage between gasps. Father’s fishing flask is destroyed, and I feel like crying, but Sally is here with me and she sympathises by saying it’s a shame because of how nice it looked, and I feel like laughing. She must really feel bad about it because she looks like she’s going to cry herself.

  “Sorry.” I say, because the last thing I want is for Sally to cry because Father’s fishing flask got broken. She smiles at me, obviously pleased that I’m sorry, and she’s so considerate and has noticed my nose is running, because she gives me a tissue.

  “Not much of a weapon, was it?” Sally laughs after saying this. Initially I think she’s laughing at me, but then it occurs that she’s making a joke about it to make me feel better. She says something else while I’m picking up the flask. I shake it, and the glass sloshes in the tea. “Did you mean it?”

  “Mean what?” she says.

  “What you said… About me being a friend?”

  She takes a moment to think about it, which has to be a good thing. If someone rushes their answer to such a question, it means they’re just telling the person what they think that person wants to hear. I watch a leaf floating to the ground, and when I look up Sally is looking intently into my eyes. And then I remember, her eyes, how I deliberated over the colour. I was right: tropical ocean blue: a pale aqua flecked with ripples of ultramarine. Her right eye has an island of green close to the bottom of her left pupil.

  “Er, I guess,” Sally says, and she’s thought long and hard about it, so I know her answer is genuine. “So, you on your way to work?” she asks me. “You’re not going to be late are you?”

  She is so considerate.

  I look at my watch. “Maybe?” I say, knowing that by the time I’ve crossed the park I most certainly will be late. I make up a lie – which I feel bad about – that Arthur is often late, even though he never is. And he was always covering for me when mother was ill, and he never told the bosses on me or anything, so it’s an even worse lie for that, but I only do it so Sally won’t feel bad about me being late.

  A squirrel bounds across the entrance to the park and I want to think of something poetic to say about the way it moves. Sally says something about liking the squirrels and that makes me even more determined, but nothing comes to mind.

  I offer to walk her home. Sally says she doesn’t want to make me late, but she doesn’t actually say no to my offer, so when she starts to walk to her house I start to follow, and she still doesn’t say no, so she must mean yes. I hope she asks me in for coffee. That doesn’t really mean coffee, I know that; it’s a kind of code that means would you like to come in, and the coffee offer is just a reason to say yes, because who would go in to a person’s house just to go in and then come out without having done anything. Sally still hasn’t said no to my walking her, so I speed up to walk by her side. Her hand is close to mine, hanging free, so I think maybe she wants me to hold it. I imagine how soft the skin of her palm will feel against mine, her fingers entwined with my fingers. She reaches across and messes with her coat though, so I take the tissue from my pocke
t and pretend that I actually intended to blow my nose. Snot from the previous blow smears my cheek and I need to get it off somehow without her noticing.

  Sally asks if I live round here and I tell her about catching the bus, and I think about how it bounces over the pot holes and how it feels like you’re on a rough sea and then a poetic way of describing the squirrels comes to me. “The way they go up and down when they run reminds me of waves.”

  I don’t hear her reply, because I think she’s seen me wiping the snot from my cheek and rubbing it onto my trousers. She sounds a little annoyed, I think.

  “The squir-r-r. The squir-r-r...” I can’t get my words out because I’m too embarrassed about the snot.

  “Squirrels?” She says, helping me out, and that’s great because most people just stand there and let me suffer as I try again and again, and it gets harder and harder, and I just want to move on and say the rest of the line. And when Sally helps me, it’s like she’s given me a lift over a wall and from that point on it’s as easy as walking down hill. All down hill from here – doesn’t really fit with my expectations. I suppose it means it’s easier to fail than succeed. Or does it mean this is as good as things will ever get to be; I hope not.

  “Yes. You said you like to w-watch them.”

  She doesn’t look at all angry with me for wiping the snot from my cheek.

  “It looks like waves, w-when they run.” I make a wave-like motion with my hand and she smiles at me like I’ve nothing at all to feel bad about, which makes me love her even more. But now I’ve run out of things to say, so I wait for her to say something, wait for the movement of her mouth, the swell of her soft lips. We don’t speak for several yards and it seems an age. How do people do this? How do they talk and talk and talk? I consider drawing on my reserve of Leanne Rimes facts, but I think it best to save them for our date, which may or, increasingly likely by the second, may not happen. Say something I tell myself over and over, willing a thought to come, anything. I like the snow globe you keep on your desk. No! Idiot. Can’t say that. I know, I’ll tell her it’s my birthday.

  She seems to be sad that I did a jigsaw. Sadness, one of the few expressions I can read. Even so, even though I know the expression, I still have trouble inferring its relevance to constructing a puzzle. There must be a book on it: Expression: and how to read it, something like that, a user’s guide. She seems to be waiting for something, keeps swivelling her head, looking into the park. This isn’t going to work, is it? I can’t even manage a ten-minute conversation. I’m on the verge of saying bye and setting off through the park.

  “S’pose you’ll go out with friends at the weekend?” she asks.

  What do I tell her? Do I lie to make me look like a popular person, make out that I am popular in the hope that that will impress her, or do I tell the truth and hope that Sally will go for a drink with me. Deciding that truth would be best I tell her: “No,”

  “Oh…!”

  She’s so quiet that I look up expecting her to have gone, but she is still here, looking at me, her face rather more sad in appearance.

  “I live just down there, where the houses back onto the park,” she tells me.

  I know, I almost say, I’ve watched you. I look toward the park gates. “Only I’m on my own see, since mum died,” I say, thinking, just one more look at her eyes before I go. They sparkle, and I can’t help but smile back, even though it’s the last thing I feel like doing. I’m giving up on you Sally, I say to myself. I’m going to go now.

  “Would you like to borrow a flask?” She asks. It sounds like, come in for coffee – a code, a reason to invite someone in. Come in for a coffee? Yes. I don’t like coffee though. Its stench reminds me of burnt toast, and the stench of burnt toast reminds me of—

  Leave it, Keith.

  I will accept. That’s the polite thing to do, but I will ask for a tea instead.

  It’s a sacrifice, but with a heavy heart I put Father’s fishing flask in the bin, and tip Sally a nod. I will retrieve it later, on my way to work. She looks pleased, genuinely pleased, that I’ve accepted her offer. I thought she wanted me to go; it turns out that she didn’t after all. Reading people, it’s something I definitely need to master. I really must get a book on it – if not at the library then from that second hand bookshop near the university. Lots of interesting books in there that the students off-load as soon as they've completed the relevant module, and there’s so many of each one that they sell for pence.

  As we walk, we have a pleasant conversation about Mrs Seaton, and how the pesky cat keeps me awake in the day. Sally thinks I should get rid of her, but I couldn’t. Then she suggests talking to her about it, which is really strange. I’m about to tell her that I don’t think trying to reason with a cat would do any good, but then I realise that she’s probably joking. As usual the joke has flown right over my head.

  Sally’s house is getting close now and all we’ve talked about is Mum’s old cat. I want to ask her to go for a drink, or maybe to the cinema, but I’m uncertain how to steer the conversation away from the present subject without ruining the moment. But then she tells me I ought to go out, and I want her to ask me. I will her to, while thinking, yes go out with you. When? She doesn’t though. Instead she says I shouldn’t just stop in and do jigsaws.

  But I like doing jigsaws, I want to say, I like the way the picture builds out of complete disorder; I like putting the pieces in their rightful place and saving the best section for last. But Sally’s house is getting nearer, so I avoid complicating the discussion. Then Sally starts talking about Mrs Seaton again, and I’m not totally listening because I’m thinking about the best way to ask her out. She seems amused by something I’ve said, but I’m not certain what I’ve said. We we’re talking about Mrs Seaton being such an old cat that she has grey whiskers on her chin. I don’t see why it’s funny, but I smile anyway.

  The space in front of Sally’s house looks lovely. From the first day I saw it, it reminded me of a Narnia jigsaw I have. I tell Sally it looks like Narnia and she says that she thinks so too. She smiles then, a most beautiful smile that sparkles in her eyes like a breeze rippling the surface of the warm waters of their tropical hue.

  “I used to love that story,” she tells me.

  “Me too. I often fantasised about being able to escape to another world through the back of the wardrobe.” And you’ll stay in there until you learn to stop telling lies. The ropes are tight. Binding. Burning. Little Keith’s wrists throbbed in the wardrobe. He felt cobwebs float onto his cheeks. And in wet pyjamas smelling of bleach, he shivered as if the ice queen herself were reaching in to grab him. The liar, the bitch and the wardrobe.

  “I had a jigsaw with it on.” I tell her.

  Sally squeaks with delight. Got it wrong again: seems she likes jigsaws after all.

  “I think I still have it. You can have it if you like. I’ve done it loads of times already.”

  “Well, this is me,” she says, as if I don’t already know this is her house. Many is the time I’ve wandered past gazing at the navy blue door and desperately wanted to walk up the short path and lift the silver knocker. And now here I am, standing behind Sally, close enough to smell her hair, waiting, as she inserts the key, opens the door and enters.

  CHAPTER

  14

  The smell hits me the instant I open my front door. I’m so embarrassed – I want to tell Keith it’s not a good time – that I’m not thinking straight, and even though my brain registers the cause of the stink, it’s slow to tell my leg, and my foot slaps right into the mess that the door has smeared chocolate-spread-like across the doormat and onto the carpet. “Shit!” I exclaim, leaving my shoe behind, as I step from doorstep to living room.

  “What’s wrong?” asks Keith, sounding quite alarmed.

  “Shit is wrong. Sukie, you might well hide, you naughty dog.”

  Keith reels back, scrunching his nose, when I pick up the shoe with excrement squidged out either side. He scowls at S
ukie, and I’m not having that, so I jump to her defence. “Well at least she did it on the doormat and not the carpet” I make the utmost effort to ensure my voice remains calm so that Sukie doesn’t get frightened.

  “Sorry about this,” I say, placing a hand on Keith’s shoulder for support, as I lean out the door and drop the shoe on the side of the step. “I’ll see to that later.”

  “Sorry,” I repeat, lifting my hand from his shoulder, as I chuck the mat onto the path. My cheeks are burning for some reason. Maybe, because something tells me that Keith is the type of person who will read more into a touch like that than can possibly ever be meant, or maybe I’m just embarrassed that my dog has shat in the living room, and I’m looking to lay the blame elsewhere.

  “Don’t worry,” says Keith, somewhat delayed, but in a reassuring tone, as he stands on the doorstep and watches me disappear into the kitchen. He steps inside and quietly eases the door shut.

  “Mrs Seaton does exactly the same thing,” he calls out.

  “What? Not in the living room, surely?” I’m glad I’m in the kitchen out of view, because I have a sudden fit of the giggles, knowing that I must have misunderstood, but picturing the scene nonetheless. When I’ve got control, I return carrying a basket full of cloths, brushes and bottles of cleaning fluid – to clean the bottom of the door, not the mat: I’m chucking that. When I look at Keith, I think, oh-my-god, he’s serious.

  “Mrs Seaton’s a little more subtle than Sukie.” He says this as if it’s something normal, sounding a little put out that I’m alarmed to be honest. “No danger of standing in it. She always does it behind the settee.”

  “Behind the... Crikey, you are serious?” I’m not usually wrong when it comes to tone of voice, but I must be, because his voice seems to contain a hint of pride. “Is she senile?”

  “I don’t... I mean, I don’t think–”