I am zipping up my jeans
when a voice rings out.
Marla! It’s Peggy!
The front door slams shut.
I can’t get my feckin’ tights on, Marla shouts
from the bedroom next to mine.
My arse has expanded.
Feet pad the stairs.
I nudge my room door closed
and press an ear against it.
Your mouth never stops expanding either.
You not dressed yet? I messaged to remind you.
The woman, Peggy, laughs and starts to whistle,
noise nothing like a melody.
They sent someone else, Marla says.
A young thing.
Lovely, she is.
Almost burned the house down around me.
A pause.
Is someone after my job? Peggy asks.
Was she funnier than I am?
Did she climb in a window?
Marla doesn’t reply because
these are not real questions.
They are condescensions.
Peggy doesn’t believe a word Marla’s saying,
hearing only confusion
not facts.
She must have a key, Marla says.
Or maybe she was here all night.
She was in her knickers.
Noises come from the other room
that sound like fussing, sorting, tidying.
Well, I’ll definitely look
to make sure she left.
Peggy is completely unconvinced.
Sorry I was late.
There was a tractor in front of me the whole way
from Stratton and he wouldn’t pull over.
What a headache!
I scramble around the room,
squeezing things into my bag,
then quietly
slide beneath the bed,
press my side against a collection
of dusty hat boxes.
Eventually the room door does open;
heavy white trainers appear,
tidily laced to the top.
No one in the spare room, Marla! Peggy calls out.
Her feet are still.
Then she bends,
hair covering her face,
and collects a sock I missed
from the carpet.
We should probably give it a clean in here.
And she is gone,
out the door again, calling,
Have you had your dolly mixtures yet?
Dolly mixtures?
Your meds, woman. Your meds.
I’ll find them. You come on down
when you’ve your face on.
In my pocket, my phone vibrates.