Pollywasher
An extract from my short story Pollywasher:
2. Nancy Next Door
“I don’t really believe in gambling do I? I mean, I go with my mum to the bingo to keep her company, just a couple of cards to be sociable. Never win anything, though my mum has had a couple of touches but then the amount she spends she’s bound to. She won’t have got back what she’s spent will she? Barbara though. That was her life, her whole life from what I could tell, never nothing but betting on the horses and on the dogs and the casino. She’s borrowed milk off me that I’ll never see again will I? She used to get all fancied up, don’t know how she afforded that. The feller I suppose.
I did take to her though, when I got to know her, you know? We met on the landing and had a chat a couple of times, then she invited me in for a cuppa. Somehow I ended up telling her about all my trouble and about my boy being arrested and she was dead nice about it all. A lot of people, they judge you don’t they? But I could tell she didn’t judge and because she was so nice I was crying into my tea. So she gave me another with some whiskey in it and she cheered me up no end. I took to her for that. That lovely Coronation Street way of talking she has settled me down. We were different but together because people talked about us and looked down on us but we didn’t care.
Her feller was from round here I think. He wasn’t always around, he came and he went but he sounded like he was local. I only ever heard him through the wall, mind. She seemed to hang on to him, but I can’t think why because we used to hear him through the walls, yelling and shouting. Why do nice ladies put up with all that? And there were bangs, like something being thrown against the wall. I can’t tell you what went off that night that he must have died but I can’t help thinking that he probably deserved what he got. Because he had been at it again, I can tell you that much. Shouting, banging, oh it was such a row. The front door opened and shut so many times I lost count. I says to the coppers when we found the body, “there might have been a dozen in and out of there from the times that the door went”. But then my other neighbour said it might just have been her trying to get away from him and him dragging her back in so you just don’t know. My husband banged on the wall twice but it didn’t do anything, probably wasn’t even noticed. I wanted to go round there and see what was going off. I says to my husband “right, that’s it, I’m going round there” but he says “oh no you’re not, you’re not getting mixed up in that, I’m not having you laid across the landing with a broken face, it’s none of your business anyway.” So I says to him “well won’t you at least go round and tell him to keep it down?” but he said he wasn’t getting mixed up in it. None of our business. He turned the telly up and that was that. I wondered about going down to the phone box to fetch the coppers up. But then it all went quiet so I left it. I mean it went really quiet, no sounds at all. That seemed a bit strange as well. I never heard the front door go at all after that.
And that’s how it went on for days afterwards. Not a sound. Not a lavatory being flushed or the sound of the telly. I thought she must have bundled him out and then done a moonlight flit after everyone else was asleep. I didn’t blame her, that’s the best way to get rid of men like that, just disappear, but I felt a bit upset that she’d gone without saying goodbye. But then you see, I think you know what happened next? That smell, that’s how we knew. I fetched up the caretaker because of the stench which was worse if you went out on the landing and stood in front of Barbara’s door. So I fetched up old Rod and I says to him “Either the drains have gone wrong or there’s something gone rotten and that flat’s empty. You’d better go in and have a look hadn’t you?” Well he messed with his keys and with the door and he finally got in and I’l tell you what, wasn’t I glad I wasn’t following him? It was like a brick wall of smell. He went in and the next thing, I could hear him heaving and the next thing he came out all green and white and he threw up on my doormat. I says to him “Oh God, poor Barbara, what’s he done to her?” I sort of knew it must be a body you see. I think something at the back of my mind recognised the smell at last because when I was little my father had worked in an abattoir for a couple of years. Anyway, Rod says to me “It's not an her, it’s an him. She’s done away with him I reckon.” Well, you could have knocked me down because I wouldn’t have said that she’d have it in her, but I suppose we all have our limits. It was razor blades what done it. I don’t think they know if it was her or if he did it himself or if it was someone else who done him in and run off with her. I don’t like seeing Barbara in trouble. Her sister came to the flat with the police and she seemed lovely as well. She says “She hasn’t done it, our Barbara wouldn’t do that. She’s been on the edge of the law before but she wouldn’t hurt anyone.” Then she said “She didn’t even like picking daisies to make daisy chains when we were little, that’s how gentle she was.” Isn’t that lovely? I believe her, I think the same. Barbara’s out there somewhere or they would have found her body by now. Good luck to her, I say.”
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