though the day was to be quite momentous, when I think back on it, it’s the smooth spongy feel of this shoe in my pocket I think of first.
She had told me 10 a.m. and it was twenty past when I reached my gate. I had dressed smartly, in one of my jacket and skirt arrangements, my own form of armour, but she was clad in a faded navy boiler suit thing not dissimilar, now I think of it, to the protective clothes SOCO later wore to remove the evidence from her house and garden. She was on my front path when I walked up, unravelling some of the tarpaulins and peering underneath.
‘Ah,’ she said, laying down a piece of timber. ‘I thought you’d done a runner!’
I let a beat pass, tried to smile. ‘If only.’
She raised her head, looking at me doubtfully. Her hair was pulled back in a scrunchie and her face without make-up looked pinker than usual, her eyes rounder, less upturned. ‘Listen – all this . . .’ She pointed to the planks, and bicycle wheels underneath. ‘Tom’s right: it’s a fire hazard.’
I clambered past her and put the key in the door. She’d left a red bucket on the step containing bleach, a canister of kitchen spray, black bin bags, newspaper, J-cloths. I stepped over it. I had it in mind suddenly to close the door after me, but I could hear her steps behind, the scrape of the bucket; I smelt a waft of bergamot and lime. I turned sharply. Perhaps it was the new haircut, the uniform aspect of her overalls, or the determined set of her jaw, perhaps it was the weight of the fortnight in which I hadn’t seen her, but it was like being jostled by a stranger, an enemy. I began to try and push the door into her face, but she was stronger than me, and I was restricted by the lack of room in the hall. I minced back a few inches and she managed to get in.
‘We’re not going to do anything you’re not comfortable with,’ she said, shutting the street out.
I took a sharp breath through my nose, feeling myself shudder. The house felt stuffy, thick with warmth, almost solid. A weak light picked out the cobwebs that laced the cornices; in patches the wallpaper had bubbled and blistered. As if through her nostrils, I could smell a rancid sweetness.
‘I know it’s hard.’
I forced myself to nod.
‘The kitchen, then? It’s what we’ve agreed. Yes?’
The restrictions in my throat prevented me from speaking. She waited a few seconds until I managed to move my head, then gave a confirmatory nod and shuffled her way towards the back of the house between the boxes of kitchen equipment on one side and the vacuums and garden furniture on the other.
I followed her and stood in the doorway as she manoeuvred along the gully between the table and the counter, and put her weight into pushing open the back door. The cupboards were full and the table and other surfaces crammed with excess packages and tins. Small electrical appliances – some kettles and toasters, a food mixer, etc – took up a portion of the floor space, and my collection of pots, saucepans and utensils were heaped along the counter and on top of the stove. Food had been left out. The walls were grimy with dirt. The splatter of tomato sauce was, dismayingly, much more extensive than I’d remembered, flooding down the door of the oven, and over the floor and back up across the cupboards.
After taking a few deep breaths at the open door, she put on her rubber gloves, asking if it was OK to make a start on the fridge?
I must have made some sign of agreement, because she filled the bucket with soapy water and unravelled a black bag from the roll and then, kneeling on some newspaper, began to remove items from the shelves. ‘I’m going to throw away anything past its sell-by date, Verity. Is that OK with you?’ An answer seemed not to be needed because, her face half averted, she continued to put food into the bag: a lettuce and a cucumber that just needed the outer layers removed, a packet of butter, and an only half-used tin of Carnation milk; and then, with small clinks, a jar of black olives, and raspberry jam, and anchovy paste, some pickled walnuts, a bottle of mayonnaise, and products I had, in truth,