Imperfect Strangers

by David Staniforth

  I have a sudden flash of inspiration.

  “You know that I know her,” I blurt, sounding very much like a man on a murder charge, a man who just realised he has an alibi. “Or rather, your computer does.”

  “Sorry, sir?”

  “She signed for it.”

  I turn to the well-to-do-lady, as if she were my barrister, who, armed with this extra information, will be able to get all the charges against me dropped. “Sally signed as a guarantor for my card because I had no credit history of my own.”

  The assistant takes my card, types the account number into the terminal and waits, finger tapping, as the details scroll onto the screen. “Well, yes, her details do appear to be linked to your account Mr Pursehouse.” She scrunches her lips into a lemon-flavoured pout, an expression that reminds me of Kerry, and then throws me a lingering look of scrutiny.

  “Very well then,” she says, with a tone of… resignation? “I’ll put the order through.”

  CHAPTER

  28

  The carpet fitters left an hour ago, as I watched them climb into the van I adjusted the curtains, inhaling that new-carpet smell while marvelling at the way the silvery pink silk catches the light, transforming it into something more than it previously was. In this once-gloomy room the colour appears quite magical. This room used to be Mother’s. She won’t come in here now. She won’t come in because it’s too homely, too feminine, too soft. There are only two places in the house she can haunt me now. Only the bathroom and kitchen remain to be done – bleach fragranced rooms both – and soon she will be banished from those rooms too. When those room are done she will be gone, hopefully for good, and Sally will be here in her place, hopefully for good.

  I bring in the dressing table, adjust it to sit perfectly central under the window. Taking the digital camera from my pocket to zoom in on a picture containing the piece of furniture it echoes: its twin in Sally’s house. Taking one bottle of perfume at a time I use the image like the lid of a jigsaw puzzle, carefully placing the correct bottle in the correct place. These are big pieces, easy to position, and the picture quickly takes shape. I then take the hairbrushes – not identical but close enough – from their pristine packaging and just as carefully arrange them at the correct angle.

  I draw the balled, satin knickers from my pocket and smell them before opening a drawer in the bed-side-cabinet. The drawer is full, erupting with feminine under-garments. I flick through images on the camera until I find the correct one. The picture is a smattering of knickers, regimentally placed on a plush cream carpet, like puzzle pieces yet to be placed. I note the burgundy-blush stain on the carpet’s image and smile, pleased that the carpet I’ve just had fitted is blemish free.

  Sally will be pleased. I’m certain of it. Why wouldn’t she be?

  What I am offering Sally is not the exact the same; it’s better. This version of her room, in my house, is cleaner and newer. That’s the way she likes things. I lift the wad of silk, satin and lace and using my thumb fold each one back, mentally checking each item in turn from the photograph.

  Selecting another photograph, I then check the contents of the wardrobe. Its shelves are loaded with folded T-shirts, jumpers, jeans and trousers. Those items that I could not match exactly I replaced with items close enough not to matter, or with ones that, according to assistants, were even better quality, or of a more modern design. Dresses and coats hang from the rail, and I check that the order is correct: blue dress, black dress, brown coat, grey jacket...

  Satisfied that all is well, I close the wardrobe. All that remains to be done, in order to make the room an exact replica, is to place the framed photographs on the walls: the ones of Sally and her man in loving poses. Of course the man in the new pictures will be a different one. It will be Sally and me who are captured within these walls. Empty frames adorn the walls at present as opposed to memories from Sally’s past. I run those images through my mind: an exotic looking beach of white sand and crystal water, a scene on some remote looking heath, in which Steve holds Sally like some kind of Bronte hero. Steve is holding Sally in all of them, like she’s a possession of his. I have been working on it. With a little more practice my Photoshop skills will be good enough to remove Steve and place me by Sally’s side. The join will be invisible. The print quality though, that is proving to be a problem. I have a plan to get around it. In time we will replace these pictures with originals, photographic recordings of memories that I will share with Sally.

  Mrs Seaton slinks into the room, mewing. She trots across the carpet and stops before the plush looking bed, its silk-duvet-cover skimming the floor. I blanch slightly and look through the door. My eyes navigate the dark landing and enter the cold looking bathroom. If she is upstairs she will be in there. I feel the burn on my wrists, sense the smell of bleach and Vim and squirm against the remembered sensation of it scouring my neck on the pinprick bristles of the scrubbing brush. My old clothes are piled in the bottom of the bin, the last few scraggy remnants that I recently threw out along with the wardrobe that led to nowhere but misery.

  I hear her voice, all raspy and full of scorn echoing in the bathroom. Mend and make do.

  “SHUT UP!”

  Who’s all this for? You? You stupid boy.

  “SHUT UP!”

  Sumbitchisit?

  “SHUT UP! GO AWAY!”

  I turn away from the bathroom, just in time to see that Mrs Seaton is about to leap on the bed. Before she even lands I see her claws snagging the silk. Stepping forward I launch a foot in her direction. It hits the cat’s midriff, and she curls round my ankle, with a shocked squeal, like a heavy rag. I follow through, the momentum of my leg sending Mrs Seaton flying across the room. She twists the way cats do, finding her feet as the floor approaches. Landing squarely, taking a few hurried steps to halt the momentum, she pauses and stares at me for a second before scuttling away and pausing near the door.

  “Yes, go. This is Sally’s room. Sally’s, do you hear? You’re not to ruin it. You’re not.”

  The bathroom, its door slightly ajar, snags my eye again. “Did she put you up to this?” I glare into that frigid room. “You bitch. You nasty fucking bitch. Bleach soaking, rope tying, scrub-brushing, nasty fucking bitch.”

  Strings of spit fly with the words. “GET OUT!” I scream swinging my foot just shy of the cat as I bound forward. “GET OUT, GET OUT!” Mrs Seaton streaks through the door at great speed. Like little drums, her paws descend the stairs.

  Glaring into the bathroom from the safety of the bedroom, I slam the door shut.

  I kneel by the side of the bed, the side I already know Sally will sleep on, the side where the lamp sits, where the cabinet houses her underwear. Feeling weak with exertion and upset, I lean against the cabinet and rest my cheek on the mattress. If Sally were laid on the bed her eyes would be level with mine.

  “I’ll tell you tonight,” I say, my voice soft, my throat sore from shouting at Mother.

  “There’ll be no need for you to worry then. And don’t be concerned; I won’t let Mrs Seaton ruin it before you get here. I won’t let anyone ruin it, not anyone. Not even her – the bitch in the bathroom.

  You mustn’t blame Mrs Seaton; it’s her fault – the bitch. She will have put Mrs Seaton up to it.”

  CHAPTER

  29

  I stand up from my desk and approach Kerry’s, uncertain if I’m doing the right thing, voicing a hesitant, “hiya,” the way people are inclined to do when a friendship has shrunk to the point where hellos and byes make up the vast majority of conversation. “It’s about time we made up. Don’t you think?”

  Kerry looks up and raises a questioning brow. One corner of her mouth breaks into a smirk. “I never fell out, Sally. You just stopped talking to me.”

  “I don’t think it was–” No point arguing. “Well, maybe, but only because you kept telling me... Look, let’s put all that behind us. Can we just be the way we used to be?”

  “Sure,” Kerry shrugs.
“But what about...”

  I momentarily press my lips into a narrow line. “I’m not going to abandon Keith just because you don’t like him Kerry. He’s a decent guy, thoughtful and caring. But I am going to cool things down a bit. And I admit, I have kinda let befriending him spoil our friendship. But that’s your fault as much as mine. In a way you pushed me into it.”

  Kerry huffs. “How’d you work that out?”

  “You were behaving like Steve used to. You were practically telling me what I could and couldn’t do; who I could and couldn’t see. I guess I just sort of thought, I’ll show you. And now, well, I guess, I’m sort of stuck with him, Keith I mean, not Steve.”

  Kerry leans back in her chair. Martin glances across from the safety of his office. It’s only ten minutes until we break for lunch, so he’ll stay put. Not worth the hassle. Kerry picks up a pencil and rolls it through her fingers like some kind of miniature baton, flicks it up, catches it. “You don’t have to be stuck with him. Just tell him to push off. Find friends amongst his own type.”

  “His own type?” I perch on the edge of the desk. “See you’re starting already.”

  The expression Kerry gives me seems to say both all right and sorry at the same time.

  “Anyway, I sort of have.”

  Kerry sits up at that, rigid, as if all attention, and places the pencil on the desk.

  “In a way,” I continue, Kerry’s obvious pleasure not having gone unnoticed. “That’s partly what’s led to me thinking about asking you what I’m about to. The thing is: are you still having problems with that landlord of yours?”

  “Too right I am. Boiler’s packed in now, and will he fix it? Will he heck. Not till I pay the rent I owe, he says. Which is now seven weeks by the way. Which he seems to forget I held back because the oven works about as efficiently as men piss in a bowl. So yeh, I’m having trouble with him. Stalemate. He won’t budge, and I’m certainly not going to.”

  “Well, do you fancy moving in with me? Because, I sort of told Keith you already had.”

  “Did you now? Why?”

  “Never mind, that. Do you want to move into mine or not?”

  “Yes, Sal. I’d love too.” Kerry leans forward, her eyes holding mine with a fixed gaze. “But come on, I want the whole story. What’s happened?”

  I probe my tongue into my cheek as I weigh up what to tell and what to hold back.

  “Come on Sal, spill.”

  “You’re not to have a go at him about it.”

  “Sure, guides’ honour.”

  “Guides’ honour…? You were never a guide.”

  “I was. Where’d you think I learned to twirl a baton?” At that she picks up the pencil, twirls it through her fingers, tosses it high and catches it. She laughs, presumably at the look of incredulity on my face. “Got kicked out though for sneaking into Patricia Marsden’s sleeping bag on a camping trip. Boy did she raise a fuss, and all over a little cuddle.”

  I chuckle, realising how much I’ve missed Kerry’s company. I then form a serious expression with the intention of reiterating the seriousness of my request.

  “Okay. Okay. Whatever it is I won’t say a thing. Now spill, the suspense is killing me.”

  I adjust my position on the table, making myself comfortable before I begin. “A while ago Steve decided he wants his share of the collateral from the house–”

  “Lousy shit.”

  “Well he is entitled, I suppose. It is half his.”

  “He’s still a shit.”

  “Anyway, I told Keith we’d have to stop going to the pictures. We’ve been going each Saturday for a while now. I told him the reason why, and he offered to pay.”

  “So he should. Somebody like him should be paying a fortune just for the pleasure of your company – a high class escort like you – never mind the price of seeing a film.”

  “Kerry.” I can’t help but sigh and wish I’d never begun the tale in the first place.

  “Sorry. Go on.”

  Sorry! Did Kerry actually say the word sorry? I mentally shake the shock of it from my thoughts before continuing. “It wasn’t the pictures he offered to pay for, not at first anyway. He offered to help me with the mortgage. That’s what he’s like: generous, sensitive, self-sacrificing. Pity I don’t fancy him really. Obviously, I didn’t take him up on the offer. I mean I’m not a user. Anyway, last night he says he’s got the answer to my problem: I can move in with him, he says.”

  “No! The sleazy git.”

  That’s not the reaction I want from her, but rather than say so I tut and look at her in silence. Kerry eventually shrugs her shoulders, and I continue. “Anyway, I had to think quick. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, and I could tell he had more to say about it – reasons why I should consider it, presumably – so I told him you’d already moved in with me as a lodger, so it was sorted. No longer a problem. Didn’t want to let you down, and all that. He looked a little angry at first, and I got a bit worried, but then I realised he wasn’t angry; he was embarrassed. He started stuttering; you know how he does? I felt really bad, like I’d shot him down in flames when all he was trying to do was help. So then I got to thinking, he’s still going to let Sukie out in the day for me, and apart from the fact that he might notice you don’t live with me, I’ve still got the problem of paying the mortgage and paying Steve what he’s owed. So that’s when I thought, why not? Ask you, I mean. You sure you want to?”

  Kerry nods, forming an expression that seems to indicate she could take or leave the offer, as if she’s not bothered either way. Kerry leans back in the chair, folds her arms across her chest, before saying in a serious tone, “there is just one thing, though. Suppose I give up my flat and then weeks down the line you move Steve back in?”

  I shake my head emphatically. “That’s not going to happen. If there ever was a chance there certainly isn’t now.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “He’s threatened to take my house from me, Kerry! Do you honestly think I’m going to forgive him for that?”

  Kerry pulls an expression of distaste. “But this Keith’s still going to be hanging around though?”

  “For the time being. He’s a good guy, a good friend. He’s helpful, understanding, considerate, generous. All the things I’d want in a man, I suppose, it’s just there’s no spark, you know?”

  Kerry shakes her head and looking to the side raises a hand in greeting to Colleen and Philippa who have just returned to the office after a trip to the deli.

  “I feel hungry now that I’ve got this load off my chest. Want anything, Kerry? My treat.”

  “Go on then. Get me a ham salad.”

  CHAPTER

  30

  The dusky sky that sufficiently illuminated the park when I entered is now completely black, and, as I approach the park-gates, I instinctively know that Keith will be waiting. I meandered along the high street for almost an hour hoping he would have left before I got here, but something tells me he will wait however long I take. As I close the distance I’m proven correct, for there he is, in the distance, half-hidden in the shadow of the stone-pillar. The sight of him standing there, knowing he’s been waiting for as long as he has makes me feel a little uneasy.

  It is no surprise then that I practically jump out of my skin when two boys come screaming from the bushes to my right. I stand for a moment, my hand on my chest, my heart fluttering like a moth in a jar. One of them kicks a football that narrowly misses my head, and both of them chase after it. I recognise the older of the two, when he turns back to apologise for his friend’s misplaced kick, as the child who lives five doors down from me. They disappear through a gate in the privet that separates the back garden from the park: a private entrance into the municipal-playground. Back when we moved in, Steve insisted that we would not be following the practice. A security issue, he’d said, before planting shrubs with the most vicious looking thorns. Right now, I wish I had a back entrance through which to escape.

&
nbsp; My eyes skip along the rooftops, counting along the row to my own house. The bathroom light is on and a figure, detail diffused by obscure-glass, stands towelling hair. As the figure turns slightly, the outline of a breast emerges from the two-dimensional shape. Had the two boys been watching, I wonder, and has anyone ever stood and watched me? Many is the time I’ve walked into the bedroom with the light turned on, and quickly changed a top without closing the blind.

  Keith hasn’t spotted me yet. At least he hasn’t given any indication that he has. I consider shooting through the neighbour’s rear gate where the two boys went, sidling down the path, and continuing along the road to my own front door. I look at Keith, blow a sharp breath, and decide I’m being silly.

  “Hi, Keith,” I say, falsely cheerful, with a hint of faux surprise thrown in, as if I have only spotted him from five feet away. “What you doing here? Thought you’d have been at work by now.”

  “Oh, hi Sally.” He sounds withdrawn, like he used to be, but there is something different. Perhaps moodiness.

  “How’s old Mrs Seaton?”

  “She’s fine, I guess. I got you a present.”

  Never wants to talk about the old woman. There appears to be a hint of upset in his voice now. He rubs each wrist in turn, rotating his forearm so that the wrist turns back and forth in the loosely gripping palm of his hand. I’ve noticed he does that quite a lot, more so lately, but I’ve never liked to question it.

  Definitely sounds moody, reminds me of when Poppy sulks from not getting everything her own way. Sounds like he’s implying, I got you a present, but I don’t think you deserve it. Well stuff your present Keith. I don’t actually want it anyway. “Keith, you really shouldn’t go wasting–”

  “No. You’ll like it, look.” Suddenly his mood changes, like summer sun swinging a blade of light from behind a storm cloud. “That perfume you like, Passion, they brought out a new one: Passion in Twilight. I saw it and I thought you’d like it.” Keith holds it out to me his arm at full stretch, his face beaming like a child trying to please a parent.