Mother Knew Best
Page 22
But I felt I had worse worries than slit shirts. There was the problem of my rubbish. In those days of modern sanitation and regular refuse collections, how could I possibly worry about this, yet sometimes I wished I had been living in good King Charles’s golden days where I could just have thrown everything out of the window. To get to my new silver dustbin I had to go through the kitchen of my landlord’s flat, which I hated. My demoniac-looking landlord was on shift-work, so that even had I waited until his wife was out shopping before passing through their kitchen-cum-living-room to the garden, HE might have been there.
I spent hours on the stairs with my little bucket waiting for them both to be out of the house at the same time. On Chas’s day off I would try to persuade him to empty the rubbish, making the excuse that I had hurt my wrist or foot. He always refused because he thought me crazy to be so inhibited and felt that the more journeys I made into the hinterland the more used I would become to entering the premises of comparative strangers. At last, as the rubbish piled up I decided I would take it down after midnight when all below would be sleeping. This was quite a job and a slow process for I had to feel my way inch by silent inch in the dark in stockinged feet. On a wet night I would have to retrace my steps and erase any muddy footprints with a dry cloth. However, all seemed to go well and I became a past master, or rather mistress, of the art of feeling my way around in the dark, but as so often happens I became over-confident.
I was on my way back from the dustbin run one night after a successful trip. I had only the passage to negotiate and then there was the blessed safety of the stairs when, with a blinding flash, on went all the lights. My heart leapt at the sudden and unexpected illumination. Facing me in the passage was an astonished Mephistopheles, clad only in a very, very short white shirt or shift-like garment. His daring apparel, on top of his unexpected appearance, paralysed my body for a moment yet my brain and pulses raced. For a moment he, too, was silently still. His nether portions were so white and so enormous he seemed to me like a half-veiled statue. I felt like a shocked lady mayoress who had pulled the cord on the unexpected. The statue came to life before the lady mayoress did and with a lightning movement Mephi’s hands grabbed the ends of his shirt turning it into a leotard. This caused him to shrink from a colossus to a hunchback, as he had to crouch to secure the leotard’s permanency.
‘I hope I didn’t wake you up,’ I said brightly as I squeezed past him, scraping his bent knees on my swinging bucket. ‘I just popped out to the dustbin,’ and I sauntered casually up the stairs. Once inside my own quarters my nonchalance deserted me. I leant my banging head against the inside of my kitchen door. I heard voices. I just had to know what ‘HE’ was saying to his now wide awake wife. ‘There’s something bloody fishy about them two upstairs,’ he was saying angrily. ‘I don’t believe he is a waiter, and have you ever heard of anyone going to the dustbin in the dark after midnight?’ I wondered if he would challenge my Chas, due in at any moment, but a door closed and the downstairs lights went out. Recovering myself, I became indignant with my landlord. Surely he could not be a nice man to go to bed so scantily attired? Why my darling wouldn’t even get into bed unless the top button of his pyjamas was fastened high round his neck. I wished I had been quicker-brained. I could have pretended I was sleep-walking.
Finally I hit on a solution to my problem. When I visited Mother as I did two or three times a week I took a suitcase filled with refuse. My mother was mystified, but my father simply said, ‘Dolly’s always been afraid of her own shadow.’ I prayed that if ever I did bump into my landlord on the way out, the catches on my suitcase would not let me down.
Published by Dean Street Press 2016
Copyright © 1974 Dorothy Scannell
All Rights Reserved
The right of Dorothy Scannell to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her estate in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 1974 by Macmillan
Cover by DSP
ISBN 978 1 910570 70 8
www.deanstreetpress.co.uk