42” Flat Screen Plasma TV £399 or nearest offer (4)

My flat was one of three within a large semi-detached property, and though it hadn’t the most cordial of demeanours, it was clean and, for the first time since I had set foot in Choppingchurch, it felt homely.
I had hardly touched the Yale lock with my key before it was opened by Mrs Marlowe. “Good” she said gleefully as if it was her birthday and I’d brought her a present, “You’re home. I have a lovely joint of Roast Pork for us tonight”
“Us – me and you?”
“And Mr Christopher too” He was the only other occupant.
“I don’t expect you to wait on me Mrs Marlowe”
“No-one waits in this house – your dinner’s ready now. Mr Christopher has just sat down himself”
“You misunderstand me – I have a lasagne to microwave. I was going to have a quiet night reading; just me, the lasagne and a glass of wine.”
“That’s not a proper meal lass”
My eyes rolled back so far in my sockets I was staring into my cranium.
“Not often we get a nice bit of pork lately and there’s good vegetables to go with it; nice big spuds, carrots and swede” And she took my little plastic bag with my lasagne off me and led me into her ‘parlour’.
It was cosy enough. It had a small round table set for three; the only other furniture being a small cabinet containing a tea service. It was adorned with some pictures; family, I supposed. Adjacent to her kitchen it was warm. She had a small electric fire on the wall opposite and had put all three bars on. With the heat emanating from her small stove it provided a comfortable blanket of heat that was neither stifling nor merely decoration.
I sat down next to Mr Christopher. He was a demure figure and quietly spoken. He murmured something as I sat down. Even in a room as small as this I had to strain to hear him.
“Mr Christopher is wishing you a good evening Clair”
“Oh thank you and the same to you”
He nodded appreciatively. He had already started his meal and would say nothing else until he’d finished it. Periodically he’d push back his spectacles with his the second finger on his right hand whilst simultaneously holding his knife. I felt sure that eventually he would stab himself in the forehead.
A plate landed in front of me. There were two generous slabs of hot pork with a crest of crackling atop. The rest of the plate was crowded with three large boiled potatoes a layer of roasted carrots and a wedge of swede. Mrs Marlowe draped a dark, musky gravy down between the white simmering heads of the spuds; it eked out beneath the food like an oil spill. Despite my initial misgivings the food was wonderful.
Mrs Marlowe was slim, aged about sixty or maybe a little older and had a mass of grey curls on a head that looked large and out of proportion. She was genial enough but her thin lips seemed to insinuate a sternness never borne out audibly. I’d only known her a few days since moving in but her utterances were always kindly and sympathetic.
She brought out a plate for herself, a smaller portion: “You don’t need as much Clair, at my time of life. One good meal a day, keeps the priest away” she uttered as if an oath.
Our dinner patter, which to begin with, consisted of customary small talk at some point turned with her sweet intrusions into my former life. She would generally begin her questions with a subterfuge such as “Did you do a lot of things in London” or “I bet you knew a lot of people in London” After half an hour I realised it had been more of a confessional. She played good cop without the bad cop and found out everything she needed to know.
I was at once uneasy and relieved. It was cathartic to have expressed anger and bitterness at my treatment though I refused to be broached for details on the Richcroft scandal, but afterwards I was shocked at how unusually earnest I’d been with her. I was further unnerved as Mr Christopher excused himself and retired to his room; I’d practically forgotten he was there.
I thanked her for the dinner but was rebuked when attempting to help with the washing-up. A brandy was offered and declined. “I have an appointment with a good book”
“With me it’s the telly” she said. “I’m no sooner putting it on and then falling asleep”
“Well I guess that option’s open to me too now”
“Yes, of course” she said, “Nick was here this afternoon installing it”
“Well Mrs Marlowe for a sleepy part of the world you seem to be on the ball. TV installed in a day and a dinner on the table as soon as I walk in.”
“There’s a great deal more to Choppingchurch folk than first appearances”
And there it landed - a brick of my guilt smack down on the dining table. My acidity had borne nothing but cynicism and patronisation toward the town but already two of them had volunteered their own time and effort to ensure I felt welcome.
“Thanks again” I replied pecking Mrs Marlowe on the cheek.
“You’ll soon be one of us lass” as she led me to her door.
I was amazed at how homely the appellation suddenly felt

.As I climbed the stairs to my room Mrs Marlowe’s Roast Pork sat in my tummy like a hot water bottle. Although I’d refused the brandy I still planned to knock off a glass of wine or two to prompt the call of the sandman.
Entering the flat I was immediately confronted with the Plasma screen, newly installed by my other friend Nick. Within the cramped lounge it seemed even more imposing than it had in the shop window. There was barely six inches clearance either side of it before each corner. I searched for the remote control but couldn’t readily locate it. That was irritating. I couldn’t play with my new toy.
I took my little plastic bag into the tiny kitchen. It just about afforded a small cooker, a smaller fridge with a narrow freezer and three overhead cupboards. The sink sat inside a ground unit which had storage for bleach, toilet rolls and the usual inedible household goods and afforded the only flat space to lay a plate or slice an onion.
I emptied the contents of my bag onto it. The lasagne drooped out sopping. It had become neglected under the lure of the pork dinner and a potential supper in waiting had reverted to a ready meal but one destined to be consumed by the bin. I slipped out the bottle of Chablis I had laid flat on one of the fridge shelves and grabbed a small glass and flopped onto the two seat settee in front of the TV, I was too full for bed.
It was a cheap wine and had a screw top rather than a cork, the local supermarket offered less choice than an off-licence in Jeddah. I poured out half a glass and took a sip. Thank fuck it was cold. The book I had intended to read sat alone half way off my thin fragile looking coffee table that consumed the gap between the sofa and the TV. I considered re-engaging myself with it (I hadn’t touched it since I landed in Choppingchurch) but surrendered to a tsunami of lassitude.

I have been told, by several male lovers and friends, that there’s a state that’s not quite dreaming and tantalising close to wakefulness. Apparently, a sexual fantasy triggers it when one actually feels the lovers touch as though one was embroiled in a real coupling. Intimate lovers have confessed that this is common and if not, irritatingly, cut short, often ends in a wet dream. This had never happened to me until I fell asleep that night.
I was in the country walking on a warm spring day. I had a flowing creamy white dress on – pinched at the waist and extravagantly decorative. My hair was bunched and tied and sat beneath a large, brilliant white hat with a red ribbon tied around it which waved delicately in the breeze behind me as if I were sending off the troops to war. My attire betrayed only one other splash of colour, that of my red shoes, which matched the sonorous shade of my bonnet. I felt excited and sensuous as if I were en route to a tryst with a secret lover.
After a minute or so I found myself in a thick mist and one from which I could see no discernible pathway. It was if a cloud had become too heavy for the sky and had descended to earth. If anything the heat of the day intensified rather than diminished like walking through a steam bath. As I stood confused and anxious, peering into the fog I saw the outline of a structure. I went slowly toward it and discovered a bridge. Looking behind me the mist seemed to thicken as if it were shoving me across. I stepped lightly, yet the shoe leather seemed to clap against the stone out of all proportion and reverberate around the limitless grey curtain.
I guessed that the bridge was little more than twenty feet broad as I reached its apex with only half a dozen paces. The stream beneath was still as if there were no current at all and the beck itself had sat still since the stonework span was cemented together - there was no need for it to continue toward a confluence with any other body of water, this was fine.
I bent over the edge and saw a mysterious light sporadically illuminated the gloomy green surface, its source not apparent. I watched fascinated as my reflection appeared and disappeared as the luminosity waxed and waned. Scanning the river banks there was recognisable glow emanating from the warm kitchen of a waterside cottage. Neither was there an ambler caught out in this inhospitable weather who had turned to the refuge of a torch as his guide; no succession of mercurial clouds queuing across the sky rearranging the sunlight like a climatic zoetrope. Here, the sun was incapable of penetrating this stockpile of murkiness. Gazing again at the river my dark brown eyes appeared like black pearls when the looking-glass shimmered back at me. My cheeks were unblemished like Nacre with the line of the cheekbones precisely defined along their polished wings. Not unlike Narcissus I admired what I saw there. But the light was surely coming from within the brook. I leaned back slightly only to immediately sense an immense presence behind me. It was unmistakable, a force had instantaneously occupied the space behind me, but I felt no fear. There was a tingling sensation that seemed to heighten the ethereal quality of the dream and my passions too. The manifestation in the wake of my shuddering body was emitting a huge emotive force that drew my head and shoulders back toward it. I closed my eyes as the sensuality of the moment overpowered me, fully expecting to fall faint into the arms of my emotional dictator. The tingling exacerbated to a crescendo that seemed to pour out from every nerve in my body and I found I was not breathing. Then like a breaker crashing on shore the flood emptied itself and I moaned with supreme joy. Then in an instant the enticement was gone. I rocked back like a child’s toy opening my eyes and gasping for breath as if my very soul had been snatched back from Satan himself.
My arousal had evaporated and left me chilled. The blanket of fog which had encased the atmospheric warmth now stood like the smoke of frost. I gripped the stone arch of the bridge to steady myself and a black hair curl cascaded gently between the trim of my bonnet and swung lazily over my right eye. I lifted my hand to redress the ringlet only for it to brush another, alien hand that had reached from behind me.
I woke with a jot. I could feel the stickiness between my legs. My first, I thought. I didn’t realise how hungry for an orgasm I’d been but now I felt as satiated as with any sexual encounter I’d ever had.
I gazed at the TV. There was a little green light below the screen that suddenly flared red. What was that all about? Had I put it on in my sleep? Aged about eight I’d had a period when I would sleepwalk to the fridge at night and sit down to eat returning to bed when I’d finished what I’d taken out. My parents had watched me fascinated, alarmed and cautious enough not to awaken me. Had this returned? Had all this upheaval unlocked something deep in my psyche that craved urgent attention?
Yet hadn’t I been watching a similar scene earlier that day on the same TV? Of course, that’s what triggered the dream; and maybe I did put on the television in my sleep. Perhaps my subconscious demanded I do so because the two were associated. Then something occurred to me. How, the fuck, did he know where to bring it?

*

“Mrs Marlowe, what time did Nick turn up with the TV?” I was on my way to work and bumped into her at the bottom of the stairs.
“About three in the afternoon I believe”
“Have you spoken to him before?”
“When lass?”
“After I arrived”
“I haven’t seen him since the last time I was in town, a week ago – until he brought that big thing round with him. Has he put it up the wrong way? He’s a decent fellow but a little bit lacka…”
“No it’s perfect where it is. It’s just - when I was in his shop yesterday I can’t remember giving him my address”
“Well is that all?”
“Sorry am I missing the point here? Is he psychic?”
“Don’t be silly dear everybody knows you’re staying with me”
“The whole town?”
“Those that matter”
It was those “those people” again
“Well if you all got together to discuss where I was going to live couldn’t you have found me something bigger?”
“You don’t like the room?” she said her voice trailing off in an indignant whimper.
My guilty stomach rumbled and I found myself fawning in an exaggerated manner. “Not at all…it’s lovely…and your meal was…and that’s another thing, how on earth did you know what time I’d be home last evening?”
“My house is an open house, and, I have an open stove”, she brightened again. “I knew you’d be hungry lass. There was nothing to keep you in that shop was there? There’s plenty of time to get that straight. Look after your tum.” And she patted it. It rumbled again in reply.
“I’m very happy to be here Mrs Marlowe, for the first couple of months anyway but eventually I’d like a place of my own, after all I have a big TV in there that needs a big sitting room”
“Mr Greenman was always very happy with the arrangement”
“You mean this was his flat”
“Aye lass and his telly”