Page 53 of The First Time I Saw You
The sun comes out; I can hear the rain scampering away down drains as my cane splashes into a few puddles which hang about like bored teenagers around a local shop. I need a way of shedding my stalker-like approach; I need to make them feel important. My eyes focus on the black door and I reach for a knocker shaped into an owl’s face. Weird.
‘Hi,’ I say as I’m met with a small, hairy-chested man. I get the feeling that he isn’t wearing trousers, but I don’t want to look down and check. ‘I’m a journalist and I work for theShropshire Gazette,’ I say, keeping my fingers crossed that there is a newspaper of that name. ‘I’m due to interview Helen Yates.’
‘There is no newspaper called theShropshire Gazette,’ the hairy-chested man tells me.
Feck.
‘It’s new,’ I say, making a mental note to google local newspapers before I try the next house.
‘Sorry, you must have the wrong address, mate.’
‘Ah, thanks for your time anyway.’
The street is long; so, so long. Numbers forty-one to forty-five are a miscellany of the British public. Number forty-one belongs to a man who opens the door a crack, revealing a key chain, still fastened; his suspicious eyes making me envisage a shotgun hidden behind the door. Number forty-two is a woman in a top so low-cut that my whole field of vision is filled with her cleavage; I chat with her for a while and tell her all about my job at theShropshire Star(thank you, Google); the next house along, I’m met by the deep voice of a man encased inside a large woman’s body . . . notwithstanding my limited field of vision, all I can focus on are the four protruding hairs on her chin. Number forty-four belongs to a tired-looking woman, desperate blue eyes ringed with dark shadows. Her children are arguing in the background and the look in her eyes makes me think that if I offered to take her children off her hands, she would let me, without a second glance.
The sun is relentless. I roll my neck around and shake the edge of my collar to let some air in, then follow my stick and the cracks in the block-paved drive to the next house, but there is a step that my stick doesn’t find; I’m too busy looking at the strange gargoyle that has snuck into my vision. I fall flat on my face and my teeth bite into my lip as my chin scrapes the slabs. For God’s sake, this is the fifth time I’ve tripped over the steps on this street. I hear a door fly open and the toe of a black work boot kicks through my absconded peripheral vision.
‘God, mate, are you OK?’ I pull myself into a sitting position as the man helps me up. He lets go of me and then pushes my cane into my hand. ‘You’re bleeding. Do you want to come in and get cleaned up?’
‘Thanks, if it’s not too much bother?’ He walks off ahead as I begin to beat the cane along the drive. I hear that his footsteps have stopped and then his large nose is all I can see.
‘Do you need me to, you know, help you?’ I can hear in his tone that this is awkward for him. It’s the first time really that I’ve felt like I’m different to everyone else. It’s not that he is being rude or unkind, but there is that hint of the uncomfortable, of how to ‘deal’ with me.
‘Would you mind if I grabbed your elbow?’ I ask, swallowing down my pride.
‘Right, I mean, sure . . . it’s just up these steps.’
‘How many steps?’ I ask.
‘Oh, I’ve never really counted them . . . four, four steps and then another small step up into the porch.’
The house smells and sounds like a home: the lingering smell of a hot oven, the sounds of the telly blaring kids’ programmes from where I presume is the lounge. He leads me into the kitchen; the tunnel lets in images of kids’ crayons, of discarded sweet wrappers and crockery draining on the sink. I can smell laundry detergent and a bin that needs emptying as the man guides me into a chair at the table. I hear him ripping sticky plastic back from something that I then realise is a packet of baby wipes. He hands it to me and I begin to wipe at the corner of my mouth. I feel awkward doing this; I have no idea if there is blood all over my face.
‘You’ve got some, um, on your cheek.’ I move the baby wipe.
‘Left a bit.’ I move it left a bit. ‘Up a bit.’ Upwards I go. ‘No, no, back where you just were . . . shall I just?’ He takes the baby wipe from me and he – coughing a sort of manly cough – begins to roughly wipe my face. This. Is. New.
‘Thanks, you’re the first man I’ve ever had a facial off.’
‘It’s the first facial I’ve ever given to a man, so we’re even.’ We both make guffawing noises to confirm our masculinity.
‘Your front tooth is chipped, but your mouth isn’t bleeding,’ he comments as I hear the bin lid clang open. ‘You might need to see a dentist.’
‘Ah, that’s been there years. Al Turner – illegal tackle.’
‘Illegal tackle?’
‘Yeah. I used to play rugby.’
‘But you’re—’ His arm moves about, gesturing my sight.
‘Oh, I haven’t been blind all my life. Just this year . . . I had an accident. It’s a long story.’
A lumbering silence fills the air; it’s louder than the TV, louder than the washing machine on its spin cycle, louder than the repeating drip from the tap. ‘I’m a journalist,’ I say, ‘I work for theShropshire Star.’
‘Is that so?’ he says, his voice losing the ease of a moment ago.
‘I’ve got an appointment with Helen Yates. Do you know her?’
