had to leave the car on the main road where all the chavs and druggies lived and walk back, double-and triple-checking that I’d locked the car and not left anything interesting or valuable in view. My car was a ten-year-old Peugeot, not new or worth nicking, but unfortunately the basic spec also made it rather easy to steal. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world if it got nicked, just bloody inconvenient.
Lucy met me at the top of the road, jumping down from a low garden wall and trying to trip me up all the way back to the front door, acting as though she’d not been fed for three weeks. I tried to find the keyhole in the darkness – must get that light fixed – and when I finally pushed the door open the phone was ringing.
‘Hello?’ It was my mother. ‘Yes, Mum, I’ve just got in. Can I ring you back?’
‘Well, I did wait all day, since I thought you’d be too busy to speak to me at work, but if you can’t talk to me now…’
‘Sorry, Mum. I’m just tired.’
‘I’ll only be a moment, anyway. Have you got a pen?’
I sat on the sofa with my coat on and a notepad balanced on my knee making a list of shopping she needed tomorrow, while the cat wound herself round my ankles, clawing at my skirt and my tights, and I swiped her away over and over again until I gave up, tucked the phone under my ear and went to the kitchen to find some cat food.
I cooked myself an omelette for tea, watched a programme about Africa on the telly and then went and had a bath. I sat there in the hot foamy water and listened to the silence in the house, the echoing silence.
I tried to imagine what could have happened in the months since the time I’d seen Shelley Burton. Maybe she’d been so unhappy after her partner had moved out that she’d given up on gardening, given up on life. Maybe he’d had an affair with someone, and she’d been devastated by it.
All of these things could have been happening next door and I hadn’t noticed. I hadn’t seen her for a long time. Maybe because of this I’d assumed that she’d gone, that the house was being sold or put up for letting, and it had turned out she was still living there, all along.
I wasn’t feeling unhappy but the tears started before I even really expected them. Tears for the silence, the being alone. Tears for the people who died in their houses and stayed there, their bodies rotting away to fluid and bone and slime, nothing left in the end but a black stain on the mattress or the chair. Buried with nobody there but some woman from the council who’d tried and failed to find someone who’d loved them.
If I died, here, now, would I be missed? Surely work would notice? Surely Mum would phone the police, if she couldn’t get hold of me? Someone might call round. What if I didn’t answer the door? How long would it be before someone kicked the door in? Days? Weeks? What state would I be in, by then?
Outside the bathroom door I heard a scratching sound. The cat, my support, my rock.
Colin
At work today I noticed Martha talking to Katrine, the new temp. I hardly registered her presence for the first couple of weeks, and then she smiled at me in the lift and ever since then I find myself acutely aware of her every time she’s in the room.
She’s Danish, apparently, although she doesn’t appear to have an accent. They all talk about her when she’s not there, the same way they undoubtedly talk about me the moment I leave. I hate their pettiness, their bitchiness, the way they pretend to be friends all the time and then verbally tear their prey to shreds in their absence.
They tried to get me to join in, asked me what I thought, but then realised that I didn’t want to play their juvenile games. I’m there to work, not to socialise.
Actually, I’m there because it suits me. I earn the same amount of money every month and I can do the job without expending any intellectual effort. In fact, most days I can get my work done by half-past ten in the morning and after that I use my workstation to complete study assignments or research. There is no