The Laundry Basket

by G. M. C. Lewis

  Underneath the councillor’s home address was a phone number. Before Edgar had really thought about what he was doing, he picked up his mobile and dialled the number. The number rang and rang and rang, and just as Edgar was thinking better of his actions, the ringing stopped and the voice of a woman said, “Hello?”

  “Hello, my name is Edgar,” stupid, stupid, using his actual name, “and I’m writing an article on paedophiles and the danger they pose to our children. I was wondering if the councillor might be willing to talk about what local authorities are doing to address this issue.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Yes, I’m still here.” The voice sounded dreamy and spaced out.

  Another long silence. Edgar waited. Finally, after what seemed an interminable gap, the voice said:

  “What was your name again?”

  “Edgar Coleridge,” he said; all his instincts for self-preservation and subterfuge had evaporated.

  “Well Mr Coleridge, I have a story for you.”

  Silence again. He waited, his heart beating hard. There was something quite unnerving about this disembodied voice at the end of the line. Edgar started to think that maybe the phone had been answered by mad Aunt Jemima or some such, but then again –

  “Do you have an email address, Mr Coleridge?” said the voice.

  Edgar gave it.

  The voice read it back to him, then told him to check his inbox in an hour and hung up. Half an hour later, Edgar received an email. The body of the email was empty, but had several large attachments. As he opened each one, his sense of anticipation was replaced with at first astonishment, then horror, and finally the growing realisation that a) not giving this email to the police would probably be a crime in itself and b) he needed to up Izzy’s rate on this one.

  He put together Izzy’s Mission Impossible file using the voice toolbox to make it sound cool and then saved it on a flash drive. He knew that Izzy was playing at Purgatory tonight and this delivery needed the personal touch.

  His next stroke of unbelievable luck came the next morning. Edgar was lounging in his room, stripped down to his usual comfort wear; boxers and a string vest. He was enjoying a Ranchers burger and a large bag of prawn cocktail-flavoured snacks and was scrolling through women’s profiles on a dating website. He’d never managed to facilitate a date, let alone sex, but once he managed to get a girl to talk to him on a webcam chat and show him her boobs. Regardless of all this, he enjoyed looking for the saucy photos and having a perv at real women, which seemed more exciting to him than looking at the flawless pneumatic bimbos in porn films.

  He didn’t know what drew him to that one particular profile and prompted him to open a chat window, but the response was instant:

  > Fancy a chat?

  > Hiiii sexy

  > How are you?

  > I’m fucking horny darling – can u help me out?

  > I’d love to

  > Wat do u want to do to me?

  This was the bit Edgar hated, where he usually lost the girl’s interest. He paused for a moment, debating what to say, but before he got a chance to say anything another chat message came through:

  > Can u meet me 2night?

  > Yes

  > I’ll be at Gio Gios on Camden High Street at 8pm 2night. Where a red rose – my friend has a place we can go nearby

  > OK

  > Here’s my number – 07********* my pussy will be waiting – it will be like sliding between silk sheets

  > Here’s mine – 07*********

  > Gr8 c u later lover boy

  Moments later his mobile pinged, indicating that he’d received a photo file. He opened it and his other hand automatically slid down over his string vest, following the contours of his belly to the growing tumescence in his boxer shorts.

  He spent the remainder of the day umming and ahhing about whether or not to go. The arguments for going were considerable; the most prominent being that Edgar had not had sexual intercourse for over eight years. The arguments against were that Edgar had used the same photo for his profile picture that he uses for all his internet interaction –the muscular, bronzed torso of a model with a great big schlong in his posing pouch. Edgar did not look like this.

  Edgar goes to the supermarket and buys a bunch of flowers, which include red roses, just in case he decides to go. When he gets back to the house, Lorenza is in the kitchen:

  “Hey Eddie,” she says, “who are the flowers for?”

  “Oh, I’ve got a date tonight,” he says in an offhand way as he turns the pages of the Guardian, which is on the kitchen table.

  “Nice one – where are you going?”

  “Gio Gios in Clapham, maybe…”

  “That’s fantastic Eddie – I hope it goes really well for you,” says Lorenza enthusiastically.

  “Yeah, well, it’s no big deal,” says Edgar, and then goes upstairs to his room and lays the flowers on the bed. He’s told Lorenza now, so he’s got to go, he realises. He goes back out and gets himself a haircut and some new shoes, then, returning home, he has a long soak in the bath, which annoys Frank and Tina, who both want showers and the top floor shower is broken. He shaves very carefully and then applies a generous amount of aftershave and deodorant before laying a long collared shirt, smart trousers and blazer over the top of fresh boxer shorts and string vest. He puts on his lucky socks and new shoes and then, standing in front of the mirror, he applies the final touch – a red rose in his breast pocket.

  Edgar looks at himself. ‘Hackers are highly likely to make good lover material’. He smiles.

  He arrives in Clapham at 5.15pm. The early evening is grey, but he decides to go for a walk on Clapham Common to kill some time. A murder of crows is scattered over the grass and as he approaches they lollop away in lazy bounces, keen to avoid unnecessary flight. It starts to rain and so he turns and leaves the joggers and crows to it. Edgar waits in the Alexander pub for almost two hours, drinking diet coke for the first hour and then switching to Peroni for the second hour for some Italian courage.

  He arrives at Gio Gios at 7.45pm and gets one of the last free tables by the wall near the door to the toilets. He curses himself for coming to the restaurant so late and not booking a table. He’d wanted a window seat so he could see her coming. Still, at least he has a table.

  He orders a bottle of house red and some water and then tells the waitress that he’d like to wait for someone before ordering food. He pours a glass of red and water for her and then a glass of each for himself. 8pm comes and goes. At 8.15pm, Edgar starts to feel very warm, so he takes off his blazer and puts it on the back of his chair, then he realises that his string vest is clearly visible through his white shirt and thinks about putting his blazer back on. Edgar thinks that it might look odd to put his blazer back on, having just taken it off, but then he realises that the red rose is on the blazer, so he needs to be wearing it to be recognised. He half-stands and takes the blazer back off the chair and is putting it back on again when he realises he is being watched. Turning fully, he sees her stood in the middle of the restaurant, staring directly at him. She has a face like stone. He stands up straight and pulls the blazer fully on and then gives her a small wave. She walks slowly towards him like a lioness sizing up a little warthog by the watering hole. Edgar tries very hard to smile. When she reaches the table, he begins to lean forward to give her a kiss and then stops himself as he registers her backwards movement in time with his.

  “Chloe, I presume,” he says, extending his hand instead, “I’m Ed.” She does not offer her hand. She does not look at him in the face. She is staring at his belly with undisguised disgust. Edgar withdraws his hand and self-consciously pulls his blazer closed over his belly and then just stands there with a mortified expression on his face. Finally she says:

  “Wow, you look quite different from your profile picture. Did they use a fish eye lens for it or sumfink?” She is still staring at his belly.

 
“Ha,” he says, sitting down slowly and indicating with his hand for her to do so too. “Yeah, sorry about that – my friend set up my profile and he said I’d get a better response if I used that photo. I got us some wine – I hope you like red,” he says trying to sound casual.

  “Your friend,” she says slowly, as she sits on the edge of her seat, with her legs tightly together and pointing to the side, clutching her coat around her and now staring vacantly at the table. “He give you any ‘ints and tips on what to do when you actually went to meet someone?”

  “Ha ha, well, it’s funny you should say that, but, well, no.”

  “Right, gotcha.” She looks him in the eye at last and her face suddenly transforms as she says, “You ‘orrible, fat, lyin’ deceitful barstard! You fink you can just go aroun’ connin’ girls into gettin’ into bed with you and slobberin’ your big fat ox tongue all over ‘em and they won’t mind when it comes to meetin you that you’re not the tanned, fit stud from your photo? They won’t mind when they see that you’re a flabby, pale, ugly bloke?”

  “I’m really sorry. Look, now that you’re here, surely we could –”

  “We could what? Being as I’m ‘ere, I might as well fuck ya?” she shouts, standing up.

  “Please,” he says, “I’m so sorry. Won’t you just stay for a drink? I’ve got us a bottle of red…”

  “Yeah, go on then luv,” she says, suddenly sickly sweet. “I’ll have a drink.” She picks up her water. “I’ll have a drink on you,” and pours her water over his head. He feels the weight of the restaurant’s eyes on him and just sits there. He just sits there and takes it. “Oooh, nice vest,” she says, and starts laughing at his string vest, which is now highly visible through his wet shirt. “’Ere y’are sexy, have another drink,” and she pours her red wine over his head. She is laughing hard now and without saying anything else, she picks up his water in one hand and his red wine in the other and tips them both over his head at the same time as well. She is convulsed in silent hysterics now, gripping the back of her chair to stop herself from falling over and pointing at him with the other.

  He just sits there and takes it.

  There is a loud clattering in the kitchen which seems to break the spell over the rest of the customers in the restaurant and the low intermittent hum of hesitant conversation begins again. She finally gets control of herself and says:

  “Ooooh my gawd, phew, I needed that! Well thanks Ed, I’ve had a wonderful time. Word of advice, luv – in future, I’d recommend looking like your profile picture if you intend to actually meet girls. They like it better that way. Oh, and ditch the string vests, sweetie. Byeee.” And with that, she walks away.

  Edgar pays the bill and leaves. He takes two buses home, leaving purple footprints in both. When he gets back to the street, there is a large fire burning down by house 10, surrounded by silhouettes and the sound of voices, guitars and djembes. He quietly enters his house and is relieved to be able to get upstairs to his room unseen. He closes his door behind him and for a moment stands there leaning on the door, with his head on the frame and his eyes shut.

  “Never again,” he says quietly under his breath.

  He turns and walks to the mirror and looks at himself. He undresses in front of the mirror, down to his boxer shorts and string vest. Then, after a moment, he pulls off the soggy, purple-stained vest and drops it into his waste bin, then he sits on the floor of his room, puts his feet under his bed and his hands behind his head and slowly, painfully, he does a sit up.

  He puffs heavily, but he doesn’t stop. He has decided not to stop until he looks like his profile picture.

  Sarong

  Lorenza steps into her room and closes the door. She puts her economics textbooks on her desk and switches on her laptop, then goes downstairs to make tea. She has to borrow a teabag and a little bit of milk. She looks in her section of fridge and cupboard, but they are empty. She has a cursory glance in her housemates’ sections of fridges and cupboards, but there is nothing that she can take that won’t be obviously noticed. She gets back to her room and opens her emails. There is an email from her mother and her sister. She opens her mother’s email first. She talks about the weather in Lima; grey as usual. She talks about how expensive food is getting, even if you go to the local markets, and that their rent has been increased again. Her mother tells her that her grandfather’s small amount of savings are all but used up and that it is likely that he will have to come and live with her, but she doesn’t know where she will be able to get additional money to pay for his upkeep and his medicine – the cost of drugs these days! Anyway, she mustn’t complain; at least she has the thought that her two beautiful daughters are happy, to comfort her through these difficult times. Rosella is doing so well up in Mexico, with Guillermo and the two babies, and her dear Lorenza is over in London studying so hard.

  Her dear Lorenza. She finds it very difficult to ask about this, but she feels she can speak to her beautiful Lorenza, because Lorenza has always been so understanding. She can’t possibly speak to Rosella about it; Rosella doesn’t understand the position she is in and it would break her heart to know that her mother is having such difficulties and with the two new babies to contend with, she already has so much on her plate. She hates to ask, but she knows the university’s grant had been generous – could she possibly see her way to wiring just a few hundred dollars for grandfather’s medicine and to help them get enough to eat, just until the situation improves?

  Her mother then talks a little more about the usual topics and asks her when she’ll be doing the right thing and finding herself an honest man to settle down with, like her sister. She finishes by saying that if Lorenza can send six hundred dollars, she thinks that they can get through the next few months.

  Lorenza is beginning to regret telling her mother that she was getting a generous grant from the university. The truth is, she isn’t getting any grant at all and is working as a cleaner in the mornings before her lectures and doing various temporary evening jobs, whenever she can, just to pay her tuition fees. She had told her mother about the grant so that her mother wouldn’t worry. She still feels glad that her mother can talk to her at all about these things – she knows that she would die before telling Rosella – but what can she do? She is barely surviving as it is.

  Things hadn’t always been this way. In 1997, her father had been declared a hero for his involvement in Operation Chavin de Huantar, the operation that brought military resolution to the Japanese Embassy hostage crisis. In December 1996, fourteen terrorists raided the Japanese Embassy in Lima and took hundreds of diplomats and foreign dignitaries hostage. The Peruvian president of the time, Alberto Fujimori, himself of Japanese descent, took a hard line when it came to dealing with terrorists. Whilst negotiators engaged in talks with the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, plans were made in secret to find a military solution to the problem. By using tank processions out in the street and the playing of loud music to act as a cover for the noise, military forces were able to tunnel beneath the embassy. Supplies for the hostages were littered with miniature microphones and bugs and fresh clothes that were sent in were light in colour, in stark contrast to the guerrilla’s dark camouflaged gear. After 126 days of siege, a coordinated attack was carried out whilst most of the terrorists were engaged in a game of football on the first floor. Her father was one of the commandos that stormed up from the tunnels as others burst in through the windows upstairs, freeing the hostages. One hostage, two commandoes and all fourteen of the terrorists were killed in the raid. Her father had always alleged – as he drank Pisco sours at the bar, or Cesquena beer, which he preferred when playing chess – that the hostage that was killed died because he hadn’t obeyed the instructions that had been secretly circulated around all of the captives to lie flat on the floor when the raid began. He instead hid himself in a cupboard when the room was sprayed with bullets, which offered insufficient protection.

  President Fujimori’s popularity had rocketed
after the raid was hailed as a success by much of the international community, and her father – along with the other commandoes involved – had basked in the subsequent afterglow of the operation with an abundance of awards and decorations pinned to their chests. Her father had always enjoyed his status as a raconteur in the local bars near their home and suddenly he had become an icon of Peru’s perceived strength and subsequent economic growth, and would have his drinks bought for him every night of the week. People loved to hear about the tension in the tunnels before the raid and the gruesome end to the terrorist ringleader, Roli Rojas, whose head was blown off in the attack. Even the death of the hostage was felt to have some moral meaning, giving the whole tale an epic timeless quality.

  For three short years, her parents had lived a privileged existence. They had even gone on holiday to Bali in 1999, which made her the envy of her friends.

  In the year 2000, President Fujimori fled to Japan amidst a corruption scandal and was subsequently impeached. Charges of corruption and human rights abuses were made, including accusations that several of the terrorists involved in the Japanese Embassy crisis, including Roli Rojas, were summarily executed after the attack was successfully concluded. Her father had been devastated by the news and after he himself had been interviewed and cross-examined on his version of events, he seemed to lose something vital that had been within him. He had to buy his own drinks in the bars now, and when people questioned him about the event, they listened carefully to his answers and watched his face, wishing to ascertain the truth in his words. After a while, her father stopped going to the bars and began to drink at home. He began to drink more than ever.