by Dan Mooney
“It’s something of a sacred space,” he told her guardedly.
“Do you have housemates?” she asked.
“No,” he lied. He’d been doing quite a bit of that over the last two days, he realized.
“I heard it’s huge,” she persisted.
“It’s a big place all right,” he agreed.
“And it’s just you in there on your own?”
“Yep.”
There was an awkward silence as everyone realized they had hit a point in the conversation that was going to force Denis to retreat. His eyes involuntarily flickered toward the door. Rebecca had been watching him.
“Don’t go...” she said.
It wasn’t far to the door. A quick dash.
She looked at him again; there was something in that look. A question and a promise and a hint of something, something he wanted. It was enough to keep him in his seat.
“Not yet,” he replied, sighing.
“Anyone following anyone cool on Twitter?” Roisin asked, changing the topic with a look in his direction. Ollie nodded at her. The easy rhythm of the chat that had been flowing for most of the dinner seemed to kick in, and in a moment, the table was back to comfortable and easy conversation. Rebecca looked at him with slightly narrowed eyes. He’d have paid to know what she was thinking.
* * *
After dinner, Denis made his goodbyes quickly. There was something ridiculous about dragging out a farewell that seemed to go hand in hand with awkward emotional responses. He preferred to avoid rather than engage such situations. Ollie and Frank had smiled approvingly at him as he bade everyone good-night. They were clearly proud of him. Privately he would have to admit that he was ever so slightly proud of himself. Just once, he had proven he could be sociable. Rebecca had not smiled at him as he left. She had looked him very seriously in the eye and simply asked him to stay in touch. He wondered about that as he made his way home. Obviously there was a type of layered meaning in it, but Rebecca hadn’t been around him long enough to know that such things were not easy to grasp for the socially inept. One dinner didn’t make him the man about town. He still very much counted himself among the ranks of the socially clueless. He pondered what she could have meant, and idly daydreamed about how soft her hands must be as his running shoes softly patted the ground.
The door was open, and he was in the hallway before he realized his mistake. The gate was open. He hadn’t counted any of the steps to the door. The key had slid perfectly into the lock without one attempt to test its security. A well of panic surged up from his stomach. The gate was open.
Calm down, you big baby.
“Help,” he shouted into the dark and silent house. “Help me.” The gate was still open.
OPEN THE DOOR
The streetlight pouring into the house cast an eerie shadow across Plasterer’s face as he appeared at the doorway. Penny O’Neill was just behind, and slinked past him to stand by the coats that hung in the porch. The Professor and Deano stood at the bottom of the stairs watching him. Out on the road, the next-door neighbor arriving home from the pub called out. “You okay? Is everything okay?”
“Shhhhhhh,” Penny O’Neill whispered to Denis. “It’s going to be okay. Listen to Plasterer. He’ll fix this. Shh, now.”
Denis looked at Plasterer. Panic had erased his ability to think. The gate was still open. The intrusion of others into his life was a burden that must be borne, but not this, not this kind of negligence. Not from himself. It was unacceptable. The clown returned his look with a frown, his arms folded across his broad chest.
He’s getting bigger, you know.
“Is something wrong up there?” came the neighbor’s voice again, tinged with alarm.
“It’s okay,” Plasterer told him, his voice low and steady. “It’s going to be okay. Tell him that everything is fine. You just got a fright.”
“I’m...I’m fine. Thank you. Sorry for the disturbance. Just got a bit of a fright,” Denis called out to the street. His eyes locked on the gate for a moment. It was still open.
“You sure? Want me to come over?” came the reply from over the hedge that separated Denis from the outside world.
“Tell him that it’s okay. There’s no need. Apologize again. Make a joke. Laugh it off,” Plasterer advised, his voice bubbling with something aggressive.
“No, no, really, that’s fine. I’m embarrassed enough to have been jumping at shadows. I don’t want my shadow scaring you too,” Denis called back, forcing a laugh. He sounded surprisingly calm even to himself.
“Very good,” came the reply. “Good night.”
The sound of footsteps signified the neighbor’s retreat into his home. The rattle of keys at the door. Click. Slam. Once again Denis was alone in the night air.
“Well done,” Plasterer congratulated him admiringly. “The fat bastard should be minding his own business.”
His voice came out in a growl before he returned to his soothing tones.
“Now, I need you to walk back to the gate. Count the steps all the way. Close it. Count them all the way back. Wipe your feet on the mat, twenty times each foot. Close the door. Lock and unlock it ten times. You’ll be fine. We can get you through this.”
“Listen to Plasterer, Denis,” Penny O’Neill practically purred. “You’ll be safe again before you know it.”
Denis did as he was told, the chill night breeze cold against his freshly sweaty skin. He counted the steps to the gate, all the way open, all the way closed, counting all the way back. His breathing was ragged. The panic was subsiding with each carefully numbered step, but the memory of it lingered. Penny O’Neill hugged him tightly when the door was closed behind him.
“Now,” Plasterer continued, “label each door in the house. A single A4 sheet for each room, in block capitals. Then shred them and do it again. After that I want you to alphabetize the breakfast cereals. I’m going to overcook porridge in the microwave, and when I’m done, you can clean that. I also want you to clean the insides of the bottles of all the cleaning products and then put the cleaning products back in. Next, you must plan tomorrow. Include some time for a coffee in the afternoon. This time you go alone. No girlfriends or any such nonsense. You have no business hanging around with girlfriends.”
There seemed to be something in his voice that suggested he knew about Rebecca, but that couldn’t be. He must have been referring to Tash and Roisin.
“Time you remembered the plan,” Plasterer said in a tone that brooked no argument.
Denis embraced his tasks with his usual efficiency. There was no room for thinking when there was work to be done. Eventually he returned to the living room to turn on the television. He knew it was the living room for certain because he had just labeled it so. On his way he had passed the kitchen, which was, unquestionably, the kitchen. The label said so. He sighed quietly as he sat. How did this happen to him? Things like this never happened to him.
“This happened because you broke the rules, Denis,” Plasterer told him. “You deviated from the course. We know the course, and we’re comfortable with it because we know it. When you change it, when you do these things, you’re allowing in thoughts that don’t help us. They make us weak and unsure. We need to be sure, Denis. All of us.”
Denis nodded dumbly.
“Turn on the television,” Penny O’Neill instructed him as they each took their regular spots. “We’ll watch a movie before bed, and then I’ll curl up at your feet and the whole world will be right again.”
“I’m not sure if this is the time to interject,” the Professor interjected. “But what about left? If it’s all right, then it’s entirely unbalanced. Remember that time we all stood on the right-hand side of the room and it nearly toppled over?”
“It’s okay, Professor.” Denis smiled. “She meant that it would all be correct.”
“I
doubt it highly. People are idiots.”
“Agreed. But we persevere.”
“We do.”
Denis could feel himself unwinding. This room was safety. This house was safety. Outside was not. Tomorrow’s plan was ready, and it included two hours of coffee-socializing, but Denis vowed that those hours would not be spent in the company of Rebecca Lynch, or Natasha Kane, or Roisin Dermody. Maybe not even Frank and Ollie. No. It was time to put a stop to the nonsense of the last two days. Dinner dates and running shoes with jeans. Ridiculous. Why not just chop a mohawk into his hair and wear those leather jackets that no one ever bothered to wash? Safety would be restored. Order would be restored.
“You’re not ready yet,” Penny O’Neill told him cryptically. “Not yet. But I’m sure you will be eventually.”
He hesitated for just a moment before telling them.
“It’s a girl,” he announced quietly. “Rebecca. She just showed up. It’s thrown me a little. And by a little, I mean a lot.”
“Women can have that effect all right,” Plasterer replied somewhat bitterly.
“As if you’d know,” Penny O’Neill shot back.
“What am I going to do?” Denis asked them.
“Nothing. You’re just going to be you. You’re mostly good at that,” Plasterer told him in a lukewarm declaration of confidence. “We know all about this Rebecca, and the only way you win in this situation is if you put your head down, do as you’re told and stick to the plan.”
Denis shook his head.
“You’re going to be okay. Someday you’ll laugh at this,” Penny O’Neill insisted, her voice calm.
He didn’t bother to ask what she meant. She was half asleep anyway, her blond mane spilling across his lap. She was warm. He was comfortable. This was safety. Everything was going to be all right.
* * *
Denis woke the following morning as the very personification of determination. It was a sight to behold. Never before had anyone so carefully and determinedly brushed their teeth. Never was a bowl of cereal the subject of such relentless eating. In the history of well-pressed trousers, there had never before been seen a pair as well-pressed as those that Denis put on that morning. The gel for his hair was calculated precisely to provide maximum hold with minimal wastage. His tie was retied no less than six times in the dogged pursuit of tie perfection. Denis Murphy took on Monday morning like a dog digging for a bone. There was no wasted movement, no reckless disregard for excessive use of the space on his spoon. If you could have measured his morning coffee, it would have been consumed in equal mouthfuls, such was his focus on the task at hand. The patented computer program that had been his brainchild—as well as the subject for his undergraduate thesis—crunched numbers and data like no program had ever done before, but even that was a poor shade of efficiency next to Denis Murphy.
Denis’s home doubled as his workplace. Recession had made such a house, a proverbial palace, accessible to Denis. Recession and, of course, a more than healthy salary. His work suited him well. All that was required was a laptop, a printer, a scanner and a working internet connection. Data was emailed or faxed to him. He analyzed it, compared it, ran it through the program he had devised in college, which collated such information and utilized website analytics to project future coverage. Clients could come to the company he worked for looking for marketing solutions, and Denis provided all the necessary facts and figures for optimum growth and development. Strategies to achieve this were left to people who were more personal than he was. Frankly put, that meant just about anyone, but since his data and results were all impeccably researched and analyzed, he was invaluable to his employers. Thankfully for all concerned, he could be perfectly invaluable from home. Denis was under no illusions about his absolute uselessness in the modern working environment, and believed, probably correctly, that his colleagues would be just as frightened by the idea of him coming to work as he was by the notion of having to share a lunchroom or toilet with other staff. Some things were simply not acceptable to someone with his particular idiosyncrasies. His office was perfect for his requirements also: white walls untouched by photos or pointless artwork, a study in minimalism. His desk and chair functional to the point of severe. In fact, his whole house was a monument to simplicity. During the recession, armed with a generous paycheck every two weeks, Denis had applied for and received a mortgage. He had even shaken the bank manager’s hand on conclusion of the deal. He had to wash it twenty-two times, each wash taking exactly two minutes before he felt comfortable handling cutlery again. The mortgage bought him a four-bedroom detached house in a quiet development just outside the city center. He had a large backyard, two living rooms—one of them converted to a bedroom—a wide, bright kitchen and an office. Ideal. He also had a separate garage that the real-estate agent assured him would make a lovely gym. Most of the bars required for lifting weights had rough edges for better grip alongside smoother edges toward the middle of the weight, a situation that was uncomfortable for Denis, and so it stood empty, save for when his housemates went in there to paint on the walls for apparently no reason.
Now they stood by the door to his office beaming at him and occasionally thumping each other about the head and shoulders, again for no apparent reason. Deano was covered in clothespins. He looked uncomfortable in the way only a human hair ball could look uncomfortable. Hairily.
Denis made phone calls to head office, wasting no extra words, save for some polite salutations, which weren’t really wasted, considering he had decided it was in his interest to keep the work people onside. It wasn’t manipulation as such, but more a pragmatic approach to office politics. At some point, his particular social needs may impact on their lives, and being nice now might help on the day that he required something in return.
You can’t avoid it forever, you idiot.
For two hundred ten minutes Denis worked. He made coffee efficiently and drank it in fourteen minutes. He then worked for a further seventy-eight minutes before lunching for sixty minutes. Then he worked for a further one hundred twenty minutes. During this time, he ignored his cell phone. It was staring at him in a most accusatory fashion, but he blanked it out all the same. At four, having put in an efficient, productive and most of all orderly day’s work, he sent his final email and clocked off. His phone was waiting. It had a habit of doing that. The text message waiting on it was short and simple: Nice to see you last night, Pudding. Coffee? I’m bored. His mind, ever so briefly let off its leash, traveled back to a time when Rebecca called him Pudding. His nickname, Denny, which had a barely humorous link to an Irish meat company, had earned him an additional nickname: Pudding. He tried to recall a time when he had found someone naming him after a tasty, if disgustingly produced, breakfast meat to be a good thing. In his memory he heard her voice chant it in a bar while he slammed seven shots in a row, racing Ollie to the last one before leaping onto a table to soak in the adulation of a heartily impressed crowd of inebriates that had included Jules and Eddie. Ollie had vomited on the floor. The crowd was doubly impressed. Ollie had always been the lightweight of the group, with Eddie and Frank competing for the heavyweight championship of drinkers. He shook off the troublesome thought, but dithered over a reply. In no way was he prepared for another onslaught. She confused his brain, and his brain was not a fan of being confused. Equally he was unprepared to face the consequences of such; the abandonment of order. Today had been, to this point, highly productive, not just from a work point of view, but in terms of reestablishing the pattern and rhythm of his life.
“You don’t have to reply,” Plasterer told him, seeming to materialize at his shoulder, his thick face paint dangerously close to smudging Denis’s work shirt. There were grains of sugar stuck to the paint around his lips. “Forty minutes into town. Newspaper. One hundred twenty minutes’ coffee time and home to watch Criminal Minds with us.” His smile would have been reassuring if not for the sugar crusting
on his mouth. Denis could practically taste it.
“You’re right. Again,” Denis told him, snapping the leather cover of his phone shut. “Try not to make a mess while I’m gone.”
“I’ll be good, but there’s no stopping the other three reprobates.”
“Pffffft. Liar.” Denis smiled. “See you in a while.”
He made his way to town as he had done ever since he bought the house. Same route. Same cracks in the pavement to be avoided. Same noise of the world intruding on his ears. Thomas was waiting in his chosen convenience store.
“The usual, Mr. Murphy?” he asked in his foreign accent. He had, Denis concluded, a wonderful smile.
“Indeed, Thomas. And thank you. Hope you’re having a lovely day.” He flashed his courteous smile back, feeling a vague sense of disappointment that his smile would never compete with the man’s behind the counter.
“Would be a better day if I could get a high five...” he replied, still grinning.
“A nice offer, but sadly, I must—”
“Must decline,” Thomas finished for him. “I know. See you tomorrow, Mr. Murphy.”
“Good day, Thomas. Thanks.”
He made his way across the sheltered side street and under the canopy, taking his usual seat. The waiter, businesslike in his black uniform, brought his latte without ceremony, placing it with the handle pointed at a right angle away from Denis to the right.
“Enjoy,” he said. He always said that.
“Thank you. I will,” Denis replied. He always replied that.
On the same street as the little coffee shop were several other businesses. Women in smart suits strode down the street against old men who seemed to amble aimlessly with nothing but time on their hands. Some women, with strollers or tugging reluctant children behind, bustled with shopping bags and boxes. A beggar, dressed in old, filthy clothes, his face a mask of dirt, wandered here and there, thrusting out his hands to people. He was largely ignored. His eyes landed on Denis, who quickly began assessing his chances of getting out of the man’s path before it was too late. If he did so, he’d have to leave without paying. If he went to pay, he’d have to confront the man outside the shop. A perfectly good and orderly day was preparing to descend into a mess of hand-scrubbing and awkwardness. And then it got worse.