Knockers

Knockers

Weeds grew across the path, partially hiding the mountainous dog turds lying in wait to snare her brand new leather court shoes. The enemy lurked behind the dingy curtains, eyeing up the potential to cause trouble.

She tiptoed carefully through the debris. Her face configured her features into a serene tableau that gave the impression that nothing would shake this woman, that whatever life—and in particular, this sodding job—threw at her, she would handle it, and all without batting an eyelid or disturbing a hair on her totally capable head.

She looked officious and saw that as something to be proud of. She waited, after rapping hard on the door and imagined the occupants scurrying like mice, hiding under sofas and beds, appearing ‘out’. She knocked again, harder.

The door flew open, the tenant realising that her, keep quiet and she’ll think that we aren’t in, ploy, hadn’t worked. It hadn’t worked on the last two occasions that she’d called, either. The lady of the house had decided that direct confrontation was the only way to go.

‘Y’ll `ave t’ come back next week. Ah can’t pay yer.’

The collector looked into her ledger. ‘Well, Mrs Hale, you did faithfully promise a payment this week. We can’t carry on like this, you know? You’re seriously in arrears.’

‘Well I’ve got a fella bringin` me some money next week. I’ll giy yer summat then.’

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Hale, but I’m afraid that’s not good enough. This is the third week you’ve tried to send me away without a payment. If I don’t get a result my boss is going to think I’m not up to the job, now isn’t he? And mark my words, Mrs Hale, I am up to the job. You’d be wise not to underestimate me.’

‘Listen, yer snotty old cow, I ‘aven’t got any money, so what yer gonna do about it?’

It was a good question, one that was bothering the collector, too. What was she going to do about it?

They squared up to each other on the doorstep. A look of hostility, warfare even, had sidled into the client’s eyes.

The woman had eaten egg and chips for her evening meal. The lady appeared to be wearing most of the food as fashion accessories. She was large: four hundred pounds plus, at a rough guess. She wore a summer maternity type dress in February. She must have been cold arguing on the doorstep in her thin dress and hole infested cardigan. Her feet were bare, kept warm by the over-spilling mounds of flesh on her lower legs. Her ankles had long since disappeared and her purple legs were ulcerated. Dirt was ingrained into the creases of her neck and her overshot jowls had caused a sweat rash to spread under her chins.

The collector hoped that she didn’t look sympathetic.The smallest sign of weakness and all would be lost.

She smiled at the client; she was going to take no messing from her.

‘Now listen here Mrs Hale, there are two ways we can do this. The first way is that you and I talk this through and come up with something that you can afford, and more importantly, afford to stick to, or I can get the bailiffs out. They’ll take goods to the value owing.’ This time her smile was warmer. ‘I’d prefer it to be the former. The rotten sods in the office won’t give me a mobile phone so I’d have to go all the way to the phone box to make the call… unless of course, I could use your phone to ring the bailiffs?’

‘You cheeky bitch,’ the other woman blustered. ‘I’m going to knife yer in a minute if you don’t just piss off.’

The collector looked at her book trying not to grin. The thought of this tired lady pulling some manky old bread knife on her, with last year’s ketchup still clinging to it, amused her.

She’d struggled enough in her own existence to know that life isn’t easy. The pit of debt is lined with slippery mucus that makes it impossible to crawl out of. She wanted to try and help her clients. She hoped that she appeared approachable, that if somebody couldn’t pay one week, then it would be all right to leave it until the next. Parting with some of the pittance their benefits allowed was never going to be a happy experience for these people, but she hoped that she could help make it a painless one. But there was a fine line between cutting them some slack and being taken the piss out of.

A feral urchin of about twelve squeezed past his mother’s frame and glared balefully at the collector.

‘Hey mate, how ya doing?’

‘Piss off,’

His mother grinned for the first time.

‘I’m soaked to the skin, freezing cold, hungry and dying for a cuppa and to top it all, I have to have a cute kid like you swear at me,’ The collector said.

‘My heart bleeds for ya,’ the client said.

‘Tell you what,’ the collector said to the boy, ‘I’ll do you a deal. You promise never to swear at me again and I’ll give you fifty pence.’

People didn’t give him money for nothing, and certainly not somebody who was getting a load of abuse from his old lady. He considered how best to manipulate the situation. ‘Fifty bloody pence? Make it a quid and you’ve got a deal.’

‘Nope, not a chance, fifty pence, take it or leave it,’ she answered.

‘Well then, you can f…’

‘But,’ jumped in the collector, quickly, ‘if you don’t take the deal, I’ll tell all your mates on the street that you wet the bed.’

The collector cringed when she saw that she’d hit a nerve. The child’s defiance ran from him like pee in the night and he hung his head in shame.

‘Okay, deal,’ he said quietly.

‘Is that all right Mum? Can I give him fifty pence?’

‘Do what you like. It’s your money.’

‘There you go. And you can earn some more money if you want. You tidy this garden up for your mum. Pick up all the dog muck, not forgetting to wash your hands afterwards, and then, next Monday, I’ll give you a quid.’

‘What. You’ve got to be joking. A quid? For cleanin` up this lot? No fu—no chance.’

‘Well, we’ll see how badly you want some spending money next week, won’t we? It’ll be here for you in case you change your mind.’

‘What the hell are you?’ the client said, ‘Florence fucking Nightingale of the knockers? We don’t need no fucking do-gooding social workers. You just stick to what you’re paid for, eh? Fucking condescending cow.’

‘I’m not trying to be a scoial worker. I just like kids and shoes.’

‘Eh?’

‘If he cleans the path, my new shoes aren’t going to get ruined are they?’

The woman bristled.

‘Listen,’ the collector said, ‘You give me one measly pound, and then I’ll tell you why you’ll feel good about it.’

The client laughed bitterly. ‘You think I’m going to feel good about giving a condescending bitch like you money?'

‘Yep, it’ll be the best quid you’ve spent all week.’

‘Go on then. I’m biting.’ The client’s eyes had opened with a look of interest and her retort showed a shrewd and nippy intelligence that had previously been hidden beneath the heavily cowled eyes.

‘You owe just short of three hundred. I know you’re struggling and it must seem like a lot to pay back. So, you hide from it. You avoid it. Push it from your mind and cover your worry with a tough, couldn’t care less, attitude.’ She held up her hand to stem the woman’s angry response, ‘But, the worry doesn’t go away, does it? If you paid me just one pound it would be the first step in getting this bloody millstone from around your neck. You’ll see the balance come down. You can feel good that you have the self-respect to want to get out of the debt you’re in. It’d take years to pay off three hundred at a pound a week so later, when you feel more confident about it, we can increase the payments. Before you know it you won’t have to suffer my ugly mug on your doorstep every Monday night.’

‘What are you, a knocker or a fucking politician? They spout shit and expect us to believe it, too.’

‘I’m see a woman with no self-respect.’

The client shouted for her son to bring her purse, he’d wandered off with his fifty pence without so much as a, thank you.

The collector made a payment card for the client and after taking the first pound coin from her, she marked in the new balance. It left a total of two hundred and ninety six pounds and eighty-seven pence to pay, a pound less than the previous figure.

‘Now, piss off,’ said Mrs Hale.

The boy pushed past his mother. ‘And where do you think you’re going?’ she asked.

‘The shop of course.'

‘Get back in there and get your coat on, it’s cold out.’ A look passed between mother and son.

The collector reached out to grab him when the child stumbled on the step.

The next time he appeared, he was wrapped up against the cold. ‘Hey Lisa, thanks for the fifty pence.’

‘How did you know my name?’ the collector asked with a puzzled look on her face, though she already knew.

‘Your name tag, stupid.’

‘Oh of course. Don’t forget to wash your hands after you’ve cleared the garden. By the way, what’s your name?’

‘Pete.’

‘Bye Pete. Bye Mrs Hale.’

‘Hey, Lisa?’

‘Yes?’ she turned back to the boy.

‘You won’t tell the kids about, uh…you know, will you?’

‘Not a chance mate.’

She left with a grin on her face. God, she hated being a knocker. It was a dirty job but she needed the money. It was hard being a single mother.

The client leaned against the back of the closed front door and fingered the rumpled twenty-pound note in her hand. ‘Condescending bitch,’ she muttered. Pete was turning into a right chip off the old block. That do-gooding, frigging collector hadn’t felt a thing, she thought, must remember to tell his dad about it next visiting day at the nick.

Lisa left the woman’s house feeling good. She felt that she had made a connection. The blokes in the office laughed at her. They called her Mary Poppins. They’d seen it all before and were hardened to the sob stories. Len had started a book on how long Lisa would last, so far the best odds were eleven to one on her quitting by the end of the week.

She’d left her car by the park gates behind Mrs Hale’s house.

Dot Hale was in the back garden calling the dogs in when she heard the first scream for help. She grinned, ‘Silly cow. I knew they’d get `er. Sitting duck she was. Didn’t think it’ud be this quick though,’ she said to Pete. ‘Come on lad, I’ll buy yer a bag of chips. We can afford it now.’

Lisa was still smiling when somebody grabbed her from behind as she put the key in her car door. He didn’t cover her mouth properly and she managed to scream out twice in the darkness. Nobody ever found out that the float was already twenty pounds light when she was attacked.

The following Monday at seven twenty-three there was a knock at Mrs Hales door. She was expecting a new collector and hoped this one was a soft touch like the woman who’d been murdered. She heaved herself out of a filthy brown armchair and went to answer the door.

There was nobody there.

‘Bloody kids,’ she muttered.

The door would knock at exactly seven twenty-three every Monday night and Mrs Hale would heave herself from her chair.

There was never anybody there.