Behind Closed Doors

                            Behind Closed Doors

    It was strange, how very many thoughts could be jostling, competing for space in her head in that one, small, moment. Her ears seemed to be straining for the sound of a footstep on the gravel, a key turning in the front door. What would Dad say? Was this right? Was this really what she wanted? So many questions. So many doubts.
Perched, somewhat awkwardly on the edge of a recently purchased three seater in the front room of Number Twelve Tranquillity Avenue, a slight girl, of about fifteen or sixteen could be observed through the latticed window, wrapped in the amateurish embrace of a similarly aged boy. Naivety exuded from them, but their spontaneous kiss suggested a sense of excitement, lacking in the practised relations of many older, more experienced couples. The girl was unable to relax. If either of their parents should return home, if they should be caught…But surely, if her father should be allowed to love, and to be loved by her companion’s mother, if they were to share the same house, then there could be no objection to similar feelings amongst their children. They were not blood relatives after all… but still she could not shake off a feeling of awkwardness, a sense that something just wasn’t right.
      Drinking in this touching scene, from his station underneath the lattices, was a man, dressed entirely in black. His clothing, as was his aim, ensured that as he emerged and retraced his steps across the modest, but nevertheless immaculate lawn he was nearly invisible in the evening light. Indeed, he moved with such a shadowlike quality that only the keenest observer could possibly have noticed his presence amongst the rhododendrons in front of Number 12. The man made no sound until he reached the gravel path that stretched from the gate, where he currently stood, to the house’s front door. Here, he placed one foot very deliberately on the stones, smiling cruelly as the satisfying “crunch” he had produced saw the young couple inside jump hurriedly back from each other in terror, before he disappeared into the hedge.
    In a nearly identical adjoining house, a woman reclined on a sofa that bore far more signs of wear and tear than its counterpart next door. There was a dark stain on one arm that stubbornly refused to be removed, despite numerous applications of expensive cleaning products - cheaper, she thought to buy a new sofa- and the springs had deteriorated over the years, to the extent that she was now lying, almost at floor level. The woman too was showing signs of aging, although it was clear to the spectral man -he had now taken up a similar station outside number fourteen- that she had once been very beautiful. There were bags beneath her eyes that had darkened recently and deep worry lines played over her forehead and around her mouth, but the legs that were just visible beneath her dressing gown were shapely, and her hair, scraped carelessly back from her face, looked soft, and well cared for.
      Like the girl next door, the woman was oblivious to her onlooker and, like the girl she too felt uneasy and preoccupied. Her husband had been late returning home so often recently. Occasionally he would phone, plying her with excuse after excuse, but more often nowadays he would simply return when he chose. She couldn’t decide which she preferred. It was, she supposed, better to be blissfully ignorant than to be directly lied to although, she thought with a humourless laugh, his explanations had sometimes been ridiculous so as to almost be amusing. She would never admit her suspicions of course, not even to herself really. No. She would always have an explanation, and she would continue to rise and pass the day in distracted socialising and home making in the hope that, if she could only please him enough, he may one day grow to love her again. But deep in her heart of hearts, hidden behind her painted smile, the miserable woman knew that her time had passed.
      Impatient, the watcher crept away from number fourteen. His place was not here. The person he had come to see was not so different from the destitute vision he had just been observing, but there was life in number fourteen yet, he suspected. Evening was drawing in, yet the shadowlike presence showed no hurriedness as he crossed the entrance to a cul de sac and settled himself outside a smaller building further down the street. He liked the darkness. It seemed in keeping with the job he had come to do and he appeared almost comfortable, squatting as he did below the window of number sixteen, a recently purchased bungalow.
      Harlequin curtains in varying pastel colours adorned the windows of the diminutive front room, and a sparkling yet highly impractical, pale blue carpet covered the floor. In the corner, two figures could be seen, gazing affectionately over the bars of a luxurious cot at what appeared to be a tiny bundle of blankets. As carefully as if he were handling a priceless Ming vase, the smaller of the two figures bent, and brushed a fold of blanket from the face of the minute baby. All was still in the room, and an air of quiet ecstasy hung over the small family. As one, the two men turned from their son’s cot, and returned, hand in hand, to their own room, closing the nursery door, softly behind them. With a feeling of abject bitterness in the presence of so much love, yet still retaining his calm exterior, the figure under the window vanished once again.
      It was bedtime, too, for the offspring of the adjoining residence, but the man was informed this time not by a sense of peace but by the muffled shouts and bangings that were issuing from their front room. It seemed that at Number Eighteen Tranquillity Avenue, things were running far from smoothly. He could have moved on instantaneously. A mere glance was enough to inform him that this was not his target house but, compelled by the exuding sounds of domestic distress, the dusky apparition moved unnoticeably around the side of the dwelling and watched the events that unfolded before him with an expression of grim acceptance.
      The living room of this second bungalow was sparsely furnished, with only a sagging armchair and a splintering coffee table to cover the patches of baldness in its drab, threadbare carpet. Two raucous children ran, screaming, in ever decreasing circles around a slight woman, also bawling, whilst a tiny infant, nestled in a corner of the armchair, proved, unusually, to be the only silent inhabitant of the room. The man watched as, desperately swiping, first at one small boy and then the other, their mother tried in vain to persuade them to their beds. Presently, one child tripped and collapsed into hysterical tears while the other continued his sprint, proceeding eventually to upend the small table, sending a cheap lamp and several half empty coffee cups crashing to the floor. The woman, exhausted, seized her chance and, tucking the wailing child under one arm, proceeded to herd the other, still running, out of the open door and towards the landing. The draft, as the door slammed shut behind her swept a single card bearing the message “ With Deepest Sympathy” from the mantlepiece, and as though on cue the baby began to snuffle, and then to cry.
      The woman returned, drawn by the child’s tears and with an air of unfathomable sadness not dissimilar to that of the beautiful wife at number fourteen returned the card to its place. It had been a nice gesture from the men next door, but it had changed nothing. It couldn’t bring back the husband and father that had been her all. He had been so much more patient than her, so much more adept at communicating with the two small boys that shared his boundless energy and curious streak of dark in their sandy mops of hair. And yet she found that more than the money, more than the extra pair of parenting hands she missed his arms, his soft voice, and his eyes as he told her he loved her, religiously, every night. A solitary tear rolled down her cheek, and fell with a heart-rending plop, onto the baby’s head.
      Feeling rather more disturbed than he would be inclined to admit, the shadow left his post and moved, this time with an increasingly impatient step, towards a slightly newer, more generously proportioned house standing alone and out of place in the centre of the Avenue. A quick glance through its elaborate bay window revealed a long dining table around which, were seated several, very glamorous middle aged Couples. At the head of the table, two men seemed absorbed in discussion. One cradled a generous glass of brandy and seemed to be nodding sagely at the other who was gesticulating passionately with his cigar. The attention of a third male, separated from his companions by an expanse of crisp white linen, appeared preoccupied by a curious looking woman in an austerely tailored trouser suit.
      The woman’s attire was unusual, particularly when compared with the other female members of the party, both of whom sported frilly cocktail dresses adorned with lavish amounts of jewellery. She had however, deigned to join her companions in sipping at a minute, technicoloured liquor rather than accompanying the men in their brandy as she would perhaps have preferred. It was noticeable to the spectral onlooker that the measure in her glass far exceeded those of the others, yet her behaviour was altogether more serious than the frivolity and flirtation they displayed. Indeed, she seemed to be the most secure in her senses of all the diners. The woman was currently engaged in deep conversation with the unattached man who, captivated by her serious grey eyes and her sharp dialogue had decided instantaneously that he simply must see her again. For her own part, she had enjoyed immensely his intelligent company and, had it not been for her permanent resolve never to allow herself any attachment to another member of the opposite sex ever, ever again, she might perhaps have been persuaded to grant him his request should he ever find the courage to make it. But, such were her circumstances, that even as she talked, she was contemplating the least crushing method of refusal she could employ. Her friends would be disappointed, she knew, but it was not their life. It was no-one’s life but hers now, and she would never again donate it to anyone else. Not even someone with eyes as engagingly frank as the pair that now held her gaze. Engaging frankness was something she had fallen for once before.
    The figure outside turned away quickly and made his stealthy way along the pavement. Number Twenty Two, came in the form of a neat little detached house surrounded on all sides by a wealth of assorted plants and foliage. The occasional weed could be seen, stubbornly protruding from between two blooms, but the gardens appeared cherished, and their presence the result of ineptitude, rather than neglect. If the heartbeat of the silhouette quickened as he stole towards the rear of the house it was not apparent. His footsteps remained noiseless and his movements so fluid that he appeared, once again, to blend seamlessly into the darkness that had descended over the street down which he had made his clandestine passage. The wall at the back of the dwelling was broken by a single large window and a plastic kitchen door, and he was careful to evade discovery as he made his way towards the second of these orifices.
    In the kitchen itself, seated at the scrubbed Formica topped table was a very elderly lady. She felt tired, but it was with quiet satisfaction that she surveyed the cleanliness of the room in which she sat. Scrubbing floors and wiping worktops no longer came easily to her, but she was stubborn, and even had help been offered she would, as a matter of principal, have attempted the task of cleaning herself. It was with a restful state of mind then, that the old woman clasped the dregs of a mug of cocoa in her gnarled fingers. She loved cocoa. It held a kind of nostalgia for her, since as young girl, she had always looked forward in particular to draining the sweet powder that collected, inevitably at the bottom of the cup. The eighty six year old was just raising the mug to her lips, in anticipation of her favourite moment of the day, when a soft tapping at the back door interrupted her musings. She set the cocoa down, in mild confusion, and, slowly and painstakingly eased herself from her chair. It was seldom that she received visitors these days, let alone so late in the evening. Little did the tiny lady know that her perplexity was to be short lived. She didn’t finish her cup of cocoa, she didn’t even have time to be frightened.