***
Henry set the milk bottle on his draining board and made himself a cup of tea, using a carton of long-life milk he had opened the day before. He hated the taste but you can’t be too careful. Gregori had explained the situation to him that Friday afternoon in the pub. He had confessed to arranging the hit. An assassin to kill Henry for a crime he committed five decades ago. Not a crime in the eyes of the law as such but a crime nevertheless. It had been an error in Henry’s judgment that had cost somebody their life and neither Henry nor Gregori could ever forgive him for it. It had also been the one final event that had led Gregori away from protecting democracy as a White Russian intelligence agent, to becoming a very successful international criminal mastermind.
Henry had found it difficult to condemn Gregori for setting the poisoner onto him because deep down he believed he deserved any punishment that was coming to him. Gregori however had immediately regretted his actions but he had been unable to call the assassin off in time. He had sent one of his minions to protect Henry and it had been that person, not poor gormless Tom, who had been breaking his poisoned milk bottles. The original attempt on Henry’s life was to be on the 50th anniversary of the death of the woman they had both loved. Andrievicha Yurika was a Russian double agent working for the west. She had died during a mission Henry had been far too arrogant to plan properly.
Gregori couldn’t be sure, but he believed that he had called the assassin off. He had been very explicit about the date however, so if another attempt was going to be made on Henry’s life, then it would be on the 23rd of the month. Now that the whole block knew about the broken milk bottles, it was no longer safe for his minion to remain involved, so Henry was now on his own.
Henry looked at the bottle standing by the sink. He could end it all right now quite easily, all the doubt and uncertainty, he would know one way or the other if the hit had been called off. And if it hadn’t, then it was no less then he deserved. He ran a forefinger down the bottle’s neck, disturbing the fast evaporating condensation.
“Nah!” he suddenly said out loud as he gave the bottle neck a small shove with his index finger. It fell smashing into the sink. “That’s not my style at all,” Henry said to himself as he ran the tap to help the milk disappear down the drain.
© Chris Raven 2014
Henry's Windows by Alan Hardy
Henry was feeling pretty low that day. It was his usual Thursday afternoon off, and he had arrived back from the office tired and sulky. He still hadn’t got used to fending for himself. Each time he came home and found there was no-one waiting to make him a cup of tea or cook his lunch, he used to spend a good hour or two sitting in his usual chair, feeling very sorry for himself. Really all the chairs were his ‘usual’ ones now, since his wife had gone off to her mother’s, taking the children with her; he could sit on any chair he liked, and watch the television from all sorts of angles.
On this particular day he was sitting on the settee at the back of the room, facing the spacious window which gave a good view of the house opposite, a replica of his own middle-class, suburban house. He had been sitting there a good while, his empty stomach yearning for some food that he didn’t feel inclined to cook. It was extremely quiet, as always, although the gray sports-car which had pulled up in the driveway opposite had caught his attention. A youngish man in a black leather-jacket had got out, rung the bell, and been admitted. Henry then lost interest. He did not know many people on the estate. They themselves had only moved in three months ago, and the few people they had known were more his wife’s acquaintances than his own and they tended to shun him since his wife had deserted him after that last quarrel. All he would do after work would be to sit there, looking vaguely out of the window, and then, when it grew dark, watch television. The boredom and self-pity were worse than ever on Thursday afternoons, especially since he had always looked forward to them so much before. He was getting to the stage when he knew he would have to go to his wife and beg her to return, but for now he persisted in spending his time sitting there all alone, hourly hoping for an apologetic phone-call from his wife which never came, and which he knew would never come.
He noticed with a vague flicker of interest that the man in the black leather-jacket was now in the living-room opposite which, as in his own house, looked out on the road, and the spacious window gave him a good view of the interior of the room. The man was standing there, talking to the lady of the house, a few yards away from him. Apart from the fact that Henry hardly knew anyone anyway, the family opposite had only moved in a month ago, and he had never spoken to the woman or her husband. The husband’s job must have taken him away for long stretches at a time for Henry could never remember seeing him except at weekends, when there would always be an extra car in the garage or the driveway. He must have been a high-powered salesman, or perhaps worked in the City all week, returning to heavenly suburbia every weekend.
He had only ever seen the wife from a distance, usually, as now, vaguely watching her from the settee as he looked out of the window while she potted around the garden, or drove away to take her two children to school or bring them back. She had blonde, medium-length hair and a well-formed, if slightly stout figure. That was all he could say about her. She was always dressed in roughly the same manner: a blouse, jumper or cardigan and a skirt, just above the knee. She looked forty-ish, and, if anything, rather scruffy for a middle-class lady of leisure with nothing to do but spend time going for walks, pottering about the house, or sitting in a chair vaguely looking out of the window. Mind you, Henry had always been aroused by her whenever he spotted her, especially now in his sexually starved state.
The man was standing by the fireplace on the right, very still, and nearly always waiting for her to speak. She was talking a great deal, laughing every now and then, nodding and jerking her head, and gesticulating with her arms and hands. Yet her feet and body remained awkwardly still. Henry got the impression that she was rather embarrassed, and that was why she was talking too much, and nodding and waving. Then she walked out of the room – or so he imagined – for she walked out of his line of vision provided by the wide window. The man remained where he was, idly looking around the room. He was probably in his thirties, about Henry’s age, and gave Henry the impression of a robust, very strong young man. There was something about his powerful shoulders and body which irked Henry and made the man seem rather unpleasant in an aggressive, cocky way. He felt sure he had seen the man before somewhere; there was something familiar about his gaunt, earthy features and imposing manner. His hair was black and close-cropped, just like Henry’s.
But Henry had lost interest since the woman had moved out of the room and his vision, and he was not even always looking out of the window, often reclining back in the settee, staring at the ceiling.
Then, on looking out one time, there they were, sitting next to each other, so close, and talking. The settee in that house was in the middle of the room facing the fireplace, so Henry saw it lengthwise, with a back-view of the man’s black head and black jacket as he looked at her, and, in front of him, the blonde woman’s face, smiling and talking as she turned to face the man full-on. Nothing was happening, and yet Henry could sense that it would. They could have been talking quite innocently about some matter for all he knew, but there was something in the woman’s face and manner which could only be called flirtatious. Henry had not been a married man for nothing. He felt sure he could see the red lipstick on her lips and the inviting twinkle in her blue, direct, fascinated eyes. He could not see the front of the man at all, and as Henry, open-mouthed, watched the woman, he caught his breath, and his body gave a little jump. He swallowed and breathed heavily. He loosened his collar and moved away from the settee. He did not stand up but dropped to the floor and crept along the carpet towards the window, and, once there, raised his head so that he could see over the window-sill into the house opposite. It was a mixture of curiosity and guilt: to get as close as possible and
yet hide at the same time. His wife had been away for some time now, and the little grunts escaping from his lips, and his jerky, sharp breathing, suggested that certain urges had been aroused in him. He quickly rearranged matters down in his nether regions, disentangling and repositioning his little friend, so that he could concentrate on the matter in hand.
He was very aware that he might be seen, and kept popping his head down below the level of the window, all the time feeling very excited and tense.
Then, once again without Henry really seeing it begin, they were kissing. Rather the blonde woman was kissing the man. She had her arms around his neck, clasping and unclasping them, either slightly pulling his neck towards her or laying her hands limply upon his back. She gave him short, but intense kisses, moving towards him so that Henry lost sight of her face as they kissed and saw only a mass of blonde hair, and then withdrawing and moving to stare penetratingly and directly at the man. She was egging him on. How her face was flushed and her eyes sparkled! The man just sat there with the woman’s arms around him, not moving, letting her kiss him and responding to her kisses. There was something strange in only being able to see the back of his head and his black leather-jacket, an almost impassive head, shoulders, arms and torso being caressed and excited by the enraptured, shameless woman in the house over the road.
Henry felt the suspense of the whole situation, and was fascinated. He was terrified of being seen and found out, and moved over to the right near the television so that he was in the bottom corner of the window. He watched them intently and swallowed expectantly, waiting to see what might happen.
Then they were apart again, she still sitting on the settee, serene and unconcerned, and he standing up looking down upon her. The man turned round and looked out of the window and, as Henry quickly popped his head down, his eyes met the man’s deep black eyes for a split-second. Henry cowered below the level of the window, his heart pounding and his face growing red. Had the man seen him? He slowly raised his head, and there was the man again, on the left of the window near some curling curtains, looking suspiciously at him. Henry was very embarrassed and began fiddling with the controls of the television-set, as if the fact that he were crouching there only meant he was about to watch some afternoon pap on TV and had mislaid his remote-control. And yet in a curious way, perhaps because they were so far away, he still thought that they might not have noticed him, or at the least did not suspect him of spying. The man turned to the woman and began talking, pointing in Henry’s direction, and then moved away from the window. The woman just sat there, untroubled, and not even bothering to look. The man went to sit in another chair, and for a few minutes they sat there, hardly talking. The woman seemed resigned to the fact that it was all over, at least for now. Henry stayed where he was, feeling that to run away would prove his guilt even more than staying, continuing to fiddle with the controls, sometimes crouching low, other times peeping over the window-sill. Eventually he crawled back along the carpet, always keeping below the level of the window, and out of the room. He felt rather silly, but not that ashamed, for he reasoned that their guilt was greater than his own. To show his boldness and indifference he stood up and walked back into the room and sat down on the settee, in full view of them if they cared to look. He took some papers out of his brief-case and pretended to be studying them, and yet still occasionally, as if quite naturally, looking up. He had nothing to fear.
The man eventually left the house and, to Henry’s consternation, began walking purposefully towards Henry’s house. He gave Henry a hard, almost threatening stare and, as Henry stared back open-mouthed, veered off towards his sports-car in the driveway. Henry breathed a sigh of relief as the car sped away. The woman began walking about the house. Henry could see her clear figure, or silhouette, appearing every now and then in various rooms, upstairs and downstairs, as she paced out the large confines of her neat suburban home. Eventually she settled down in the living-room, picking up a magazine and sitting in a chair, resigned to sitting out yet another afternoon of quiet, untroubled, boring suburbia. Although she was facing him and seemed to be looking out of the window, she was not seeking him out as the man had, and seemed not to notice him. Sitting there, smug and self-sufficient, she seemed untroubled by either Henry or, since she had got used to him going, the man she had been kissing. Henry stared at her, fascinated. He had discovered a little secret in suburbia, and that blonde, well-built woman was at the center of it all. He yearned to come face-to-face with her, and see her features and her flesh close to, and smell her, and touch her, and know her. Henry felt a mixture of smugness and fascination, and his whole body itched. He had to quickly rearrange things down below again. He yearned for her.
The phone rang. Henry started. After laughing at his nervousness, he picked up the phone.
“Hello.”
“Hello,” said a man’s gruff, direct voice. “Is that the supermarket?”
“The what?”
“Is that the supermarket?” repeated the unpleasant voice.
“No. You have the wrong number,” he answered.
The connection clicked off without a word. Henry put down the phone, and moved away, feeling rather worried.
The phone rang again.
“Hello.”
“Is that the supermarket?”
“No. I told you you’ve got the wrong number.”
The phone clicked off abruptly. There was something menacing in that aggressive, rough voice and all he could think of was that sturdy, well-built man in the black leather-jacket.
The phone rang again. He answered, and the phone was disconnected immediately. The phone rang once more in a few moments, and again the connection was terminated roughly and rudely.
Henry was scared. Was that man ringing him up? Was he threatening him in some way, warning him what might happen if he went spreading tales? Or was the man just playing games and getting his own back? Henry paced about the room, feeling tight in his chest and constantly looking out of the window to make sure the man was not returning.
The phone did not ring again, and he calmed down. Why should the man ring him up? How would he know his number? He prepared himself a bite to eat, and, towards four o’ clock, saw the woman leave the house, still in the same jumper and skirt, and drive off to fetch her children from school. Yet, in Henry’s eyes, she was transformed. She was somebody special now.