Page 3 of The Stranger in Her House

CONNIE

The dog attached to the other end of the lead cocks his leg up against a garden rubbish recycling bin and pees. I inhale from my vaping pen as I wait, puffing out a blackberry-scented cloud while I savour the gentle buzz from the nicotine. It’s my one remaining vice.

This wiry ball of white fur and I have already completed two laps of the village playing fields and one around the churchyard, and now we’re making our way back to his home. Walking the neighbours’ dogs won’t make me my fortune, but as I don’t have much in the way of an income at the moment, beggars can’t be choosers. I have four more regular clients, and they, along with doing some of my other neighbours’ ironing, keep me ticking by. Only just, though. Once the bills are taken care of, it leaves little in the pot for luxuries, short of a few vaping cartridges and the occasional bottle of supermarket wine. You’ll never meet a rich carer.

With the dog dropped off and after a quick chat with Walter, his owner, I approach Gwen’s house and spot a van parked on the drive. It’s a plain white one; well, it might be closer to grey as ithasn’t seen a car wash in a while. Some joker has written in the muck on the passenger door, ‘I wish my wife was this dirty’. It must’ve amused the owner or they’d have wiped it off by now.

A man appears from behind the vehicle carrying a metal ladder. I’ve not seen him in the village before and I’m sure I’d remember him. He must be over six feet tall, has a rugby player’s build and is wearing a fitted black T-shirt, blue cut-off jean shorts and workman’s boots. His hair is cropped short, and both it and his stubble contain salty flecks. He’s probably around my age only he’s carrying it better. He has a handful of deep-set lines etched into his tanned forehead, like many men do who spend the majority of their lives working outside. I realise I’ve been staring at him for too long. But he’s hard to stop looking at. The closer he gets to me, the more piercing his blue eyes become. Goosebumps skitter across my back and shoulders.

I clear my throat. ‘Can I help you?’ I ask, but he doesn’t reply. Instead, he nods, then walks right past me. Hello? Am I invisible? His rudeness takes me aback until I spot the white plastic casing of headphones embedded in his ears. He’s listening to something.

He leans the ladder up against the wall, climbs it, removes a bin bag from his pocket and starts to fill it with leaves and silt he fishes out of the gutters. I raise my voice and ask him to stop for a moment but he doesn’t hear me. Only when I wave both hands, like I’m flagging down a cab in a dark street, does he finally come to a halt. He raises his eyebrows and pulls out one of his earbuds.

‘Can I help you?’ I ask again.

‘You can keep the ladder steady if you like?’ he says.

It takes me a second to realise he’s joking. ‘I meant what are you doing in my mum’s garden?’

‘Well, if I’m not mistaken, I’m cleaning out the gutters.’ He grins, and I’m not sure if he’s expecting me to reciprocate. I offer a fleeting smile that disappears as quickly as it arrives.

‘Who asked you to do this?’

‘The man upstairs.’ He looks above him into the sky.

‘What?’

He signifies the conversation is over with a wink, slips his headphones back in and returns to the job in hand, leaving me standing there like a lemon.

I’m simultaneously patronised, curious, and suspicious of him. The mix of all three is my default setting. ‘Guilty until proven innocent’ is my motto. I’d never make it past the selection process for a jury.

I hurry along the path, tripping over the wooden handle of a rake he has left lying there. I turn quickly in the hope he hasn’t seen my slapstick clumsiness. But of course he has, and it’s amused him. My cheeks blush and I feel it spread to my chest and neck.

‘Mum,’ I shout as I enter the hallway. ‘Who’s that man in your garden?’

I find her in the kitchen, arranging biscuits in a circle on a plate. They’re the posh Waitrose cookies with the chunks of white chocolate and cranberries I left here for us as a treat. I watch as she pours water from a kettle into a teapot. There’s no steam coming from it so I assume she’s forgotten to boil it again.

‘It’s Paul, isn’t it,’ she says matter-of-factly, as if he’s here daily and I’m the one with dementia, not her.

‘Paul who?’

‘Paul Whatshisname.’

Something catches in my nostrils. I think it’s perfume. I inhale with a little more effort. Yes, she’s definitely wearing perfume. Something light and lavender-like. I can’t remember the last time I smelled a scent on her that wasn’t shower gel or Deep Heat. I look her up and down and realise it’s not the only change. She’s pencilled over the gaps in her eyebrows, and put a little blush on her high cheekbones and foundation on her forehead and chin which hastaken away her ghostliness. It’s enough to make me forget what she’s become. She was beautiful once, and still is a very striking woman. I’ll never know what it’s like to rely on my looks to get by.

I take the kettle and refill it, then flick the switch to boil it. ‘Why is he cleaning out the gutters?’

‘The vicar asked him to. Reverend Edwards said there was a charity that matches handymen and women for odd jobs and gardening work that people like me need doing.’ She trails off and taps at her head. She hates saying either ‘dementia’ or ‘Alzheimer’s’. Instead, it’s referred to with a gesture. ‘I said yes, he should get in touch with them. I must have forgotten to mention it.’

Since I moved here to look after her, I’ve become used to being relied upon to do everything. It’s just me and her, living in our own little bubble. So I should be grateful that the gutters will be one less thing to worry about. Yet I feel a little irked that it’s being done without my prior knowledge, and I’m treating Paul’s visit as a failure on my part. I need to snap out of it.

I drop a fresh teabag into the pot, pour in some boiling water and swap my good biscuits with her plain digestives before carrying them out to him. She follows closely behind me.

I wave to get his attention again and leave the tray on the wall. He replies with the tipping of an imaginary hat and my goosebumps return. What kind of effect is he having on me! I shake my head in the hope that it’ll dissipate the blush from my cheeks. I can’t deny that he’s handsome, but then, I doubt he would deny it either. I’ve learned the hard way that you can never trust a good-looking man who knows the power of his own appearance.

CHAPTER 3

ZAINAB JENKINS, NEIGHBOUR

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