The Laundry Basket

by G. M. C. Lewis

  The train groans into life and then, gradually picking up speed, it plunges into the darkness of the tunnel, swaying from left to right as it makes its way under the river. The girl cannot reach any of the handholds and is unable to prevent herself from leaning into his belly as the carriage lurches from side to side. She looks up at him:

  “Sorry,” she says, with an apologetic smile on her face.

  “Quite alright,” he says ignominiously and then, reaching into his pocket, he takes out his handkerchief and mops his brow.

  The train worms its way along the Isle of Dogs, dropping few passengers and leaving steadily growing clumps of humanity at each station. He luxuriates in the girl’s inadvertent proximity and this special moment of unplanned intimacy they are sharing. He feels himself thickening under the shadow of his ponderous belly. The train terminates at Bank and the contents of the train spews forth, filtering down the side tunnels and leaving him in their wake, staring ruefully after that delightful slender behind and blond hair that half runs, half skips through the crowd away from him. Rushing to some anonymous desk and computer, leaving a gently thinning spindle of memory between her and himself. There was a connection there. There was something. Something had definitely passed between them.

  As he makes his way through the labyrinthine passageways towards the Circle Line, he hears a thick gravelly voice singing up ahead. Oh no, that’s all he needs; some bloody scrounging musician and him having dropped behind the main pack, solitary and vulnerable. He reaches the top of the escalators and sees the busker. The man is big and his voice is powerful and intimidating. He tries to increase speed, but his legs protest. He glances at the busker again and finds the man is looking directly into his eyes. His face looks bloody and bruised and his nose appears to be broken. They are staring at each other and the man’s words are pouring into him, though he cannot understand them and he suddenly feels naked and terrified. He tries to walk by, but he cannot; this man has seen into the very depths of his soul and this man knows what he hides there. He turns back around and, reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a note. Smiling desperately, he drops the money into the big Mexican hat that rests on the floor in front of the man. The man’s lips are moving, but he does not hear him.

  He turns away, praying that he will be allowed to walk on unmolested, and doesn’t look back again.

  Ted doesn’t realise that his phone is missing until after the steering group meeting that is supposed to be looking at the redevelopment of New Covent Garden Market. He needs to call Grace and find out what the hell is going on. He almost ended up with a considerable-sized omelette on his face when the chief planner for Wandsworth had informed the meeting that Seagull Industries had not managed to garner the full support of the market traders and there was, in fact, considerable resistance to the proposed move of the market to the new site in Leytonstone, which basically translated as meaning that somebody had made an almighty fuck-up. Either which way, it certainly hadn’t been him, and the payments that he had received in exchange for his assistance in steering the steering group in a direction that would be beneficial to Seagull Industries were non-refundable. Grace knew he had that group in the palm of his hand. What the hell had gone wrong with her end of the deal?

  And where the fuck is his phone? He needs to get back home and make some calls from his study urgently.

  Connie’s Skoda is still missing when he arrives back at Apple Tree House. His family have lived in this house for generations but, as he stands there in the drive looking at the empty spot where Connie’s car should be, he suddenly feels strange and out of place, as if he has walked up the wrong drive. He feels as if the house is looking at him more than he is looking at the house. He takes out his handkerchief and mops his brow, then puffs his way to the door.

  He doesn’t call out when he walks through the front door. He senses that nobody has been here since he left this morning. He makes his way through to the study. On his desk, next to his computer is Connie’s ‘World’s Greatest Granny’ mug. He picks it up and sees that the small amount of tea she had left in the mug has dried to a walnut stain at its bottom.

  Connie never comes in his study. It is an unspoken rule that they have.

  More than ever now, he feels as if he is being watched and he suddenly feels compelled to look over his shoulder behind him. Just the bookcase. He is aware that he is desperately trying to suppress an overwhelming feeling of alarm. Where the hell is Connie? Deep breaths: one… two… three… and relax. Suddenly all the anxiety leaches out of him. What good is it to chase around trying to get hold of Connie, or Grace, or anyone? Sometimes the best thing to do is to sit back and wait a little and see what happens. There’s nothing to be done about Grace and Seagull now, and Connie will be home soon enough and then he’ll treat her to a home-cooked meal, his speciality – beef bourguignon with dauphinoise potatoes. They’ll open a bottle of the St Julien and catch up with each other; it seems so long since they have spoken to each other. Seems like years.

  He climbs the stairs, pulling off his scarf as he does so, which he hangs over the banisters on the landing, walks into the bathroom and starts running the bath. He begins to whistle a tune, then realises that he doesn’t recognise the sounds coming forth from his throat and laughs at his own foolishness. He goes into the bedroom, takes off his coat and hangs it in his wardrobe. He sits on the bed and removes his shoes, then – puffing – he goes back to the wardrobe and places them in the bottom. Next, he checks his pockets before removing his suit, tie and shirt, which he neatly lays on the bed for Connie to deal with. Then, in his underpants and vest, he goes back into the bathroom. The bath is nearly full. He turns off the tap, removes his underwear and steps in. It takes him just a fraction too long to respond to the intense heat, as he had already begun to shift his bodyweight off his other foot. His scalded foot jumps out of the water and he suppresses a scream; the bath is the temperature of boiling pitch. He tries to get his foot up to the sink to get it under cold water but fails, so hops into the shower and, standing to the side, points the head down towards his outstretched foot and twists the dial. For a moment, nothing happens, but then the shower head sprays forth what feels like white hot liquid. He does not suppress the scream this time as he blindly grabs the shower dial and twists it desperately and, failing to do so, falls out of the shower onto the hard bathroom floor to get his body out of the intensely hot spray.

  Ted lies on the cool stone tiles, taking deep breaths. Most of the front of his body – face, neck, chest, belly, arms and, of course, his left foot – are throbbing in preparation for a pain that has not yet been fully realised. He stays completely still and listens to the shower as it generates steam behind the shower curtain.

  A door closes downstairs. Thank goodness; Connie’s home. He bites his lip as, using the toilet for support, he pulls himself to his feet. He takes a towel and wraps it around his waist and steps out onto the landing.

  “Connie!” he shouts. There is no reply. He hobbles across to the banisters and looks down into the reception hall. There is nobody there. His scarf is curled in disarray on the polished stone floor where it has fallen from the banisters.

  Taking a firm hold of the stair rail, he gingerly makes his way downstairs, using his other hand to hold his towel.

  “Connie!” he shouts again. Still nothing, or did he hear a noise through in the kitchen? He opens the kitchen door and steps through; there is nobody there. There are some old newspapers lying on the kitchen windowsill and his eye is drawn to a small green tin that sits next to them. He walks closer and, as he makes out the familiar writing on the tin, the lingering sense of anxiety and fear that he has been holding at bay for days wades back into every fibre of his being with a dread knowing of certainty.

  He doesn’t bother to pick up the tin. Ted turns and, like a man in a dream, he walks to the archway that leads to the lower ground floor and descends the stairs.

  Sombrero

  The sombrero hat contains £3.87. He
’s played for two and a half hours and earned £3.87. Hendo throws the coins back in. Clearly the recently broken nose and associated swelling is not helping his case, either aesthetically or vocally. He hates busking. He hates busking, but not as much as the monkey. He needs at least a tenner to feed the monkey. Just another half an hour; he’ll catch the start of the lunchtime rush and then bust a move. He picks up the guitar and, fingers protesting, plays the opening sequence for Green Grass. A young couple pause as he huskily sings the opening line. Perfect; if you can make one person stop in England, you’re halfway to a queue. People only want what other people want in this country. He sinks into the words and Ben is there with him, showing him the chords, teaching him the simple finger picking and strumming.

  “Lay your head where my heart used to be,

  Hold the earth above me,

  Lay in the green grass,

  Remember when you loved me.”

  He can’t believe he’d made such an unbelievable (yet, admittedly, less serious than the previous nights) social transgression and all he’d managed to come away with was a small baggie of weed, an even smaller baggie of speed and that damned sombrero hat. Not exactly the Pink Panther, but what could you do? Everyone’s but Pedro’s room was locked or occupied, Pedro having passed out on the couch in the living room. Still, the sombrero gave him an idea, so he banged down the speed, grabbed his guitar and headed for the Underground. At least if he was busking, he wouldn’t need to be thinking about what had happened to Ben. He’d raise enough money for a dose of smack and lay low at the squat for a few days. By the time he got back, Ben would have calmed down and Pedro probably wouldn’t have even noticed the missing gear and hat. Well, he could bring the hat back. Or could he? That would confirm that he’d been in the room. Whatever, he could work that out later.

  Jesus, but he is feeling the cold. There must be some kind of air-con or fan blowing nearby to ventilate the tunnels. He shudders, but keeps playing. Another tube has pulled in and the next wave of passengers swarms up the escalators and bustles past, towering above his cross-legged position like giants. It’s the same shudder he felt when he saw the American guy as they were leaving the Millwall game yesterday. What were the odds? He’d never even been to a football game before. Quite an experience, he had to admit.

  Two months ago, he’d not only run out of credit from his dealer, Barny; he’d also generated sufficient ill will to warrant a visit from this same said American guy called Ig. He had to admit, he was pretty predictable in his visiting hours at Barny’s, so he shouldn’t have been particularly surprised to find Ig waiting for him. He’d met some pretty hard nuts in his time, but this Ig guy was the worst kind: hard, obviously, but not just in muscle and build and quickness of movement: he had hard eyes, almost dead eyes – no trace of emotion behind them at all. When the Ig had inferred that he would kill him if he had not come up with payment in full of the amount owing within the next week, he’d said it like he was an adult addressing an errant child. Hendo was left in no doubt that administering the punishment would generate no more feeling than the same adult sending the child to bed without any supper for reoffending – probably less.

  He’d promised to have the money ready, got the hell out of there and kept a very low profile since; there was no way that he was going to come up with three grand in a week with the habits he was fostering. He had to admit that after a month with his head buried in the sand, he’d begun to feel a little less cautious. Maybe Ig wasn’t quite the threat he’d imagined. Maybe his imagination had gotten away with him; he was, after all, feeling pretty needy at the time. He’d kept Pedro signing on and collecting his necessaries for him (Pedro was the only one who knew about his smack habit) but started to hang out in the garden on the street, for brief periods; always watchful, but gaining in confidence every time. The football game had been an unnecessary risk, but Peds had been so excited and when Billy pulled out after Pete applied the pressure, he couldn’t really drop out too.

  A few coins this time (definitely at least one pound coin) and finally, at the end of the crowd, a pink-headed balding fat man goes past, looking harassed and distracted. He finishes the song giving the fat man his full attention:

  “Don’t say goodbye to me,

  Describe the sky to me,

  And if the sky should fall,

  Mark my words we’ll catch mocking birds.”

  The man stops in his tracks, turns round and walks back to him, pulls out a fiver from his wallet and, smiling uncomfortably, drops it in the sombrero, puffing all the while.

  “God bless you, Sir,” Hendo says to the man, who looks faintly displeased with this comment, then turns and puffs away. He counts the money – £10.74 – perfect. And, if he can flog the travel card, he might even get something to eat. He picks up the sombrero, feeling like the thing has saved his bacon for the second time in less than twenty-four hours.

  He’d been wearing the hat during the game and the surrounding fans had got a kick out of it, calling him ‘Sombrero’ and giving him the thumbs-up. The tension in the air had been unbelievable, almost palpable. Us and them: never had the distinction been so clear to him. The petrol bomb had got the Millwall fans really fired up, but he was on their side; they were his comrades. These men around him would die for each other, as long as it was in battle against the opposing fans. It was like a carnival atmosphere as they headed for the gates. They were almost through when he turned to look at the fans following them out, some of them singing the Millwall chant and saw, not thirty yards away, Ig, dressed completely in black, making his way forward along with the throng. Behind Ig was a black-suited man-mountain and Hendo could just make out a shorter grey-suited man sandwiched between the two; Ig and the hulk were clearly his protection. He froze for just a second too long and Ig’s eyes panned round and fixed on his, instantly registering recognition. That was the shudder moment. He turned and began to push hard. Seconds later they were through the gates and immersed into a scene that was something like what he imagined hell to be: the street on fire and people being beaten and tortured everywhere he looked. He tried to move along quickly, but most of the people exiting the stadium were crammed along the walls, trying to get out of harm’s way. He managed to get ahead of Pedro and Ben and finally, getting into a bit of space, he’d turned to see if he was being pursued. He couldn’t see them – it was clearly slow-going getting through the bottleneck. He spotted Ben and then a hand was on his shoulder and a moment later he was lying on the deck, holding his face. He almost laughed, despite the kicking he was getting, to see the football shirt on the man delivering it. He could hear Ben shouting incoherently before his assailant just disappeared and he was left lying on the pavement, still holding his face. Moments later, Ben was by his side.

  “You OK, Hendo? Let’s have a look mate,” says Ben. He can see Pedro standing behind Ben looking like a lost puppy. Ben pulls his hands away.

  “Ah mate, that is beautiful – you look like a Jackson Pollock.”

  Ben’s smiling at him, like they’re sitting in the kitchen discussing art. “Probably not the best place to linger, though. Here, hold it here…” Ben puts Hendo’s fingers either side of the bridge of the nose, “… and keep pressure on it.”

  He helps him stand up. Pedro has disappeared. They have walked unsteadily for ten paces when Ben says, “Hang on, we’ve forgotten something. Stay here.”

  He watches Ben jog back into the chaos and bend down. Moments later, Ben stands with the sombrero on his head and turns to face him and smiles. Hendo senses the movement of something huge to their right, something big pushing through the sea of bodies like they’re just so much long grass. Ben is moving slowly back towards him and he wants to shout out a warning, the cry is hanging in his throat, but he is stunned and terrified by the speed with which the force is bearing down on Ben and what will happen to him if he does cry out and then it’s too late. Ben turns at the last moment and raises a defensive arm that might as well have been a twig. The
black-suited man bats him with a huge shovel-like hand and then, in a smooth movement, picks Ben’s now prone body off the floor, slings it over his shoulder, turns and stalks off in the direction from which he’d come.

  Hendo is still holding his nose. He feels like laughing; this is all too preposterous.

  Someone is nudging his hand:

  “Eh Sombrero, your hat mate.” The sombrero has been returned to him.

  The tube train rushes him through the tunnels as he holds the hat between his legs and concentrates on the thought of that great big mind-numbing needle in the vein.

  Cass and Bruce are back at the squat on Asylum Road. He gives Cass the cash, and he scuttles off to get the goodies.

  “Haven’t seen you around for a good while, Mr Henderson,” says Bruce.

  “Aye, I’ve been a busy boy,” he says.

  “Busy getting your face broken, by the look.”

  “Oh aye, you should see the other guy an’ all that. Seriously Bruce, me and me mates went to the Millwall game yesterday and it was utter chaos.”

  “Holy crap, I saw about that on the telly.”

  “Was like a walk through hell. Fire and brimstone an’ everythin’ – the only thing missing was Ian Paisley!”

  “Holy crap,” says Bruce.

  “Precisely. So anyways, what’s new round here?”

  “Oh not much y’know. Old Tom passed a few months back.”

  “Bruce, old Tom died over two years ago. I’m guessing from the fact that Tom’s expiration has only recently registered in your addled brain that there is not a great deal of current news to report, then. You and Cass still thick as thieves, I see: you’re in danger of becoming co-dependent, you two.”

  “Co-dependent? What’s that when it’s at home?”

  “I’d never heard of it either but apparently it’s a recognised condition, which manifested itself in the case of Laura, my ex-wife – through her incredibly low sense of self-esteem – as a deferral of responsibility of all her problems onto those that she loved. Now, one would have thought that this would make her the ideal partner for an inverted narcissist, which I apparently am, this being defined as an individual who is intensely attuned to others’ needs, but only insofar as it relates to others performing requisite sacrifices for the aforementioned individual. An inverted narcissist ensures that, with compulsive care giving, supplies of gratitude, love and attention will always be readily available.”