CHAPTER THREE

      I was halfway through the bottle of wine by the time I built up the – not courage, I didn’t need courage, I wasn’t afraid – I needed to care. It took half a bottle of wine to care about returning a call to my life, and so I dialled the number listed on the letter. I took a bite of a chocolate bar while I waited for the phone to connect. It was answered on the first ring. It didn’t give me time to chew, never mind swallow my chocolate.

      ‘Oh, sorry,’ I said with a stuffed mouth. ‘I’ve chocolate in my mouth.’

      ‘That’s okay dear, take your time,’ an upbeat older woman with a smooth American-pie Southern accent said perkily. I chewed quickly, swallowed and washed it down with some wine. Then I retched.

      I cleared my throat. ‘Finished.’

      ‘What was it?’

      ‘Galaxy.’

      ‘Bubble or caramel?’

      ‘Bubble.’

      ‘Mmm, my favourite. How can I help you?’

      ‘I received a letter about an appointment on Monday. My name is Lucy Silchester.’

      ‘Yes, Ms Silchester, I have you in the system. How does nine a.m. suit?’

      ‘Oh well, actually that’s not why I’m calling. You see, I can’t make the appointment, I’m working that day.’

      I waited for her to say, Oh silly us, asking you to come on a work day, let’s cancel the entire thing, but she didn’t.

      ‘Well, I guess we can work around you. What time do you finish?’

      ‘Six.’

      ‘How about seven p.m.?’

      ‘I can’t because it’s my friend’s birthday and we’re going for dinner.’

      ‘What about your lunch break? Would a lunch meeting suit you?’

      ‘I’ve to bring my car to the garage.’

      ‘So, just to summarise, you can’t make the appointment because you’ve work in the day, you’re bringing your car to the garage on your lunch break and you’ve dinner with friends in the evening.’

      ‘Yes.’ I frowned. ‘Are you writing that down?’ I heard tapping in the background. This bothered me; they had summoned me, not the other way around. They were going to have to find a time.

      ‘You know, sweetheart,’ she said in her long Southern drawl – I could almost see the apple pie slithering from her lips and landing on her keyboard, then her keyboard hissing and going alight, and my summons being forever wiped from the memory. ‘You’re obviously not familiar with this system.’ She took a breath and I jumped in before the boiling apples had a chance to drip again.

      ‘Are people usually?’

      I’d knocked her off her train of thought.

      ‘Pardon me?’

      ‘When you contact people, when life summons people to meet with it,’ I emphasised, ‘are people usually familiar with the procedure?’

      ‘Well,’ the longest sing-song that sounded like way-eell, ‘some are and some aren’t, I suppose, but that’s what I’m here for. How’s about I make it easier for you by arranging for him to come to you? He’d do that if I asked.’

      I thought about that, then suddenly, ‘Him?’

      She chuckled. ‘That catches people out too.’

      ‘Are they always hims?’

      ‘No, not always, sometimes they’re hers.’

      ‘Under what circumstances are they men?’

      ‘Oh, it’s just hit or miss, sweetheart, there ain’t no reason for it. Just like you and me being born what we are. Will that be a problem for you?’

      I thought about it. Couldn’t see why it would. ‘No.’

      ‘So what time would you like him to visit you?’ She tapped some more.

      ‘Visit me? No!’ I shouted down the phone. Mr Pan jumped, opened his eyes, looked around and closed them again. ‘Sorry for shouting,’ I composed myself. ‘He can’t come here.’

      ‘But I thought you said that wouldn’t be a problem for you.’

      ‘I meant it’s not a problem that he’s a man. I thought you were asking if that would be a problem.’

      She laughed. ‘But why would I ask you that?’

      ‘I don’t know. Sometimes health spas ask that too, you know, in case you don’t want a male masseuse …’

      She chuckled. ‘Well, I can guarantee he won’t be massaging any part of your anatomy.’

      She made anatomy sound dirty. I shuddered.

      ‘Well, tell him I’m very sorry but he can’t come here.’ I looked around at my dismal studio flat that I always felt quite cosy in. It was a place for me, my own personal hovel; it was not for entertaining guests, lovers, neighbours, family members or even emergency services when the rug caught fire, it was just for me. And Mr Pan.

      I was huddled up by the arm of the couch and a few steps behind me was the end of my double bed. To my right was a kitchen countertop, to my left the windows and beside the bed was a bathroom. That was about the size of it. Not that the size bothered me, or embarrassed me. It was more the state of it. My floor had become the wardrobe. I liked to think of my scattered belongings as stepping stones, my yellow brick road … that kind of thing. The contents of my previous top-dollar penthouse wardrobe were bigger than the new studio apartment itself and so my too many pairs of shoes had found their home along the windowsill, my long coats and full-length dresses hung on hangers at the right- and left-hand ends of the curtain pole and I slid them open and closed as the sun and moon requested just like regular curtains. The carpet was as I have already described, the couch monopolised the small living area reaching from windowsill to kitchen counter, which meant you couldn’t walk around it but had to climb over the back to sit on it. My life could not visit me in this mess. I was aware of the irony.

      ‘My carpets are being cleaned,’ I said, then I sighed as if it was just such a nuisance that I couldn’t bear to think about it. It wasn’t a lie. My carpets very much needed to be cleaned.

      ‘Well, can I recommend Magic Carpet Cleaners,’ she said brightly, as though suddenly jumping to commercial hour. ‘My husband,’ ma husbaand, ‘is a devil for shining his boots in the living room and Magic Carpet Cleaners get that black polish right out, you wouldn’t believe. He snores too. Unless I fall asleep before him I get none the rest of the night so I watch those infomercials and one night I saw a man shining his shoes on a white carpet, just like my husband and that’s what caught my attention. Was like the company was made just for me. They took the stain right out, so I had to go out and get me some. Magic Carpet Cleaners, write it down.’

      She was so intense I found myself wanting to invest in black shoe polish in order to test these magical cleaning infomercial people and I scrambled for a pen, which in accordance with the Pen Legislation Act of Since the Beginning of Time was not anywhere in sight when I needed it. With marker in hand I looked around for something to write on. I couldn’t find any paper so I wrote on the carpet, which seemed appropriate.