‘A lie detector test? You watch far too much TV.’
We headed upstairs to his bedroom and I had to quickly close my eyes as I thought of the last sight I’d seen in here, when I'd found him in bed with that blonde. I sat on the floor as Poppie got out her torch and giggled to herself as she stripped his carefully made bed. When I’d purchased myself some new white bedding, I’d got Spence two sets too, to replace the ratty old bedding he'd had when I started to stay over. He was allergic to fabric softener, so he never used it in his sheets, but I did in mine, so Poppie redressed the bed in my set that she’d washed and dried this morning, with treble the dose of softener than normal, so it would make him itchy and blotchy without having a clue why. She grabbed some of his neatly folded underpants and sprinkled itching powder into the crotch before folding them and placing them back as she found them. She was giggling to herself so much, I couldn’t help a small smile playing on my lips as I watched her.
‘He’ll think he has scabies, or crabs, from sleeping with skanky hoes,’ she nodded.
‘Thanks very much!’
‘Not you, that blonde, or whoever else he’s been seeing since. Ok, you need to hold the torch for this job,’ she warned, handing it over. ‘Angle it down low, I’ll sit on the floor.’
‘You’re so evil,’ I replied, doing as I was told. She grinned and pulled out a pair of tweezers and a bag of partially defrosted shrimp and proceeded to slip them into the badly stitched hems of the curtains his mum had made for him.
‘Whoever came up with this idea, genius,’ she chuckled as she finished up. ‘The room will start to stink of fish and he’ll have no idea where it’s coming from. I so wish I’d done this to Reece.’
‘Why didn’t you?’ I asked.
‘Because I didn’t have an evil best friend to drag me on a secret mission,’ she pointed out. ‘You’re too nice. I mean, you didn’t even slap him.’
‘Not my style,’ I shrugged. She stood up and made her way with her bag to the en-suite. I carefully folded the discarded bedding to take away with us and dump in the nearest bin.
‘Now you’re sure this is the fake tan that goes on colourless?’ she asked as she pulled out the bottle.
‘Yes,’ I nodded. ‘Vivian got it after the debacle with that other one. One thin coat and it develops into a nice tan with no washing off or timers. I’ve never needed to use it.’
‘Great.’ Poppie grabbed his tube of men’s moisturiser that he loved to slather thickly on his face morning and night and popped off the top. She carefully squeezed the contents into a food bag, which she knotted and dumped back into her bag of tricks, then filled his empty container with the fake tan. I couldn’t help giggling at the thought of him heading to work and his face and hands turning darker and darker throughout the day. As if that weren’t bad enough, she’d brought a bowl with a spoon and emptied out his charcoal facial mud that he used as part of his weekly Sunday facial routine and mixed some grey ink into it, before syringing it back into the tube. ‘Ha! From orange to grey face in the space of a week!’
‘Now that I would be happy to see,’ I added, finally letting out a proper laugh. He was a real metrosexual man and his appearance was so important to him. ‘It’s a shame he shaves his head so close or we could have put hair removal cream in his shampoo bottle.’
‘Now you’re getting the idea,’ Poppie grinned, turning to high five me. ‘Where’s his moist wipes box?’
‘I think that’s a step too far, Poppie,’ I warned as she pulled out the packet of antibacterial and pungent-smelling disinfecting wipes to swap over with his toilet wipes.
‘Please, he is an arse, why not teach his arse a lesson by disinfecting it properly. He’ll have ring sting for a week.’
‘If he comes after me, I’m hiding behind you,’ I warned with a pointed finger.
‘We’ve been really restrained in the circumstances,’ she advised as she switched them over. ‘I mean, we could have scrubbed the toilet bowl with his toothbrush, put haemorrhoid cream in his toothpaste, cut up his clothes, or signed him up for the most expensive online porn site we could find, seeing as you know where to find his bank statements with his account details.’
‘Where do you get all of these ideas?’ I exclaimed. ‘I’m seriously worried about me now if I ever upset you.’
‘Never, we’ve been friends for twenty-three years, Paige. Nothing will ever change that.’
‘I really hope not,’ I replied as we packed up. ‘I promise to come and visit you in jail when you’re arrested for this.’
‘If I go down, I’m taking you with me,’ she laughed, shoving my shoulder. ‘There’s no one I’d rather be cell mates with.’ We both whipped our heads around to Spence’s bedroom door as we heard the front door open and shut, then looked back at each other with panic-stricken faces.
‘I thought you said they were on shift,’ she whispered.
‘They were, according to the schedule he emailed me a month or so back,’ I whispered in return.
‘What do we do? If we get caught, we’re in serious trouble.’
‘Really? You think? We need to make it to the main bathroom, fast. It has a fire escape window out onto the flat roof of the kitchen. Sssshhhh a minute,’ I warned, grabbing the torch off her and turning it off in case the light could be seen under the door. I could hear the unmistakable sound of someone throwing up downstairs. Great, one of them was ill and there was a one in three chance it was Spence and he’d be coming up to bed any second. We either had to risk it and wait, hoping it was one of the others, or bolt now and risk being seen or heard as we moved from the front of the house to the bathroom at the back, where the door was right at the top of the stairs.
‘I need a pee, my bladder and my nerves go hand in hand,’ Poppie moaned.
‘Well, you’re going to have to hold it,’ I warned, breathing a sigh of relief when I heard the sound of the television being put on in the lounge. ‘Put the torch on again, we need to make sure you have everything, and tread lightly, these old floorboards are a nightmare.’
After quietly bundling everything, including Spence’s bedding, back into Poppie’s bag, we tiptoed to the door and I grimaced as I carefully turned the handle and opened it to peek out at the upper landing. The TV was on loud enough that our footsteps should be muffled, but we still needed to be careful. Poppie squeezed past me and I shut the door behind me and led the way down to the bathroom. Luckily that door was already open. We slipped inside and I pushed it to, stopping when the hinges let out a noisy squeak.
‘You need to leave it open, like we found it,’ Poppie whispered.
‘And how exactly do you expect me to re-lock the window from the outside when we’ve gone through that?’ I reminded her with a flick to the forehead. ‘This bathroom’s shared by Chunky and Nobby, I doubt anyone will know who used it last and if they did or didn’t leave the door or window ajar. Move it,’ I urged.
‘Can’t I have a pee before we go?’
‘No!’ I took charge and pushed her over to the large window next to the toilet, unlocked it, and gently swung it open. ‘Ok, you go first, don’t drop that bag.’
‘I don’t care about the bag right now, I’m more worried about me falling off a roof, breaking both legs, and wetting myself in the process,’ she hissed.
‘Well, you should have planned ahead and worn some incontinence pants then, shouldn’t you. I told you I didn’t want to do this. We could have been at home with a takeout.’
‘You go first, I’m nervous with heights.’
‘Great, give me the bag.’ I snatched it off her and slung it round my neck, letting it hang down my back, and draped myself over the windowsill. Swinging my legs over, I turned to dangle them over the edge, praying I hadn’t misjudged the relatively short drop to the kitchen roof. I slowly lowered myself until I felt the roof under my feet and let go. ‘It’s not too far, come on.’
‘I’m not happy about this,’ Poppie warned as the soft glow of the moo
n showed her feet appearing through the gap.
‘Join the club.’ I moved to the side to let her slither down and land next to me.
‘Owwww,’ she moaned, rubbing her chest. ‘Great, I have pebbledash friction burn on my nipples. Now what? That seemed to be the easy bit, how do we get off this roof.’
‘Do I look like I have the answers to everything?’ I asked, as I reached up to push the window shut. ‘Worst of it is, if we get stuck up here, I can’t even call the fire brigade to come and rescue us.’
‘We could knot the bedding together and make a rope to climb down,’ she offered.
‘Which we’d have to leave behind. Plus I don’t want my hands on his dirty sheets any more than I have to, thank you. Goodness knows what might be on them.’
‘Both excellent points. God, I so need a pee.’
I shook my head and tiptoed to the far end of the roof, to where the kitchen window below looked out over the garden. We had the attached sloping roof of the neighbour's extension to one side, and on the other was Spence’s patio. Grass would be a soft landing. I took off the bag and tossed it down, hearing it land with a thud, then sat on the edge of the roof, turned around, and very carefully lowered myself until I was hanging from my fingertips, then dropped, thankful for the slight overhang of the extension roof as I landed on the grass.
‘Ok, do the same,’ I called up to Poppie as quietly as I could. ‘It’s not that far.’
‘Says the nearly six foot model. I’m going to die, aren’t I?’
‘You will if you dangle and tinkle on my head at the same time,’ I warned as I put the strap of the bag over my head.
‘At least you have moist wipes in the bag to clean up with after,’ she giggled. She peeked over the edge at me and quickly stepped back. ‘O my God, it’s so high.’
‘Only because you’re standing up, it makes it look a lot worse than it really is. Sit on the edge,’ I ordered. It took a fair bit of coaxing, including threatening to leave her behind, to get her to do as she was told. ‘Does that look better?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘But I don’t know about coming down like you did, what if I scuff up my face on the wall?’
‘You won’t, there’s an overhang. Besides, which of us makes a living from her face? Did it put me off?’
‘I’d rather go like this and you catch me.’
‘Do I look like Babe Ruth?’ I asked, unable to resist the urge for sarcasm. I’d told her this was a bad idea. Why had I let her talk me into it?
‘I can’t do it if you don’t catch me,’ she moaned, her voice trembling with genuine fear. ‘I’m scared.’
‘Poppie, I don’t know what to do,’ I sighed, softening my tone.
‘Find a ladder, or maybe a trampoline. I could jump off knowing there was a trampoline to catch me.’
‘Or you’d just bounce right over the fence into the neighbour’s garden. Besides, where am I going to find a trampoline or ladder? I can hardly knock on someone’s door asking for one, dressed like this with my face blacked out. Look to your right, you could climb down the drain pipe.’
‘I don’t know if I can.’
‘You don’t have a choice, Poppie. It’s that or climb back into the house and try and risk going down the stairs and out of the front door. Whoever’s in there might hear you, or head up the stairs as you’re coming down. Come on, you managed climbing the ropes at school, you just have to grab it and you can probably slide down it. Just hurry up, I’m amazed none of the neighbours have heard us out here.’ I heard her let out a heavy sigh and watched as she shuffled to the corner of the roof and rolled onto her tummy, her feet scrabbling to find a grip on the pipe as she let go of the roof with one hand to grasp it, then the other. I nodded my approval as she slowly started to let herself slide, then held my breath as I heard an unmistakable crack.
‘What was that?’ came her terrified voice.
‘Nothing, just keep going,’ I urged, trying to convince her as much as myself.
‘You don’t sound confident.’
‘Poppie, please, it’s not far.’ I gasped and put my hands in front of my mouth as there was another huge crack and the pipe started to pull away from the wall with a shrieking Poppie attached to it. I watched her falling backwards in slow motion as all of the guttering attached to the pipe started to rip away from the edge of the roof, slowing its descent down.
‘I’m going to die,’ she screamed, quickly wrapping her legs around the exposed pipe.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, you’re only about six feet off the ground right now.’ I ran forward anyway, trying to position myself under where I thought she might land. At least it was coming away slowly, bringing her closer to the grass. I could probably cushion her fall without injuring myself, but I was worried about some of the lights going on in the houses either side of us, not to mention the damage we were doing to Spence’s house. Another set of wall grips gave way as I stood below her with outstretched arms. ‘My life’s flashing before my eyes. Tell Justin I loved him,’ she cried in anguish.
‘What about me?’ I exclaimed, just as the remaining guttering came off the roof and the pipe fell in an almighty racket, dropping Poppie straight back onto me, and we landed in a heap on the grass, the bag below me slightly cushioning the fall.
‘O my God,’ she gasped. ‘I’ve died, I’ve really died. I can see God surrounded by a bright white light.’
‘No, that would be Chunky looking out of the kitchen window. Quick, get up and move,’ I laughed, finally realising the absurdity of our situation. She seemed too shocked to move, so I shoved her off me, quickly stood up, and grabbed her hand, yanking her up. ‘Move, he’s on his way to the back door,’ I urged. She burst into a fit of giggles as I started running, pulling her along behind me. We burst out of the back gate into the narrow grass and mud track that ran between the two rows of houses that backed onto each other. We tore up the long lane, with me looking behind to see if Chunky was chasing us, but relaxed a little to see that so far, there was no one following.
‘Stop, stop, I have to pee. I’m amazed I didn’t wet myself as I was falling,’ Poppie panted.
‘We need to get back to your car, just in case. It’s not far.’
‘I mean it. I’m clenching so tightly my bottom’s gone numb and I’m cutting off circulation to my lady parts. I don’t want to never have an orgasm again.’ She yanked her hand out of mine and quickly dashed behind someone’s wheelie bin to pull her jeans and knickers down. I checked up and down the track, keeping a lookout as I heard her starting to tinkle with a huge sigh of relief then a wince. ‘Bugger, I think I’ve just stuck my arse in a load of stinging nettles,’ she moaned. ‘Can you rummage out those toilet wipes for me for when I’m done?’
‘Sure, why don’t I open the bag of Spence’s moisturiser while I’m at it, then I can massage it into your stinging butt to make you feel better.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I was messing with you and I’m not rummaging for toilet wipes. Seriously, we need to move, Poppie.’ The relative silence was suddenly broken by a load of loud barks that started to get closer.
‘O God, it’s the police, they’re here already and they’ve set the dogs on us. Noooo, I can’t stop, I’m mid flow and I can’t stop.’
‘Pee faster,’ I urged, not able to see anything approaching yet, but the barking was getting closer.
‘I can’t get arrested with my knickers around my ankles and weals on my backside, Paige.’
‘Like that adds extra shame to a criminal record. Hurry, Poppie,’ I ordered, shoving a tissue from my jeans pocket into her hands. ‘Ok, if you’re not done now, we’ve had it. I can see the dog.’
‘Go, go, go,’ she yelled, taking me by surprise by bolting out of her hidey-hole, trying to drag her knickers and jeans up. I didn’t need any more encouragement, so I started to run, looking behind me when I heard another shriek to see she’d landed face down in the dirt, with her bare backside in the air and her jeans around
her ankles. She screamed as the dog leapt on her. ‘Get it off me, get it off me,’ she howled as I burst out laughing. ‘It’s licking my bottom, I’m about to be raped, doggie style. Literally!’
‘Relax, it’s Spence’s neighbour’s corgi, Clara. She’s as soft as a brush, but where Clara goes, her owner isn’t far behind.’ I lifted Clara off Poppie and gave her a quick cuddle. I’d miss her, she’d always come for a pat when I was heading in and out of Spence’s house and she was being walked. ‘Go home,’ I ordered, setting her back down as Poppie managed to pull herself together and quickly tugged her clothes up. ‘Ok, we seriously need to run now,’ I ordered, as Clara’s name was called. We didn’t stop running or say a word until we made it into the safety of Poppie’s Corsa, but once we were safely locked inside, I couldn’t contain my laughter anymore.
‘It’s not funny,’ Poppie pouted.
‘Doggie style, by a female corgi,’ I howled.
‘Well I didn’t know, I thought it was a huge Alsatian or something and you were no help, running off and leaving me behind.’
‘You yelled “Go, go, go,” so I did.’
‘I meant with me, not ahead of me. Honestly, this whole night has been so traumatic. I nearly died, twice. Stop laughing!’ she moaned, smacking my arm as I tried to wipe the tears from my face, my body and the whole of her car shaking. ‘It’s not funny.’
‘O yes it is. How many times have you laughed at me and my many calamities? This is total karma, it’s so nice not to be the clumsy one for once, but next time you suggest a revenge style undercover mission, count me out. You’re more Mr. Bean than Tom Cruise.’
‘Cheeky cow,’ she muttered, starting the engine and turning on the lights, then leaning over to scratch her backside and finally letting out a giggle. ‘You’d better be prepared to ice my bottom as it’s really hurting.’
‘You pay for the takeout and we have a deal. I’m famished after all that excitement,’ I confirmed, reaching for my seat belt.
‘Jesus,’ Poppie screeched again, pointing out of the windscreen. Framed in the headlights was none other than the Fulham Flasher, in all his glory. She cocked her head as we sat staring at him, not sure what to do, but in the blink of an eye, he was gone.
Until We Collide Page 16