by DH Smith
The customer is always right. Even when they are slam bollock wrong.
He felt his chin and cheek. Another shave.
She’d better come.
Out of the shower, he wiped and dusted himself with talcum powder, shaved, aftershaved. Suitably beautified, he slipped on clean jeans and a T-shirt. Looked over the flat and saw what he should have seen before he showered. It was a tip.
He ran around collecting newspapers, the binful of takeaway trays. Then gathering them all up, he took them out to the outside bins. The night was still warm, a little sticky. The Summer Triangle was overhead, barely visible, nearly everything else burnt out by house and street lights. So much life on this street, the large Victorian houses of Earlham Grove mostly split into flats, some let as separate rooms. So many squeezed in. Warrens. And he thought of where he’d come from, his flat would fit into that party room with lots of space to run around it. To him who has, more shall be given. Wasn’t that the parable of the talents?
Was that Cassiopeia up there? Probably, the right direction, but some of the stars of the W washed out in the ambient light. He must get out of the city, away from this flood of light, see the night sky as it should be seen. He would, he would.
He looked up and down the road. Packed with cars both sides, his van a little way up. The plane trees both sides, their fierce pruning at last disappearing into a lollipop of leaves. Still 45 minutes, but she might come early, though he guessed it was Joanna’s style to make you wait.
He went back in and washed up, transferring a full sink to dripping crockery in the rack. That would do. The oven top was disgusting, but surely she wouldn’t come in the kitchen. She might, and filth was one of the things that turned you off sex. Smell and stains.
He couldn’t give it a full scale clean. No time. So he scraped the enamel with a kitchen knife and scoured off the worst until it was only half disgusting. The sitting room needed a hoover. Where the hell was the bloody thing? He looked in the bedroom. The sheets, they’d been on the bed a month or more. He really ought to have more than one sheet. Though he did have spare pillowcases. Rapidly he changed those, then ripped the sheet off and turned it over. Slightly better. He sniffed it. Sweat, a faint uriny smell. He went in the bathroom and brought back the talc, and dusted the sheet like an 18th century courtesan.
He must buy more sheets. Have two, or even three. The thing was he’d never bought a sheet in his life. The first ones his mother bought, then Alison bought them – and when she threw him out she chucked this one at him. And what it had been through in his drinking days… He could almost feel sympathy for the neglected bedclothes.
Jack resumed the search for the hoover, and found it at last in the cupboard, piled under overalls and old clothes. The vacuum bag was full of course, with hardly any suction. He gave up, he wasn’t about to start emptying bags, and went around the sitting room picking up with his fingers the visible dirt.
Joanna was used to luxury; what would she think of this tip of a place? Likely she’d be half pissed and wouldn’t notice till the morning. Then he remembered, he had no breakfast in. A little bread in the fridge, OK for toasting, enough marge, a little jam. That would do. Coffee, tea, but no milk. Too late now.
Midnight.
Could he run up the Turkish shop on Woodgrange Road and get some? It was only five minutes away. Why not? He sprinted out into the night, down the road. A black couple arm in arm stopped and watched him rush by, thinking perhaps he was a mugger. Breathless, he stopped at the corner, where the high street met his road, and walked. The little shop was open, it was always open, filled to the brim with goodies. Did Ahmed ever shut? He’d told Jack this was the only way he could compete with the supermarkets. He bought biscuits and milk; that would do. He didn’t want to miss Joanna. Ahmed was half asleep at the till, but he hailed him. Jack paid and sprinted back.
He couldn’t have missed her. He’d only been out, what – less than ten minutes, and he’d see her car or her taxi or her standing at the door. Breathing heavily, he entered the house and went upstairs to his flat. He put the milk in the fridge, the biscuits in the tin.
No more tidying. That was it. Whatever was forgotten was forgotten. He was a builder, living on his own. She couldn’t expect him to live in a house with hot and cold running servants. Or could she? Jack went into the bedroom. It stank of talc. He opened the window, stripped the sheet off and shook the dust into the night. He put back the sheet, left the window half open and returned to the sitting room.
And sat down.
12.25 am.
Any minute she could show. What the hell would they talk about? He felt stuffed, wordless. But she hadn’t come to talk. Should he jump on her or wait? Have a cup of tea first. And Maryland cookies.
Assume she’ll be late. She already was. Later then. He turned on the TV and chased channels, stopping at a football match. Except he couldn’t watch, had no idea what was happening, as his thoughts drifted away and when they returned something else was happening somewhere on the pitch. What team was what? Did it matter?
Twenty-two guys chasing a ball and a whole crowd screaming their heads off. It was an absurd ritual, especially when you were waiting for Joanna to come.
Jack picked up an astronomy magazine, read half a page and couldn’t recall a word of it. He began looking at pictures, of telescopes, of galaxies and nebulae. But couldn’t concentrate on a thing. He was the world’s worst waiter. Hated it, waiting for anyone anywhere. It was such a waste of your life; you couldn’t do anything until that bit of time was done with. Until the person turned up, and you were together.
He took down a grubby pack of cards and laid them out for patience. And then began turning over the rest of the pack, moving cards here and there. And stopped. He couldn’t care less about these random cards. So what if it came out, so what if it didn’t?
What did that have to do with Joanna?
12.45 am.
She might not come. Maybe no bad thing. All talced and aftershaved, he’d go alone to his greasy sheets. He really must buy some more; that one was pretty disgusting. He could imagine Joanna refusing to get in the bed. Just as well if she didn’t come. Tomorrow, he’d buy new sheets.
The doorbell rang.
He jumped up, flustered. Stood his ground for a few seconds. Be cool. Behave as if beautiful women regularly show up for you after midnight. One foot in front of the other. He began the journey. Don’t rush. Breathing steadily, he left the flat, the door ajar, and began taking the stairs with their faded lino, the single light bulb which could badly do with a shade. Seeing with Joanna’s critical eye.
Step down by step. Don’t be overeager. She was over forty minutes late herself and could hear him coming, don’t run pell-mell. Be civilised, cool, let her come to him. In the hallway, he was ashiver. Someone should chuck out all this old post and junk mail.
Jack was at the door. He could see her form through the glass. He paused and took a deep breath. This was what he’d been waiting for. He licked his lips, stood up straight and opened the door.
To Carol.
‘Surprise!’ she said with a broad smile.
She was wearing an open coat over jeans and a light green T-shirt, her hair a little damp, and holding a bottle. She saw his eyes fixed on it.
‘It’s non-alcoholic. I thought I should bring something; it was just lying there. Can I come in?’
‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ he managed to say, almost blown over in the tornado of the switch. It should have been Joanna. Aware too Joanna could still come. But she might not, and to turn Carol away – madness.
‘I’m sorry it’s so late,’ she said, ‘but you know what Joanna is like. She kept finding things for me to do and Donna was in a state. I had to take her home.’ She shook her head. ‘What a story she has to tell!’
‘Come in,’ he said, hardly knowing why he said it, but knowing he had already kept her at the door too long. He held the door wide and took a step back to allow her room to enter.
&nbs
p; He had crossed the Rubicon. Or some stranger river, not knowing what was on the far bank.
Jack led Carol up the stairs, past the old mail, over the old lino, up the rickety staircase and into the flat. What could he say, this was where he lived. Not quite. It was a little tidier than normal.
She removed her coat, looking about her.
‘Bit of a dump,’ he said, taking her coat and hanging it on the door.
‘I wasn’t expecting the Rome Hilton,’ she said.
She had renewed her make up. And the simplicity of jeans and T-shirt suited her so well. She didn’t need designer dresses. How could he ever reject her freshness, her energy and beauty? How?
Because he had a choice. Or thought he had one. In fact Carol had chosen. He was an awful coward. They were standing awkwardly as if the music had just stopped at a dance, trying to find a reason to stay on the floor.
She said, ‘This bit is always difficult.’
He came forward and took her in his arms. Both moved into a hungry kiss. They dropped on to the sofa and lay out lengthwise, legs intertwining. He kissed her neck and shoulders. The drought was coming to an end in the first drips of welcome rain.
‘Let’s go to bed,’ he said.
‘Don’t you want some non-alcoholic beer?’ she teased.
‘After,’ he said, pulling her off the sofa.
As the bell rang.
Both stiffened.
‘Who can that be?’ she said.
‘I don’t know,’ he lied.
‘I’m not very well parked,’ she said, a little panicky. ‘The cops?’
‘Stay here,’ he said.
‘I’ll warm the bed,’ she said.
He was about to say something, what? Were there any words for this situation?
The bell rang again.
‘I’ll see who it is,’ he said. ‘I’m sure it’s no one important.’
Knowing who it was at the door as he left the flat, knowing as he went downstairs, knowing as he passed the neglected mail. Hoping, just hoping, it was a policeman saying Carol’s car was too far from the kerb. Knowing it wouldn’t be.
Another ring, just as he got to the door.
He opened the door, in the last instant hoping for a pizza delivery man at the wrong house. Hoping for anyone but…
Joanna.
‘Sorry I’m a bit late,’ she said, ‘but you know how it is when you’re the host. You have to say goodbye to everyone. And fuck knows where Leon was.’
‘Hello, Joanna.’
What on earth was he to do? Over a year without anything – and two turn up. It was clear enough. He had to get rid of one of them.
She was looking at him quizzically.
‘What’s going on?’ she said.
‘I’m sorry, Joanna,’ he said, standing across the door. ‘I really am.’
She looked up the stairs.
‘Have you got someone else up there?’
He nodded wanly. His body hating having to do this.
‘Yes.’
She sighed. Her coat was open, her cleavage inviting fantasy. At some other time. This was a disaster in every way he could think. Which wasn’t that much.
‘I’m game for a threesome,’ she said. And pushed past him.
‘Joanna,’ he called, feeling like grass flattened after a storm. She was already going up the stairs.
She swivelled, and stopped for a moment.
‘I’m not going home,’ she said.
‘You are,’ he said.
‘Wanna bet?’
And she turned, climbed the rest of the stairs and entered the flat.
Chapter 26
Carol was down to her black underwear when Joanna entered. She flopped onto the sofa. Both women stared at each other.
‘You,’ said Joanna.
‘I don’t know who you expected,’ said Carol, protecting herself with a cushion.
‘Well actually, no one.’
Jack came in. In the short climb up the stairs, he’d accepted the worst had happened. He had little control of its outcome. Let it blow.
‘Coffee?’ he said.
‘I’ll have one,’ said Joanna.
‘Me too,’ said Carol.
Jack went into his small kitchen, leaving the door open. No knives in his back yet. He put the electric kettle on. At least he had some clean cups on the rack. And milk and coffee. Half organised. He set things out deliberately slowly, listening in to the conversation going on in the living room.
‘I told you not to fuck my builder, Carol.’
‘What I do after work is my affair.’
He’d quite like to go for a walk for quarter of an hour. It was rather too hot in here. And come back, and see what they settled on. As it was he slowly made coffee. Milk out of the fridge, the coffee in the cups, a jug for the milk would be posh. He had one somewhere, and searched the china cupboard.
‘I don’t do threesomes with staff,’ said Joanna.
‘I don’t do threesomes full stop.’
He caught the last words through the whooshing kettle. The rest was lost. A little mystery, as the boiling built up and he couldn’t hear. He poured the milk in the jug and remembered the Maryland cookies. Found the packet and placed them out on a plate. The kettle rose to its final crescendo.
How might it go, he considered. Carol might leave, first in first out, or Joanna might. Or both. The situation had quite sucked the libido out of him. If they both went, that might be best. He couldn’t handle two. Either one of them, yes, but two floored him.
A failing, perhaps.
The kettle turned off. Jack continued leisurely making the coffee. There was an ominous silence in the sitting room. Plainly they were waiting for him. Did they want him to choose between them like Paris with the golden apple? Or were they going to beat him up?
He put the three cups of black coffee, the plate of biscuits and jug of milk on a tray, then reflected for an instant whether he should give them a plate each. And then decided this was not a formal tea.
Jack took the tray in the living room. Carol was still seated on the sofa but had put on her coat over her underwear. Joanna was seated at the table, still wearing her coat.
He offered Carol a coffee.
‘Thank you,’ she said without looking at him.
‘Milk?’
She took a little from the jug.
‘Biscuit?’
‘No, thank you.’
He put the tray on the table. Joanna took a cup. She sipped and grimaced. She poured in milk from the jug and tried again.
‘Instant crap.’
Jack sat down and took the last coffee from the tray. He poured in milk. And sipped. It tasted like coffee, pleb that he was.
‘Where have you got to?’ he said.
‘We were waiting for you,’ said Joanna with a smile.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ he said. He caught Carol’s eye. She looked away. It would have been so simple if Joanna had not come, he wanted to tell her. But she fucking well had.
‘I’ve not been in this situation before,’ he added.
‘Nor me,’ said Carol. ‘This one is truly unique.’
Joanna looked them over like a school mistress at two errant pupils. ‘It happens,’ she said. ‘And these are the options.’ She looked at Carol. ‘We scratch each other’s eyes out.’
‘Fuck off,’ said Carol.
‘Or we toss for it.’
Carol laughed. Jack half smiled at the image.
‘What do you want to do, Jack?’
He stared at Joanna across the table, chewing his lip. Her expensive coat and dress. Formica and instant coffee weren’t quite her scene.
‘I was going to bed with Carol,’ he said turning to Carol, ‘but I don’t suppose that’s on anymore.’
‘No,’ said Carol.
‘You shouldn’t have invited me,’ said Joanna, shaking her head in mock sadness.
‘You invited yourself,’ he said.
‘And you sai
d yes.’
He couldn’t remember actually saying yes. But it had amounted to a yes. And he had been waiting for her, hoping she’d come. And lo and behold she had. But rather too late.
‘Maybe you should both go,’ he said to break the silence, ‘and we talk about it in the morning.’
He barely knew how he’d come out with such sense, against all hope. Wanting someone to disagree. And talk about what in the morning?
‘I’m not going home,’ said Joanna stiffly.
‘Neither am I,’ said Carol.
Joanna waved a finger at her. ‘If you don’t go home, you are sacked.’
Carol shrugged. ‘I thought we’d got to that point the instant you came in.’
‘Go. And you keep your job,’ said her boss.
‘Fuck off.’
No one spoke for a little while. Jack dipped a cookie in his coffee and sucked it for the soft sweetness. All he was going to get. Joanna had given up on her coffee. It curdled in the cup. Carol swaddled hers with both hands, looking, in her coat, as if she’d just been rescued from the deep.
He said at last, ‘I don’t understand what’s going on here. You don’t want to sleep with me, Carol?’ She shook her head. ‘And neither do you, Joanna?’
‘I’ve gone off it,’ she said.
‘Then why are we all three here?’ he said.
‘I am not going home,’ said Joanna, ‘if that’s what you mean.’
‘Neither am I,’ said Carol.
Jack threw his hands up in exasperation. ‘No sex, we have nothing much to say. Yet you both want to stay.’
Joanna shrugged. Carol looked into her coffee.
‘You two could sleep together,’ he said.
Joanna laughed.
Carol said, ‘That cow just sacked me.’
‘That was a fit of pique, dear. We’ll talk it over in the morning.’ She turned to Jack. ‘I cannot stand after-parties. I’m not going back.’
‘And you?’ said Jack to Carol.
‘I’m over the limit,’ she said. ‘I chanced it coming here, I’m not doing it again.’
‘Taxi?’
‘No.’
There was something here he couldn’t grasp. Was it simply to queer each other’s pitch? And his too.
‘There’s the bed,’ he pointed out the bedroom, ‘there’s the sofa, there’s the floor.’