Lonie13

Audrey pulled back the curtains in Lonie’s house to let daylight in, but after getting a good look at the mess of the place she wanted to shut them again. She looked for a brush and shovel to sweep up. The Axminster carpet in the living room and the linoleum in the hallway and kitchen were crunchy underfoot. Cigarette stubs seemed to be peeking out from underneath tables and chairs, with one or two sitting conspicuously in the main passageways, as if waiting for fag dout breading season. She found a brush in the hall cupboard, but there was no shovel, so she used the coal shovel, banging it down first on the grate to clean off the worst of the coal dust. But when she pulled the curtain back, beneath the sink, to deposit her haul of tobacco debris she knew it was a mistake. The tin bucket beneath the sink was full to overflowing and she was sure she’d seen a mouse disappearing into the hole beneath the skirting boards. She felt sick and sat down on the bed. But even that seemed slimy and filthy against her hand. She quickly stood up again. Her thoughts drifted towards making tea, but the gas cooker pushed into the wall had a black hood that looked like a black mushroom cloud. She decided just to get washed and go into work early. Very early.

Audrey ran the geyser and the hot water fizzled into the sink. She didn’t like getting undressed in front of a window, but felt it was safe to wash her bottom half, as that would be screened by the sink. Audrey kicked off her dress. She picked up the purple towel from the nail hanging on the wall. It was threadbare and she sniffed to make sure the rotting smell came from the towel and not from her own body. Even then she wasn’t sure. She worked up as much lather as the soap would allow and washed her vagina and underneath her bum. She pulled at her blouse and washed underneath her armpits and between her breasts, giving herself something of a standing up bed-bath. She heard the click as the gas ran out and water running through the geyser became instantly cold. She used the towel as a cloth and wiped and dried herself as best she could. She rubbed at her shoes with her tights to give them a bit of a shine, before rolling her tights onto her leg. It felt strange having no knickers on and she made a mental note not to open her legs too wide and give the world an eyeful. Not that she ever did, of course. She straightened up her clothes, glanced at herself in the shaving mirror, and passing muster, took the key out of the door to lock it from the outside.

Audrey stood a full five minutes in the close outside the front door, pulling it shut, opening it, turning the key half way and then the other, jiggling it and trying again. All to no avail. The door wouldn’t lock. Audrey wondered if Lonie had left her the wrong key. She held the key in her hand, and felt the shape of the grooves cut into it. Then she looked through the key hole as if she were a master key cutter and would be able to tell sizes by that method. Finally, a young red headed woman poked her head through a gap on the door next to Lonie. Before she could bang it shut, Audrey shouted, ‘it just won’t close.’

A young man appeared behind the red headed woman. He too had red hair and they looked like brothers and sister, but Audrey wasn’t sure, something about the way he banged past the woman at the door and took control of the situation made her think they may be married. The red haired man held out his hand for the key as if he’d done that sort of thing all his life. Audrey was glad to relinquish the key and the responsibility. He thumped the door shut and turned the key. A question mark worked its way into his eyebrows. He banged the door shut again and turned the key. He pulled the key out and examined it.

‘Maisie,’ he said, to the red headed woman, ‘give me that key out of our door.’ He compared Lonie’s key with his key, his fingers running down the different cuts and grooves, and his mouth opened and he yawned. He tried banging the door shut and locking it with Lonie’s key. He tried banging the door shut and locking it with his own key. Neither worked. He looked at Audrey, and stroked the red hairs on his chin.

‘I don’t think that key works.’ He handed Lonie’s key to Audrey and banged the door shut with finality. ‘But don’t you worry. Nobody will get in. We’ll keep an eye out,’ and his eyes narrowed.

Audrey watched him go into his own house and bang the door shut. She could see an eye at the peephole, whether it was male or female she wasn’t sure. She stepped out of the tenement close into a light drizzle and people scurrying to bus stops and Partick train station. Audrey followed them along Dumbarton Road, but without Lonie to act as guide, she wasn’t sure of the route to work or what bus she could take. Flagging a taxi down Audrey took matters into her own hands and slumped into the back seat. Payday meant she didn’t have to worry too much about the cost. Her starting time wasn’t for another hour. She dragged her feet round the corner to check on her Hillman Imp and then crossed the road to buy a cup of tea and slice of toast in The Captain’s Rest. She felt nervous about seeing Lonie and nervous about not seeing him. The bell ker-chinged as she went through the café door, but Lonie wasn’t sitting at any of the tables. There weren’t many seats available. Audrey got stuck at a table beside two thin women, Mary and Marj, who seemed to know Lonie. They were insistent he hadn’t been in.

Audrey made sure she was in sitting at her desk at exactly 8am. The usual mix of possible celebratory wedding and funerals were piled up on her desk. She started making notes and had begun to hammer out a piece on the opening of a restaurant at Garscube Estate Gardens. Later, she began her take on the interview with Cardinal Robbins when she became aware that Lonie was lurking behind her and grinning at her.

‘Hi gorgeous,’ Lonnie bent down and whispered in her ear.

Audrey didn’t miss a beat and kept typing as if she’d heard nothing and seen nothing and she was certainly saying nothing.

Lonnie searched his pockets for his fags. He'd the brown envelope of his pay-packet in his top pocket. He’d armed himself with sixty fags and he’d the most beautiful looking girl in the world sitting in front of him. He lit up a fag and perched his bum on the edge of Audrey’s desk. The world couldn’t have been brighter if he’d been sitting inside a light bulb.

‘So, do you mind,’ Audrey slowed down her typing output, ‘do your smoking by the window.’

‘Leave that. Leave that.’ Lonie sat unmoving, looking down at Audrey working, looking down at her blouse and mapping out in his mind where her cleavage started and where his hands would finish. ‘You can get it later,’ he said with finality, waving his hands at her work.

‘It is later.’ Audrey’s fingers banged out copy quicker than any machine. Just as suddenly she stopped ripping three sheets out of the typewriter. ‘That’s a preliminary draft on our meeting with Cardinal Robbins.’ She stood up, facing Lonie, clutching them in her right hand, ‘I’ll take these through to Mr McDonald to see what he thinks.’

Lonie clutched at her wrist as she passed him and, surreptitiously patted her on the bum. She looked so serious and adult he wanted to kiss her. ‘Don’t bother. Ah’ve already briefed him and knocked something together. He’s looking at it now.’

‘When did you do this?’ Her lips were pressed so tightly together the words came out sideways. ‘Didn’t you think about telling me, consulting me?’

Lonie’s foot trailed across the worn out carpet tiles and playfully knocked against her shoe. He smiled up at her. ‘Ah tellin’ you now!’

Audrey flounced away clutching her copy.

Lonie sprung up off the desk. ‘Where’re you goin’?’ he shouted after her, hurrying to catch up.

‘To get a coffee.’ Audrey kept walking past the glass encased walls of the fatman’s booth.

Half-a-dozen pair of editorial eyes were following her and Lonie clutching on behind. ‘But you don’t drink coffee,’ said Lonie.

Audrey took a right, along the hall and into the kitchen area. ‘I do now,’ she replied. ‘And why are you following me?’ She brandished the three sheets of paper, swiping them at Lonie. ‘I need time to think.’

‘But Ah’ve got something to tell you.’ Lonie’s voice dropped and his eyes dropped too, as if she’d beaten him.

‘What?’ Audrey’s back was ramrod straight up against the wall. She kept her distance from Lonie as the passage was a thoroughfare for the typing pool. Already some of the younger girls, arm in arm, had squinted at them as they passed. She could just imagine the bubble of laughter and innuendo their meeting would call forth when they sat down in the executive lounge, which was the name for a small room with a bricked up window and vending machine with a few tables and chairs.

‘The fatman says you can work with me.’ Lonie felt himself inching closer and closer to her, until he could almost taste her skin, but her face was unflinching.

‘Whoopeedoo.’ Audrey slid sideways, taking a step away from Lonie. ‘The great and the good Mr McDonald’s letting me work with you. Tell me this then Mr Lonnigan since he’s not looked at any of my copy since I got here; since he didn’t look at my report on Cardinal Robbins why am I being suddenly set up as some kind of chaperon for you? And let me put it another way, will my name be first on the by-line of any features? She shook her head and her eyes seemed to grow sharper. ‘Will my name be on the by-line at all?’

Every word was like a blow to Lonie. He stood unsmiling, trying to think of a way to make it better, a way to get closer to her. ‘Ah’ll make sure you get your name on the by-line,’ was all he could offer.

‘Why would my name be on the by-line? You write the story. You present it to Mr McDonald. He reads it. Makes a few changes. They print it.’ A gaggle of typists passed, each trying to outdo each other in looking and not looking. Audrey leaned forward, her chest almost in Lonie’s face. ‘Where’s my role in all this?’ she asked.

‘Well, the thing is.’ Lonie started coughing and reached into his trousers’ pocket for his fags. Lighting one gave him time to think. ‘The thing is…’ He pulled at his ear lobe and scratched his nose while fag smoke built a bridge between them. ‘Carol Peters she's a woman.’ He could see he’d got her interested. ‘And you’d be a woman, writing about another woman. A woman with a “not proven” verdict for a number of murders yet incarcerated for twenty years.’ He had her hooked and all he had to do was reel her in. ‘And the thing is,’ he breathed out fag smoke with renewed confidence, ‘ah’m a Catholic. It’s the old sectarian divide; whatever ah say will be tainted with Papacy and lunacy in many people’s eyes. Some people will be sayin’ ah’m too lenient and others that ah’m too harsh.’ She was looking at him with warm eyes. ‘You’ve no’ got that kind of baggage.’ His foot nudged against hers. ‘You might be pretty useless, but at least you're pretty and a Protestant.’

Audrey’s foot nudged Lonie’s back. ‘You think I’m pretty?’ She moved close enough for him to feel the whispered words on his face. But she jumped back when some office girls came clattering out of the executive lounge.