2004

SHORT STORY COMPETITION

Third Prize

The Sanserif Man

By Paul Wysockit

I remember my editor telling me once that plagiarism was the Crime of Crimes; I could never decide if he was right.

My To Do List is like the Yellow Pages: renew contents insurance; Dad’s birthday; deal with stain on en-suite carpet; book MOT; make sloe gin; marry Sarah. I have a memory like a cylinder, that is to say, halfway between a sieve and a colander. Either way I have to write everything down on my master list, otherwise it doesn’t get done. And that really is the Crime of Crimes.

I work for the Guardian, or should I say The Guardian . You might have seen my name ‘by David Haines’ squirreled away in the Review section or sparring with the cryptic crossword for column inches. I’m the one who ploughs through the Cornwells and Rankins, distilling them into 100 criminal words for sleepy Saturday readers, although I do have another Wapping claim to fame: whatever anyone else says, The Guardian was my idea. Not the newspaper, but the typeface of the title, its italics and its sanserifs, those letters with all the twiddly bits removed. In fact, they still call me The Sanserif Man, and that is where my career stalled.

Working from home means you get to procrastinate, so I ’phone Norwich Union, get a quote for my contents insurance, and set up a Direct Debit there and then. Tick. Good start to the day: one item off the list already, and it’s only 9:15.

Sarah calls.

“Hello, it’s me.”

“Hello, darling. Having a good day?”

I picture her cradling the receiver under her chin while she simultaneously sketches outlines for a new shopping centre and types a two-fingered e-mail. Not that she can’t touch-type, it’s just that she likes to use her other eight fingers for something else – multi-tasking was invented for Sarah.

“Great.” There’s a pause while she takes the long cut to her destination. “David?”

“Mmm?”

“About the sitting-room…?”

Get to the point, Sarah. I am, after all, The Sanserif Man - I can’t stand digressions or twiddly bits. I have a Ruth Rendell to read and a deadline to meet. “Yes?” I say the word as though it is U-shaped, long and doubtful, giving her the impression that I’m not going to like what she says next.

“I was thinking…”

“Uh-huh?”

“How about getting rid of the carpet and exposing the floorboards? We could have them stripped and sanded.”

I don’t really want to do that. “I’ll have you stripped and sanded.”

Sarah laughs; it sounds like interference on the line. “Seriously, silly. I think it would open up the room. Especially if we take down the bookshelves and lighten the walls.” Sarah’s a fantastic and innovative architect, and she thinks that this translates to interior design. But she knows she is on shaky ground with the shelves – it took me weeks to put all my books into alphabetical order.

“I don’t know. My toes get cold.”

“I’ll get you slippers.”

“Or I could warm them up on you.”

“Ooh.” I can feel her shiver.

“It’s a nice idea, sweetheart, but I don’t know if the floorboards are any good.” We only decided to live together a week ago and already she has half my house in a skip. “Why don’t I check it out?”

“OK, luvvie. Oh, and don’t forget your Dad’s birthday.”

I won’t. It’s on the list. “Yeah, thanks for reminding me.”

“Love you loads, darling.” She mouths a kiss down the telephone that sounds like a squeaky toy being unvelcro-ed from the mouthpiece. I kiss back.

“Love you too, bun-bun.”

Sarah’s getting a bit close. She wants to move into my house, but I don’t know if I’m that kind of guy. I’ll definitely have to marry her. I underline her on my list.

Which reminds me. I add ‘Lift Carpet’ to the list and call my father.

“Geoff Haines.”

“Hi, Dad, it’s David. Happy birthday.”

“Thanks, son. Thanks for the card.” He laughs but sounds subdued, as he has a right to be. Mum walked out on him twelve months ago, and there hasn’t been a whisper of her since. She had been having an affair with Dad’s accountant. I confronted her, which was obviously what she really wanted to happen. She left Dad completely stranded and now his financial affairs are in a right two and eight.

“Nothing to thank. Doing anything special?”

“Oh, you know.” His apathy filled the silence.

“Why don’t we go out for dinner? Celebrate?”

“Celebrate what, David? No, I don’t fancy going out.”

I’m not sure Dad knows the way to his front gate, he hasn’t been out in so long. “Oh, come on, Dad. It’ll be fun. Look, you’re better off…”

“No, David, I’m not. I miss her, son. I miss her. I never wanted anyone but your Mum. I thought it was the same for her. She didn’t even send me a card.” I can picture the tears he is trying so hard to hide.

“Hey, Dad, it’s all right. No pressure.”

“I’m sorry I’m such a mess, David.”

“No sorries needed, Dad.” I just want to hug him; dear old Dad, he took it worse than I ever imagined.

“Maybe we should get together, I don’t know. Mind if I come round?” He has lost so much ground lately. Nowadays he always begins with, ‘Mind if…’ or ‘Would it be OK…’ The exuberant Dad that got me into journalism in the first place couldn’t doorstep a bag of frozen peas these days.

“Yeah, why not? Six o’clock? There’s a match on Sky, if you fancy it?”

“Yeah, OK.” I listen for signs that I might have brightened his day in some way, but all seems shrouded in the same old shadows. Bloody Mum.

“See you later.”

“See you, David.”

Happy Birthday, Dad. Tick.

Ruth Rendell puts another body in the Thames, and I think I know who did it, although it’s only Chapter Seven and time for lunch.

The stain in the en-suite looks like old chewing-gum, or it might be Sarah’s leg-wax – we’re on those sort of terms already. I had hidden the mark neatly beneath the wastepaper basket about two months ago, but Sarah found it last week, so it had to go on the List. Name-drop time: I met PD James at a party a few days ago, and she swore that Coca-Cola will remove chewing-gum from anything. Then again, she also told me that American cops keep a stash of it in the boot to clean blood off the highway after pile-ups. I adore PD and when I was a boy I wished she was my Mum, but I decide to leave the Coke where it belongs – in Sainsbury’s. I scrub at the mark with a wire brush and the Mr Muscle, bringing up gum and carpet pile in equal amounts. When I have finished there is a small pale island in the blue carpet. It smells of stale spearmint and looks worse than the stain. I colour it in with a blue felt-tip and put the basket back on top. There, good as new. Tick.

Back to work on the new Rendell. I sink into a few more chapters of murky dealings, but can’t shake the conviction that I know who the murderer is. I do something I never do; I turn to the end, which I know spoils the book whichever way you look at it, right or wrong. I am way off the mark - it was the mother all along. My touch must have gone AWOL; I am never wrong. I am so cross I stuff the novel down the side of the sofa so I don’t have to look at it. Ruthless. I pick up the cordless and call Gray’s Motors. They can fit me in for the MOT on Wednesday. Tick.

I fetch the basket of sloes from the larder and measure out the sugar and the gin into Gordon’s bottles. No sooner do start pricking the fruit than the ’phone rings again.

“Hello. It’s me again.”

“Hello, darling.”

“Are you busy, sweetie?”

I am always busy. “No, no. Just reading.” Most of the time I am straight as a Roman road, as predictable as Sunday, so I sometimes have to lie just to keep my hand in.

“I just bought some paint samples at B&Q, cute little teeny tester pots, and I thought we could try them out on the walls tonight.”

“Tonight? Well, Dad’s coming over later for his birthday…”

“Oooh, lovely. Why don’t I bring a cake?” I can hear her doubt melt the pause away. “Unless it’s a boys’ night?”

Dad really likes Sarah, so I know he won’t mind. In fact, it’s for him that I’ve got ‘Marry Sarah’ on the list at all. Living together would have been enough for me. But no longer – it’s on the list, so I’ll have to do it. “No, that’s fine, poppy, he’d love to see you. Six? Or five and then we’ll have time to do the paint thing?”

“OK, see you in a bit, darling. Loads of love.”

The pricked sloes dive into the sweetened gin. I try one, as bitter as divorce; no wonder birds leave them on the bushes. They are far away from the potent syrup that they will become in a few months, with that Benylin flavour that reminds me of childhood sickness, with Mum creeping into my darkened bedroom to make everything better with Calpol and kisses. I didn’t realise there was an after-taste that would take years to emerge.

Each prick in each sloe gives me a gentle release, a feeling of calm inevitably, not like last year when I was stabbing each fruit with my hurt. Dad had found the accountant’s letters to Mum, infidelity on headed notepaper, she reduced to a tax-deductible. I almost expected to see a balance sheet in there too – a reckoning of their affair’s revenue and expenditure, emotional pros and cons.

The berries settle in the sweet sediment, purple-black like new bruises, and I give the bottles a good shake to dissolve the sugar. I find a home for them in the cupboard under the stairs where I spent my formative years, punished by Mum for crimes I don’t remember. The sloe gin can hibernate until Christmas. Wish I could. Tick.

The doorbell rings. I see Sarah’s silhouette through the frosted glass, her bob living up to its name in the autumn breeze. I open the door and she smiles her Sunday best, arms full of Victoria Sponge, Battenburg, Dundee, and Moët. “I wasn’t sure what your Dad liked.” She gives me one of those grins that erase her lips and seem to come with a built-in shrug.

“He’ll like the champers.” I take the carrier bags from her and we kiss as though we’ve been seeing each other four days instead of four years. The depth of my feeling for her surprises me now and then. I’m willing to give up the carpets for this woman, and so I should be.

We try the tester pots in the sitting-room, painting a patchwork of small squares of colour on the wall behind the sofa. ‘Magnolia’, ‘Barley’, ‘White with a Hint of Inevitability’. I dab ‘Apricot Dream’ on the end of her nose and she screams with laughter.

“Goes with your eyes,” I say.

“Shame we haven’t got ‘Black ‘n’ Blue’ – that’d go with your eyes, buster.” We kiss again, and the apricot gloss smears across my cheek, a pastel war paint for sensitive braves.

“I love you,” I say. “Will you marry me?”

The doorbell pre-empts her answer, and Dad shuffles in, wearing an old mac that looks as though he bought it to match his mood. His face is the colour of old porridge and he wears an almost-smile that he brought along just for me. He cranks his expression up a notch when he sees Sarah, revealing more lines beside his overworked eyes.

“Hello, Sarah.”

“Hello, Geoff. Happy Birthday. How are you?” She kisses him on the cheek, branding him with our apricot conspiracy.

“Oh, you know.” At least he has stopped saying ‘Fine’, but his words come with a read-between-the-lines signpost.

“Come through, Dad. Let’s have a drink.”

“Yes, we’ve got something else to celebrate, Geoff.”

“Oh?”

Sarah squeezes my hand. “We’re going to get married,” she says. Tick.

“Congratulations, son, Sarah. I’m sure you’ll be very happy.” His smile is genuine, but his eyes say ‘But for how long?’

I pop the champagne. It fizzes through my fingers and I side-step its cascade as it pools on the carpet.

“Oops, sorry, David, I must have jiggled it about in the bag. Never mind, we’ll be lifting the carpets up soon. We want to see what’s underneath,” she explains to Dad.

‘Lift Carpets’ – no tick, not yet, anyway. But I know what’s underneath. Maybe I’ll have time to lift the floorboards before Sarah moves in, maybe not. What does it matter? It’s about time I went off the rails, in any case. I keep Mum. Literally.

She betrayed Dad, betrayed me. She had to be put away, you see, she herself taught me that. Her rules, not mine; my hands were tied. Mum’s the word.

Sorry, plagiarism, you take the silver medal.