For someone avowedly admiring a nice quiet house, his voice eroded the quietness a fraction more than Esme liked. But then, she admitted smugly, she brought that on herself. She was a good cook, a good plain cook. Roast and three veg (she soon invited him to share Saturday and Sunday lunches, at no extra charge), egg-and-bacon breakfasts, unless it was two boiled eggs, toast, and marmalade. Variations on meat pasty, a chop, fish of some sort, for his tea. Mr. Shale couldn’t get over it. “Delicious!” most times, before and after the repast. Sometimes he chortled, “Ledicious,” which, since he wasn’t drunk, Esme took to be a joke. She wasn’t good at jokes.
How he rang the changes, lauding the most pedestrian menus... Uncalled for, she considered; he was getting what she made for herself. It didn’t cost that much more than catering for one.
“Scrumptious.” “My goodness, a bloater. We had these at home, haven’t seen one in years, hadn’t thought of them. With bread and butter, just the ticket!” He might have been espying caviar.
“Compliments to the chef.” “After a spread like that, you must let me help with the washing-up.” And so forth and on, all of it patently sincere.
Because he was biddable, a hint-taker, Esme allowed a routine to develop after tea. They’d go into the front room and watch television; they both enjoyed a quiz or a game show, sharing gleeful scorn over the number of ignoramuses and ninnies getting the chance to win absurdly rich prizes. After the nine o’clock news, Esme would say, “I expect you want some time to yourself now,” and Mr. Shale would respond, “Absolutely,” or “Right you are, I am a bit drowsy,” and patter away, taking the used cups to the kitchen. She always made coffee for them, proper coffee, Blue Mountain, freshly ground.
After a time he needed no cue, simply collected the crockery and said goodnight.
Esme came to think so highly of him that she would have done his washing. But Mr. Shale took himself off to the laundrette every Saturday morning, choosing his library books while underpants and socks swirled around, and collecting the week’s supply of shirts from a Chinese laundry. Changed his shirt daily, grubby or not. That had been one of Dad’s yardsticks for a gentleman.
She kept telling herself that it was too good to last. Mr. Shale would unveil or develop new tiresome if not repellent mannerisms, take to drink, or start some hobby — men did — involving hammering and banging, strange smells, Things Left About Downstairs.
Failing that, he might mumble about a hitch at the bank, that infernal computer, and get behind with the rent. Instead, after a year, he said, “Er, about what I’m paying you, Mrs. Huddle...” making her bristle. “All the extra, coffee and that, and you feed me like a lord. I don’t feel right. Let’s round it up to the hundred.”
Astonished, Esme decreed almost gaily, “We shall split the difference, Mr. Shale, and make it ninety.”
The only oddity about him was that Mr. Shale never went anywhere, save work and to town on a Saturday. If friends or family existed, he never visited them and they never called on him. Esme never felt sorry for people, their remedies were in their own hands, yet she experienced a wisp of compassion for David Shale. Silly of her, she conceded. He was well looked after, and contented with small talk and television, reading, and his albums and tweezers — there was a hobby after alclass="underline" he collected stamps.
Esme shrugged off her concern. She didn’t have much of a life, outsiders would say, yet it suited her perfectly, thank you. Some folk were self-sufficient and her lodger was one of them. She couldn’t deny that being self-sufficient without being wholly alone was... quite pleasant.
Mr. Shale had been with her for two years when the rot set in. In rapid succession he bought a new suit, a pair of unsuitable slacks — floppy, pastel, too young for him — and a yellow tank top, worn over a silly open-neck shirt. She caught him studying himself in mirrors. He failed to understand (men didn’t, for some reason) that growing sideburns drew attention to scanty growth above them.
And he started staying out at night.
Esme Huddle snorted, recognising the signs. A typical man was behaving typically. Pity, for she had nearly accepted him as a companion — not a friend, God forbid, but a human pet requiring just about the same effort and attention as a pedigreed cat.
Neither of them alluded to his conduct, nor acknowledged that a cozy routine had altered. Mr. Shale was implicitly sheepish, somehow, that was all. Diffidently hangdog, despite an occasional unguarded grin while daydreaming. “Makes me feel like his mother,” Esme thought crossly. “As if I cared what he gets up to providing he doesn’t bring his tart back here.”
Unlikely, for David Shale was always home by ten-thirty, conspicuously alone, closer to sulks than his former cheeriness.
Although she didn’t care, as such, Esme assured herself, it was regrettable. “Drat the chap,” she exclaimed one evening. From habit she had ground enough beans for two cups. Sooner than waste the coffee she must drink the lot and be kept awake half the night. No consideration, some people.
It wasn’t as if, she argued for the hundredth time, the wretched man was getting anything out of it. Apart from You Know What, silly devil. Grins or no, he was prevailing downcast lately. Hadn’t touched his stamp album in weeks. She’d had to dust it this morning. And that pitiful array of vitamin pills in his bedside drawer, along with a pamphlet about hair restorers. Twenty pounds for a bottle no bigger than your thumb — and she bet he had sent away for some. Chump!
“It won’t happen again,” Mr. Shale assured his landlady. He eyed her anxiously.
“I’m not your keeper,” Esme snapped. “Got your key, and you’re a grown man.”
“But I was very late, I must have woken you.”
“No must about it, if I’m abed before eleven then I get my eight hours, elephants stampeding wouldn’t wake me,” she lied. And with hardly a pause, “Same old story, all over you when they want your order, but it soon changes.”
He looked so taken aback, even frightened, that she clicked her tongue in annoyance at his slowness. “These eggs are a disgrace. Supposed to be free-range, and you can hardly tell the yolk from the white. Stick a bit of straw in the carton and they think they can get away with anything. I shall give that fellow a piece of my mind.”
“I’m not hungry, Mrs. Huddle.” He grimaced at the double egg cup. “Thanks, all the same. And late, I’m running late for the office.” Mr. Shale bolted.
There was no end to men’s folly and vanity. Dieting now, as if skirt-chasing was not enough. And from the sickly look and other evidence, suffering a morning-after penalty for wasting his money in pubs. She had heard him come in, all right. Tiptoeing about downstairs, floorboards creaking, in and out of the bathroom, cistern growling and swooshing into the small hours. Being sick, she deduced, dirty beast. Nobody would be washing themselves, or clothing, in the handbasin so late and so repeatedly. At least he had locked the front door behind him, saving her going down to do it: She’d listened for the sound of the key.
As for it not happening again, handsome is as handsome does, and so much for men’s promises. That very evening, unprecedentedly, he did not return until past eight o’clock; cod in batter, homemade batter, too, none of your shop-bought rubbish, not to mention the peas and carrots, all ruined...
“I’m really sorry,” he said listlessly, a “please don’t start on me” note in the apology. “I got kept at, at—” The stammer was a fresh development. “—At work. All seen to now. I hope.” The last was to himself.
He was a terrible colour. “I... I think I have a migraine, better turn in early.” Migraine out of a bottle, she jeered silently as he fled.