6. THE CONSERVATORY ROOF

There are dangers involved in cleaning windows...

“It’s a lovely cup of tea, Miranda. Nobody makes tea quite like you,” said Casey cum Albert with a broad smile on his cheerful face, a smile which showed his sparkling white teeth off, teeth that the Casey part of the duo personality was so proud of.

Albert felt part of that pride as well, and it shocked him.

“You say that every time you sit there,” smiled Miranda. “So what do you think I should do about my banker friend? Should I take the money and run, so to speak, or tell him to bog off? And take his empty ring box with him?”

“That last bit,” nodded Casey, “you can’t be signing up to a lifetime of caring and what-not with a bloke you don’t love. It just wouldn’t work. That sort of thing never does.”

“I barely know him,” said Miranda slowly, “You’re quite right, of course.”

“So if you don’t know him like you say, how come he thinks he can turn you into his wife?” asked Casey, with a whole lot of Albert behind the words.

“He’s a friend of a friend’s husband,” sighed Miranda. “I see him sometimes when we’re out for a drink together. He tags along and he’s usually welcome because he never minds paying for something better than the house red.”

“And that’s all there is to it?” Casey’s eyebrows were raised in surprise. “You mean, he’s never tried anything on? Never put his hands where he shouldn’t?”

“Not once.” Miranda was firm about her reply. “Not that I mind that,” she added, “I’m not the sort of woman to come free with a glass of Beaujolais!

“And he’s not gay? He’s just got to be gay if he’s in the company of somebody as gorgeous as you and hasn’t tried something on.”

“I’m not gorgeous, silly!”

“Of course you are! Everyone can see that! If I wasn’t happily married I’d be trying something right now!”

“Flattery will get you everywhere, Casey. But tell me. How did you meet Rosie?”

“The love of my life,” murmured Casey slowly, then: “it’s easy, really. We were friends at school. Close friends, even then. I was good at maths and she was good at English, so I helped her with her maths and she did my English for me!”

“A handy arrangement, that. I knew a lad when I was at school, too.” Miranda stirred her tea slowly as she spoke, and there was something about the way she did it that spoke of a long sadness.

“And nothing came of it?” asked Casey tentatively.

Miranda stood up, and frowned. “He died,” she said shortly.

“I’m sorry.”

“It was ages ago. We were only thirteen.”

“I’m still sorry.”

“You’re a good man, Casey, one of the best. And you’ve decided me about the banker bloke.”

“I haven’t really said anything.”

“You’ve still decided me. I’ll tell him to go to where the sun never shines. That’s what I’ll do.”

Casey grinned. “And say goodbye to a life of luxury, endless champagne lunches and sophisticated parties?”

“Yes,” she smiled back, “especially those. Now, when you’ve finished your tea, I’ve got to go out.”

“Okay. I’ve got a few more windows to polish before I’ve made my first million so I’d better get about it. Thanks for the cuppa, and you can always confide in me, now that I’ve guessed that you’re called Miranda!”

“It was a good game, you guessing a different name every time we met. You just had to get it right one day. Yes, I am Miranda. Miranda Tinkle.”

“See you, then,” smiled Casey, and he shouldered his ladders, whistled a jolly tune, and went to cross the road to clean another set of windows.

“So she’s still a Tinkle,” thought Albert as he waited for a gap in the traffic, “she’s not got married yet, then.”

Six houses and about fifty windows later he arrived at the big house. That’s what he called it, anyway. It was a Victorian building made of cold stone and with a double front, and the windows, set back, could be awkward. He didn’t like cleaning them, never had, which is why he charged double.

The people who lived there were never in when he came, leather in hand, but he was an honest man and didn’t let a lack of supervision tempt him to cut corners. It would be noticed if he did, anyway. He was sure of that.

Payment for his work was left in an old Oxo tin on an upstairs window sill. They put it out there where, they said, chance burglars were unlikely to risk life and limb getting at it to steal it. They wouldn’t, said the woman whose idea it was to put it there, even know there was money in the tin if they spotted it from the street. She could leave it on the stone window sill, quite safely by merely opening the window and placing it there from inside, and he had to climb up his ladder to reach it when he was cleaning anyway, so it all made sense.

It made sense to her, anyway.

What made it a little difficult for him was the simple fact that the one window sill she chose for her precious Oxo tin was directly above a conservatory, a huge glass monstrosity that didn’t seem to be used for anything, though it took him an age to clean its many panes of glass.

This day should have been no different from any other. He should have found it easy, climbing the ladder that ended next to the window sill and its Oxo tin, and then reaching for it, opening it, taking his fifteen pounds carefully from it, and then closing it.

But today was different, somehow. Today the lady of the house had left it a few inches further along so that he had to reach that little bit further. Today the Albert part of him was deep in thoughts of what might have been had he not made that foolhardy and dangerous Christmas day ride on his bicycle, the one that had led to what just had to have been his own premature death.

Why, his mum might have married her dad and they would then have lived in the same house, and Miranda was a mischievous lass when it came to personal matters. He knew that. It’s why he had liked her. Or one of the reasons: there were plenty of others.

And what with everything suffusing his mind with what might have beens, he suddenly found the ladder slipping where he had placed it on the ground, and then, in the most horrible slow motion, himself grasping for anything that would save him from a life-threatening fall through the glass roof of the wretched conservatory.

There was nothing for him to grasp hold of.

His heart lurched, fear swamped his heart, and he started a very rapid descent until he heard himself crash through the glass conservatory roof and land on its concrete floor, unconscious, and with blood oozing out of a dozen glassy cuts.

His heart was still pounding when he stood, at that same precise moment, in front of thirty children in a bright and highly decorated classroom, smoothing his skirt down and wondering where in Earth he was.

© Peter Rogerson 06.05.19