She unloaded the car on to the driveway. Bags and boxes surrounded the vehicle as she flapped about in and out of the car, leaning over to the back seat dragging designer bags with famous names emblazoned on them, heavy gold ropes acting as handles. A huge bunch of lilies tied with natural raffia filled her arms as she fiddled with the door key. The burglar alarm in the house went off screeching and pulsating, shattering the quiet street. She went in and banged the door shut leaving her parcels and packages strewn on the driveway.
Seeing all this from behind the wooden shutter in my living room, not that I was looking just dusting you understand. I blew a large raspberry to myself and thought about taking over the parcel which had arrived for her earlier. I also thought about keeping it as I hadn’t signed and had come from a rather plush well known department store where I didn’t shop. It must be something I would want or possibly need I thought. I prodded it. It was soft and squidgy. A cashmere cardigan perhaps, like Nigella’s in crimson with satin covered buttons? Lovely! Oh but no. Crimson will clash with my grey roots, I don’t want that. Years ago I suited crimson. My hair was almost black, glossy with softly falling curls and waves. Sophia Loren my father said. Now it was greying in patches like a badger. Hard bristly hair, frizzy in the rain, flat and dull when I coloured it – couldn’t go to a salon, too pricey.
I prodded the parcel again and turned it upside down, shook it, squeezed it. A silk dressing gown perhaps? A fuchsia kimono with a dragon or a sea creature on the back – Octopussey! Fun with that one tonight. That would shock him. Make a change from my comfy pyjamas and sheepskin slippers. It’s too cold in my house for silk kimonos and he wouldn’t notice it. Fluffy pink spotted, fleecy robe is what I wear to watch Midsummer Murders.
Perhaps it’s something lovely for the house. I take the parcel into the kitchen and hold it up to the window. I can’t see through the packaging but I hadn’t noticed before on the back were some words under the store name. LUXE it said. Now I was even keener to keep it. LUXE. All the big fashion and house making magazines only used that word when it was really expensive and special. I don’t think I had ever had anything that could be called LUXE. Perhaps it’s couvert cloths woven with gold thread to be laid on a highly polished table for an elegant dinner party. Crystal goblets shimmer under the crystal chandelier, champagne bubbles fizz and pop on the surface. That won’t do either. My glassware, well the five that are left, are heavy green recycled bottle glass, very trendy thirty years ago, very Bistro, very Shepherd’s Pie. Anyway champagne gives me indigestion.
I’d better take it over. It won’t fit in with this household. I put on my old clogs, wrap my cardigan around me and clump over to the house opposite. She opens the door, a cloud of nauseatingly sweet perfume hits me but what I see is the black mascara running down her face and the crystal champagne flute in her hand. She is drunk. Very drunk indeed. The running mascara is the result of laughing and screeching which she always seems to be doing.
‘Anything up. Need any help? I ask not really meaning it thinking she seems to be helping herself quite nicely here.
‘Need any help. Need any help’, she screeched.’ Why would I need any help from a poor, sad, fat old bag like you’. She snatched the parcel and slammed the door.
I climbed back over the parcels on her drive and kicked a few into the flower beds. Once back inside I looked around. My house was huge, the largest in the road much larger than hers. My garden was massive, much larger than hers. My bank balance was enormous having won the Euro lottery some months before. Despite all this I was inferior, fat, old and worst of all lacking in any kind of style. No amount of money will ever change all that for me will it?
