Now You See Me (3 page)

‘Coffee?' he said after a minute. I didn't know if he was asking or offering. I didn't know what to do with my hands so I put the kettle on. There was definitely something dodgy about him. You might think he was good-looking. Wild but clean. Drops of water sparkling in his stubbly beard and his toes pink on the floor. But it was the clean hard glint of his eyes that got to me. He kept staring till I said, ‘Got an eyeful?'

He nodded and did a slow smile. ‘Yeah, ta,' he said.

‘Maybe I'll go,' I said. He shrugged, sat at the table and got stuck into the biscuits as if he was half-starved. I took a small sip of my coffee because it was the first thing I'd had all day and I needed it. He said he was surprised his mum would have a cleaner. I prickled when he said that, I mean I
clean
, but that doesn't give anyone the right to call me a
cleaner
. I said that Mrs Banks hadn't mentioned him to me either. He said that was because he was there to surprise her.

I told him my name and he said, ‘Fuck
off?
' I asked him his name and he said, ‘Doggo.'
Doggo
! If Lamb is a stupid name, then what is
Doggo
?

He stood up and I was very conscious that I was alone with him and conscious that he'd got nothing on under the dressing gown.

‘What you thinking?' he said. I blushed.

My hands were all slippery. I didn't know what to do with them. If he was Mrs Banks' son then it was OK and I had no right to question him – but something wasn't right. I thought I'd try and catch him out. He could have been anyone, a breaker-and-enterer, he could have been dangerous. But he did
look
a bit like Mrs Banks, same colouring and a baffled look as if he can't quite believe what he's seeing. I've been taking that personally from Mrs Banks but maybe it's just a family trait. With him though the look is colder, cold metal scraping skin.

He asked when Mrs Banks would be back. I said, ‘Didn't she say?' He said he hadn't seen her yet, this was a surprise visit. He picked up a box of matches and struck one.

‘You don't say a fucking word. Right?' The flame flickered in his eyes. He let the match burn between his fingers till the flames reached his finger-ends then he dropped it. It made a little fleck of scorch on the pine table.

‘Why?' I said.

He leant forward and I said, ‘Right,' quick. He kept striking the matches and when the flames reached the ends of his fingers I recognised the flirt and flare of pain. ‘Hey,' I said. But he struck another match and another. ‘You're ruining the table,' I said.

‘Yeah?' He looked at the freckled patch. ‘Oh dear.'

I was starting to get mad. ‘I'll get the sack,' I said.

‘Shame to lose such a great job,' he said. He went to strike another match but the box was empty. Then the phone rang and he jumped. We both stood there listening to the few rings then Mrs Banks' voice saying
Sorry but we can't come to the phone, please leave a message, do
. There was a click and a high-pitched whine. The other person left no message.

He started moving fast, like
he'd
lost
his
nerve or something. He took some clothes out of the drier. The dressing gown opened a bit revealing the inside of his thigh, soft curly hairs. I looked away quick. I just wanted him to get out and go.

He went upstairs to get dressed. I put the mugs in the dishwasher. I had a weird sweaty feeling, like I'd only just got away with something but I wasn't sure what. If he would go now it would be all right. I could have my bath, I always have a bath when the house is empty. I could get everything done, get everything back to normal, only I didn't know what to do about the table with its freckle of scorches. She was bound to think it was me. And give me the sack and I couldn't afford to get the sack and would
not
get the sack because of someone else. I would just come straight out and tell her.

He came down the stairs wearing a pair of mirror shades even though it was one of those days when it never gets light. He put a ripped leather jacket on and picked up a back-pack.

‘See ya,' he said. He went for the door then he turned round. ‘Don't fucking say.'

‘Why?' I said.

‘Just don't.'

‘Or what?'

‘You'll see,' he said and slammed off out. I went to the window and watched him slope off then sat at the table and picked at the flecks. Maybe I could sand them off or something. Or why not just tell Mrs Banks that he did it? What could he do to me?

I
should
have told her. It's just that I do try not to get hooked into other people or their stuff. Other people and their stuff can unbalance you. You have to watch out. Anyway, what was it to me if he was here or not? None of my business.

I made sure both the doors were locked before I went upstairs to run my bath.

Three

He'd had a shower and left the shampoo on its side leaking out everywhere and a tangle of black hairs in the bottom of the bath, smooth head-hairs and little crinkly ones. I picked them up and examined them. Hair is such weird dead stuff, the way it streams for ever out of the pores of your skin. I chucked it in the bin. He'd left the towel wet and screwed up on the floor.

While I waited for the bath to fill I went into Roy's room to make his bed. You have to climb a ladder to get to the bed and it's hard to tuck the sheet in. I sniffed the child smell on the pillow and tidied up the toys. There's a bear made of rainbow fur with its paws chewed flat and fraying. I went out of that room and banged the door shut.

Mrs Banks has got some aromatherapy oil to pour in the water. It turns the water into silk and smells like heaven. Must cost a fortune. Worth it though, if I was ever rich I'd get some. It says it soothes, softens and lifts your spirits. I stepped into the bath, slid down and waited for my spirits to lift.

I don't like looking at my body. Any of it. Especially the herring-bones of scars that line my arms, silvery thin. They are
all
silvery thin and old now, nothing new for ages because of my balance. My new balance. Which I must maintain. I closed my eyes and tried to see the tightrope but all I could see was the glint of Doggo's eyes.

I should have tried harder to catch him out. I could have done something like ask him if he was going to see Mrs Banks, in her play. A play's the last thing she'd be in so his reaction would have told me. But maybe he wouldn't have reacted at all. I don't know how you read a person like him. But I could read Mrs Banks. She would never be in a play. She wouldn't say boo to a goose – although I bet she'd say boo to me if she caught me in the bath.

I was annoyed that he kept coming back into my head. There was no need to think about him ever again. None of my business. But there was something about his eyes. The table wasn't that bad. If I put the mat and a vase of flowers in the middle it would be OK.

I dipped my head underwater and felt a million tickles as the air bubbles rolled out of my ears. Then I had a sudden thought. I sat up as if someone had dropped a toaster in the water. I remembered Mrs Banks' note. How could I have forgotten that? Mrs Banks works part-time in a building society and sometimes she's there when I come and sometimes she's not. When she's not, she always leaves a note stuck with alphabet magnets to the fridge saying things like
Could you sort the kitchen cupboards?
or
Could you tackle the ironing?

This time as well as asking me to vacuum she'd said her bag had been stolen with her keys in it. She'd had to use the spare key to lock up and asked me if I could leave her my key till she got another one cut. I hadn't thought much about it except, tough luck, baby, join the real world. I mean bags go missing all the time, don't they?

But lying there in the bath I got a clear image of the bag downstairs. By the kitchen table all the time I was talking to Doggo. I'd been so uptight about him being there and trying to keep control that the oddness of the bag being there hadn't struck me. I lay thinking that it couldn't have been the bag I saw, or not
the
bag anyway. Because how could it be there if it was stolen?

But I couldn't relax after that. I got out of the bath and got dressed. I went down to the kitchen and sure enough, there it was. And it was
the
bag. I looked inside and everything seemed to be there: make-up bag, comb, tissues, purse still with its money and cards – though no keys. I had to sit down to try to work out what was going on.

Maybe Doggo wasn't her son at all but a burglar who'd stolen the bag and used her key to come in and do the house over – and I'd scared him off. But do burglars have showers while they're at it? Or sit down to drink coffee and scoff about half a packet of gypsy creams?

I didn't know what to do. Tell Mrs Banks or not. It was like taking sides in something I didn't understand. The way he narrowed his eyes at me, a kind of threat. Like I should be scared of him. Like he could hurt me. Maybe he could. I remembered the glint in his eyes. He was more like me than like her.

If she came back and found the bag she'd be bound to think it had something to do with me and, even if she didn't find the damage on the table, give me the sack – and I don't want that. She's good to work for. She doesn't leave the place a tip like some people. She's one of the guilty ones and they're the best. They do the dirtiest work before you get there. She can't have had someone to clean for long, because it soon wears off that feeling. They get blasé.

When I went down I put a table mat over the burns and put the salt and pepper on top and it looked OK. I sat there with the bag on my lap not knowing what to do. If you clean for people you have to at least seem trustworthy, otherwise word gets round. I was sitting staring at the bag when I heard her car stopping outside and the door slamming. Then she was coming up the drive with Roy. I shoved the bag inside my jacket and rushed out saying I was late for something and didn't stop even though she was calling after me.

So there I was rushing along with a stolen bag that I didn't even steal. Talk about stupid. I don't steal, not unless you count hot water. I tried to look normal, strolling along and swinging the bag over my shoulder as if it was mine, but I felt as if it was flashing
stolen stolen
in neon lights.

I was about to dump it in a wheely-bin but someone came round the corner so I walked on realising that I didn't know
who
might be looking out of the windows at me. In the end I kept hold of the bag and brought it home. What I call home but with inverted commas round because home is where you feel at home and there isn't a single place in the world where I feel like that. I hid it on a shelf under a heap of old gardening magazines dating practically back to the Second World War and tried to forget.

My
home
is in a big tumbledown house with a room like a tower coming out of the roof. It's got a slippery cobbled drive with moss growing up between the cobbles. There's a lamp post, one of those old gas ones. It doesn't work of course. You go down the drive, beside the house. You go round the back and because the house is on a slope you come to the cellar door, under some stairs that come down from the kitchen door. Well I live in the cellar which is not as bad as it sounds because there is at least a little window. With net curtains. Cobwebs actually but they work the same.

There's a sink with a tap and a toilet outside. What more could a girl want? And it's got electric light. It's damp but I heat it with Calor gas. The house belongs to Mr Dickens. I clean for him two afternoons a week and soon after I started I discovered the cellar. The good thing about Mr Dickens – well not good for
him
but good for
me
– is that he can hardly walk. He has to use a Zimmer frame so he'll never be able to get down to the cellar again. He's half deaf too, so he doesn't hear me and I can even listen to the radio. I've been here months. It's here I got myself together, and really got my balance back.

Mr Dickens has got a whole lifetime's worth of stuff stowed away, all sorts of things. Some of them very useful to me. A canvas bed, a couple of deck chairs, a kettle. It's OK.

I like Mr Dickens. He's ancient and a wreck to look at but interesting. He's full of stories. He hasn't gone soft in the head or anything like that. He does ask me about myself but I'm evasive. Not rude, I answer his questions but I don't give anything away. You can say anything, you know. Who really cares if it's the truth?

I felt furious with the Doggo person when I thought about it. He really dumped me in it. There I was minding my own business, living my own life, maintaining my balance, when he barges in and puts me in a position where I end up having to steal a bag I don't even want. And that slow smile, that eyeful. The more I thought about it the more mad I got. Why was I so easy on him? Letting him go off like that leaving the table scorched and not giving a shit about me or my job. I got so angry I could hardly sit still. You cannot keep your balance if you feel like that.

I think myself up to the wire but I can't put out my foot. It is too deep below me and too dangerous. I am not steady enough to balance. I have to sort this out. I can't have people breaking into my life and spoiling my balance like that. I just can't have it.

Four

When I arrived at Mrs Banks' on Friday a figure lurched out of the bushes. It was Doggo and he nearly stopped my heart. I had been OK. Getting on OK. Though the day before Mr Dickens had told me a really horrible story. You can be safe and steady for weeks, then suddenly everything starts to go awry. Things happen, people turn up, people tell you things you really don't want to know.

Thursday afternoons is Mr Dickens. The obvious way would be to go up the cellar stairs and emerge in his hall, but those steep stairs – there's no light and – and anyway I have to give the illusion of having just arrived.