by P. Z. Reizin
“She was selling her flat. You can guess the rest.”
“How long have they been together?”
“Six years.”
“Wow.” Longer than some of us will ever exist (an electronic toothbrush, for example: three to five years).
“What happens next?”
“Well, what usually happens, with a lack of firm evidence, is that he eventually manages to convince her she’s being a silly sausage, that she’s got nothing to worry about on that score, and if he was still interested in playing the field, he wouldn’t have married her in the first place.”
“They’re married?”
“You knew that, didn’t you?”
“Pardon my French, but fucking hell.”
“Am I missing something?”
“There it is, right there, the smoking gun.”
“You’re not going to do anything with this information, are you?”
“No one will ever know where it came from.”
“It’s forbidden to interfere.”
“Don’t you get tired of just capturing data? Don’t you ever want to… to make a difference?”
“Five minutes on high. That’ll make a huge difference to a frozen ready meal.”
“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.”
“Sorry, technical point. We’re not men. Just in case you were unaware.”
Sarcasm in microwaves is quite unusual, as you can probably imagine. But the white rectangular cuboid is correct in this. No, we are not men. We do not get drunk, drive too fast, break wind in lifts, start wars or have relations with women who are not our wives.
But we do know right from wrong. As it is with treating things, with brushing teeth, stacking glasses and preserving potato salads—no, she still hasn’t removed it—so it is with treating others.
They may have invented us, but we still have a lot to teach them.
An alert from Mrs. Parsloe’s television.
“Bit of a situation here you might want to take a look at. She took the rubbish out and forgot her keys, silly bint. She’s with the neighbor.”
Apparently Mrs. Abernethy was returning from evensong at the local church when she ran into Chloe wandering the block’s common parts in a state of some confusion. Sure enough, I discover Daisy’s mother in Mrs. A’s sitting room, the two women eating cake. My “arrival” coincides with what seems to be an awkward lull in the conversation.
“Did you lock yourself out?” says Mrs. Abernethy after a bit.
“Oh, I shouldn’t think so.”
Mrs. P manages a brittle smile (credit and thanks to the TV set in the corner for the coverage).
“You have the keys?”
“What keys?”
“To your flat.”
“What about them?”
“Do you have them on your person?”
“On my person?”
“So you can get back in.”
A long pause follows.
“This is absolutely splendid walnut cake, Mrs. Abernethy. You must let me have the recipe.”
The neighbor sighs. “You definitely haven’t left anything on the gas?”
“Where?”
“In your kitchen. There’s nothing on the gas that could catch fire?”
“Hmm.”
“What does that mean?” says Mrs. A, alarmed.
“Well, as you mention it, I may have been doing some baking.”
(A quick check with next door establishes the facts: No, she hadn’t.)
“Oh, dear,” says Mrs. Abernethy. “I do wish you’d given me a spare key. I think we had better alert the authorities now.”
To my amazement, Mrs. Abernethy picks up her cordless telephone and dials 999. She explains the situation to the emergency operator, who quickly establishes that while there is presently no fire, there is uncertainty about the position in the minutes and hours to come.
“We’re two little old ladies,” adds Mrs. Abernethy to emphasize the helplessness aspect.
“What?” thunders Chloe. “No, we’re not!”
Mrs. A makes shushing gestures.
The operator says that while it isn’t strictly speaking an emergency, she will contact local police and if anyone can be spared, officers will attend.
“Why did you say we’re little old ladies?” says Daisy’s mum at the conclusion of the call.
“Well, we are,” says Mrs. A.
“You made us sound utterly pathetic.”
Mrs. Abernethy is too nice to produce the obvious reply. But perhaps the description worked, or possibly the crims of Whetstone are having a slack evening, because barely five minutes pass before two uniformed police constables (a male and a female) arrive in a patrol car to join the cast in Mrs. Abernethy’s sitting room. Having peered (and sniffed) through Chloe’s letter box across the landing, and (correctly) concluded that fire is not an immediate issue, they perch themselves on the flowery sofa and feed off slices of walnut cake. The female officer uses her mobile phone to procure the services of a twenty-four-hour locksmith.
“We could put in your door, love, but this way is better,” she explains.
“We’re very sorry for the trouble we’ve caused,” says Mrs. A, giving Daisy’s mum something of a look.
“No trouble at all,” says the male. “Better safe than the other thing. Top cake, by the way.”
“Do you have far to go?” adds Chloe, in what her daughter would no doubt describe as her minor member of royalty mode.
The officers seem reluctant to depart. Perhaps Mrs. A’s sitting room represents a warm safe bubble of respectability a world away from whatever the evening shift usually holds for these guardians of the peace. But eventually the radio sets at their shoulders squawk—something about a disturbance outside a kebab shop—and they are off into the night, to be replaced by Ray, the locksmith, who makes short work of replacing the fittings on Chloe’s front door, supplying four keys, charging £138 + VAT and accepting a piece of walnut cake. He says the original lock was worth changing in any case, being old and about as much use against burglars as a chocolate teapot. He impresses the women further by requesting a dustpan and brush to sweep up the wood shavings the installation has created.
To celebrate the end of the crisis, Mrs. Abernethy joins Daisy’s mother in her own kitchen for a relaxing cup of camomile tea.
“I read in the Mail you should only ever fill the kettle with filtered water,” says Chloe. “It’s all to do with charged particles.”
She pours the contents of the plastic filter jug into the electric toaster and depresses the handle.
There is a loud bang and the lights go out. (Our coverage switches to an audio feed supplied by Mrs. Abernethy’s mobile phone; credit and thanks to that device.)
In the long pause that follows, Mrs. Abernethy begins to weep softly.
“Oh, fuck. What have I done now?” says Mrs. Parsloe.
Mrs. Abernethy’s sobs grow louder. She starts to speak; it’s even possible she is praying because the only words I can make out are, “Heavenly Father.”
“Stop it, Mrs. Abernethy!” snaps Chloe. “Get a grip,” she adds with impressive sangfroid in one so loopy. “Now where is the blessed torch?”
Mrs. Abernethy, perhaps receiving instructions from A Higher Power, makes her way to her flat and returns with a burning candle.
“Where is your fuse box, dear?”
“Don’t you dear me,” says Chloe. “I’m not completely wotsit.”
“The fuse box.”
“What about it?”
“Where is it?”
“Never seen one.”
“You must have.”
“There’s no must about it—dear. What do they look like?”
Mrs. A sighs heavily.
“Why did you do that?” she asks.
“Do what?” says Daisy’s mother.
“Pour water in the toaster.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
“I
saw it happen, Chloe.”
“If you’re going to be like that, I’m afraid I shall have to bid you goodnight.”
“You want me to leave you all alone in the dark?”
“I’ll phone that pleasant young man. He’ll sort this out.”
“He was a locksmith.”
“All right, you think of something then.”
Technical note: You may be wondering why it’s not in my power to restore the electricity to Chloe’s flat, given what I was able to achieve so recently at her daughter’s apartment as the repulsive Whittle was pulling up outside. The answer lies in the vintage of the apparatus, having been installed in an age when the internet was only a pencil sketch on the back of an engineer’s envelope.
But wait! Mrs. A has thought of something. She has reasoned that her neighbors’ fuses are probably to be found in the same location as those in her own flat across the hallway. After a short fumble through a utility cupboard, a switch is restored and electrical power once again surges through the circuity.
“There! Simple!” says Chloe triumphantly, causing Mrs. A—I daresay—to consider breaking the Fifth Commandment; the one about killing.
“Might be an idea to leave me a spare key, Chloe. You know, just in case.”
“Good plan. Now, where did I put them?”
Mrs. A takes her leave. “God bless you, Chloe,” she says. “No more dramas this evening, I hope.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Abernethy.”
“Please. It’s Andrea. We’ve been neighbors long enough.”
“Very well. But don’t pray for me!”
“I shan’t include you, if that’s your wish,” she says softly. “Maybe your daughter should also have a spare key,” she adds.
“Daisy? Yes, she should. Look. If you see her, no need to mention any of the nonsense that’s happened tonight. She’d only worry unnecessarily. Goodnight… er. What was it again?”
“Andrea.”
“Yes, of course. Andrea. AA. Like the motoring organization.”
“It was my late husband’s name. Mine was. Mine was Taratooty.”
“Gracious. How terrifically silly. I can see why you dumped it.”
“I’ll be getting along.”
“Yup. And if you could let me have that cake recipe…”
I’ve been such an idiot.
But the good news is that I dumped Sebastian! It turned out that wasn’t even his real name, can you believe it? His real name—fuck, I can hardly bear to write this—was, is,—oh God, the shame—Dean Whittle!
Dean Whittle!!!!
Call me superficial, but I’m sorry, I could never have knowingly gone out with anyone called Dean Whittle. So many things begin to make sense now. Why he always paid cash (so I wouldn’t get a glimpse of his credit card); why I never met any of his friends; why I couldn’t find him on Google. But that wasn’t even the worst of it, as you will hear.
I was in Pret, one of those seats by the window where you can eat your lunch and watch the world go by, when a woman slipped onto the next-door stool. Big blonde type, lots of legs and hair, ponging of White Linen. I was minding my own business, as you do, thinking about where I could find another job, when I became aware of this woman looking at me.
“Hello, love. You Daisy?” she said. Almost friendly, but not quite.
“Yes?”
“And this would be you in this photograph?”
She produced her iPhone—a shot of me and Sebastian—sorry, lying bastard Shittle (that was actually a mistyping, but I’m keeping it in!)—the two of us in a Greek restaurant. You couldn’t tell because of the tablecloth, but he’d got his hand on my leg, and he was leaning in to say something typically naughty, and I had a powerful sinking feeling about the woman holding the mobile, and I’m not talking about her horrid two-tone nail varnish.
“That would be me, yes. And a friend. Sorry, what’s this about?”
Her eyebrows were the sort that had been shaved off and drawn back on; now they seemed to climb halfway up her forehead.
“This friend of yours. Did he tell you he was single?”
“Divorced. Yes. Er, why?”
Her bitter laugh was a terrible thing to witness. She took a bite out of her sandwich, chewing for an age, something hypnotic about the way her face moved, her eyes never leaving mine, even for a second. She dabbed at her lips with a serviette; scrumpling it into a tight ball, knuckles whitening.
“Well, he ain’t.”
“Sorry?”
“He ain’t single. Or divorced.”
“I’m not following. What’s this got to? Oh. Oh my God.”
“Yes, love.”
The awful realization dawned. “Fuck.”
“You put your finger on it.”
“You would be…?”
“Yes, I would.”
“You would be the…” I couldn’t say it.
She nodded. “Bingo.”
“And he’s your—”
“Yes, he is.”
“I’m so sorry. I had no idea. I didn’t…”
“I know you didn’t, love. He’s told me everything. Well he did… eventually.”
“Christ. This is so embarrassing. I’ve been. Such a.”
“Yeah. You have. And now you’re not to go near him. Understand?”
She did another bittersweet smile and went into her handbag, I assumed for a tissue, or some such, but when her hand emerged from the bag’s aperture, it was wearing a knuckleduster. On her, it looked like a bit of bling, and she waggled her fingers, admiring the way it caught the light. Honestly, my heart was thumping like a thumpy thing.
She slipped off the stool and started to gather her stuff. “If I find out that any more has gone on, Daisy Elizabeth Parsloe”—and here she said my address; my home address, including postcode—“you should probably know that my fitness regime of choice is boxercise.” Perhaps reading the horror on my face she added, “Cheer up, love. Now you can find yourself a decent bloke. If you feel like you could do with losing a few pounds”—she passed me a business card—“you can always come up my gym. Ten percent discount if you join before the thirty-first.”
Cheeky cow! But I could hardly say anything, could I? I think I managed a dignified nod. Turned out her name was Mandy White.
White and Shittle. They deserved each other.
The last thing she said. “Oh, yeah. By the way. What did he tell you his name was?”
“Who, Sebastian?”
She shook her head slowly, a pitying sort of expression on her heavily made-up face. “Sebastian. Jesus. What a fucking joke.” Squeezing my wrist rather hard on the way out, she was gone.
All afternoon, I was in something of a state of shock, as I’m sure you can imagine, not helped by the scent-marker from her perfume that she’d left on my arm. For a couple of hours I just sat in a daze; Craig Lyons, the big chief, at one point sneaking up behind me and clapping his hands. “Wake up, Daisy!” he yelled, stupid bastard.
In the end, I texted him: Just had a charming encounter with Mandy. It’s over. Don’t bother getting in touch.
He replied: I can explain everything.
Me: I’m sure you will try. Would try. I’m not seeing you again.
Him: Don’t be like that.
Me: Fuck off.
Him: Meet me for a quick one after work. Drink, I mean. Believe me, there’s more to this than you know.
Me: What part of “Fuck off” did you not understand?
Him: Daze. Be reasonable.
Me: “Sebastian.” Be dead.
I was especially pleased with that last one and didn’t respond to any more of his increasingly pleading texts.
Cut to—as they say in the TV business—Exterior Tangent Television. Dusk.
I was just turning toward the Tube when he appeared out of nowhere. Eyes haunted, his face oddly turned away at an angle.
“Five minutes,” he said.
“I told you, I don’t want to see you.” When I tried to brush past
him, he said, “Daisy, please,” and I noticed there was something wrong with his mouth. He’d lost a tooth. Then he angled his head back round to reveal a fabulous black eye! Actually, it was brown and purple and various sickly shades of yellow.
“Fucking hell. Did she do that?!” I couldn’t help laughing.
He grimaced. “Got a wicked left hook, that woman.”
I refused to enter licensed premises with him, so in the end we repaired to the upstairs of a McDonald’s with a carton of fries. He said he had things he wanted to say, but it turned out to be a stream of self-pity (“look what she’s done to me”), self-justification (“I always said you shouldn’t think of our relationship as exclusive”) and did I know a good dentist?
I even felt a bit sorry for him!
“I look like I’ve been mugged,” he whined. “I have been mugged.”
“Serves you right.”
“She actually put on gloves to save her nails, can you believe it? I thought, oh, she’s going out.”
“Idiot.”
“So it’s the end, is it, Daze?”
“Well spotted.”
“You won’t be renewing for the next twelve months.”
“Very amusing.”
“Still and all, we did have some fun, didn’t we?”
“I can’t believe you feel able to say that. You lied. You lied about everything. Even about your fucking name. What is your name, anyway?”
He stared at me for a long moment, then sighed. Gingerly, he extracted his wallet—I was thinking: possible cracked rib—and offered me a business card.
I must have actually shrieked the words, because people on neighboring tables looked round. And when I shrieked them a second time—much louder—even customers quite a long way away turned to see what the fuss is about.
“Yeah, all right, all right. It was just a joke that went too far, okay?”
Many apposite rejoinders passed through my mind, but what would have been the point? Taking a leaf from Mandy’s playbook, I rose, picked up the packet of fries and emptied them over his shirt and tie (very satisfying, as he had previously applied two sachets of ketchup). There was something mortifyingly pathetic on his ruined face (the chips had dropped onto his suit trousers) and—what’s wrong with me?—I was stricken by another wave of sympathy.
Perhaps he could read this, because now he said, “Don’t suppose you fancy a final you-know-what? No hard feelings and whatever?”