the house where nobody lived

Dame left the car in the street around the corner; a battered down rusty tin can he’d owned for the best part of a decade. His suit was neat, dark and expensive, his hair lightly greased, his face scrubbed and shaved, his shoes polished. He had spent an effort in front of the mirror that morning; wringing his hands over and over, scrubbing his face after a shower until he felt his nose would break if he didn’t stop, and shaving; shaving till he felt he could shear no further but to cut himself.

At twenty-four years Nora was found in the orchard. Her brother had searched for three days when she had not come home. “You could have died of pneumonia”, said Kathleen. She was found asleep against the trunk of a small tree clutching a bottle to her chest and now, she supposed, they all knew why. In the village they talked for a little while, “like they tend to do”,

Dame, at thirty-nine years of age had worked as an office clerk, a bartender, he once drove a taxi for a few months and now, for the past seven had been employed as a civil servant. Each day he drove the hour -long road to the city, stopping and starting the whole way there and back.

Nora woke as usual. She lay, staring at the ceiling, waiting for a reply that wouldn’t come. It was almost seven by the time she stuttered to the kitchen, boiled a kettle, toasted bread and threw it all in the bin. Her sister who she had tried to convince to stay over, to sleep in the study, “in case he shows early Kathleen that’s all” was to arrive by eight, and Dame, Dame had written and said he would call ‘in and around ten’, and he had signed the letter in beautiful liquid ink, ‘Hopefully Yours’, and post-scripted an apology in tender language, and there was nothing it seemed in the kitchen but the clock on the wall that ticked and never tocked. Tick, tick….

Dame fed the dog. He made breakfast for the kids who would be downstairs once their mother negotiated it; once her good humour turned to temper; once one of them went too far and made a meal over brushing their teeth, or making their bed. And in the kitchen a giant spider climbed the wall, a bird flew into the greenhouse in the garden, a cat under the tree scurried away when the dog appeared. And Dame stood by the window and saw it all, quiet and tired and eager for the day to end.

And in the kitchen Nora sighed and shuddered. She played with the radio, spinning the dial with the volume down low; too low to hear the songs her ears were too old for. She sprinkled flakes in the fish bowl, she polished the taps of the sink until they shined silver again.

And in the kitchen Dames wife breezed in. She crept up behind him, her arms folding over his front. She whispered something he didn’t hear. He breathed out for perhaps the first time that morning and she tightened around him.

And Kathleen edged through the back door at a quarter to, shoulder first as if anticipating a tackle. “Well?” And they sat, and hardly spoke a word, the two sisters and the clock. And Dame… and Dame, and what a lovely name and she wished it were hers.

And in a town not far away at all Dame left the house. He kissed his children, two little boys of seven and nine soon to be ten and held his youthful wife close, as though he wasn’t coming back in one piece and again she offered to go with him. And at eight o’clock he sat in the bottle green car behind the wheel in the driveway and considered it for a moment. And hoped… that all, for the most part would be well and but how was he to know.

A café that sat out on the pavement nudged towards the road was busy and dark, but by half past had quietened to only he and a young man who read a broadsheet paper and tried to look older than he was. Dame smoked the guts of a pack of cigarettes, drank two too many coffees and used the bathroom over and over until ten past nine. He spoke to a young mother with a squealing child who seemed as though she had maybe not slept for a fortnight. He pulled a face into the pushchair, and the baby smiled and stopped crying for a little moment, and his mothers face lifted as the brief ceasefire took hold. Dame read a tabloid, he tried to eat, he paid at the counter, he used the last of his loose change to tip the waitress who smiled and was pleasant, he took the ticket from his windshield, he placed it in the glove box with not a hint of annoyance and he drove away.

Kathleen boiled the kettle for the last time that morning; her third occasion. Nora pulled a hanky from her chest pocket and folded it together creased and perfect and replaced it. Her hands shivered a little every time she heard a car slowly pass by. Kathleen paced the floor with her soft heels tapping a hollow rhythm on the stones, and the clocked ticked relentlessly. “Jesus” she muttered into herself and to Nora who smiled and felt sicker the longer it went on. She had changed from her nightgown into a smart and tidy suit that had been picked out a week ago in a department store in the town.

She had taken a bus in the afternoon. In the morning she tipped all the money from the jar on to the table, all pennies and coppers and rusty green coins. She stacked them in neat piles and put them all in bags and took the bus and went to town, into the bank and when the young woman behind the counter seen her coming, clinking and rattling along, she had that look on her face. And Nora smiled awkward as the coins were counted again, all twenty minutes long she stood grinning like an old fool as the young woman’s eyes reached for the ceiling over and over. And there was a lot there by the end of it, the woman had said so, enough to buy ‘something nice’, And with crisp new notes Nora felt her way through the town busy with bustle. She had a nice lunch, a white coffee and a chat with the nice young man who brought the bill. She bought the suit and took the bus home again.

At half past nine Dame took the road out of town. He drove slowly and stopped at a garage. He filled the tank and cleaned the windscreen with dirty water in a bucket. He bought a cheap coffee and packet of mints and threw the coffee in the bin as he left. He waited behind for a car to pull back out on to the road. He could feel himself gripping too hard on the wheel, he could feel his shoulders taut and his head spin from the cigarettes. And then the other car was gone and he was waiting for the traffic to pass.


.
And in a traffic jam not far up the road Dame and his bottle green car waited at the back of the queue for the light to change. He lit a cigarette leaving only three in the pack and cracked the window. He undid the seatbelt he had considered not putting on at all and the queue trailed away before him. He stopped, two cars from the lights. He would take his second left and follow the orchard past the post office and the butcher shop where the road would be clear. He would take a right at the red roofed barn and turn down the hill, down towards the house.

“Fifteen minutes or so Nora…. Nora? …. Nora?”
Nora stood at the sink. She washed a cup, a plate, three forks and six knives.
“Nora…?”
“Kathleen, you should go home and wait. I would prefer that.”

The red roofed barn…
… tick

Down the hill and into the housing estate…
… tick

Nora sat alone in the kitchen. It was cold. She shivered worse and could feel in her stomach it was all about to come together, and everyone would know soon one way or the other and how that didn’t bother her, not in the littlest way And now all she could think was, will he look like me and that probably he never did not.

Kathleen left by the front door and walked the footpath. She turned the corner onto Toll Street, she passed the postman, the bus stop, a bottle green car and two school children who jumped the fence and ran up the trail to spend the day in the orchard swinging at the ruby piñatas still too ripe to eat.

Dame sat still in the car. 9:58…

…9.58


9:59… He phoned his wife,

… just to hear her voice.

9:59…

…in and around ten.

… and when the door gently wrapped and Nora got to her feet and saw her son, and he looked, just so much like he should have, and there he was and there was nothing but nothing to say… and the clock went quiet and the ticking took to tocking and the house was suddenly a home because that’s always where he was going, he was just a little late.