The living room had not been cared for quite as well. On the coffee table, a bottle of nail varnish sat on top of Monday’s edition of the Metro newspaper. He swept up some biscuit crumbs from the sofa and plumped up the cushions, finding the remote control underneath one of them. He placed it on the table and made his way to the bathroom. It pleased him that the bath and toilet bowl were visibly clean. An array of feminine products covered every available surface: moisturiser, mascara brush, pots of creams and lotions of all varieties. Handling each in turn, he was amazed that one woman would need so many magic potions.
The plastic waste bin contained a bloodied tampon, wrapped in toilet tissue and nestled on top of a couple of black-stained cotton wool pads. Make-up, presumably. He wondered if there was any truth in the idea that a period would adversely affect women’s moods, and made a mental note to watch out for any irritability. His wife had long been free of monthly disturbances when they married, so regular personality changes hadn’t been something he’d observed up close.
Lastly, the spare bedroom: the bed unmade, a T-shirt draped over the back of a chair, some clutter on the bedside cabinet. He sat on the mattress and plucked a strawberry blonde hair from the pillow, then blew it away. He opened the top drawer of the bedside cabinet and poked around the contents. There was a recently expired Young Persons Railcard: Sinead looked at least five years younger in the picture and wore pink streaks in longer hair. She had a defiant expression, he thought. A golden Buddha ornament, the size of a paperweight, also caught his eye. He closed the drawer with a little too much force and the photo frame on the cabinet top collapsed. Picking the frame up, he gave it a quick look – Sinead as a snot-nosed child with a trampy-looking woman he assumed was her mother. But there was no sign of daddy anywhere.
Rifling around in the lower drawers, he found a hairbrush, a set of house keys, some odds and ends, and a packet of contraceptive pills. He tapped the packet against his knee. So she was sexually active, but he saw no evidence of a boyfriend – he would have expected to find a photo, some underarm deodorant, spare toothbrush or boxer shorts, something like that. No, it looked like she’d been on her own the past few nights. That was good.
A letter from the Student Loans Company was a useful find. The balance Sinead owed was currently £29,000. So he wasn’t the only one with money problems. In his BlackBerry he made a note of the address in Catford where the statement had been sent. Leaning back on the bed, he imagined Sinead sleeping there. He pictured her waking up, getting dressed, coming home from work and kicking off her shoes. Making herself feel at home.
Tonight’s meal would be important; he had to make the right impression if he was to win her trust.
***
‘Could you reach that tin of peaches for me, please?’ The elderly lady was under five foot and ridden with arthritis; her back crooked, arms stiffened. Smiling politely, he reached up to the second highest shelf and grabbed a tin.
‘Just the one?’ he asked.
‘You’d best make it two while you’re up there, dear.’
He took a second tin and placed them carefully into the lady’s trolley. It was filled with canned produce of every kind: tomatoes, beans, potatoes, carrots, sardines.
‘You’re very kind. I’m much obliged.’ She raised her head as far as she was able and their eyes briefly met.
‘Not at all.’
She put her liver-spotted, claw-like hands over the horizontal bar, leant into the trolley and trundled off. All her strength went into pushing the trolley and it moved just a few inches before she stopped again. Watching her, he was struck by the pensioner’s determination and resilience. She must have been eighty-five if she were a day; a child of the war. Anyone who grew up during wartime deserved his admiration.
He continued along the aisle until he found the rice. The golden Buddha paperweight he had found in Sinead’s bedside drawer indicated that a Thai green curry would be a good bet, so he selected a 500 gram packet of Thai sticky rice and read the recipe suggestion on the back. It looked relatively straightforward, and he could do most of the prep before Sinead returned home. Craning his neck to read the aisle signs hanging from the ceiling, he located the poultry section and headed in that direction.
Free-range, organic or Halal chicken breasts? He knew enough to stay away from the budget range; malnourished chickens that had sat quaking in their own urine would not provide the quality needed to impress his new tenant. He compared prices and finally settled on free-range. Now, what was next on the list?
Further along the aisle, a pink-tracksuit-clad fifteen-stone beast was prodding at her glitter-encrusted iPhone, while ignoring the toddler in a pushchair yelling like an unmedicated mental patient, and repeatedly bashing his tiny fist into the plastic edge of the sausage display unit.
Moving swiftly away from the disturbance, around the corner and towards the fruit and vegetables, he asked himself why any intelligent person bothered shopping in Sainsbury’s when the sheep were allowed to roam so freely. A man could hardly hear himself think with that racket going on. He had an idea why the toddler was screaming, though: it had just experienced a pre-verbal premonition of the meaningless life it would be forced to endure for another seventy years. Being parked in front of the processed remains of a dead pig while his hideous carer was immersed in her sparkly phone, who could blame him for reacting so vehemently?
He took the packet of Thai rice from the basket and checked the list of recommended ingredients from the recipe printed on the back: lemongrass, spring onions and pak choi. What the hell was pak choi? It sounded like a made-up name, invented by someone in marketing. Green beans would be fine instead. Once he’d got all the ingredients sorted he’d need to find one of those jars of green paste that gave the meal its distinctive flavour. And some prawn toast for starters, perhaps.
At the checkout, he placed all his items on the conveyor belt and waited his turn. On the other side of the cash register, a late middle-aged West Indian woman was packing her goods into two canvas bags at an acceptable speed. Behind him he heard a trolley rattle; turning round, he saw a muscular young man dressed in grey tracksuit bottoms and a black T-shirt two sizes too small, so as to reveal his Schwarzenegger styled arms and chest. The great ape began pulling up bottles of protein powders from the trolley and stacking them on the conveyor belt.
Slowly and deliberately, he placed a shopping divider behind his own purchases and watched the bodybuilder’s expressionless face as he loaded steaks and eggs onto the belt. The man’s biceps were the size of rugby balls; one close-range punch would put you in a coma. Arnie deposited the final item – a bag of Maris Piper potatoes – on the belt, and then realised he was being watched, returning his look with a dead-eyed steroid stare of aggression.
A stun gun held to the neck would disable this kind of opponent, he thought, while smiling pleasantly at the man. He imagined this gym bunny convulsing, knees buckling, dropping to the floor. Then he realised the girl on the till was speaking to him and he turned to face her.
‘Do you need a bag?’
‘A bag? Yes indeed.’
‘A bag for life is ten pence.’