Fifty/Fifty and Other Stories (5 page)

The Seventeenth Door

C
harlotte knocked on her seventeenth door that evening. She knew the exact number as she had been ticking them off, one by one, trying to get through them as quickly as possible so that she would not have to come back the next night. Her coordinator was a gruff old man named Patrick, who had been involved in the fieldwork for the census one way or another for 30 years. He said he was a retired civil servant, and his vagueness around which department, and his brush-bristle moustache led Charlotte to assume that he had been a policeman. He had been very thorough so far, determined that not a single house in his area of responsibility should be left uncounted.

He met Charlotte and another person from her team, an older lady named Laura twice a week. Monday evenings were in the supermarket car park at half seven, and Thursdays on a small patch of waste ground in a half finished housing estate. Each time they met, Charlotte and Laura got into his car, an older model Jaguar which smelled of pine tree air freshener and vacuum cleaner exhaust. He produced a series of folders and print outs which showed him which houses had returned their questionnaire, and dealt them out to his team. He also took the time to read to them from the official progress report, in an attempt to sustain their morale. He needn’t have bothered, for as long as they were paid, Charlotte would do her job, no questions asked.

Charlotte was 28, a few inches above average height for a woman, and if she was honest with herself, slightly overweight. In years gone by she might have been called plump. Dark roots showed through blonde hair from a bottle, her cheeks constantly rosy. She wore very little make-up, but what she did wear was cheap and poorly-applied, like the dark red lipstick which did little to compliment her pale complexion. She wore a man’s raincoat to keep the April showers at bay, the sort that hikers wear. The thick-rimmed black glasses she wore as affectation rather than out of necessity were steamed up.

Door number seventeen was typical of the rest of the street - plastic, double glazed, with a small privacy window set at eye-level. These suburbs had originally been laid out in the seventies, with wide footpaths, reasonable-sized gardens, and orange brick and pebble-dash façades. Many of the houses had sprouted extensions, brickwork driveways and tall hedges.

Number seventeen had a front lawn which was only slightly overgrown, more in need of a lawnmower than most, but certainly not unkempt.  A few stray weeds poked up through the driveway. The garage door was a sunburnt red colour. Charlotte had called twice before, but either no-one had been home or the occupants had not wanted to answer the door. Charlotte suspected the latter, as she had seen lights on towards the back of the house, and there had been that almost imperceptible energy that is simply not present in an uninhabited dwelling. She had not expected the door to open at all, and she took a step backwards in fright.

“
Oh, hello dear. I’m not interested in anything I’m afraid,” said the little old woman who stood there. “At my age you don’t need any of this satellite TV, life insurance, payment protections stuff.” She wore a crimson dress, polyester or some other synthetic fabric, which hung down to her ankles. A large bronze brooch was pinned to her left breast, and long earrings dangled below her white hair, curly all over her head. She squinted a little at Charlotte, taking in the clipboard, high-visibility jacket and satchel. Her eyes were a grey sort of colour, watery and soft of focus.

“
I’m sorry,” began Charlotte, “I’m from the census office, you haven’t returned your questionnaire I’m afraid.”

“
Questionnaire? Was it that great big purple thing? I threw it out. Always do. Nobody’s business any of that stuff.”

“
That’s it,” said Charlotte. “I’m afraid you are legally obliged to fill it out. I can give you another one?”

“
I have no interest dear, but I suppose I don’t want to get into trouble. Or get you into trouble either. Do you think you could help me? The eyes aren’t what they used to be,” she said.

Charlotte wasn’t supposed to enter anyone’s house by herself, even when invited to do so. It was against policy, but she seemed like a sweet old lady, and it would be less hassle than trying to get in touch with Patrick and arranging to come back another night. Plus the chances of a cup of tea and a biscuit were high and Charlotte had come straight from work without any dinner, or so much as a sit down for five minutes. Charlotte stepped over the threshold, and was hit with that old person smell which has never been properly explained. Body odour perhaps, or decaying cells. A grey cat with matted fur and a bulge behind its’ left ear sidled up to her and purred quietly.

“
This way dear,” said the old woman, leading the way down a darkened hall. The carpet was worn but clean, and Charlotte could just make out the pattern of lilac flowers on the wallpaper. She could feel the rough texture as she trailed a fingertip along the wall.

Too late, Charlotte felt a noise behind her, and as she turned to see what it was, a hunched figure stepped out of a doorway, arm raised. Charlotte felt her knees weakening as the blow to her temple shook her brain.

“
But...” she muttered, sliding to the ground “I only wanted a Rich Tea...”

Patrick was embarrassed the next time he spoke to the census office. He told them that one of his team hadn’t reported her figures, but apart from that he was on track to meet his targets. Charlotte hadn’t been answering her phone, but they were cheap things, provided by the office, and held neither signal nor charge for very long. When she failed to show up on Monday for their weekly meeting at the supermarket he became angry. He discussed with Laura the failings of young people these days, with their lack of respect and responsibility. He took his job as a census coordinator very seriously – it was a civic duty.

When Thursday rolled by and she still had not been in touch he became worried, and contacted the police. By then over a week had passed. Charlotte’s parents had emigrated to Australia two years previously to be with her older brother and their two grandchildren, and she lived alone in an apartment building where she knew none of her neighbours, and people kept to themselves. Some of her friends had wondered what she was up to, but not to the point where they were worried. It was typical of Charlotte to drop off the radar every so often. Busy at work, or a new boyfriend perhaps.

Charlotte came to in a darkened room, with a dry throat and a dull ache at the base of her skull. The mattress she unpeeled her face from was coated in some kind of plastic and smelt musty. She had no idea where she was. Suddenly she became aware of another presence in the room, somewhere in a corner she could not see.

“
We’ve been watching you dear,” said the old woman who had answered the door. “We like you, don’t we?”

“
Yes we do,” said another female voice, this one also cracked and hoarse with age. “We’ve been waiting for one like you for a long time. A very long time.”

Charlotte became aware of the ropes around her wrists, and a numbness at her ankles. A weight on her legs shifted, and as her eyes became accustomed to the dark she was able to shift around enough to see the cat pawing around and licking at something at the foot of the bed. She could hear the noises it made with its mouth, but for some reason she could not feel anything.

“
Barnaby likes you too,” said the first old woman.

“
Yes,” said the second, “He’s developed quite the taste for you.”

The two of them laughed together, a laugh that was gleeful and full of joy. They were enjoying whatever it was that was going on, that much was certain.

“
What the hell do you want with me?” asked Charlotte.

“
Can’t you tell?” asked the second woman. She flicked on the bedside light and leant forward. Charlotte saw that the two old ladies were twins, identical except for their voices. With horror, Charlotte began to understand, saw the redness around both of their mouths, the flesh stuck to their teeth as they smiled. Both had crazed eyes, gleaming and wild. She looked towards the end of the bed, where the cat gnawed on the stumps which remained at her calves. As she squirmed she felt the intravenous drip tear at her arm, her stomach turning inside out and her head spinning. Darkness enveloped her as it had before.

The next time Charlotte woke, she was flat on her back with a tube down her throat. She heard a crash of glass, a scuffle and then the door swung open to reveal Patrick. As he began to move towards her he was attacked from behind by one of the twins wielding a heavy wooden rolling pin. He grabbed at the weapon with one hand and swept away the old lady’s legs with a kick which brought her crashing to the ground. She stirred briefly before settling in a heap. Patrick used his census-issue mobile phone to call for an ambulance and the police, stepping over the old lady and out of the room as he explained Charlotte’s condition.

Charlotte had been correct about his previous occupation. Patrick had served with the police for thirty-six years. After calling to report Charlotte missing, he had gone back over her previous workload, tracing the route she might have taken. As he approached the seventeenth house, the grey cat leapt out of a hedge, hissing and spitting at him. It began to wail at Patrick, and as it did so, what looked suspiciously like a human toe dropped from its mouth.

He asked around the neighbourhood, and found out that Barnaby belonged to old Mrs Campton in number sixty-four. When she hadn’t answered the door he had pushed through an old gate with rotting hinges and into the back garden. Through a chink in the curtains he had seen Charlotte’s high visibility census jacket hung over a chair in the kitchen and had broken a pane of glass in the back door to gain entry. He had witnessed some terrible things over the years as a policeman, but nothing came close to seeing a half-eaten Charlotte on that bed.

Plastic Golf

W
hen I was a child I had a set of jumbo plastic golf clubs, which I used to smack an oversized plastic golf ball up and down our back garden. Made in primary colours, the shafts were blue, and the clubheads bright yellow. All the kids in our neighbourhood had the same set, with each of the fathers competing to see whose child had the best swing. I can remember summer barbeques where the men stood around with beers as the sausages sizzled, showing each other their air swings and relating their latest tips. The children made crazy-golf courses which went from garden to garden, crossing the street, through flowerbeds and under hedges. That was the beginning of my long and difficult relationship with the game.

The bookshelves in our house were quite varied. My mother has always had an appetite for fiction, something which she passed on to me. My father on the other hand has always been more of a left brain type of person, and so on the bottom shelves there were biographies, books on science and photography, the cosmos, history. Outnumbering all these types of book however, were books on golf. The history of the game, books by famous players, books which promised to instil the right mindset for golf, and most prevalent of all, books on how to attain the perfect swing.

As I grew older and began to play more, I read as many of these instructional books as possible, and I’d like to think that I have a pretty good understanding of the fundamentals of golf, and the mechanics behind a good swing. I’ve read plenty of the psychology-type books too; any discussion of golf inevitably leads to the utterance of the dictum ‘golf is ten percent physical, ninety percent mental’, (the other one which every golfer likes to pull out every so often, usually after a good day on the greens, is ‘driving for show, putting for dough’). When I was fifteen or sixteen I lost all interest in golf. Put simply, I didn’t enjoy it.