Gerald, as Landlord, had keys for all the flats in the pair of adjoining Victorian terraces he owned. This afforded him ample opportunity to rummage freely among his tenants possessions on the pretence of checking the flats for damage or abuse.
On the day in question, after knocking loudly and receiving no reply, Gerald opened the door to Mrs Hird’s flat and checked the living room. Next, he’d pushed open the bathroom door and was faced with Mrs Hird in a grotesquely compromising position, a full colostomy bag in hand one, a cleaning kit laid out on the toilet cistern. She’d screamed in shock and dropped the bag to the floor. Mr Grimman recoiled in horror as the contents of the bag splashed across the floor, the side of the bath and his own feet. He very nearly fainted from the smell before stumbling, gagging and retching, out into the hallway. She’d been the Bag Lady ever since.
It was a pity, Gerald thought in his fairer moments, usually when he was in costume as Geraldine, how life had panned out for Mrs Hird. Her flat still bore testament to her past life in the music halls. Her vast, blue, indecorous eyes now turned a milky white with age, were still framed by large fake eyelashes that had once enhanced her beauty but now looked ridiculous. She often wore her favourite fur collared blue satin dressing gown too, perhaps to make her feel like the showgirl she had once been.
This evening when Gerald entered Mrs Hird’s flat he was immediately struck, as always, by the musty ‘old person’ smell and by the walls plastered with faded posters from decades old theatre productions. There was indeed a fair amount of water flooding through the bathroom ceiling and he could hear Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence coming from the flat above. Gerald stomped upstairs, thoroughly irritated, and banged on the door.
* * * *
Alfie Peter Gorman, supine and naked in the bath, lowered himself deeper until the water began to overflow; landing with a slap on the cracked turquoise linoleum. It wasn’t especially late, perhaps ten thirty, maybe eleven. Alfie’s gaunt face was framed by the water, his olive-tinged arms rested on his flat but not muscular abdomen. He looked up from his prone position to the shelf above the bath. On the shelf he had balanced a two bar electric heater, plugged in via an extension cable in the living room. Attached to the right foot of the heater was a length of cord, nylon twine of the washing line variety. The other end Alfie clutched steadfastly in his right hand. He closed his green eyes and began to draw in the slack.
As he waited for the splash, then the shock, then nothing, Alfie already knew his death would barely register with anybody; he hadn’t made an impression on the world, had done nothing of significance with his life. His passing would warrant a small box of text in a corner of a middle page in the local newspaper, he’d be lucky if they even mentioned his name.
Body found in bath
Verdict: Suicide
No questions asked, no fuss caused, no difference made. It seemed to be a summation of Alfie’s life to press.
Alfie’s mother would unquestionably be apprized and she’d learn that her son died in Morecambe, a decrepit former seaside resort, now merely a seaside town, and it wasn’t inconceivable that she may remember taking Alfie and his brother Frank there as children. Mrs Gorman might wonder why Alfie hadn’t bothered to contact her or leave a note. She may even speculate how her youngest son, now in his fifth decade, had come to this; living alone with only a cat for company. But any family Alfie had was hundreds of miles away. Here and now, that was what mattered. His charred body would be wheeled away, his cat would be turfed out onto the street, the landlord would re-let the flat and the world wouldn’t even know Alfie Gorman had been in it.
Of course Alfie had not become suicidal overnight. He did not consider himself unhinged in any way. No, Alfie was miserable. But this was not the type of unhappiness which can be shrugged off, drunk away, talked around or masked by a tan from two weeks in the sun. Alfie felt defeated and had, quite simply, had enough of trying. The trouble, for want of a more appropriate term to accurately describe Alfie’s mental state, had begun some forty years earlier with the death of his older brother, Frank.
Alfie became vaguely aware of a dull thudding noise, from inside the bath it sounded like the beating of a drum in a vast hall. Alfie listened to the thump-thump-thump, like his heart beat, becoming imperative as the moment of reckoning approached. Except, typically, Alfie’s timing, his preparation, even his surroundings, were against him and it seemed now was not a very good time to die.
‘Gorman. Mr Gorman.’ Gerald Grimman bellowed.
With no immediate answer, the landlord used his keys to let himself in, marched straight over to the stereo and turned off the music, by now Billy Joel’s Piano Man. He pushed open the bathroom door without bothering to knock and was confronted with Alfie Gorman ascending from an overflowing bath. In a desperate bid to reach a towel Alfie slipped and fell, crying out desperately before yanking the electric heater off the shelf and into the water. There was a sizable splash followed, virtually preceded, by a hiss of steam and a short popping sound as the fuse blew. A second later they were submerged into darkness.
‘Jesus Christ, Gorman! I don’t know what the hell’s going on in here but I want you out. I knew you were trouble the minute I laid eyes on you. What is it with my tenants and bathrooms? You’re all nuts!’
Gerald pulled Alfie forcibly to his feet and watched as his sopping tenant squelched through the gloom to the shabby chest of drawers in the living room and produced a torch which he directed at the landlord.
‘Not in my eyes you pillock!’ Gerald howled, throwing his hands to his face. ‘What on earth are you gawping at?’
‘What’s that on your face?’ Alfie asked, genuinely curious and perplexed. ‘Is it…is it make-up?’
The landlord stepped back as Alfie advanced, still shining the torch in Gerald’s eyes.
‘I told you, not in my eyes.’
‘Why are you wearing make-up Mr Grimman?’
‘None of your fucking business, Gorman. Now, shift and let me fix the fuses.’
Without waiting for a reply, the embarrassed landlord bulldozed past Alfie and departed with celerity down the stairs.
The following morning it was a more reasoned and equanimous Alfie who was stopped on the stairs by his landlord.
‘Morning, Mr Grimman. Erm, sorry about last night, the fuses, the water…’
Gerald dismissed the apology with a wave of his hand. ‘Never mind that. Look, about what you saw, you know…my face.’
‘You mean the make-up you were wearing?’
‘Shush!’ Gerald hissed. ‘Look, tell you what. Perhaps I overreacted last night, about wanting you out of here. I was stressed and what a man chooses to do in his bath is no concern of mine.’
‘I see.’
‘Just as what I may do in private is of no concern to anyone else.’
‘Absolutely.’
‘So, how about we say no more about last night, keep it to ourselves and get back to our lives?’
‘Fine with me, Mr Grimman, totally fine.’
Alfie opened the front door to leave for work, pleased with the landlord’s suggestion as he too was eager to put the nights events behind him, not that he’d anyone to tell, aside from Kenny, his cat.
‘Oh, and Mr Gorman…’
‘Yes.’
‘If I do find out you’ve said anything, don’t forget I know where you live, and I have a key.’
1 The Disillusioned Parkie
The lamp post was rooted approximately twelve feet to the left of the Barbershop on the opposite side of the narrow street, creating a perfect angle for Alfie to peer unnoticed into the shop.
It was mid afternoon and the intense, infrequent summer sun had manoeuvred its way across the sky until its rays filtered down from the heavens and through the large solitary shop window upon which had been scribed ‘Rodney’s Gentlemans Barbers’; the letters gilded in formerly splendid, now peeling, gold leaf.
From his vantage point concealed behind the lamp p
ost, Alfie was able to see three empty red vinyl seats and in the fourth a man wearing a high visibility vest and dusty work boots waited his turn. In the centre of the shop stood Rodney, the Barber, snipping away at the back of someone’s head, periodically retreating a step to admire his work before moving back in like a boxer studying an opponent.
Deciding that this was quite acceptable – any more than three waiting customers meant a frustrating period of quiescence, often in excess of an hour – Alfie broke cover and strode confidently across the street and through the open doorway into the shop.
Rodney glanced up into the sizeable mirror on the wall to address his new customer. ‘Afternoon Alfie, you keeping alright?’
‘Aye, not so bad thanks Rod. Yourself?’ Alfie spoke to the barber’s reflection as he moved to the centre chair of the three empty ones on the far side of the shop.
The shop was unpretentious, intimate, busy with four customers, crowded with six. On the white wall opposite Alfie hung three sepia photographs in black frames, the subject of each a suited rhythm and blues trio featuring a youthful Rodney on drums.
Next to Alfie, in the left hand corner, was a small black and white television, itself old enough to sport a dial on the front to twist from station to station, much like tuning a radio. The programme on screen was a recording of the 100 Greatest Something or Other from Channel Four. Underneath the counter supporting the television, concealed by a red curtain on a rail, was a video recorder which had been, so far as Alfie could gather from previous visits, Rodney’s only innovation. ‘An attempt to attract a younger element, liven the place up a bit.’ Except Rodney only seemed to have this one cassette which he played continuously so that regular patrons knew the 100 Greatest verbatim.
Alfie leaned across to the counter and picked up a copy of The Daily Express from an assortment of the days newspapers. Further along the shelf lay an amassment of outdated magazines and leaflets which served as a history of local events over the past few years since Rodney never seemed to throw any of them away.
Five minutes later Alfie glanced up when he recognised the signs of a completed haircut. The barber brushed cuttings from the customer’s neck, showed him the rear view with a mirror and asked if he’d like anything on, ‘a bit of gel or wax’, which the man declined. Alfie watched as the man stood, rolled his head around to see various angles in the mirror then, satisfied, paid Rodney and told him to keep the change – Rodney rather shrewdly charged £6.80 for a haircut, but everybody seemed to hand over seven pounds and reject the twenty pence change.
While the next customer took his place in the elevated vinyl covered chair, Rodney quickly and efficiently swept clumps of hair from the floor with a dustpan and brush, deposited them in the swing bin behind the door and turned to repeat the process for the umpteenth time that day.
Soon, after shifting his attention variously between the back page sport stories, numbers 26-19 on the much viewed video countdown and the intermittent passers by on the street outside, Alfie’s turn came. He had waited barely twenty minutes – most acceptable - since the preceding customer had requested a number two all over, one of Rodney’s specialities which involved a lot of clipping and very little actual cutting.
‘Just a tidy up?’ Rodney asked, wrapping the brown bib around the top of Alfie’s pale blue shirt, fastening it at the back with Velcro.
‘Yeah, thanks. Bit shorter all over.’
‘You don’t have a number do you?’
‘Nope, just a cut please.’ Alfie preferred this as the clippers allowed Rodney carte blanche to take far too much off which made Alfie overtly conscious of his slightly protuberant ears and voluminous head.
Rodney stirred a comb vigorously in a jar of cloudy disinfectant which, to Alfie, smelled very similar to that used in the public toilets on the promenade. ‘Finished for the day?’ The barber quizzed.
‘Aye, couldn’t come soon enough today.’ Alfie rolled his eyes theatrically and sighed heavily.
‘Oh, really. Something happened?’ The barbers need to be au courant on local events was manifest in his suddenly intense expression, his reflection looking fixedly at Alfie from the mirror.
‘Well, in a nutshell, we were damn lucky not to be retrieving the reactor lid from the beach.’ Alfie said, referring to his entirely fictional engineering post at the local nuclear power station.
‘Goodness!’ Rodney exclaimed, combing and snipping around the back of Alfie’s head. Lumps of black hair flecked with grey fell silently to the floor.
‘Hmm, thing was the bloke on the desk had cleared off to make some toast, but we were only out of bread so off he goes to find some, next thing you know an alarm goes off. Needless to say, he didn’t hear it.’ The fact that none of this had happened mattered not to Alfie. It was a good story and his audience was intrigued.
‘So what happened?’ Rodney had worked his way to one side of Alfie’s head. ‘Just above the ears?’
Alfie nodded and continued his tale. ‘Well, I just happened to have gone up to the control room to ask about the maintenance plan for the upcoming refuelling outage.’
‘So you sorted it all out did you?’
‘I had to Rod, had to. I take one look at the desk, realise the whole place is set to go off. Anyway, my training takes over, into autopilot, straight out the manual. Relieved the pressure, job done.’
‘And what about the chap who was supposed to be there?’
‘Well, let’s just say there’ll be an advert for a job at the power station in the paper this time next week.’
‘Oh, it’s a good job you were there then.’
‘It bloody is Rod. But that’s why they pay me the big money, to keep cool in an emergency.’
‘That alright for you?’ Rodney angled a hand mirror behind Alfie’s head while Alfie nodded his approval.
‘Anything on, bit of gel or wax?’ Rodney asked, although he had developed a habit of pronouncing anything as anythink, something as somethink and so on, much to the bemusement of some of his more aware customers.
‘No thanks, I’ll give it a wash when I get in; get the bits off.’
‘Rightyo. That’s just six eighty then.’
Alfie plucked a five pound note and two pound coins from his pocket and turned for the door.
‘Your change?’
‘No, it’s fine, keep it.’
‘If you’re sure,’ Rodney smiled. ‘See you again.’
It was a little after half past four when Alfie strode out of the barbers shop into the late afternoon sunshine, pleased with the story he’d fabricated. He was hungry and decided to call at the chip shop for an early take-away tea. He didn’t have much in now he thought about it; a tin of chicken soup he’d been evading, a loaf and a tin of spaghetti Bolognese that his poor mother would be mortified to know he’d bought – ‘Why pay more for inferior artificial rubbish when I can make you fresh sauce?’ she would ask. Yes, he’d treat himself to some fish and chips; it saved heating anything up, meant no washing up and the chippy was, in a very roundabout way, on his way home.
He stepped into the shop to find it deserted and leaned on the counter, casting a desultory glance at a glass case with ‘Hot and Spicy Fresh Chicken’ stamped on the side in red bubble letters. On a revolving stand inside the case a couple of withered pieces of meat circled each other warily like two dehydrated gladiators, their best days behind them.
‘Alright, Alfie. What’ll it be?’ Asked Derek, the owner, who’d just appeared from the back of the shop.
‘Fish and chips please.’ Alfie yawned and stretched in an obvious manner, much as he had in the barbers.
‘Busy day?’
‘Crazy. Thought it’d never stop.’
‘High pressure job yours though. See that outside?’
Alfie turned to look at the brand new Renault Clio parked in front of the shop. ‘Yeah.’
‘It’s the wife’s. Just got it today, she’s delighted. Mind, she’s not the one who’s got to find money for t
he payment every month for the next three years.’
‘Very nice.’
‘Course, it’s not in your league, but it’s a nice run around.’
‘Aye, they’re a good little car.’ Alfie stated, though he knew nothing about cars, good or bad, and had never owned a vehicle.
‘So, how’s the Jag then?’ Derek asked, the invidiousness and malcontent obvious in his tone as he lifted a fish from the oil, pinched it and dropped it back in before wiping sweat from his brow with a towel draped over his shoulder.
‘Oh, magic. Best car I’ve ever had,’ Alfie lied enthusiastically. ‘I mean, I was toying with a Beamer, but there’s nothing says class like a Jag.’
‘Bet it shifts a bit if you ask it to.’
‘Well, you don’t fork out thirty grand for a bloody lawnmower do you? It flies when you put your foot down. Bit heavy on petrol but it’s worth it for the drive.’
‘You’re a lucky sod Alfie, having a car like that.’
‘Hard work mate, hard work.’
‘Didn’t see you pull up in it. I wouldn’t mind a look.’ Derek lifted the floating fish from the oil, allowed it to drain for a few seconds, then dropped it on some paper with a generous scoop of chips. ‘Salt and vinegar?’
‘Plenty please Derek. It’s parked round the corner; been to have the old Barnet chopped.’ Alfie ran a hand through his newly trimmed hair. ‘Next time I’m in I’ll park outside; you can have a sit in it if the shop’s quiet.’ Alfie promised, taking the warm parcel from Derek and exiting the shop.
That’s the advantage of moving around so often, Alfie thought as he ambled home. You can tell people anything you like, fabricate a life, and they believe you because they’ve no reason to doubt you. Alfie smiled as he remembered how, a few years ago, while he’d been living in Cromer, he’d told people he was an out of work actor and someone actually claimed to recognise him from the television.
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