‘Lucy, if you’re not interested in this conversation then we won’t have it.’
‘I’m not interested, but I want to know why you asked it,’ I said defensively.
‘You’re right, you’ve clearly lived your life to the fullest and there’s nothing left to do and now it’s time for you to stop. You might as well die.’
I gasped.
‘I’m not saying you’re going to die, Lucy,’ he said, frustrated with me. ‘Not now, anyway. You will eventually.’
I gasped again.
‘We all are.’
‘Oh. Yes.’
He opened the door and looked back at me. ‘The reason I asked you, is because regardless of what you say, or how much you lie, you are not happy with where you are right now, and when I ask you about what you want, anything in the whole entire world, no holds barred, you say winning money and buying stuff.’ He spoke sharply and I was embarrassed.
‘I still think most people would say the lottery.’
He threw me a look and made for the door again.
‘You’re angry with me. I don’t understand why you’re angry with me, just because you don’t like my dream. I mean, this is ridiculous.’
He spoke gently which unnerved me more. ‘I’m angry because not only are you not happy where you are, but you can’t even think of where you’d rather be. Which I think is …’ He searched for the word. ‘Sad. No wonder you’re stuck in a rut.’
I thought about it some more, thought about my dreams, my wishes, my ambitions, where I wanted to be that would make me feel better than being here. I couldn’t come up with anything.
‘Thought so,’ he finally said. ‘See you tomorrow.’ He took his coat and rucksack and left the apartment, which was the worst possible end to the most beautiful beginning of a day.
His comments niggled at me. They always did, it was as though he spoke in a certain tone that only managed to speak to the brain like a whistle for a dog inaudible to the human ear. I tried to think about my dreams, where I wanted to be, what I really wanted but I think to know what you want, you have to know what you don’t want and all I could figure out was that I really wished Life hadn’t contacted me so I could have continued on the path I was going on. Life had complicated things, Life had tried to make things move on when I was perfectly content. He called it a rut, but he’d moved me from that place already, by merely pointing out that I was there, and I would never be able to go back. I liked my rut, I missed my rut, I would mourn my rut forever.
By midday, I had a headache but a tidy flat, and unsurprisingly, the cleaning company hadn’t arrived. Nor had they by twelve fifteen. By twelve thirty I was beginning to celebrate the fact that they’d forgotten and was making arrangements in my head on how best to spend my freedom, but I wasn’t successful with coming to any conclusions. Melanie was away but even still, we hadn’t had any contact since our last meeting and I know I wasn’t top of her list of people to talk to right now. After dinner the night before, my friends who thought I was a cheat weren’t on my own list of people to talk to. And though the demise of Blake and me was swiftly followed by my personality transplant – which at the time I thought nobody noticed but now, with the benefit of Life’s teaching, I could now see that everybody had noticed – I understood their thinking but it still hurt.
A knock at the door disturbed my thoughts. It was Claire, with a wet and wrinkly face, crying again.
‘Lucy,’ she sniffed. ‘I’m so sorry to disturb you on a Sunday, I heard the television on and … well, I was wondering if you could mind Conor again. I wouldn’t ask, only the hospital have called me again and said it’s an emergency and …’ She broke down.
‘Of course. Do you mind if I keep him in here with me? I have people coming to clean the carpet and I need to be here.’
She thought about it; she didn’t look too certain but then she didn’t have much choice. She went back into her apartment and closed the door. I wondered if she sat down and slowly counted to ten before returning to me or if she actually went through the motions of picking him up and strapping him in. I felt a deep sadness for her. The door opened and the empty buggy was pushed out and into my apartment, the straps tied.
‘He’s been asleep for five minutes,’ she whispered. ‘He usually sleeps for two hours in the day so I should be home by the time he wakes. He hasn’t been well lately, I don’t know what’s wrong with him.’ She frowned and examined the empty buggy. ‘So he may sleep a little longer than usual.’
‘Okay.’
‘Thank you.’ She took one last look at the pushchair and turned to go. When she looked out into the hallway there was a man standing outside her apartment.
‘Nigel,’ she said, shocked.
He turned around. ‘Claire.’ I recognised him as the man in Claire’s photographs: her husband, Conor’s father. He looked at the number on her door and then at the number on mine. ‘Am I at the wrong apartment?’
‘No, this is Lucy, our … my neighbour. She’s going to babysit.’
He looked at me in such a way that I wanted to curl up and die. I knew he was thinking that I was taking advantage of her but what could I do, tell her that there was no child? Surely she knew that, deep down in her heart.
‘For free,’ I blurted out just so that he would at least forgive me for that. ‘And she wouldn’t go otherwise.’
He nodded once, understanding, then his eyes moved back to her. His voice was gentle. ‘I’ll drive you there. Okay?’
I closed the door behind them.
‘Hi again,’ I said, to the empty space in the buggy. ‘Mummy and Daddy won’t be long.’
Then I put my head in my hands and sat slumped across the counter. Mr Pan leaped up and I felt his cold nose near my ear. I Googled people’s dreams and ambitions, and instantly bored, I closed the laptop. Twelve forty-five came and went and then I had an idea. I took a photograph of Gene Kelly’s face on the poster on my bathroom door and sent it to Don Lockwood with a text:
–Saw this and thought of you.
Then I waited. And waited. Anxiously. Then hopefully. Then with deep disappointment. Then with a hurt so deep it cut me like a knife. I didn’t blame him. I’d told him never to call me again but still I hoped. Then the hope faded and I was depressed. And alone, and empty, and lost. And not even one minute had passed by.
I opened the fridge-freezer and stared at the empty shelves. The longer I stared, the more the food didn’t appear. Then my phone beeped. I slammed the door and dived on the phone. Typically, simultaneously, the door buzzed too. I decided to savour the text and answered the door first. A red Magic Carpet stared back at me. It was emblazoned on the chest of the man who faced me. I looked up; he was wearing a blue cap with another picture of a carpet on it, low over his face. I looked behind him: nobody else, no tools or equipment.
‘Roger?’ I asked, stepping aside for him to come in.
‘Roger is my dad,’ he said, entering the flat. ‘He doesn’t work weekends.’
‘Okay.’
He looked around. Then at me.
‘Do I know you?’ he asked.
‘Eh. I don’t know. My name is Lucy Silchester.’
‘Yeah, I have it on the …’ He lifted his clipboard in the air but didn’t finish his sentence. But he kept staring at me, right into my eyes. Searching and curious. It made me nervous. I looked away and took a few steps to the kitchen so that the counter would separate us. He realised this and took a few steps back, which I appreciated.
‘So where are the others?’ I asked.
‘The others?’
‘The cleaning people,’ I said. ‘Isn’t there a team?’
‘No, just me and my dad. But he doesn’t work weekends as I said, so …’ He looked around. ‘Is it okay if it’s just me?’
His asking made it easier.
‘Yes, sure.’
‘My stuff is in the van. I just wanted to come up and take a look before I brought it all the way up.’
‘Oh. Okay. Should I help you carry something?’
‘No, thanks. I’m sure you can’t leave the little one.’ He smiled and tiny dimples appeared and he was suddenly the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. Then I thought of Blake, and then he wasn’t any more. It always happened like that.
I looked at the buggy. ‘Oh, that. It’s not mine. I mean, he. It’s a neighbour’s. I mean he is a neighbour’s. I’m minding him.’
‘How old is he?’ He smiled fondly, lifting his chin so he could see into the buggy.
I pushed the cover down further so he couldn’t. ‘Oh, one-ish. He’s asleep.’ As if that explained anything.
‘I’ll try to work as quietly as possible. Are there any areas in particular you want me to concentrate on?’
‘Just the floor.’ I meant it seriously but it came out funny. He laughed.
‘The entire floor?’
‘Just the dirty bits.’
We both smiled. He was still cute, even when placed on the Blake barometer.
‘So that’s probably the entire thing,’ I said.
He looked around at the floor and I was suddenly aware of a handsome man standing in my little private hovel. I was embarrassed. Suddenly he got down on his knees and examined an area on the floor. He rubbed it with his hand.
‘Is that—?’
‘Oh yes, I just wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget. I couldn’t find any paper.’
He looked at me with a big grin. ‘Did you use permanent marker?’
‘Eh …’ I rooted in the drawer in the kitchen for the marker. ‘Here.’
He studied it. ‘This is permanent, you know.’
‘Oh. Can you get it out? Because if you can’t, my landlord will roll me up in it and throw me out.’
‘I’ll try.’ He looked at me, amused. ‘I’ll get my equipment from the van.’
I sat back on the stool and intended to make the time pass by stalking Don Lockwood. I read his text.
–She rears her pretty head. So how has your week been?
–Haven’t been held at water-pistol point since Tuesday. How’s Tom?
I heard a phone beep in the corridor and sensed the cleaning guy was back. But he didn’t appear. I peeped my head around the corner and saw him reading his phone. ‘Sorry,’ he said, popping it into his pocket. He picked up a machine that looked like an oversized vacuum cleaner and carried it inside. The muscles in his arms puffed out to three times the size of my head. I tried not to stare but I failed.
‘I’m just going to sit here. If you need anything, if you get lost or anything, I’m here.’
He laughed, then studied the oversized couch.
‘It came from a bigger apartment,’ I explained.
‘It’s nice.’ He had his hands on his hips, inspecting it. ‘It might be a problem to move.’
‘It comes apart.’ Like everything else in here.
He looked around. ‘Do you mind if I put some of it on the bed and some in the bathroom?’
‘Of course, but if you find any money underneath, it’s mine. Anything else is yours.’
He lifted the couch and I stared at his muscles, which were so large they pushed out all thoughts from my head. ‘I won’t have much use for this,’ he laughed, looking at a dusty cerise pink bra on the floor. I tried to think of a funny response but instead I ran to pick it up, stubbed my toe on the corner of the kitchen counter and went flying onto the couch.
‘Sshhit.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes,’ I squeaked. I grabbed my bra and tried to crumple it into a ball, then I held my toe until the pain went away. ‘I’m sure you’ve never seen a bra before, I’m glad I dramatically dived onto the floor to get it,’ I said through gritted teeth.
He laughed. ‘What is it with this guy?’ he asked, passing Gene Kelly on the bathroom door and placing another part of the couch inside. ‘Girls love him.’
‘He was the working man’s dancer,’ I explained, rubbing my toe. ‘None of that pretentious top-’n’-tails stuff that Fred Astaire did. Gene was, you know, a real man.’
He seemed interested, then went back to his work and didn’t say another word. Finally I sensed no movement so I looked up. He was standing in the middle of the room with a piece of the couch in his arms, looking around, lost. I could see his dilemma: the bed was piled high, the bathroom including the bath was jam packed and there was nowhere else to place the couch.
‘We could put it out in the corridor,’ I said.
‘It will block the way.’
‘What about the kitchen?’
There was a small space on the floor, which was where the buggy was. I moved the buggy and he came towards me, but I don’t know what happened, his toe hit something, I heard his boot bang, maybe against the counter, and the couch went flying out of his arms and on to the buggy.
‘Oh, my God,’ he shouted. ‘Oh, my God.’
‘It’s OK,’ I said quickly, trying to explain. ‘It’s okay, there’s nothing—’
‘Oh, fuck. Oh, my God,’ he repeated over and over as he tried to lift the couch off the buggy.
‘Relax, it’s okay. There’s no baby in there,’ I said loudly. He paused and looked at me like I was the oddest person on the planet.
‘There isn’t?’
‘No, look.’ I helped him lift the couch and place it on top of the counter. ‘See, it’s empty.’
‘But you said …’
‘Yeah, I know. It’s a long story.’
He closed his eyes and swallowed, sweat on his brow. ‘Jesus.’
‘I know, I’m sorry, but it’s okay.’
‘Why do you—’
‘Please don’t ask.’
‘But you—’
‘Honestly, it’s really best you don’t ask.’
He looked at me once more for an answer but I shook my head.
‘Fuck,’ he whispered, taking a deep breath. He gave the buggy one more look to make sure he hadn’t imagined it and then took another deep breath and went about setting up his giant vacuum-cleaning equipment. Then took his phone out of his pocket and texted. Tap, tap, tap. I rolled my eyes at Mr Pan. We were going to be here all day if he kept up with that phone.
‘So.’ He finally turned to me. ‘What I’m going to do first is use hot-water extraction to clean the carpet. Then I’ll protect it and deodorise it.’
‘Okay. Were you in an infomercial, by any chance?’
‘No,’ he groaned. ‘That was my dad. Fancies himself as a bit of an actor. He wants me to do one but I think I’d rather …’ He thought about it. ‘Yep, I’d rather die.’
I laughed. ‘It could be fun.’
He looked at me, widened his eyes. ‘Really? Would you do it?’
‘If you paid me I would pretty much do anything.’ I frowned. ‘Except what I just made it sound like I’d do. I wouldn’t do that.’
‘I wouldn’t ask you to. Not for money, I mean.’ His face pinked. ‘Can we change the subject?’
‘Yes, please.’
My phone beeped and we both took it as a good sign to stop talking immediately.
–Bloody Tom. He met a girl and decided to grow up, he’s moving in with her next week. I’m a flatmate down so … thirty-five-and-three-quarter-year-old tall dark handsome man seeking anybody who can pay the rent.
I texted back.
–Are you looking for someone too?! I’ll send the word out. Personal question: what’s your dream? Something that you really want.
The carpet cleaner’s phone beeped. I tutted, but my disapproval couldn’t be heard over the sound of the cleaner. He turned it off and took his phone from his pocket.
‘You’re popular today.’
‘Yeah, sorry.’ He stopped to read it. Then he texted back.
My phone beeped.
–A coffee. Want one now really badly.
I looked up at the cleaning guy; he was cleaning away, deep in thought. I hopped off the stool.
‘Would you like a coffee?’
> He didn’t respond.
‘Excuse me, would you like a coffee?’ I said louder.
He looked up. ‘You must have read my mind. Would love one, thanks.’
He took a slug, placed it on the counter and went back to work. I sat down and read back over my texts, reading between the lines for more answers while I waited for another response. The carpet cleaner took out his phone again. I really wanted to say something but I held my tongue because I began to study him then, the small secret smile that was on his lips as he texted, and it immediately made me hate the person at the other end of that phone. He was texting a girl and I hated her.
‘Is this going to take long?’ I finally said, without the niceness in my voice.
‘Sorry?’ He looked up from the text.
‘The carpet. Will it take long?’
‘About two hours.’
‘I’m going to take the baby for a walk.’
He looked confused. He should be. I was. I received Don’s response when I was in the elevator.
–My dream is to win the lottery so I can quit my job and never have to work again. But what I really really want? Is to meet you.
I stared at the text, open-mouthed. The elevator had reached the ground floor and the doors had opened but I was taken aback and forgot to step out, partly because we had the same lazy dream but mostly because he had said such a beautiful borderline-cheesy thing that was actually quite adorable but terrifying. The doors to the elevator closed and before I’d a chance to press the buttons, it went up again. I sighed and leaned against the wall. We stopped on my floor. It was the cleaning guy.
‘Hello.’
‘I forgot to get out.’
He laughed and looked in the buggy. ‘So what’s his name?’
‘Conor.’
‘He’s cute.’
We laughed.
‘Are you sure we don’t know one another?’ he asked.
I studied him again. ‘Did you used to be a stockbroker?’
‘No,’ he laughed.
‘Did you ever pretend to be one?’
‘No.’
‘Well then, no.’ I really think I’d have remembered if I’d met him before – he was the highest up on the Blake barometer of any other human being living or dead. He was vaguely familiar but that may have been because I’d been staring at him all morning like a dirty old man. I frowned and shook my head. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t even know your name.’