Banishing Verona

He had replaced five lightbulbs that day and by late afternoon could not help anticipating the soft
ping
of the filament flying apart whenever he reached for a switch. The third time, the fixture in the hall, the thought zigzagged across his mind that these little explosions were a sign, like the two dogs he had come across in the autumn, greyhound and bulldog, locked together on the grassy slope of the local park. He had given them a wide berth; still, he had felt responsible when on the bus next day a man turned puce and fell to the floor. By the fifth bulb, though, he had relinquished superstition and was blaming London Electricity. Some irregularity in the current, some unexpected surge, was slaughtering the bulbs. He pictured a man at head office filling his idle minutes by pulling a lever. Meanwhile, hour by hour he emptied the upstairs rooms, slipping the bulbs from bedside lights and desk lamps.

He had just replaced the fifth bulb when the doorbell rang. Often, if he were up a ladder, Zeke didn't bother to answer the knocks and rings of late afternoon; the owners of the house, the Barrows, were away and the callers were never for him. But now the pallor of the sky, the flashes of light and dark, the weariness of working alone, all conspired to make even the prospect of rebuffing
a smartly dressed double-glazing salesman, or a disheveled collector for Oxfam, a pleasure. Last Friday, in a similar mood, he had found a boy on the doorstep, thin as a junkie, pretending to be blind. He had the dark glasses, the cane, the fluttery stuff with the hands. You're a painter, he had said, sniffing slightly. Zeke had given him fifty pence. Later he had looked out of the window and seen the boy sitting on a wall, reading a newspaper.

He set aside the wallpaper steamer and went to open the front door. On the doorstep a woman, minus collecting tin or clipboard, filled his vision. He hadn't replaced the hall bulb yet, and in the dim light her features took a moment to assemble. He made out abrupt dark eyebrows above a substantial nose and plump, glistening lipsâthe opposite of pretty.

Briefly, Zeke was baffled. Then he went through the steps he'd learned from the poster he'd been given at the clinic. Eyes wide, a glimpse of teeth, corners of the mouth turning up rather than downâusually these indicated a smile, which could, he knew, mean anger but often meant the opposite. Yes, she was smiling, although not necessarily for him. Her expression had clearly been prepared in advance, but he admired the way she held her face steady at the sight of him, and of his work clothes. His jeans and shirt were so paint-spattered as to be almost a separate entity.

“Good afternoon.” She stretched out a hand and, seeing his, white with plaster, faltered, neither withdrawing nor completing the gesture.

“Hi,” he said, hating the single stupid syllable. She was tall for a woman, his height save for the step, and dimly familiar, though not as herself. As she began to speak, he realized who she reminded him of: the bust of Beethoven on his father's piano, something about the expansiveness of her features, the way her tawny hair sprang back from her forehead.

“I'm the Barrows' niece,” she said.

In the cold air her breath streamed toward him, feathery plumes, carrying more words, perhaps an entire sentence, which Zeke lost as he took in the little beads of moisture on her upper lip.
When her mouth stopped moving he said, “I'm Zeke, the painter. The Barrows are away.”

“But they told you I was coming,” she said, with no hint of a question. He was still wonderingâhad they or hadn't they?âwhen she stooped, and he saw that she was not alone. Before he could offer to help she swept past him, a suitcase in each hand. He turned from closing the door to find she had set the cases at the foot of the stairs and was standing in the doorway, surveying the living room. Under the influence of her attention, Zeke saw again what his work had revealed: the ragged plaster painted not a single color but in pale bands of blue and brown, gray and yellow, the work of some artist he couldn't name. In the middle of the floor, like an ungainly prehistoric animal, squatted the furniture, piled up and draped in dust sheets.

“Cool,” she said. “You could do a mural, hunting and fishing, golfing and shopping.”

“I don't think your aunt and uncleâ” Then he caught himself: humor. That had always been tricky for him. Even a question about a hen crossing the road could make him pause. “I told them it was a big job. You never know what you'll find underneath the paper. And Emmanuel, the guy who helps me, did his back in.”

“How?” she said.

“What?”

“How”âshe patted the small of her own backâ“did he hurt his back?”

“Reaching for a corner, he claims. Snooker, not painting.” In the bare space their voices emerged as if they were on a stage. Hers was unusually deep, warm, and melodious. It made him think of the chiming of his favorite clock. As for his, Zeke wasn't sure. He had read that humans hear their own voices through the jaw rather than the air; every time a tooth is lost or filled, the timbre changes.

“When are my aunt and uncle due back?”

“This Saturday, they told me.”

She moved her head up and down and finally took off her coat.
He had noticed earlier, returning from even a quick trip to the corner shop, how the emptiness of the room made it seem as if the cold had followed him indoors; in fact, the heating was on full blast (not his bill), and the house was snug as a tea cozy. She retreated to sling her coat over the banister and advanced into the room in the same greedy way she'd entered the house, her dark-green dress swaying as she walked. In the bay she turned, and he saw, silhouetted against the window, her belly.

“Don't,” she said, “let me interrupt your work.”

A sentence appeared in Zeke's head: I'd like to tie you to the bed. How did that get there, inside his brain, about this woman? He had never done, or even considered doing, such a thing. “I won't,” he said.

He was no longer certain she was ugly, only that he wanted to keep looking to make sure. But in the empty room he did not dare. This must be why people had furniture, not just for comfort but, like clothing, for camouflage. While he stood rooted beside his worktable, puzzling over these aberrant thoughts, she wandered from one spot to the next, talking about the time she had painted her room.

“I was fifteen,” she said, circling the fireplace, “when my parents agreed to let me do it. First I wrote on the wall the names of everyone I wanted to get rid ofâmother, father, brother, the boy at school who didn't like meâthen I slapped on the paint, unfortunately deep purple.”

“Did it work?” he asked, imagining all the things he could write.

Her head, her eyes, swung toward him and he had the sense of being seen at last. “Well, it worked for the boy at school, but not”âher eyebrows dashed togetherâ“for my brother.”

She walked over to examine the little tower of empty takeaway containers he had made, precariously balanced beside his worktable. Was he collecting them, she asked and, without waiting for an answer, launched into another story. Years ago, when she'd been hitchhiking outside Oxford, a man who sold these containers
had picked her up. “I remember it started to pour. The windscreen wipers were going full tilt and suddenly he said do you ever think of killing yourself? His voice was so casual, I thought I'd misunderstood.”

Zeke's skin prickled.

“Then he asked if I'd read
Steppenwolf.
I said yes, though to be honest I wasn't sure. It's one of those books that for a while was in the ether. I looked over at this stout middle-aged man, and his eyes were full of tears. I think of it every day, he said. There's always the razor and the knife.”

Was she trying to tell him she was upset, he wondered. If so, he needed to confess that he was no good at metaphors and subtexts and other people's problems. But already she was examining a roll of lining paper and asking its purpose. He explained about the old houses of London, how the walls were held up by wood-chip paper. When you removed it, which he'd spent the last three days doing, the only way to get a smooth finish was to put on new paper and paint over that.

“Let me make some tea,” he concluded, backing out of the room. In the kitchen, he hovered beside the dormant kettle and, to his own stupefaction, imagined telling her the story of his breakdown. Surely she would listen to him like she had the container salesman. Don't, he admonished. You only met her fifteen minutes ago. Even people he had known for years tended to back away when he mentioned his difficulties. As the kettle rumbled to a boil he heard a thud from the hall, followed by another. Her stockinged feet appeared in the doorway, and he understood not only the noises he'd just heard but those that came most nights through his bedroom ceiling: one shoe, two shoe.

“Which side are you on?” he said, offering a mug of tea.

“Roundheads or cavaliers? Arsenal or Chelsea? Flat earth or solar system?”

“Mr. or Mrs. Barrow. Whose niece are you?”

“Mister's, can't you tell?” She turned and, heels striking the floor, carried her tea upstairs.

Alone with his own tea, Zeke thought, I am profoundly boring. He searched high and low in the rooms of his brain, checking the long front hall, the living room, the dining room, the narrow stairs, and couldn't find a trace of disagreement.

Normally he quit at five, but today he kept pressing spackle into even the smallest cracks until close to six-thirty. Then, in the face of an unbroken silence from above, he admitted defeat. He tidied his tools, washed his hands, and called the news of his departure, wanly, up the stairs.

“Wait.” There she was on the landing. “Are you coming tomorrow? When?”

Her tawny hair was sticking up like a cockatoo's crest. “I aim for eight,” he told her. “Not to worry. I can let myself in.”

“I need keys.” She swam down the stairs into the light, stopping on the last one, hand outstretched. He should have guessed then from the way her hazel eyes fastened on his that something was awry, either she wasn't on good terms with her aunt and uncle or Ms. Fâweren't all fetuses female at first?âwas a problematic guest, but the warmth of her breath, the lilt of her perfume, expunged rational thought. Helpless, he laid the keys in her palm.

“Will you be up to let me in?” he said. One cheek, her left, bore the crease of a pillow.

“Up with the lark, up with the milkman.”

“Are you all right?” he found himself asking.

“Probably,” she said. And thenâsurely all the buses of London rose an inch into the airâshe leaned forward and pressed her lips, gently, to his.

The next morning Zeke rang the bell, knocked, tried the knob. The door stayed shut, the windows dark. Feeling like a dolt, he even bent down and called through the letter box. By the end of five minutes, he was holding on to himself, a kite on a gusty day. He fished around in his pockets, his bag, and was rewarded with a vision of his mobile phone in the pocket of his other jacket. As he
walked around the corner, he counted the cigarette butts in the gutterâsome crushed, some notâto keep himself from floating away. Seven, eight, eleven. Twice he had to stop and retrace his steps to make sure he hadn't missed one. Look down, he thought, not up. In the forecourt of the underground station, he saw a free phone and, trying not to think of all the hands, the mouths, that had passed this way, dialed the Barrows' number. The answering machine clicked on with a brief nasal message. She's stepped out for a paper, he told himself; she's taking a bath. Walking back, he forgot about the cigarettes and placed his feet securely in the middle of each paving stone.

At the house, nothing had changed. He knocked, rang, shouted again, before climbing in through the living room window. He had opened it the day before while using the steamer and, in the excitement of her arrival, neglected his usual security measures. Now the ease with which the sash slid up made him feel stricken. He had left her at the mercy of any passing vandal.

Inside he began to tiptoe toward the hall; then, reconsidering, attempted his normal stride. “Hello. Anyone home?”

He switched things on: kettle, radio, lights. Even the man at London Electricity had forgotten him. Everything worked perfectly. He made the obligatory cup of tea and set to work, but after ten minutes of sanding he couldn't stand it. The awful possibilityâshe was goneâleaped into his head and ricocheted around. He laid the sandpaper aside and, wiping his powdery hands on his jeans, climbed the stairs.

He had reconnoitered the first day he had the house to himself, as he always did, flitting through bedrooms, checking wardrobes and cupboards and the dark spaces beneath desks and tables. He wasn't snooping for kinky underwear or exotic substances but ratherâit was the way he coped with strange housesâlooking for a hiding place. Sometimes, when he felt particularly shaky, he even stored provisions there: a bottle of water, a packet of biscuits. Here at the Barrows', he'd chosen the pedestal desk in the study. With his knees drawn up, the wooden U was an almost perfect
fit. Now he moved from one lightbulbless room to another. In the master bedroom the tattered floral wallpaper made his teeth ache. Then the study, his hiding place, surrounded by machines: computer, printer, fax, even a photocopier. Last, the spare room, distinguished by the boxes stacked along the wall and the miscellaneous furniture.

Other books

Boyfriends with Girlfriends by Alex Sanchez

All We Know of Heaven by Jacquelyn Mitchard

White Gold Wielder by Stephen R. Donaldson

Punch by David Wondrich

The Magic Touch by Jody Lynn Nye

Pirate Dave and his Randy Adventures (Career Ending Romance Spoof) by Peterman, Robyn

The Great Good Summer by Liz Garton Scanlon

The Revelations by Alex Preston

Hija de Humo y Hueso by Laini Taylor

Taming the Dragon Collection by Jessica Ryan