Her Fearful Symmetry

was speaking in a low voice.

Julia stood in front of the door nervously. She didn’t know anything about the neighbours. She wished she had brought Valentina with her. What if these people were Satanists, or child abusers, or people who cut up inquisitive young women with chainsaws? Did they have chainsaws in Britain, or was that only an American serial-killer thing? Julia stood with her hand on the doorknob, hesitating. She imagined water filling their whole flat, all of Aunt Elspeth’s furniture floating around, Valentina swimming from room to room trying to save stuff from the deluge. She opened the door and walked in, calling “Hello?” as she went.

The flat was very dim, and Julia immediately ran into a pile of boxes that filled the hall. She had a sense of many objects oppressively close together. Somewhere there was a light, across the hall, in another room, but here there was only a dim reflection. The wooden floor felt sticky and gritty under her bare feet. There were pathways within the hall; on each side of the pathways were stacks of boxes. The boxes reached the ceiling, towered ten feet from the floor. Julia wondered if the boxes had ever fallen down and crushed anyone. Maybe there were people buried under the piles of stuff? She navigated by touching the boxes with her hands, like a blind woman. She could smell cooked meat and fried onions. The sweet smell of tobacco. The sharp, complicated smell of bleach-based cleaner. Rotting fruit; lemons? Soap. Julia tried to sort out the smells. They made her nose itch. Please, God, don’t let me sneeze, she thought, and she sneezed.

The muttering and the sanding stopped abruptly. Julia stood still. The noises resumed after what seemed to Julia to be an eternity. Her heart pounded, and she turned to see if she had left the front door open, but it had vanished. Breadcrumbs, Julia thought. String. I’ll never find my way out of here.

The boxes disappeared under her fingertips, and she stretched her hand out and felt a closed door. This would be the front bedroom, if this were their flat. The noise was louder now. Julia crept down the hall. Finally she stood in the doorway of the back bedroom, and she looked in.

The man had his back to her. He crouched, knees bent, only his feet and the scrubbing brush touching the floor as he washed it. Julia was reminded of a man imitating an anteater. He wore jeans and nothing else. The overhead light was intense, much too bright for the small room, and the bed was huge. There was a lot of clothing and books and junk scattered around. There were maps and photographs pinned to the walls. The man was reciting something in a foreign language as he scrubbed. He had a beautiful voice, and Julia knew that whatever he was saying, it was sad and violent. She wondered if he were a religious fanatic.

The floor was dark with water. The man reached into the pail and brought the scrubbing brush out full of suds and more water. Julia watched him. After a while, she realised that he was simply scrubbing one section over and over again. The rest of the floor remained dry.

Julia began to feel desperate. She wanted to say something, but she didn’t know how to begin. Then she told herself that she was behaving like the Mouse, and that gave her the impetus to speak.

“Excuse me,” Julia said softly. The man had his hand in the pail, and he was so startled that he jerked it over, and water spilled across the floor. “Oh!” Julia said. “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! Here, let me-” She dashed across the spreading water, into the bathroom, and came darting back with towels. The man crouched on the floor, watching her, with an expression of incredulity, almost stupefaction. Julia worked at containing the flood, using the towels as fabric dams, like sandbags. She dashed back into the bathroom, bringing another armful of towels, babbling apologies. Martin was so struck by Julia’s energy and by her nonstop stream of contrition that he simply stared at her. Her pink robe had come undone, and her hair was messed up. She had the general appearance of a small girl who had been riding a waltzer in her nightclothes. She was showing a lot of leg, and Martin thought that it was charming of this girl to barge into his flat wearing an old dressing gown and knickers, and although he didn’t understand what she was doing here, he felt relieved to see her. The overwhelming anxiety he had been feeling was gone. Martin dried his hands on his trousers. Julia finished drying the floor, wadded up all the towels and heaved them into the bathtub. She returned to the bedroom feeling pleased with herself, and saw Martin crouching with his arms folded across his chest, looking up at her.

“Um, hello,” said Martin. He extended his hand, and Julia grasped it and pulled. She noticed as she let go of his hand that it was bleeding; a thin glaze of blood covered her palm. Martin had expected her to shake his hand, so he was surprised to find himself standing. Julia, in turn, was surprised at how agile Martin was. She found herself staring up at a slender, middle-aged man whose horn-rimmed glasses were askew. He seemed rather knobbly to her; his knees and elbows and knuckles were prominent. He was not at all hairy. Julia noticed that his chest was a little concave. She blushed and looked up. He had short salt-and-pepper hair. He seemed kind.

“I’m Martin Wells,” he said.

“I’m Julia Poole,” Julia replied. “I live downstairs.”

“Oh, of course. And…you were lonely?”

“No, see, the water…Our bed’s right under here, and there was a lot of water coming through the ceiling, and it, like, woke us up.”

Martin blushed. “I’m terribly sorry. I’ll call someone to fix it. He’ll put it right for you.”

Julia looked away, at the pail and the scrubbing brush, at the wet floor. She looked back at Martin, puzzled. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Cleaning,” he replied. “I’m washing the floor.”

“Your hands are bleeding,” Julia told him.

Martin looked at his hands. The palms were crisscrossed with open cracks from long hours in water. His hands were shiny and bright red. He looked back at Julia. She was looking at the bedroom, at the stacks of boxes that lined the walls.

“What’s in the boxes?” she asked.

“Things,” he replied.

Julia abandoned tact. “You live like this?”

“Yes.”

“You’re one of those people who wash all the time. Like Howard Hughes.”

Martin didn’t know what to say, so he simply said, “Yes.”

“Cool.”

“Um, no, it isn’t, at all.” Martin went into the bathroom, opened the medicine cabinet and took out a tube of lotion, which he began to rub onto his hands. “It’s an illness.” He straightened his spectacles with a lotiony finger. Julia felt that she had made a faux pas.

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right.”

There was an awkward pause during which neither looked at the other.

Julia began to feel nervous. I was right before-he’s mentally ill. She said, “I should go back downstairs. Valentina is probably wondering.”

Martin nodded. “I’m sorry about your ceiling. I’ll ring up someone first thing tomorrow. I would come down myself-”

“Yes?”

“But I never leave my flat.”

Julia was disappointed, even though she had been intent on getting away from him just moments before. “Not at all?”

“It’s part of-my illness.” Martin smiled. “Don’t look like that. You are quite welcome to come and visit me.” He guided Julia through the maze of boxes. When they arrived at his front door he let her open it and step into the landing. “I hope you will come again. For tea? Tomorrow, perhaps?”

Julia stood on the well-lit landing and peered at Martin, who hung back from the door in his dark hall. “Okay,” she said. “Sure.”

“And your sister is welcome, as well.”

Julia felt a tiny pang of possessiveness. If he met Valentina he would probably like her better. Everyone did. “Um, I’ll see if she’s available.”

Martin smiled. “Until tomorrow, then. Four o’clock?”

“Okay. It was nice to meet you,” Julia said, and fled downstairs.

Valentina had just emptied the soup pot when Julia returned. The ceiling was still dripping and the bedding was a sodden mess. The twins stood together and surveyed the damage. “So what happened?” Valentina asked.

Julia told her, but she had trouble describing Martin. Valentina looked horrified when Julia said they’d been invited to tea. “But he sounds awful,” said Valentina. “He never leaves his apartment?”

“I dunno. He was super polite. I mean, yeah, he’s obviously crazy, but in a nice eccentric English way, you know?” The twins began to strip the quilts off the bed. They carried them into the bathroom and tried to wring the water out of them. “I think maybe these are ruined.”

“No, it’s only plaster. It should rinse out. Maybe we could soak them?” Valentina put the stopper in the plughole and began to run warm water into the tub.

“Anyway, I said I’d come and have tea and you can come if you want. I think you should at least meet him. He’s our neighbour.”

Valentina shrugged. They finished stripping the bed and left the soup pot sitting on the mattress to collect the drips. They put themselves to bed in the spare bedroom (which was rather clammy) and each went to sleep worrying about home repair and tea.

The Delicate Thing