I don’t have to wait till the weekend. I look at the blisters on the back of my hand and I grit my teeth and wait for Friday afternoon. If it wasn’t for the scratch marks I’d have a nasty feeling that I’d dreamed it all, and as if it’s a bit difficult to revive my Saturday night certainty that something was on. I keep thinking that she was probably pissed too, and quite likely to run a mile, or call the police, if I show up at the house. More chance of the former, because a lot of birds talk themselves into all kinds of situations when they’re stoned and get the screaming abdabs the next morning when they realise what they might have let themselves in for.
Anyway, I’m an optimist and I’ve got nothing to lose, so on Friday I put on a clean pair of Jungle Briefs, douse Percy with after shave lotion and I’m off to find my fortune.
Number 42 is very like number 40 and not entirely dissimilar to number 38.
There’s a lot of white paint about, venetian blinds, a boat trailer and highly polished carriage lamps. The whole place looks like they’re expecting a visit from Ideal Home not the window cleaner.
I press the front door bell and listen to the chimes echo through the house. Eventually there’s the sound of someone coming and I see a ripple of movement through the frosted glass. A pause by the door, which is presumably so I can be examined through the spy hole, and then it opens.
“Oh,” says Mrs. Evans, and the surprise seems genuine. “Yes?”
“Window Cleaner. You asked me to call.”
“Oh, yes. Did I? Well, if I did, I did.”
“You asked me in the pub, last Saturday.’
“I’m not disputing it,” her voice is sharp, “I just didn’t recognise your face, that’s all.”
Her tone implies that all window cleaners look the same, like coons or chinks.
“You’d better get on with it. There’s a tap round the back of the house by the kitchen door. Careful with the flower beds, they’re full of bulbs that haven’t come up yet and mind the climbing roses. Don’t lean your ladder against them.”
Big deal. I don’t know why I bothered. Mrs. E. is obviously intent on cutting me right down to size, if she remembers me at all.
It’s a pity, because she’s wearing dark glasses and smelling like a pouf’s birthday party, and her tits are practically sitting up and begging.
Something about the old twin set and pearls always gets me going. I feel as if I’m part of England’s heritage: “Remember, Ambrose, the Duke must never know, but since his accident I have realised that he cannot give me the heir the line so desperately needs. So I have decided that, for the sake of the de Pommefrites, I must take you, who exemplify all that is finest in the English male, to my bed. Come, put on this blindfold and take my hand—”
I can just see it, can’t you? No? Oh well then. Neither can Mrs. E. so I wouldn’t worry about it too much.
I flug round the back of the house and start bashing the windows as if I intended to set a new world record. They’re all cleaner than a mermaid’s tit anyway, so I’m wasting my time in all directions. However, I can’t very well burst into tears and buzz off. I’m effectively hoisted with my own pederast as Sid would say.
In this situation I become careless, and from there it is a short step to becoming injured. I lean too far, the ladder slips and my hand goes clean through the bathroom window. It’s not a deep cut but there’s a lot of blood and it obviously needs binding up. There’s nothing for it but to report to Mrs. Evans. I shin down and rap on the back door which is opened almost before my hand has touched it. Mrs. E. is standing there with her purse in her hand and an expression not unlike that worn by the Duchess of Bloodshot when the first charabanc of the season arrives.
“How much—” she is starting to say when she notices my hand. “Don’t drip all over the mat,” she squeaks, “hold it over the flowerbed. Oh, dear, you haven’t been leaving a trail of blood round the side of the house, have you?”
“I didn’t bother to look,” I say. “If you can give me a rag I’ll go and wipe it up.”
“I’m sorry. But you know how I like to have everything just right.” So she does remember. “Blood is so terribly messy, isn’t it?”
“Yes it is, and I’m afraid there may be a bit more upstairs. I put my hand through the bathroom window.”
You can see that the news really distresses her and she can hardly wait to wrap a bandage round my wrist, before scooting off to see what the damage is. When she returns it is with one of the bathroom curtains over her arm.
“I’ll put this into soak,” she says, “It should be alright. Oh, dear,” she is looking down at my feet, “you should have taken your shoes off. You’ve left mud everywhere.”
There is a bit of exaggeration but on her highly bulled surfaces a gnat’s heavy breathing would show up. The whole place looks like a new set of doll’s house furniture. It’s so clean it’s unreal. When I think of Mrs. Chorlwood and her cats, my mind boggles.
“How is that bandage holding up, it’s not going to start leaking again is it?”
“No, I don’t think so.” She’s only worried about the floor, of course. “You’d better have a cup of tea, and then I can think about finding someone to mend that window. My husband is hopeless at that kind of thing.”
I tell her not to worry because I will do it and we have a cup of coffee because that is what she really wants and she is obviously a lady who is used to getting what she really wants.
I then take my shoes off and put on a pair of George’s slippers and go upstairs to measure the window. I’m not allowed to clean anything up because Mrs. E. knows I wouldn’t do it properly. The rest of the house is just like the kitchen. Everything spotlessly clean and nothing left lying about to break up the straight lines and smooth surfaces. In the bathroom even the shower hose is neatly coiled and there are no bars of soap or toothbrushes beside the wash basin. You feel it would upset everything if you had a piss.
Mrs. E. is down on her hands and knees winkling out bits of glass and just for a second our eyes brush against each other. Her breasts swell forward and I can feel Percy making an ugly rush in the same direction. Luckily I can control myself and scribble down the window dimensions on a sheet of newspaper before scooting off to get another piece of glass and some putty.
It is raining when I come back and I take great care to leave my shoes at the back door before padding upstairs. A few minutes with Mrs. Evans and you’ve got the message. There is no sign of her so I chip out the splinters of glass from the window frame and set to laying a bed of putty. I am so engrossed that the sound of water pouring into the bath sparks me off like an alarm clock ringing. I turn round and find Mrs. Evans standing there wearing a wide-sleeved, silk dressing gown and a pair of slippers. For a moment I think she’s going to hop into the bath but before I can get my pulse back to normal she’s dropped the blood stained curtain into soak and gone out. What a funny woman! She must be highly strung, or bonkers or something. Why the hell has she taken her clothes off?
I replace the window pane and go downstairs. Mrs. E. is finishing the washing up and I notice she even empties the sugar bowl back into the tin marked – wait for it – sugar, and then washes the bowl. How finniky can you get?
