One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [118]
I was such a cow. Trying to make my sister feel guilty for still housing my friend, when for years it was what I’d wanted? What was wrong with me?
I gladly buried my face in my handbag, delving for my car keys.
Outside, I helped her heave the shiny black bags into the boot of my car, thinking I might just drive it into a handy ditch, or a wall. Have done with everything. Go to the devil, as well as the tip. Instead, minutes later, I was bouncing down the back drive with five huge sacks of rubbish as baggage, which, I felt, was entirely appropriate.
As I drove I narrowed my eyes to the sunset. I remembered him watching me over the balcony: Ivan, I mean. Bare-chested, cigarette dripping from his hand as I scurried off to the ferry. Amused, chilled. An expression that reminded me… yes, of Seffy’s, in the car. And something else too… pity. I froze. Clenched the wheel. That I didn’t need. From anyone. I was the one who needed to grow up. I was the fool. A thumping great one. A meal ticket too. I swallowed: put my foot on the accelerator and roared down the lane. And as the saying went, there was no fool like an old fool.
The tip, when I reached it, was empty. It also threatened to be on the point of closure, according to an angry notice in red capitals warning six o’clock sharp and no later. There was no one about to enforce this, though, so I drove on through the menacing spiked gates and parked. Then I set about the glamorous task of heaving the heavy bags of rubbish out of the boot, across the yard, up the flight of steps, and throwing them over into the vast skip. Yuk, yuk and yuk. Face screwed, I tossed the last one in. Laura was right. Two weeks in the sun had rendered the contents ripe, rank, and threatening to spew. Even though nothing had actually split, I couldn’t wait to get back and wash my hands. But as I got back in my car, I witnessed one of those moments that, in retrospect, you really wish you hadn’t. Wished that you’d arrived ten minutes earlier, or later, so the quandary wasn’t yours.
A frail, white-haired couple, beige clothes flapping around thin limbs, were struggling up the steps, fresh from their Nissan Cherry, a huge bag of rubbish between them. They’d managed to get it to the top of the steps, but couldn’t raise the muscle, or the energy, to throw it over into the skip. They tried again, failed. Discussed. The old lady stood back to let him try alone, as instructed. Still no good. I could bear it no longer. Taking the keys from the ignition, I got out, nipped up the steps in my stripy Converse shoes, and aware of a vicarious thrill of now being comparatively young, as opposed to comparatively old, muscled in with a breezy, ‘Here, let me.’ In a trice I’d taken the sack from their bony hands, and like a chieftain in some Highland Games display, swung it, and hurled it, so it sailed right out to the middle of the skip. Along with my car keys. Which had also been in my hand.
I stared aghast. The old couple, unaware, cooed their thank yous.
‘Ooh, you are kind, dear, thank you so much.’
‘My keys!’ I spluttered as they pawed me gratefully. ‘I’ve thrown my car keys in too!’
Immediately their wrinkled faces collapsed. Hands went to mouths. Rheumy eyes widened in horror. We all turned to gape, then back to each other, appalled. We cast about wildly, for some handy man to assist – but no. No tattooed, gum-chewing hero was going to emerge in wife-beating vest and filthy trousers from the empty hut that cringed below in the yard; no greasy Alsatian would strain on a chain beside him. No Stig of the Dump.
I gulped. Swung back. I could see the keys, glinting with a smart red leather tag, atop a bag. There was nothing for it, I’d have to go in.
The elderly couple twittered in consternation as I gingerly lowered myself into the vast skip, an eight-foot drop at least.
‘Oh, my dear, is that wise?’
‘Probably not,’ I agreed, and as soon as my feet touched plastic,