It frightened Deborah when the telephone rang. Get rid of it, her husband would say. No need for a landline, in this day and age. It was a comfort to her, she’d reply. It reminded her of being little. She remembered then, the old avocado phone.

The telephone kept ringing.

You could always tell someone was ringing the avocado phone because it disturbed the air a second before. It used to be nice chatting to the grown-ups calling for her parents.

The telephone kept ringing.

Deborah padded across the hall in slippers but when she put the receiver to her ear the line was dead. From the window she couldn’t see the moon but she could see moonshine on the wet patio and on the roof of her husband’s Mini-Metro. Rain beat down on the old green motor, parked on the hill, unmoved almost a year since James had gone. The tyres had flattened and it was gathering rust. Inside a paper coffee cup in the drinks holder and a couple of golf scorecards in the passenger footwell.

Deborah poured herself a glass of sherry and went to bed.

Tuneless whistling. Deborah’s eyes came unstuck. She looked at the bedside clock and groaned. Outside the man was singing now. Deborah joined in, singing into her pillow:

The more we get together,

Together, together,

The more we get together,

The happier we’ll be.

A dark shape moved behind yellow curtains. A squeegee squeaked across the wet glass and light filtered in through the soap casting shadows. Deborah looked at the bedside clock. That bloody window cleaner. He’d been coming every fortnight for almost a year. The windows didn’t need cleaned that often but she hadn’t the heart to tell him; didn’t want the hassle. She dressed quickly by the long mirror and ran a brush through her air. It alarmed her, her reflection, the changes that had come about. 

When the window cleaner finished there’d be a knock on the door and he’d be wanting paid. 

“Cash in hand, love. Champion.”

It was an effort to be rid of him when he stood at her doorstep with the village gossip: Mr Williamson lost his job again and was always on the machines at Paddy’s bookmakers; Mrs Weebly had The Elders in and was considering a move to America; It was Old Miss Docherty’s birthday but she couldn’t remember what age she was.

“Gone full Tonto that one. Shame.” 

She wondered what he said about her to the neighbours. More than once he’d invited himself into her home for a cup of coffee. 

“No more of that good stuff?” he said in the kitchen, when she set down a mug of instant. Then she fetched the cafetiere and the Colombian ground from the fridge.

He sipped the hot coffee.

“Champion.”

Deborah sat opposite at the little round dining table, under the window. Watery light splashed in through the glass and onto the face of the window cleaner, giving his face an angular look, darkening the sockets of deep-set eyes.

“My Julie passed her driving test. That Mini would be a nice little runabout. Perfect for scooting about town. Shame to let it sit there, and rot.”

Deborah managed a smile, smoothing out the creases in her trousers with the palms of her hands.

The window cleaner looked down at the hands on her thighs.

“Got anything to eat in that fridge, love?”

Two weeks later, Deborah’s cheek felt hot from the sun that shone through the windscreen. She sat up in the backseat of the Mini and rubbed the crick in her neck, her head pulsing with pain from every heartbeat. 

‘Cause your friends are my friends

And my friends are your friends.

She turned round and could see the window cleaner up on his ladders, soaping the glass with a sponge. Down at her feet were some coloured golf tees and an empty bottle, the air thick and sweet with stale sherry.

The more we get together,

The happier we’ll be.

Deborah clambered into the driver’s seat and her dress peeled from the leather where liquor had spilled. She put the keys in the ignition and the engine turned over. She tried again but it wouldn’t start. She could hear the window cleaner laugh and he was shouting something but she could only make out, “-love.” In the rear-view mirror she could see him begin a descent down the ladders.

Deborah released the handbrake.

The Mini-Metro began to roll and was reversing down the driveway, reluctant at first but gathering speed with the rubber tyres flapping and smacking concrete.

The car hit the ladders and then the house and Deborah’s lips burst red on the steering wheel. 

When she got out her lip stung in the cold. The window cleaner lay slumped on the drive with his legs under the car. Deborah looked down at him: he was smiling: he whispered:

“Champion.”

October 2022