I smile at him. The stupid great dollop.
Turn to go and follow Fluffy up the path.
To home. My happy home. With Rosie.
I step into the hallway, stamping down hard, partly to shake snow and ice off my boots. Partly to feel my feet are still there. I take the boots off, followed by my hat, gloves and coat, which I put on the hooks by the cellar door. They hang there, dripping slowly. I have a sudden, vivid image of blood oozing out onto and down the steps into the cellar.
I ignore it, bending to pull off Fluffy’s coat. He stands stiff and unyielding, so I have to tug at the coat to get it over his legs. He is no help at all, lifting the wrong leg each time, as if he is being deliberately slow-witted to annoy me. Finally, he shakes himself free and potters towards the kitchen to see what’s left in his bowls.
The cold gets into the bones of you in this place. The windowpanes are lined with twisting and distorting shapes; pretty if it weren’t for the chill. In the hallway, I can see my breath. I move towards the living room for some heat.
And then I stop.
Expecting to hear noises from the nookery.
But it is all quiet.
I put my ear to the door. A minute, maybe more. There is no sound at all. Not from the bedroom. The kitchenette. The shower room. I wonder suddenly whether she may have collapsed again. Some underlying health problem. I put my hand on the door handle and hesitate. She may be in bed. She may be on the toilet. She may be undressed. Then again, she may be fighting for her life. I open the door and go in.
The bed is folded up against the wall. The coffee table has been moved slightly from its position, and the flower arrangement is facing in the wrong direction away from the bed. The transistor radio is next to it, resting on its side. Other than that, it is as if she has never been here. I move to the bed, which is stood up against the wall. Tug out the bed legs. Bring the bed down. The pillow, duvet and sheet are still in place. I pull at the duvet. There is a smear of dirt on the sheet. The only sign that she has been here.
I move quickly to the kitchenette, opening cupboards, drawers, to see what she has taken. There is only cheap cutlery, no sharp knives. All seems to be in place. I move on. The shower is clean and tidy. So is the basin. And the toilet. She has vanished. Rosie. The girl by the pier has left.
I move out of the nookery, hurrying through the living room to the stairs and up them two at a time.
To my bedroom. Money. Jewellery. Personal possessions. Private things I don’t want anyone to see. They are all there. Maybe now gone.
As I get to the top of the landing, I stop.
There are noises – movements, really – from the other bedroom. What was my daughter’s room.
I take one, two, three steps across the landing. I am back from my walk sooner than expected; I think I have caught Rosie unawares. I move to the doorway. The door is slightly ajar. I look in to see what she is doing.
Rosie is standing with her back to me. In front of a wardrobe.
Naked.
Other than her dirty pants and pink socks. My daughter’s socks.
I stand there for a moment. And I see myself with utter clarity. I know, in that instant, I am middle-aged and she is young. And that it is wrong of me. To look at her the way I am doing. But I cannot help myself. It has been a long time. And I am a normal, healthy man. I cannot stop my body reacting. I cannot control it. But I can control myself. My natural urges. Of course I can.
She’s not aware I am here. She is absorbed, singing quietly to herself and looking at the clothes hanging up in the wardrobe. Pretty clothes that I cannot bear to throw away. She is standing, her right hand touching, almost playfully, each dress in turn. A little black dress. A red one. Another cut low at the front. A shiny one. This thieving magpie is choosing one to suit her mood. I do not mind. I am at ease with it. I think she is in a happy frame of mind as well.
I know if I make a noise, a cough to announce my presence, that she will jump, be startled, and will turn towards me. Her face. Her breasts. Her body. Her long legs in those pretty pink socks taken from the chest of drawers in the far corner of the room. And I do not know what I should do. What I would say. How I would handle it all.
Nor do I know what she would do. To her, I am an old man. Twenty-five years or more older than her. My attentiveness is her creepiness. She will not react as she might with a young man. A smile, a bashful, downward gaze, reaching half-heartedly for a dress to cover her nakedness. Inviting him in. Wanting him.
She may be angry, spitting fury. At me. A voyeur. A deviant.
Pushing and shoving me out of the door. Shutting it in my face. The movement of her body. The smell of her freshness. Overwhelming me.
Then getting dressed and leaving. Storming off. Making her way through snow up the lane. To God knows where. And to what end.
And I cannot have that. Not now. She needs to stay. I think she can be happy here. With me. And I can be too, at long last. She is what I have been waiting for. If I can get it right this time. But it cannot be rushed, nor forced.
So I step oh so carefully back, across the landing, waiting for the creak that will give me away. But it does not come, and I edge my way back down the staircase, slowly but surely, one step at a time. The second-to-last step creaks loudly with my full weight suddenly upon it, so I shout, “Hello, I’m back!” as cheerfully as I can as I reach the hallway and move towards the kitchen.
And the new day begins.
The two of us together.
At the start of a long and winding road to happiness.
It’s almost half past seven, and we are having breakfast together. Me and Rosie with her little puffed-up face and our warm, matching blankets wrapped round our shoulders.
We are in the dining room with the heater turned up to the maximum and water running down the windows and onto the sill.
Working our way through the food and drink in something close to an awkward silence.
I bustled about the kitchen once I had crept downstairs, making plenty of noise as if I’d just got back to the cottage. I normally eat in the kitchen with Fluffy at my feet. But it is too cold there now, so I put the gas canister on in the dining room to warm things up and busied about making everything look nice. Naturally, Fluffy sits as close as he can to the canister, hogging much of its heat. He can be rather selfish at times.
I then prepared breakfast. I decided not to cook my traditional first breakfast together – my “Full English”. The white-ridged bacon and plump sausages bursting out of their skins that I get from the local farm may repulse her. There are moments, with the meat and big, juicy tomatoes, when it looks a little like an autopsy on a plate. Not that this sort of thing bothers me. But Rosie might prefer something less gory.
I put out a pot of tea and cups and glasses and small jugs of water and orange juice. Various cereals, too. Bran flakes and a banana for me, as I like to stay regular. Half-full boxes of Coco Pops and other chocolatey cereals from the back of the cupboard. I also made two bowls of my usual porridge with big flakey oats and lashing of piping hot milk. Bananas on the side. Toast as well, brown and white, with jam and marmalade and honey and a pot of chocolate spread that young people like. What a feast. I called Rosie downstairs as I put the radio on quietly, Radio 2, so we don’t have to force small talk.
She is dressed in my daughter’s favourite sweatshirt and short denim skirt. She has long, bare legs and those little pink socks. Neither of us comment on her taking the clothes.
She has her head down and is spooning porridge into her mouth like it’s her last meal before her execution. On and on, as if she is embarrassed to look up.
I say nothing about the clothes. My heart just bursts with happiness sitting opposite her. Even though she seems in a hurry to finish and be gone.
I have to be quick to start forming a relationship between us. So that she stays of her own accord when the snow goes. I need her to see me as a kindly uncle figure, sincere and genuine, ready to listen to h
er thoughts and worries, and to help her to resolve them.
But I have to draw her out of herself gently, without pushing or prodding her for information about her life, her background and how she has ended up here.
I have done this before. And I know what to do by now. To talk generally, neutrally, of things that do not seem to matter much, but are close enough to lead into conversations about more important things. About her.
“I love porridge,” I say eventually and as cheerfully as I can, taking a spoonful and rolling the warm slop around my mouth. “I’ve had it for breakfast every winter’s morning, when it’s cold, since I was a small child.”
She says nothing, no response, no inclination of her head to acknowledge my words. No suggestion of what she ate for breakfast when she was a child. No opening into a conversation about her family. She takes my words as a statement, not as a question, and carries on eating. She’s like a thin stray cat gobbling up her food while she can, never knowing if this will be her last meal.
“And toast,” I add a moment or two later. “For breakfast. After my porridge. Toast and marmalade. Thick cut.” And, following another longish pause, “I’ve put some of that chocolate spread out for you. Do you like it?” I gesture towards the pot of Nutella and suddenly hope that, if she opens it, there isn’t a smear of congealed butter or any mould across the top. It has not been opened for nearly three months, and I forgot to check it.
She looks at it and nods briefly as if to say yes I do, thank you. Then scrapes her bowl with her spoon, not wanting to leave even the slightest smear of porridge. I ask if she’d like another bowlful – I can make it easily enough – but she shakes her head and reaches for a piece of white toast. She picks up the pot of Nutella and unscrews the lid. She looks inside it for a moment or two, and I wonder if it is full of sprawling mould.
“I love Nutella,” she says simply, dipping her knife in and spreading the chocolate on her toast. “I’ve had it before.”
I nod, not sure how to reply. This seemingly inane but crucial conversation could go either way. It’s the start of everything – or, if I get it wrong, possibly a sudden, brutal end. She could get up to go. What would I do? I can’t have her walking away right now. So I don’t ask her if she had Nutella as a child. A lead into a more personal talk about her mum and dad and family. Instead, I sit back. We eat in a more companionable silence.
Now and again she glances up at me when she thinks I am not looking. She is reluctant to make eye contact. And she is still shovelling in food as if there were no tomorrow.
I keep my face bland and neutral. I will not comment on her manners, which are appalling. This starving creature. I have a naturally kind face; that helps in moments like this. Like a young and sympathetic George Clooney (but with twinklier eyes).
She is going to say something. I know; I can tell. I just have to wait whilst she builds her confidence. And ploughs through all the food left on the table.
At last we have finished eating our toast, and I am sipping my cup of almost cold tea, and she is swallowing her last mouthful of orange juice. She fills her glass again, a nervous glance towards me as if I might slam my fist on the table and shout “that’s enough!” at the top of my voice. I nod: go on, please do. And then we are at the end of eating and drinking and kind of look at each other once more, both of us seeming awkward again.
She glances out of the window towards the lane and the snow and the fairyland beyond, and looks back at me. She swallows.
“Do I … have to leave now?” she says almost forlornly. Her voice hesitating.
I choke on my words of reply. “No. You can stay here …” I pause and think, but do not add until the day you die. Instead, I simply say, “U… until the snow has gone.”
She looks at me and smiles.
A grin. Her pretty face. Her childlike glee.
Here we go. Again. I pray I get it right this time.
We spent the morning apart, Rosie and I. She was in the nookery, and checking regularly at the door, I could hear Radio 1 playing on the little transistor radio. I enjoyed imagining what she was doing in there. I finished off a game of chess I’d been playing with myself and followed my usual routine of tidying and cleaning around. I worked through my list quite quickly. My timetable is very important to me. I don’t like to sit around and think. To dwell on things. And, whilst tidying, I came across something to give to her as a little present. A welcome gift. It’s too soon for jewellery, of course, but this box of goodies is just perfect.
Now it is one o’clock, and we are at lunch. A Tesco vegetable quiche and one of their mixed salad bags. Salad cream and mayonnaise, in small bowls, are to the side of the plates. Orange squash and lemon barley water in jugs in-between. We are in the dining room again. The sun is shining, and it makes this dim and dreary room slightly more bearable. The little box is on my lap, and I am waiting for the right moment to give it to her. A surprise.
There is some sudden movement outside by the gate and path, and Rosie looks out of the window and moves her head sharply to see who it is. I don’t think she does see. She leans back just as quickly. There is knocking at the front door. Rosie looks at me with her troubled little face bruised on one side. Her expression says everything: That knocking must mean it’s important – urgent – in this freezing weather; why don’t you answer the door?
“Ignore it,” I say. “She’ll go away. It’s just a widow woman from up the lane. She’s got a thing about me.”
She replies, “Okay?” She speaks with a questioning tone, as if she doesn’t quite believe it. That there’s a woman at the door. Or that someone might be interested in me that way. I’m not sure which.
A silence.
Between Rosie and me.
As we wait for another knock.
And it goes again, the door. Knock. Knock. Knock. Polite but insistent. The wretched Widow Woman who won’t leave me alone. Even in this weather, with snow laid thick on the ground, she is at my door on some pretext or other: to walk the dog with her, to look at her dripping tap, fix her window that won’t shut properly and lets in a draught. Whatever.
“What does she want?” Rosie asks.
“She’s lonely. She wants company, that’s all.” I push my fork into the quiche, breaking off a corner. As if we should get stuck in. That it’s something and nothing.
“What’s wrong with that?” Rosie says.
I shrug. I want to say I don’t find the woman attractive. Just the look of her. The whole bloody package. Her little busybody face and her short arms swinging enthusiastically at the sides. And everything about her, really. But I cannot say anything like that at all. It might seem rude.
Nor can I comment on the size of her backside, and the thought of that bare white mass pushed up against the middle of my back at night in bed. That’s where it will all end if I let her into my life. My back warming her cold white slab of an arse.
“I’m happy on my own,” I answer simply, and before she can ask me questions – difficult ones about my wife and daughter, and where they are – I add, “She’ll be gone in a minute.”
She knocks again. More insistent this time.
And I feel Rosie tense. She sees me glancing at her and lifts her glass of orange squash, swallowing a mouthful. A pretence of normality. I can almost hear it sticking in her dry throat tight with tension.
“How do you know it’s her?” she asks. “It might be urgent. It might be the police … someone you know may be ill.”
“She knocks the same way most days. The same pattern. The same number of times. It’s her, alright. She walks her dog this way, wants me and Fluffy to go out with them across the fields.”
Rosie nods and looks towards the window. Even though she can’t see who it is on the doorstep. And she cannot be seen either.
“She might look in,” she says. “If it’s her.”
I nod and shrug, not sure how to answer that. Widow Woman might.
We sit there in an uneasy silence. Rosie
reaches down to pat Fluffy on the head. He is there on the off-chance that she might give him some of her food. The little beggar.
He used to do the same with me, but he has transferred his affections to Rosie. I am not bothered by this at all.
We are both equally tense, waiting for the knocking to go again – or to stop, and we can then relax into silence.
And it stops.
A minute or two passes, and Rosie turns slightly towards the window as if she sees movement, then leans back, not wishing to be seen. I instinctively do the same. A moment or two and Widow Woman has gone; we start eating again.
I am looking over at Rosie. With my troubled thoughts.
Wondering why she does not want to be seen in my company.
I think that maybe she is embarrassed or ashamed to be here with me.
We continue eating. She seems to start relaxing again, and when she thinks I am not looking, she slips Fluffy a piece of quiche, which he takes and eats noisily. I pretend not to notice. She does it again a few minutes later, but Fluffy drops it on the floor. She glances down when she thinks I am not looking and uses her foot to move it further in, under the table. I can only think it must have tomato in it. Fluffy has a thing about tomatoes. I am the same with boiled eggs. I cannot bear the smell of them. They remind me of sick.
I take out the box I’ve been hiding below the tablecloth on my lap all this time. “Here,” I say. “For you. Your face.” I gesture towards her cheek, but do not ask anything about it nor comment further. Her arm seems to be better though; or, at least, is not troubling her. I will not mention it.
I push the box across the table towards her. She takes it and opens it and looks inside. It’s my wife’s old make-up box. I found it at the bottom of the chest of drawers in the corner of my bedroom. Lipsticks. Face powder. Mascara. Old-woman stuff, mostly. But beggars can’t be choosers.
Rosie rummages through, a look of suppressed pleasure on her face, and picks out a lipstick and a mascara. I gesture towards the face powder, and as she looks at it and me, I touch my cheek on the same side where her face is puffed. I smile gently at her as if to say go on, take it, cover it up. And she sort of grimaces a little, as if to reply, yes, okay, I will.
The Girl Downstairs Page 8