I take a gulp of stolid air and push my head through the void of the noose. My makeshift gallows laying out the one-way road down which I navigate. Down here it’s dark, so dark the opposite direction has long since dissolved. With my tie pulled taut, a firm polyester hold, my head spins like a mental cyclone, shaking like a thousand snow globes. Breathing comes fast and strained, apple in my throat wrestles against the choking.
Upon this stool I am stood, a hallway statue in my house. A home it is no more; just a cave of angry memories, bitter tears shed in angst, long loveless silences filled to the brim with empty words. Here I shall swing; a throttled host to any guests, trussed and dangling like deceased meat on a butcher’s rack. One hand holds the tie as if on a rush hour tube, the other takes swig after swig of desperate vodka – the old friend who never walks out the door. The poison nectar cascades down my throat causing my eyes to burn and water.
Such vices are wholly justified when all you’ve had is gone. Job replaced by mechanised upstarts; a neglected wife who fled so far from wedding photographs that, like as if in a sepia motif, now look so old. Her grim walls of steel had been fixed in defence for years whilst I tried to melt them to the ground with booze instead of romantic diplomacy. This house soon to be invaded by bright young things full of idle fantasies of domesticity and matching furnishings. And my daughter? She drifted so far that when I tried to reel her in I would see only a reflection of my pathetic patriarchal efforts in the eyes of a young woman eager for the world. Where did she go, and what to do? Mere details that I discarded in an empty bottle and put out in the trash.
And so my time has come to sign out. Chest heaves and I almost gag on the iron grip of the noose. The Smiths are singing ‘I Know It’s Over’ on warm vinyl behind me as I brush away persistent tears now the end has.....
Knock knock knock.
For fucks sake. Quiet I must remain, a shadowy figure shifts through the porch but the front door glass distorts the clarity. Thank God.
Knock knock knock.
“Hello, anybody there?” a man’s voice rings through. Fuck, I left the porch window open; Morrissey’s doleful warbling will have reached him. With my luck it’ll be the police – you can be arrested for attempted suicide can’t you? If so I’d be caught bang to rights.
“Can you go away please?” I shout in strangulated gasps, my words slurred with drunken effort.
“I’m just selling double-glazing mate. Just lemme give you my pitch, only take a couple of minutes.”
I can’t fucking believe this. The second most important moment of my life, after my birth, is about to take place; the climatic act of my Shakespearean tragedy of a life invaded by a double-glazing salesman!
“I’m not interested. Go away.”
“Aw cumon buddy. Only 2....”
“Fuck off alright!” I scream. Blood rushes to my alcohol-scorched face as the absurdity of the situation becomes clear. Even when death’s curtains are encircling me, life has to claim the encore of laughs at my expense.
“Alright if you’re gonna be like that” he says with a sulky tone which suggests that he’s slightly hurt. “I’m leaving you a flyer though, and no mistake” as he begins to turn the front door handle to the porch. Fuck! I didn’t lock the front door; do my failings show no sign of abating?
He half-steps into the porch as he tosses his leaflet down – a skinny man of about 30, wearing navy overalls and a cigarette tucked behind one ear like a carpenter’s pencil. He’s just about to close the door again when he glances up and his eyes collide with mine through the glass porch door.
“Fuck me buddy. What the hell you doing?!”
Like so many times during my life I am quite unsure how to act. Granted there is no socially accepted code to follow in this sort of situation. Since I am stood on a stool with a tie fastened around my neck, Morrissey singing about feeling the soil falling over his head, and my face smeared with alcoholic tears – I decide it’s probably best to tell the truth. For old time’s sake at least.
“I’m about to commit suicide. What the fuck does it look like?!”
“Oh I can see that right enough pal” he says, wiping his nose with a finger and studying me up and down as if I were a potentially difficult window installation. “I mean you ain’t changing a fucking lightbulb up there are ya now!” he says, shoulders beginning to shake with amusement.
“Can you just fuck off and leave me here to carry on in peace?” I shout at him incredulously.
“Carry on?!” he says, eyes full of dumb confusion.
“Yes!”
He looks around as if weighing up his options, contemplating his next move. “Oh no buddy I can’t be doing that! I can’t carry on down the street after seeing you here getting ready to swing. If nothing else, my sales pitch would be severely affected”.
I don’t believe this; so now what?! He sets down his shoulder bag of flyers in a manner that suggests he’s not leaving anytime soon.
“Look mate”, I try a new approach. “I appreciate you trying to act the good Samaritan an’ all but I just want to be left to get on with this.”
“And I appreciate you acting the martyr, but you can’t go like this – there’s things we urgently need to discuss.”
“Like what exactly?!”
“Well, let me just...”
In an instant he produces a long thin file as if concealed in a sleeve, bends it round inside the lock and has the door swinging open in seconds. My mouth hangs open as he brushes himself down and stands there before me with a smile etched across his face as if expecting some sort of applause for his magic trick.
“There we go. I was an expert burglar in another lifetime. Had to y’know, tough upbringing, wrong side of the tracks.”
I don’t quite know what to say or do, my feet are sweaty and shifting on the stool. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I finally manage to ask.
“Calm down son, just thought we’d better have a little chat before you top yourself. You are certain about it yes? No going back?” he enquires to which I fail to answer. “Ah well, suit yourself. Saved by the bell though eh, me turning up like?”
“Well no, I didn’t wish to be saved and I haven’t got a doorbell, you knocked” I stammer. I feel it is vitally important to relay this information to him and let him know exactly where he stands on this matter but I only succeed in feeling substantially immature as a result.
“Aye yes, but if it wasn’t for me, you’d be dead by now, and no mistake” he says, wandering around the hallway, scanning the disarray of furniture and dirty cutlery piled high in the sink.
“And your point is...?”
“Well, that’s quite a scary thought isn’t it?”
“Yes and then you’d have had to carry on your way.”
“Yeh that’s true. I’m good but I can’t sell shit all to a corpse! Is that The Smiths you’ve got on there?” he asks, moving over to the record player to one side of me.
“Yes it is”.
“Good choice buddy, go out in style” he says, examining ‘The Queen Is Dead’ jacket sleeve. “Although you gotta go for the ‘Meat is Murder’ album – far superior in my book. And that’s a nice tie you’ve got there” he gestures with his eyes to my instrument of axsyphiation. It’s hard to tell but it seems he is bluntly sincere with each of his wild-eyed statements. “Although why you’ve gone for sky blue God only knows. It makes you look like you’ve hung yourself with a rosette or something” he chuckles to himself.
I’m getting quite desperate now. “Does it really matter?”
“Of course. You shoulda gone for the dour grey choice. Just the job.” I’m feeling increasingly invaded by his presence but he continues scouring the hallway, then into the living room where he moves over to the bay windows with an exaggerated shake of the head. With a finger he traces a line through the dirt on the glass and shakes his head further and if it has caused him actual offense.
“Excuse me, what are you doing?” I ask as the noose starts to painfully grip my neck.
“Well now. I’ve come to the conclusion that the predicament you now find yourself in can be explained and, if you’ll allow me to say so, be amended.”
“I don’t understand”. Palms continuing to sweat.
“Of course you don’t. Luckily for you, we at Beetham & Sons Windows Specialists understand perfectly well. And that’s why we’re gonna help to sort you right out.”
Within a momentary flash there are 3 hefty overall-wearing men barging through the hallway, giving me a courteous nod but barely even reacting to me balancing on the brink of suicidal intent. My head is flaming with confusion and despair as the men stride through to the living room, produce tape measures and begin to routinely size up the dirty bay windows.
“What...what’s going on?”
The first salesman steps towards me, leaving his colleagues to the work. “No need to worry old chap, just sizing up the target area, we’ll have em brand spanking new in a jiffy and you’ll feel a hundred times better as a result!”
“No...look, I don’t need any work done.”
“Ooo this is gonna be a big job this one boss”, shouts one colleague from the living room as the others take notes and measurements in small notepads.
“Your feelings of sadness now are a reaction to the discontent you harbour at the current state of your environment. Well we can help there right away! You’ll soon be right as rain!”
“No no no” I cry in growing hysteria. “Please go, I don’t need you here!”
“We fear he doth protest too much” grins one of the men to the first as he moves out into the porch to retrieve a large toolbox.
“Now sir” starts the salesman. “We really must get on with our work. We appreciate your concerns really we do, but I can assure you they are most unfounded. This is a family-run business, all fully trained operatives.” There is loud smash as one of the workers puts through one of the windows with a heavy mallet. The others scurry around laying down white sheets and setting out tools.
“Can we change this to something a bit more upbeat?” one of the men shouts to us, gesturing at the record player. Without waiting for an answer he skids the vinyl back to the rockabilly ‘Frankly Mr Shankly’ with a wide smile. “That’s more like it!” as the workers proceed to sing along loudly and whistle in time with Marr’s jangling chords.
“You’ll find we provide the finest double-glazing in the area. Very reputable, all clients happy”, he continues in a bright and airy tone that rises to be heard above the music.
“I...I..don’t doubt that. But you don’t understand me..”
More smashing of glass from the living room. The salesman continues, not even registering my useless protests. “You can rest assured that all our PVCU windows are expertly designed and planned and utilise high quality products and services - always.” My tear-filled eyes can only vaguely take in the carnage that my situation has descended into – a powerdrill shrieks as it tears into the shell of the house, ‘Frankly Mr Shankly’ ends and ‘I Know It’s Over’ comes on, only to be kicked back into ‘Frankly Mr Shankly’ once more by an eager worker.
“If you’ll just bear with me my good man, I shall pop out to the van and get you a quote. You don’t have to pay now, there’s no payment required for 3 months. It’s a pity you didn’t get an advance quote, you could have been eligible for quite a sizable discount. But nevermind all that now, the important thing is that with your wonderful new windows this house will be a home once more, and all your blues will fade clear away.” On his exit he turns once more in the porch and tips me a wink. “All part of the Beetham & Sons service and no mistake.”
The powerdrill ploughs on through paint and timber frame, burly men in navy overalls whistle as they work, The Smiths play on in an incessant loop, the smell of stale vodka in the air, its burning stain on my tongue, clatter of tools and peals of laughter, “do you think we could get a cup of tea please mate?”, take a gulp of stolid air – the previously sombre void now raped by awful surreal cacophony – as my blazing head still fills the ever-present void of the noose, and I step off the stool.
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