“There’s somebody looking out of the bedroom window.”
Muriel? Muriel was locked in the back parlour.
“Are you all right, Missus? You’ve gone white.”
One of the less substantial tenants of the upper floor then, one of those who taunted and gibbered from behind the locked door of the spare room; one of the lepers, one of the grinders of dry bones.
“Have you got any brandy in the house? You want to have a drop, and then put your feet up. You can’t always tell with a crack on the head. You ought to go to evening surgery.”
“Do your job,” Evelyn said. “Read the meter and then get out.”
“All right, Missus, all right.”
The man turned away, flashed his torch again, made a note and straightened up. “Say no more,” he said. She followed him back down the hall. At the front door he turned back to her, relenting. “Look, Missus, if you’ve got a spare bulb I’ll put it in for you. It’s not right, living in the dark at your age.”
“I haven’t got one. I never keep them. I shall manage for myself. Good afternoon.”
“I’m sure,” said the man. “Get your fancy man to fix it for you, eh? Sorry I spoke.”
She stood in the doorway to watch him down the path, to make sure that he was really gone. Curiosity about her arrangements was something she could not stomach. The man disappeared behind the bushes of the Sidney house. She craned her neck. Suddenly she felt a terrific blow in the small of her back. She pitched forward, off the doorstep. One arm flailed in the air. With difficulty she regained her balance. She stood gasping, winded. The door clicked behind her. She was locked out.
It had taken Isabel two minutes to establish that Miss Anderson was not going to answer the door, and just another minute to raise her next-door neighbour.
“She’s stopping with her daughter,” the woman said. “She’ll be back on Thursday. Are you from that place she goes to?”
“Well, I’m from Social Services. The Day Centre asked me to call. When she didn’t turn up this morning they were a bit worried. In case she’d had a fall or anything, you know.”
The woman tutted. “She should have let you know. Fetching you out on a morning like this. Old people are inconsiderate, I think, don’t you?”
“It’s all right. I’m used to it. Going out, I mean.”
“Well, you needn’t bother again,” the woman said. “I keep an eye on her, you see. If she doesn’t take her milk in I go round. I’d get the doctor to her if there was any need.”
“That’s extremely kind of you. Look, here’s a card with the number of the Social Services Department, if you ever need it. You can give us a ring.”
“Okay,” the woman said. “My name’s Mrs. Johnson. Would you like a cup of tea, love?”
Isabel would: but I’d better be off, she thought.
“Wouldn’t be surprised if we have fog coming down.”
“Goodbye, Mrs. Johnson, and thank you very much.”
As she drove downhill towards the city centre, the promised fog began to gather. The traffic slowed to a crawl. I wish I had taken five minutes for that cup of tea, she thought. But she was impatient of lonely women. There must be something wrong with the heater. Her feet were frozen, and the Axons were still on her mind. And what in God’s name was that? A shape loomed across the windscreen, the same bloody cyclist, she could swear…she stabbed at the brake and heard a sickening crunch from behind her. Her seat belt bounced her back unhurt, her pulse racing. She closed her eyes. She was not at all surprised. She sat still, trying to calm herself, until a face appeared at the window mouthing was she all right Miss? The cyclist was unhurt. It was not a day for drama. Isabel and the man who had run into the back of her stood on the pavement and exchanged names and addresses. She inspected the damage, running her hand tenderly over the fractured paintwork. Considering the low speed of the other vehicle, it was a surprising mess. Her head ached insistently and she felt guilty. Earlier in the day, at least, her driving had been careless and impatient; her mind had been wandering, and most accidents, she told herself, are not entirely accidental. My humour drew the cyclist on; on a good day, I would have been elsewhere.
She drove very slowly and carefully to a public callbox, and rang the office. Someone has run into the back of me, I shall put the car into the garage now and come back by bus.
The garage couldn’t see their way to tackling it much before the weekend. But it’s only Monday, she said helpfully. Very true, the man said, but it was more than Monday, wasn’t it, it was the time of year. But it’s not a big job, she said, surely you can fit it in. Miss, said the man, wasn’t she aware that this was the holiday season? What holiday? You don’t mean that people have started their Christmas holidays already? She must understand, said the man, that this was a notoriously tricky few weeks, she would probably not credit, even if he were to tell her, the difficulties the festive season could cause. She could if she liked try Thatcher’s Motors at the top of the hill by the lights, but he personally was willing to bet any money that she would be wasting her time. Far be it from him to do Thatcher’s out of trade, and if she wanted to waste her time he supposed she was entitled, it being a free country, but he could assure her that they would quote her ten days, and would they say the same about the time of year? They most certainly would. Could he solve her problem, solve it he would. She could then again go to some cowboy who would do a botched job. Of course she could if she liked, he supposed it was her money, and that it was a free country. Cowboys were not subject to festive difficulties but what would you get? A botched job. He personally had seen some right messes. Still, it was her choice, entirely. If she wanted to leave it with him, he would see what he could do, and could he say fairer than that? Now, he would tell her what, if it had been a windscreen, he could probably, making no promises but probably, have let her have it by Thursday. It’s not, she said, so what’s the point? She had it there, he said. She had put her finger on it. He was taking it as what he supposed she might care to call a sort of illustration. The fact was, it was not a windscreen. It was Bodywork.
At the end of this conversation the feeling of heavy unreality inside her skull was much increased. She waited a long time for a bus, and as it crept along in the still thickening fog her mind emptied of her problems and professional duties and became blank and grey. When she arrived at the office she found she couldn’t get warm. People said she Might Have ’Flu Coming On. She put her head in her hands and rubbed her eyes. Her friend Jane said that they should go to the pub and get her a double Scotch and some cottage pie. All that, the Senior said glibly, the common cold, ’flu, hay-fever, it’s a form of suppressed weeping, you know. It was only when she got back
