MRS SHORT

Social Insecurity!

He'd just remembered he owed Mrs Short a month's rent in a couple of days. He had plenty of money now, but what if they took a long time to give him this Social Security? Would he even get enough?

Grout stood outside Mrs Short's house in Packington Street, Islington. He didn't know whether to go in or not now; maybe he should go to the pub first; it was always easier to face Mrs Short with a drink in him. He decided not to be so stupid; he wouldn't really owe the rent until the end of the month, and it was only the twenty-eighth. Anyway, it being his birthday, he deserved favours. He let himself in.

It was dark in the narrow hall of Mrs Short's house; the small curved window over the front door was brown with grime, the walls were covered with dark brown wallpaper, and Mrs Short's supply of forty-watt lightbulbs appeared to have dried up once again. After the bright street, Grout was almost blind. He groped his way to the stairs and started up; his bedsit was on the third, top storey. Mrs Short pounced on the second floor landing.

"Oh, Mr Grout, you're home early," she said, coming out of the Television Lounge (hard chairs, monochrome set, lodgers to share licence fee and extra electricity, turned off at twelve o'clock). Mrs Short wiped her hands on her duster, then on her nylon dress; she was a stout, balding lady of about fifty. Her hair was so tightly tied back at the rear of her skull that Grout swore the front strands, over her forehead, were being pulled out by the roots, and that the tautened skin so produced was thus responsible for the expression of malevolent surprise she wore; he had the impression that when Mrs Short blinked her over-stretched eyelids didn't quite make it to the bottom of her eyes. That was why she blinked a lot and had such red eyes. "You "aven't been fired again, "ave you Mr Grout?" Mrs Short said, and burst out laughing, bending at the waist and cracking her duster like a whip.

Damn! Grout hadn't thought about this. What was he to say? He had a few precious seconds while Mrs Short laughed and then dried her eyes, wiping her nose on the duster. She sneezed suddenly; more precious seconds! He stood there. The seconds ticked away.

"Ah... no," he said. Well, it was succinct. Not all that convincing, perhaps, he knew that, but unequivocal. He pressed his lips tight together.

"Well then, Mr Grout, what brings you back so early?" Mrs Short smiled. The subtle variations in the colour of the enamel on her false teeth, replaced one by one over the years as the originals gave up the unequal struggle against the mint humbugs Mrs Short favoured, drew Steven's eyes and he said quickly,

"Dentist." Brilliant! he thought.

"Oh, you been or you going?" She poked her head forward, staring into his mouth. He closed it quickly.

"Going, soon," he mumbled.

"What's he going to do, then? Take any out? Fill them? My niece Pam, she got hers drilled by her dentist the other day; hit a nerve! She bit him; didn't mean to but she closed her mouth, didn't she? End of the drill snapped off in her mouth! Right in the tooth!" Mrs Short doubled up laughing at this. Steven watched anxiously to see whether a way round her and up the stairs would present itself, but without reward. Mrs Short came upright again, searched for a hanky in her dress pocket, failed to find one and so used her duster again, blowing into it, inspecting the nasal hollow indented in it briefly, then looking back at Grout. "Poor cow! Off work for a week she was. Had to eat through a straw!"

She mistook Steven's immobile expression for fear and said, leaning forward to flick his chest with her duster, "Oh, there I go; I'm making you all frightened now, aren't I? Oh, Mr Grout, you men are all the same; least little bit of pain and you're off. You should have a kid sometime! Ha!" She laughed, tears coming to her eyes at the memory. "Gawd, Mr Grout, I thought I was bein" torn in two! Scream? I thought I was goin" to die!" Mrs Short gave a long, in-sucking laugh, and had to hold on to the banister rail to prevent her mirth from toppling her to the ground. She flapped her duster weakly, then dried her eyes with it. Grout tried to estimate the distance between his landlady and the wall opposite the banisters to see if by grasping the latter she had left sufficient room for him to escape upstairs to his room. Not quite.

"Yes, well," he said, edging forward to show that he wanted to go upstairs. "Better get ready for the dentist." He shuffled forward, turning to one side so that he could squeeze between Mrs Short and the wall.

"Oh, you got to go now then have you?" Mrs Short said, turning to look at him but not actually moving out of his way. "Well I shall get on with my dusting then, I shall. You quite sure that I can't dust your room for you, Mr Grout? It wouldn't be any bother you know."

"Ah, no, no thank you," Steven said, trying to press himself back into the wall to get around Mrs Short's bulging hip. His back scraped against the peeling varnish of old wooden boards.

"Well, I should think you'd find it was much cleaner and less dusty in your room if I did your dusting for you, Mr Grout, really I do. Why don't we give it a sort of trial period?" Mrs Short nudged him in the ribs.

"No, honestly, no," Steven said, rubbing the place where Mrs Short had nudged him. What did it feel like when your spleen ruptured? Mrs Short still wasn't moving to let him past. She frowned at his shoulder and used her duster to flick something off it.

"No, I really..." Steven said, and then sneezed.

"You wouldn't have that hay fever half as bad if you let me dust your room, Mr Grout." She snapped her duster again. More of the shining motes which had made Steven sneeze the first time floated in the air around his face.

"Really must get to my -" he began, but Mrs Short said,

"No you wouldn't, Mr Grout."

"Room!" Grout gasped. He pointed up the stairs, and with one mighty effort succeeded in squeezing through the tight space between Mrs Short and the wall, almost falling out on the far side.

Mrs Short swivelled like a tank's gun turret and looked at him. "The room, Mr Grout? You want me to do it, then?" "No," Steven said, backing off towards the next flight of stairs, but still facing Mrs Short and trying to smile without showing his teeth. "No, honestly," he said, "really, I'll dust my own room, really. Thank you, but, no, really."

Mrs Short was still shaking her head and shaking her limp duster when he finally got round the sheltering twist in the stairs; Steven wiped his damp forehead, turned and ran quickly up the rest of the steps, shivering and grimacing as he thought about Mrs Short.

In his room, he could relax. He sat by the" window after he'd washed his face and upper body at the small handbasin in one corner of his room. From the basin he had to negotiate four straights and three right-angled corners through his maze of books on the floor to get to the window, where he had a small chair and could look out into Packington Street.

He liked looking out the window (today he had it open; it was a nice day) and sometimes would spend entire Saturday or Sunday afternoons just sitting there watching the traffic and the people in the street, and a curious sort of peace would slowly take him over, like something hypnotic, like a trance; he would just sit there, not thinking or worrying or seething about anything, just sitting watching, mind blank and free of cares, and the cars would move and the people pass and talk, and for a little while, through that lack of thought, that temporary surrender of his own personality, he could start to feel part of this place, this city and people and species and society; feel like he imagined all the other, ordinary people, the people who were not him and were not there specifically to torment him, must feel all the time.