William's Startling Emails

by Josephine Falla

  The door to the sitting room was open and the computer faced him. So was this the work of the Almighty? He, William Penfold, had asked for money and the Top Man had told him to help Mrs. Brenner. Which he had done, by feeding her cat. And through the cat he had found money. Well, some anyway. So now what?

  This required thought. Thought required drink. He turned towards the kitchen and opened a bottle of beer. Dimly, he remembered the pills and took two of the first ones he opened. He turned back towards the sitting room and fell onto the sofa, where he settled down for a drink and sleep. He eyed the computer and wondered if he should send a ‘thank you’ email to God but decided he couldn’t be bothered at the moment. He put his feet up, drank the beer and dozed off. The afternoon drifted on.

  When he woke up, he found he had a large ginger cat sprawled across his lap. Automatically he began to stroke it. It purred and stretched a little.

  He started to think about the money. About what he could do with it. He could buy some drink. Proper drink. What was ‘proper drink’? Vaguely he remembered wine. And spirits. Stuff like that. He’d liked it once, in the days when, he was sure. Might be a tad difficult now. You had to have – what was it now? – oh, yes. Mixers. And glasses. Different shaped glasses. He wondered if he had any glasses. Maybe in the top cupboard in the kitchen.

  He could buy some food. He hadn’t eaten anything you could call a decent meal for ages. What sort of food? Something that either didn’t need cooking or was already cooked. A Chinese takeaway. Or Indian. Fish and chips. He could buy some proper stores. Eggs and things. Eggs were easy. Bacon. Rice pudding. Cheese. Thinking about food almost made him hungry. But not quite. What he was was thirsty.

  A further thought occurred to him. This credit card. He forced his mind to concentrate. Credit cards. Was it still usable? Didn’t they stop being valid or something, after a certain time? When had he last used it, and paid the bill? He didn’t have the least idea. He didn’t have any statements or anything. If they’d sent him one he’d thrown it away. And what was the other thing you needed? He couldn’t remember. Something to do with needles. Something sharp. No, it was gone.

  Laboriously he stood up, tipping the cat on to the floor as he did so. “Come on, Ginger, let’s see what’s in the kitchen.” The sound of his voice, talking to a cat, alarmed him. I shall have to watch it, he thought, might be going a bit soft in the head. They set off down the passage together. Once in the kitchen, he found the other bottle of beer and opened it. Then he fixed himself some beans on toast. Using the toaster reminded him of the pills stacked behind it and he took one of everything. He gave the cat some more of the tin he had bought earlier. Again, he opened the back door, and this time the cat went out.

  “Well, that’s him sorted,” he muttered, and went back to the sitting room. There he sat on the sofa and again reviewed the situation. He was still wearing the jacket and this led him to consider his wardrobe. The trousers, he decided, were filthy. So was the rest of his clothes. When had he last had a good wash? There was no answer to that and he fell to thinking about the credit card. If it was still valid he could use it on the internet! If it wasn’t, the internet would tell him. So it was worth a try, at least.

  Where did his money come from? He pondered this. Every so often the Social people visited him and they took him off to – where? The post office? Or somewhere else, he forgot where. He signed something and there was money, he knew that. Then they went with him to the mini-market and he bought things. Beans and stuff. Usually, as now, by the time they came again he had run out of all the stuff he had bought and was on his last drop of drink, last crumb of bread. And they supervised him doing laundry in the launderette. They had a quick look round the house, checked the electricity and so on.

  Sometimes they tried to make him talk about the past, about the days when. But he wasn’t having that. No way. They took him to the doctor’s if he needed an appointment; they checked on his pills and tried to establish if he had been taking the right ones at the right time. And they talked about his drink problem. They didn’t seem to realise he didn’t have a drink problem. He had a pay-for-it problem – and God had helped him out with that. And they sorted out his post, if he had any.

  He was back to the question of the credit card. He went to the computer and carefully ignored his email programme. He brought up his access to the internet. Now what?

  He could order a big crate of champagne. A new enormous television. A Rolex watch. But it was no good. He didn’t want these things. He began a surfing expedition, switching from website to website, fascinated by all the things he could order and have delivered within a week. Finally, he made a choice. Two – no, three, no, four choices, in fact.

  On a large, multi-purpose site, he ordered a bright red snazzy little mobility scooter, which cost £4,000. It was intended for disabled people and had all possible additional gadgets, horn, mirrors, baskets, side flaps etc. Marvellous, he thought. I can’t walk much these days – I’ll whizz round to the mini-market with this. Maybe go even further – it says it will go 25 miles before it conks out. I could take all my laundry round myself to the launderette in it and tell those Social Service people to get lost. On further reading he became a bit concerned about the charging- up procedure – he didn’t have a garage. But on reflection he could get it into the kitchen, out through the back door, and out of the garden into the alleyway at the back. He could plug it in in the kitchen.

  He then thought of the cat. He would buy it a nice basket. He had got over his resentment at the cat’s intrusion into his life, seeing as how it had introduced him, in a way, to some real money. He would give it a treat.

  He discovered the Menswear section. There were some startling pale cream summer trousers, with an unexpected red stripe. I like those, he thought. So he added them to the list.

  Finally he ordered himself a large golfing umbrella. He often got wet going round to the pub or the mini-market. It would be very sensible and practical. It was very cheerful; it was bright red with yellow and green stripes.

  He then pressed the Proceed to the Check Out button on the website. He took a last swig of the beer as he filled in the details of his name, address and credit card, ordering everything to be delivered Express, which cost a lot more, he noticed, then with a deep, anxious breath, he clicked on Submit.

  The wait seemed interminable. He suddenly thought that he did not know what his spending limit was on the card. Well, too late now.

  The next page flashed up.

  Your Purchase was Successful.

  Delivery within two days. A confirmation email was being sent. Fantastic! He sat back in his chair and beamed with satisfaction.

  CHAPTER 3

  Now, what about God? With a certain amount of nervous bravado he opened up his email programme. He had to tell Him what he’d done and he suspected He might be more than a bit annoyed, being a bit hot on the morality thing. Still, he hadn’t bought lots of drink, just practical things. It was just that he couldn’t actually pay for them.

  There was no email from God, so he wrote one to send off. After much thought, he put:

  What did You do that for? I didn’t really mean for the stupid old bat to get hurt like that. But thank you anyway for the money which is what I really want.

  William Penfold

  Administrative Manager

  He wondered if he had struck the right tone. Was it grateful enough? And he was stealing, in a way, he couldn’t disguise that fact. Eventually he added ‘Best Wishes’, which sort of softened it up a bit.

  Just as he finished writing the email, he received the confirmation email from the big store where he had ordered all his stuff. He had ordered everything Express; it was all coming within the next two days, for which he had paid quite a lot extra. Still, it was all very satisfactory, as he didn’t often have very much to look forward to.

  There was time to go round to the mini-market before his evening session with Jimmy. When he opened the front door, the c
at was just crossing the road towards his house; it began to race towards the front door and was nearly run over by a car. That worried him. Somehow the cat must be persuaded not to go out the front. The question bothered him all the way to the mini-market. Once he was there he bought some butter, milk, sausages, cereal and, of course, several cans of lager. On impulse he bought a whole cooked chicken, still warm. He saw some men’s socks and bought three pairs of those, as the ones he was wearing had holes in them. They were also rather dirty, but it was the holes he objected to. He also saw, next to the socks, an assortment of baseball caps, in bright colours. He bought a yellow one.

  Armed with his purchases, he paid at the check-out desk. Paid with real money! The girl, who recognised him, looked at him somewhat amazed, but said nothing. He hadn’t realised how heavy all his things would be. It would be good to have that motorised buggy thing. He tried to estimate if he could get it into the shop and decided it would be rather tricky. Maybe he could go to the supermarket further down the road. He wasn’t allowed in there, strictly speaking, after the incident involving the tomatoes and the cans of soup, when he had been accused of shoplifting and there had been a scene and the Social people had had to come round and sort it out. But perhaps they wouldn’t recognise him with his buggy. And the cap. You could go in there actually on a buggy; he had seen people inside, crashing unsteadily round the aisles. He’d try that, then.

  Eventually he got home. The cat was waiting for him on the step. He had a splendid meal of chicken, bread and butter and lager. He’d forgotten to get anything for pudding, but the lager was good. He gave a chicken leg to the cat, who was delighted with it, and they munched away happily in the sitting room before the television, which had a panel game show on. He managed to understand it for once and was scathing about the contestants. “Brain dead!” he confided to the cat.

  The problem about the cat being nearly run over returned to him. If he could persuade it to always come in through the back door, not the front, perhaps it would be easier. He thought about buying a cat flap but he had no idea how you would install it. Eventually he went out to the garden at the back, which was a small piece of untended, rubbish-strewn wilderness with a derelict shed at the bottom, near the back gate, which led into the alleyway at the back of the houses. He studied the door and windows at the back of the house. The downstairs toilet had a very small window, he noticed. Not large enough for a burglar to get through. Amidst the rubbish, he found a plank of wood, which he leant against the wall beneath the window. Then he went inside and opened the toilet window.

  He brought the cat outside, protesting and wriggling, and tried to get it to walk up the plank and in through the window. It took several attempts but in the end the cat did manage it. This was a major achievement and he and the cat celebrated with another bit of chicken. When he left he put the cat out into the garden and told it to stay there.

  It had been a highly successful day and he set off for the pub with almost a spring in his step, except that he lurched a bit at the end of the road, by the traffic lights. However, Jimmy wasn’t in the pub, and his attempts at conversation with other people were met with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. After a few pints he decided to turn in, as he felt tired anyway.

  When he got home, he discovered that the cat had remembered his way in and had discovered the sausages; it was in the sitting room chewing its way through one on the rug in front of the telly. Damn animal! But he was secretly quite proud of it. He looked nervously at the computer. It was no use. He would have to see if there was an email for him from Top God.

  There was. It said:

  Mrs. Brenner needs further TLC.

  That was all. Nothing about his money problems. Nothing about having been the originator of Mrs Brenner’s crack on the head. Just a curious directive about the old bat’s state. Why and how he, William Penfold, was supposed to assist her was a mystery.

  Disappointed, angry and fed up, he and the cat settled down for the night on the sofa. William’s mind was buzzing, swirling with more-than-half-forgotten events from the past and the present, all mixed up. Was he a write off? A man who had once been an administrative manager – whatever that was – who had had, perhaps, a home, a car, a future. Maybe even a family. What had turned him into this seedy, drunken, shambolic shadow of a man? A man in filthy trousers, with a run-down garden and no money? A man who ordered things he could not possibly pay for? A man who lived downstairs because he was too idle and too drunk half the time to climb up to the bathroom or front bedroom?

  As none of these questions could be answered, he wondered briefly about his mother. He hadn’t thought about his parents for months. There was an indistinct memory of warmth and an enveloping tenderness; she always gave him ‘TLC’, as Top God phrased it in his email.

  But these emails were winding him up, like the Social people tried to do, he decided, making him confront things he didn’t wish to remember.

  He suddenly perceived the acute difference between ‘didn’t wish to’ and ‘couldn’t’.

  Sod ’em all. He would have another little drink or two and go to sleep. So he did.

  Next day dawned grey and showery. The cat was up and about early, climbing through the toilet window to the wider world outside, taking another sausage with it. William was woken by the postman knocking on the door loudly. Three parcels. One contained a pair of trousers, cream with the red stripe, bright, clean and new. The next one contained a long and colourful umbrella. He couldn’t remember ordering an umbrella at all, but it seemed very sensible. It also seemed like a present, as he had no recollection of buying it. The third item was somewhat problematic. He had meant to get the cat a nice basket to sleep in but it appeared he had ordered a carrying basket instead, the type you saw people taking their pets to the vet’s in. It was well-made and had a little cover, with a hole for the handle, so as not to upset the animal.

  Well, it would have to sleep in that; just as good as a sleeping basket, provided you didn’t click the front bars up.

  He liked the look of the trousers but a thought occurred to him. If his current trousers were dirty, could he put on clean ones without having a shower or bath first? It was a thorny question. There was hot water, he knew. Would there be enough for an all-over job? Did he have any clean underwear? Or a shirt of some description?

  Where was all this leading him? He had a presentiment of impending change, which was alarming. But the trousers did look inviting. He went to the chest of drawers in the far corner of the room. Yes, two pairs of underpants and a tee shirt which was a bit grey but not as dirty as the one he had on. Socks – he’d bought some yesterday. Must be in the kitchen.

  Bit by bit he organised himself. Having a shower involved climbing the stairs again. He was accustomed to washing himself in the sink in the kitchen. Still, he persevered and managed at last to get up the stairs and into the bathroom. The shower worked, rather half-heartedly, as if very surprised to be asked to do anything at all and the water was hottish. He didn’t have any soap though. He still had an electric razor which he used sporadically and did so this morning.

  He cooked himself two sausages of the ones that were left and ate them with some bread and a can of lager. His mind felt clear and lucid, although not filled with any useful information, except that he needed to buy some soap and do some laundry. He wondered when the motor scooter would arrive. The anticipation was exciting.

  CHAPTER 4

  In the early afternoon there was a knock at the door. It was a large van and a man was offloading a motorised scooter from the back. The cat had come in by now and stood by him to watch the proceedings.

  “Motor Scooter for Penfold,” said the man, with a sheet for him to sign. “Where d’you want it, mate?”

  “In the kitchen,” said William.

  “Gawd,” said the delivery man.

  William opened the front door wide and the man took the vehicle along the passage to the kitchen. “Won’t go in there, mate,” said the man. �
��Not enough room.”

  William thought for a bit, then opened the back door, took out the kitchen table and put it in the garden. “Plenty of room now,” he said.

  “Right,” said the man, “charge it up for eight hours. Manual of instructions. Extras all in this package. Dead easy. Don’t go up and down kerbs, you’ll do it in. Don’t drive it in a strong wind.”

  “Thank you,” said William, and the man was gone.

  William plugged it in and left it to charge itself up, taking the manual and a can of lager with him into the sitting room. It looked a wonderful vehicle. It would give him freedom – well, at least 25 miles of freedom. Marvellous.

  After studying the instructions, during which he fell asleep, he woke up to find the cat again on top of him, asleep. Carefully he lifted the animal into the open cat basket, where it seemed to be comfortable and content.

  “We need some more shopping,” he said. “Stuff like soap and puddings. And more sausages,” he said with a smile.

  He could not remember when he had last smiled. Actually it hadn’t been long ago, when he had realised the credit card was still valid. All the same, it disturbed him. What was happening to him? Not enough drink. Not enough to blot it all out. Not strong enough. People laughed at him because he shuffled along. He was sure of that. They would stop that now because, with him on a buggy, they would have to get out of the way. Tomorrow. And he would smile at them instead of scowling. Or swearing. People didn’t like swearing, although they did it all the time themselves. The man at the papershop had told him “there’s too much bleedin’ bad language these days”. He’d go round there now and try smiling. He’d buy a paper. Normal thing to do. Those Social people, they were always asking him who the Prime Minister was. As if he cared. He’d have known alright, in the days when. But he didn’t follow it all now. Why did they ask him, a perfect stranger? Why didn’t they know who it was? Ridiculous. They shouldn’t have ignorant people like that in responsible jobs, not knowing who the Prime Minister was.