‘Oh Des, it’s you. What are you doing? You scared the life out of me.’
‘I knocked,’ said her brother-in-law in his nasal monotone drawl, thumbing back to the door, ‘but I didn’t think you were in. I called in to see Phil at the garage. He lent me a key in case you had gone out shopping.’
‘Oh, right then,’ said Lou, who really wanted to say other things that weren’t so polite. ‘So, what is it that you wanted?’ she urged after waiting in vain for Des to explain. He had no gene that allowed him to feel awkward in long
silences but a big one that gave him the ability to make Lou’s flesh creep.
‘I just came to borrow Phil’s golf clubs.’
‘Ok,’ said Lou. ‘Did he say where they were?’
‘No,’ said Des helpfully. Not.
Lou took the quick option and rang Phil’s mobile, only to get the message that his mobile had not responded and could she please try later.
Oh, how Lou wished she were one of those people who didn’t feel obliged to be so polite and could just usher him out to come back when Phil was in. She was forced to go from room to room with Des following behind her in that way of his that had no respect for personal space. Phil said he was just stupidly insensitive, but Lou sometimes wondered if he got kicks from being such an unsettling presence.
Des Winter-Brown arriving at your door could make you think it was Trick or Treat night. Tall, skinny and corpse-pale, his shoulders were rounded from stooping and his hair was lank and black from over-zealous dyeing. He had regular enough features, but there was just something about his strange quietness and the way he would turn up close beside Lou without a clue of his approach that made her dread the mere hint of his visit. She hated the way his eyes dipped to her chest. She disliked his long skinny hands with their long skinny fingers most of all. God knows what his toes must look like.
When Phil had lent him a key to get something from the house on a previous occasion, Lou had been in the shower when she heard activity downstairs. She broke the world record for drying and dressing herself when she heard Des’s, ‘It’s only me!’ drifting up the stairs.
‘It was just Des, Lou. He only popped in for a hammer, not a screw,’ was Phil’s laughing response when she countered him about it later.
‘Why didn’t you tell him to come back later when you’d be in?’
‘You’re getting this totally out of perspective,’ Phil said, failing to see any problem.
‘You shouldn’t be giving him a key to our house!’ said Lou crossly.
‘Well, excuse me, but I think you’ll find it says
my
name on the deeds,’ said Phil then, with a dangerous degree of impatience. ‘You’re forgetting this house was mine long before you came on the scene.’
‘I think
you’ll
find that since we’re married, it’s
ours
,’ said Lou, her voice firming as much as Lou’s voice could.
‘I think
you’ll
find if you want to push it, we can carry on with our original plans to split up and find out exactly what the law says about it!’
Lou hadn’t argued any more then.
Lou flicked on the cellar light. ‘You don’t have to come down here, Des. It’s a bit dusty,’ she said.
‘No, I don’t mind. I’ll help you look,’ Des said. He was one step behind her all the way down. She felt like Flanagan with Allen.
God, it’s a mess down here, she said to herself. If she hadn’t read that damn article her eyes would have just flicked over the stuff they kept down there ‘just in case’. Now her new rubbish-alert radar had already spotted twelve things that they would never use again and which should be thrown out.
‘Nope. They’re not here,’ said Lou, returning as
quickly as she could back upstairs, hoping his eyes weren’t glued to her bum. That bloody husband of hers! She knew he’d given Des the key so Des would have come and gone by the time Phil came home for lunch. Her husband relished his brother-in-law’s company almost as little as Lou did.
There were only the garages left to check, and the loft–but Lou wasn’t going up there.
She pressed the electronic opener for the garage door, which slowly slid up and over, and checked there, quickening her step to put a reasonable distance between herself and Freddy Kruger.
Thank God, she thought. Relief washed over her as she saw the clubs poking out from under some dust-sheets, next to the old cracked plastic garden chair and grimy table-set that would never see sunshine again, and the skeleton of a broken umbrella that looked like a long-dead giant spider.
Des left her to heave it out by herself because his mobile was ringing. It played ‘Sex Bomb’, which was a joke in itself. The ‘Funeral March’ would have been more appropriate.
‘Hello, baby,’ he said to the caller.
Yeuch
, thought Lou.
‘I’m at Phil’s…Yes, he is but I’m with Lou,’(he winked over and Lou shuddered). ‘Golf clubs…I’m going to have a cup of tea here then I’ll be off…Oh, you are? See you in about quarter of an hour then.’
Lou really hoped she hadn’t filled in the missing gaps correctly. That would be too horrible to contemplate. She also pretended she hadn’t heard the bit about the tea.
‘Well, that’s great you’ve got the clubs! Right well, I’ll leave you to it, Des. Got to dash–loads to do.’
‘Celia thought she’d pop in,’ said Des, as he heaved the clubs into his car. ‘She’s just coming from Meadowhall with the children, so I might as well have a cup of tea and wait here for her.’
‘
No, get lost, I want to clean my cupboards out. I don’t want your wife looking down her nose at me and showing off her new Prada handbag, I don’t want your kids prying into my cupboards and I don’t want you breathing down my neck every time I flipping turn around
!’ But whilst Lou screamed this in her head, aloud she said in that damned nice polite way of hers: ‘Oh right. Well, I’ll put the kettle on then.’
She ripped off her rubber gloves with anger that should have been directed at Phil for putting her in this position, at Des for creeping so close behind her, at Celia for thinking that she could just expect Lou to drop everything and listen to her latest impressive buys and name-dropping ‘Jasper Conran’ into every other sentence. But most of that anger was directed at herself for letting everyone walk over her with their unthinking, unfeeling hobnail boots.
She wished she’d gone supermarket shopping with her mother now. Even searching for posh pickles in Sainsbury’s was infinitely better than a house full of the Winter-Brown family. She stood over the kettle whilst it boiled, only to find that Des had appeared silently and without warning at her back, staring out of the window with some lame comment about the lawn looking good. He would have made a fantastic ghost for some creepy mansion.
Ludicrously, in a kitchen as big as hers, she found
herself in the position of having to squeeze past him to get the milk and the cups. She half-wished he would grope her, just the once, then she could have the excuse to belt him across the chops and ban him from the house. Then she thought of those long fingers actually making contact with her skin and she shivered. Maybe not.
There was a knock on the back door.
‘Come in!’ shouted Des.
Cheeky swine, thought Lou.
In spilled the twins. Well, Hero spilled in, pretending to be a plane, and Scheherazade waddled in behind with a puppy-fatted belly poking out of a Bratz crop-top. Celia huffed behind them, laden with posh carriers that she could have left in her boot and complaining that Meadowhall was mad. She dumped the bags on the kitchen table and, barely acknowledging Lou, started gabbling on to Des about some shirt she had bought for him that cost more than Lou’s car. She had just got it out to show him when Phil put in an early appearance and Lou didn’t know whether to kiss him or kill him.
He ignored the withering look his wife gave him because he had had a very profitable morning and was feeling so full of top quality beans that not even the presence of his slimy brother-in-law, his show-off sister and the 2.4 brats, presently nosying in the drawers of the kitchen dresser, could bring him down to earth.
‘You are looking at one successful mother,’ he beamed, threw his arms wide and sang the first four opening lines to ‘Simply the Best’ very loudly.
‘Mum, I’m hungry,’ said Scheherazade, sticking her fingers in her ears.
‘I think that tea’s probably brewed now,’ hinted Des.
‘I’m sure Auntie Elouise will get you something if you ask nicely,’ said Celia.
‘What’s for lunch then?’ said Phil.
‘I’m hungry too,’ said Hero.
‘Lou, sort us out, love!’ said Phil.
And Lou silently got out the bread from the crock, the butter from the fridge, and from her niche in the background, she abandoned her own plans for the day in order to make lunch for a room full of people.
The next morning, Phil stood in front of the mirror and put on his standard work uniform: a crisp white shirt, a heavy splash of a very expensive after-shave, a blue tie that complemented the shade of his still-sparkly bright-blue eyes, and a perfectly cut navy suit jacket with a subtle
P.M. Autos
stickpin in his buttonhole. He was wearing well and he knew it (well, except for that monk-hole in his hair). He smiled at himself and eighteen thousand pounds’ worth of cosmetic dentistry work smiled back at him. It was
simply the best
investment, for a crooked, tortoiseshell smile would have been terminal for business. Women customers, especially, were very judgemental about bad teeth and oral hygiene, Phil had learned. They knew bugger-all about cars and looked for other indicators that they weren’t about to be sold a duff. Women
so
wanted to trust you.
Fat Jack had given him the name of his dentist. The latter had been expensive, but worth it, and now Phil had a set of gnashers that weren’t so perfect they looked false, but they sent out a clear signal that Philip M. Winter was a man who took a lot of pride in himself and his business.
He had a quick read of the
Sunday World
newspaper whilst he was fortifying himself for the day ahead with one of his wife’s extra super-dooper Sunday grills that he would burn off with some serious gymwork later. Then he fired up his Audi TT and set off for the car lot, practising his friendly ‘of-course-you-can-trust-me’ smile in the rearview mirror.
When Phil had left, Lou had a banana and a yogurt in the conservatory-cum-dining room. She’d hoped to get away from the lingering smell of Phil’s bacon in the kitchen that was making her stomach growl in jealous protest. He had gone off to work, whistling like a lottery-winning budgie because of some exciting find in an old widow’s garage and his plans to start up another new business with Fat Jack selling exclusive classic cars. She had been eavesdropping yesterday whilst he was showing off to Des about it–anything but listen to Celia’s boring commentary about her latest Karen Millen acquisitions, although she hadn’t heard the whole story as she’d had to go and locate the children who were poking worryingly around the house, as usual. She was pretty sure Celia would have something to say if Lou went into
her
bedroom and started rooting nosily through
her
drawers.
Phil hadn’t pestered her to make love that morning, which he sometimes did on a Sunday. Luckily for him, too, because she was still really angry about the Des-and-key incident. Phil, however, didn’t notice. The matter was closed as far as he was concerned. Well, the matter had never really been opened as far as Phil was concerned.
Lou cleared away the breakfast things then locked all
the doors–and bolted them, just in case–then she excitedly set to work on the jobs she had been going to do yesterday, before she was so rudely interrupted.
The phone rang as she was snapping open some bin-bags. The caller display announced that it was Michelle. Lou’s hand twitched dutifully towards the receiver, but she was strict with herself. Today was her day, just for once. Michelle left a brief message to say thanks for her ear yesterday and that she was feeling much brighter. Michelle’s brighter patches never tended to last very long, though, Lou reflected. Shorter than a bright patch in a British summertime.
The under-sink cupboard was disappointingly full of currently useful bottles and tins, and there was nothing but some dried-up shoe polish to get rid of, but the remainder of Lou’s kitchen cupboards more than made up for it. She hadn’t realized just how many forgotten cans and packets lurked there–pickled onions on the top shelf that had a best-before date of eight months ago, jars of herbs and spices well past their use-by time, a can of cashew nuts so old that the shop it came from had been knocked down and replaced by a gym. She also found twelve tins of chopped tomatoes–admittedly all but one still in date. There were never-to-be-used bulk supplies of Trimslim milk shakes, which had tasted like melted-down Play-Doh, and cardboardy Trimslim biscuits. As for the quantity of Trimslim soups…in tempting flavours such as ‘cheese and swede’ and ‘exotic leek’! There were glasses that Phil had got free with his petrol years ago, a beer-making kit which he had dabbled with once, novelty cruets, a fondue set, an egg scrambler and a never-opened doughnut-maker that Phil had
bought her last birthday. Not to mention the Thrush Kit, as Deb used to call it–an unused yogurt-making machine and another one of her husband’s ‘romantic’ presents. She couldn’t really throw away something he had bought her, could she? She referred to the article for guidance. It said that one had to beware of sentimentality, but cowardy custards who had serious misgivings about items could put them in a bag, date it and label it to be looked through in another six months’ time. If it hadn’t been used it by then, then chances were it never would and should be removed from the house.
Lou knew she had no use for these things and decided to be a hard-liner. Getting out a huge green garden refuse bag, she wrote
Heart Foundation
on it and put the electrical contraptions in there. After her dad died, all of her charity donations had gone to them. Well, them and the Barnsley Dogs Home.
The kitchen, including the under-stair cupboard, yielded a startling eight full rubbish bags, plus the big green bag which was now full and ready for the charity shop.
She rang Phil at work. ‘Where’s the nearest dump?’ she asked.
‘What on earth do you want to go there for?’
‘I’m clearing out the cupboards.’
‘How much stuff is there, for crying out loud?’
‘Too much for the wheelie-bin to cope with.’
‘Go down Sheffield Hill, past the
Miner’s Arms
and as you get near the bottom, look out for a sign on your left saying something like
waste recycling
,’ he said.
Lou heaved five big bags of rubbish into her car boot and set off, following Phil’s verbal directions. The last
time she had been to a dump, admittedly years ago, had been straightforward–drive in, dump, drive off. It appeared times had changed, though, for facing her now were different containers with large signage:
household, garden, plastic, glass, electrical
.
‘Bugger!’ she said. She had been planning to just throw everything in one place but there was a fierce-looking commandant on duty presently having a stand-up row with a bloke who was trying to put bubblewrap in with the cardboard. It was quite a faff in the end, but eventually Lou’s rubbish was sorted and distributed to the relevant places and so she set off back home for the second load. She had overstuffed the bags and one of them split as she was hoisting it into the boot, allowing a big jar of old faded beetroot to smash and splash on the drive. There had to be an easier way than this, she thought. Huffing, she cleared up the beetroot, unknotted all the bags, pulled all the cardboard out, then set off back to the dump in a car that smelled hideously of vinegar. She got there just in time to see the gates close in front of her.
Oh, gr-eat
, said Lou to herself.
What do I do now?
The answer to that question was literally just around the corner for, as she was waiting for the traffic-lights to turn green at the junction, there to her right was a bright yellow skip full of planks of wood and carpets and a huge plastic plant that was more Triffid than the Japanese Fig it purported to be. There was a name and number stencilled on the side, which she quickly jotted down on her hand.
Tom Broom
. It had a nice purging sound to it.