I rang my telephone number the other day, just to hear it ringing in my old house. No one would be there, I thought, so I could just listen to the brr…brr and imagine my ghost getting up from the chair by the window, ever so slowly, and moving towards the phone. I would be expectant, wondering if it was Georgio, or Libby, who would greet me with “Oh, you are still alive then? That’s good. Come round for dinner”.
Not that it was the first time I had rung my home number. This was a regular thing for me; it somehow seemed to make the days bearable. It’s not that the people were unkind, or the other residents unpleasant. They just didn’t seem to be there: their eyes either did not focus on you, or peered at you as if through a fog.
There were no interesting books in the library, either. Georgio and Libby brought me in a catalogue from one of the bookstores in the city, and I became quite dizzy putting together my order, dizzy with starvation and longing.
I once found a romance novel by Fabio, complete with fold-out poster of the author, wedged firmly at the back of one of the shelves in the library, and carried it into the lounge room to leave him displayed in all his glory upon the coffee table. The next day he was gone. (I found him a few weeks later, in the garden, firmly wedged behind a hydrangea.)
The home was not my own private place. It did not have my stamp on it, apart from the room in which I slept. There were books on shelves, books on the table, on the floor, peeping out from under the bedcover, on the windowsill. And I threw open the windows whenever I could, letting in noisy old flies that buzzed here and there, around my plate of pink wafers, chocolate biscuits, shortbread, and eclairs, and almost dying a horrible death in my chipped cup full of milky tea.
When a lizard came in, I watched him watch me. His little head jerked from side to side, cautious but curious. It reminded me of the man in the next room, who only ever opened his door a tiny crack in response to my knocking, and jerked his head in exactly the same way. (He usually shouted though, and wasn’t fearful of anyone, let alone an old woman.)
Well, anyway, as I said, I rang my home number the other day, and settled back to listen to the sound, when the ringing was stopped by the intrusion of a voice. I was taken aback, and dropped the phone back onto the receiver. But it was my home! Why should I be frightened? Who was this person inhabiting my comfortable dream, while I was stuck in a little room in a big building full of strangers? In my indignation, I picked up the phone and pressed the redial button.
“Hello?”
“Hello.”
Pause.
“Ah, who is calling?”
“Oh, I’m a friend of Rachel’s. Is she home?”
“Rachel? Is that the name of the lady who used to live here? No, I’m afraid she’s gone to a nursing home. I’m just cleaning.”
“Used to live there? Nursing home? She never said anything to me about it! Was she ill?”
“Oh, well, I don’t know I’m afraid. I actually didn’t know her myself. I suppose most people who go into nursing homes are not fit enough to look after themselves.”
“Quite.”
I was wanting to keep the conversation going, but my mind threatened to fail me.
“Well, if you didn’t know her, how do you come to be in her house?”
“I’m cleaning,” the voice replied, more slowly and loudly than before.
“You sound very young.”
“Oh, yes. Everyone says that. I’m older than I sound though. Look older, too.”
“But who asked you to clean her house?”
“Oh, her kids. They felt it should be neat and tidy for the real estate agents.”
“But she doesn’t have any children! What are you talking about? What real estate agents…”
I became slightly hysterical then, and bombarded the poor voice with all sorts of questions, desperate and unreasonable. When I drew a breath, the voice took its cue.
“Look I don’t know who you are, but I’m just here to clean Mrs Robinson’s house, okay? Maybe you should get in touch with her family.”
Slam.
Mrs Robinson? But my name’s not Robinson! The horror of my home being taken away from me confused my thoughts, and I got up from my chair to leave my room. I reached for the door handle, then realised I must have dialled the wrong number. But how could I have done that? Oh God, I thought, I’m losing it, like Fiona. My friend hobbles up and down the corridor now, naked, leaving deposits of excrement to mark her trail. Was I going to join her? Was my behaviour a sign? Did living here do this to people?
I opened my door, and stepped into the scrubbed, but still faintly smelly, corridor, to see my hermit neighbour turn from his door, and shuffle up to the kitchen. No one else was making any noise, so I walked with my cotton-wool steps through the nearest door into the garden, and just kept going, convinced someone would stop me at any moment.
Once I reached the traffic lights at the bottom of the street, I had straightened my back a little, and worked up the courage to look around me. Fortunately I had lived in the area so long its geography was cemented into my memory. But then, I had
thought that of my own phone number.
I knew there was a taxi rank not far up the road, and I focussed my energies on reaching it. There were three cars waiting for customers, and I bent down at the window of the leading driver.
“Can you take me to 11 Windowlea Crescent, please?”
He grunted encouragingly, and we sped off. I wanted to talk, but it seemed that every time I thought of a comment, we hurtled around a corner, and my breath was knocked out of me. We stopped with a jerk outside my house.
“Oh dear,” I said, “I don’t have any money on me. Can you wait while I go in and get my purse?”
He glanced at me, and grunted again, slowly, but did not seem to object. I got out, feeling uncertain, and hoped I had some coins left in the house to pay the fare.
When I was in the garden, I realised I had no keys either, and a dreadful paralysed sort of feeling came over me, as if I really was losing my mind, and with it, my ticket to belong to the outside world.
I kept walking, round to the back of the garden, and sensed the strong decay of leaves and unwatered plants, and growing grass, perhaps even the odd deceased animal hidden in the bushes. I remembered the time I found the beautiful white cat, like a miniature polar bear, perfect in death, as if the tiny organisms and ants could not bring themselves to start their healthy munching on such a creature. I was loathe to interfere with this secret place, and left it alone.
If I could find that spot now, there would be only a few bones, if that. Maybe I too could lie down in my garden, and die quietly where no one would find me, in complete peace. But the taxi driver was waiting, his meter ticking over, his patience leaking with every new grunt. I leaned on the rail of my back steps, and grasped the handle of the door, half-expecting it to open.
When it didn’t, I looked at the laundry window. For God’s sake, I thought, I’m too old to start breaking into my own house, clambering through windows, arthritic joints seizing up at the crucial moment, leaving me odd-angled and undignified. Fine thing too if I ended up with a broken hip or leg, or head. But I had to try anyway, if only for the taxi driver.
And so I pushed and prodded that old window, and as if it recognised my lumpy fingers, it actually began to yield, until, quite smoothly, it opened, like a magic doorway. I reached around as far as I could, before hearing a rustling noise and a grunt behind me.
“Forgotten your keys, lady?”
“Oh, yes, yes. I’m so sorry to keep you waiting, but I realised just now I had left my keys inside! I feel so silly.”
“I might be able to get around that window a bit easier.”
And he did. His large arm extended through and around and over, like a concertina, and he clicked the latch. The door almost sprang open, it was so shocked to be handled by such a masculine force. I moved inside, in my old woman way, fueled with embarrassment more than anything else.
The air was stale, and the dust had gently but suffocatingly formed blankets over everything. I was eager to find money to pay the man, who had suddenly become menacing. I don’t know why. Maybe the concertina arm, and the prospect of it being able to reach out and grab me by the neck, wherever I was in the house, frightened me.
In my bedroom, still with its adornments, I found a five dollar note and some one and two dollar coins, scattered through the remnants in my dresser. You see, I always intended to come back, and had insisted that some things stay in the house, because I had not really wanted to go. After my illness, the nurse had insisted I should be cared for, and a nursing home would be best, as I had no family to stay with me.
“What about my friends? They’ll come to stay with me. I’m not an invalid.”
“But Mrs Thorne…”
“Miss Thorne.”
“Miss Thorne, you need a lot of nursing care, and supervision, and you can’t be expected to keep your house clean and your garden tidy all by yourself. And friends, wonderful though they are, cannot be expected to carry out 24 hour care, can they?”
I couldn’t afford to get people in to help me, and I didn’t want to be a burden on my friends, and I didn’t want to fall over and break a bone, and lie in pain and urine and faeces for three days. So I gave in. But I would come back.
The driver was wandering around the garden, looking up every now and then to see if I had appeared with his money. When I did, he walked over to the steps, took the five dollar note out of my hand, and sauntered around the side of the house, out of sight. I heard him drive off in a rush.
My house was now mine again. I was alone within it, and felt a sudden gush of well-being, as if I were in control of things rather than being told to do this or that by someone else.
I walked through, quite slowly, breathing in the atmosphere, dust and all. I stopped, and an impulse led me to the telephone, still sitting on its special table, with notepad, pencil, and phone books. Of course, I couldn’t remember my number at the nursing home, so I looked up the main one, and dialled it. It rang five times, and then a woman’s voice pierced my ear with her well-rehearsed greeting. I did not know her, and she did not know me, so I just asked to be put through to Rachel Thorne’s room.
Then I sat down on my old chair, and listened to the brr…brr until it rang out. No ghosts materialised to answer, so I felt assured no important part of me had been left behind.
© Sue Bond 2000
Published in the late Imago: New Writing, Vol. 12, No. 1, 2000
