A Likely Story

14. all edges stained

 I rang the doorbell of the Victorian-style red brick house that I'd only been to a handful of times. I waited, scuffing the edge of my shoe against the grey concrete floor and looking up into the stained glass of the little window at the top of the front door, glowing prettily with the artificial light of the hall. From inside I heard the sound of muffled footsteps, and then the door opened and I found myself staring into the pale blue eyes of a woman with blonde hair and a flower-sprigged apron so devoid of creases that I was reminded suddenly of the paper dolls that I had played with when I was little, with their carefully cut out dresses and skirts with stiff corners. I realised then that she was Luke's mother; I'd never met either of his parents before.

She looked at me, and for a few moments I couldn't do anything except stare at her wordlessly.

“Yes?” she asked, in a voice with vowels like butter and consonants standing stiffly upright. She held the door in way that told me it could be slammed at any second.

“Hi,” I began, and had to start again. “Is Luke he- I'm Lula?” It came out as more of a question, which was the case with all my sentences in the presence of people I was intimidated by.

“Oh, you're his girlfriend!” she asked, her face lighting up.

For a moment I couldn't speak. Then I managed, “Sorry?”

She took hold of my arm and pulled me towards her a little, leaning in like we'd suddenly known each other for years. “He was terribly sad when he came home from seeing you last week, although I'm sure it was just a silly misunderstanding” she shook her head, rolling her eyes and giving me a sympathetic little smile, “you know how he gets!”

I took a step back away from her, suddenly repulsed by this cardboard cut-out of a woman who had obviously seen how devastated her son had been and had chosen to put it down to teenage nonsense.

“I was completely horrible to him,” I said in a voice that verged on sharp, “and he had every reason to be upset. I've come to say sorry. Is he upstairs?”

I half expected her to yell at me, or at least tell me not to speak to her like that, but she seemed to have been temporarily silenced. She held the door open wordlessly and I walked past her into a hallway that smelt of vanilla scented candles and the lemon cleaning stuff that my mum used to use, before we had to start buying it from the pound shop. I made my way up the stairs that creaked underfoot, not really knowing where I was going but feeling that it would be slightly awkward to ask, especially after my little angry speech. I could have been heading up to the kitchen for all I knew, although I'd never seen a kitchen upstairs before.

When I got onto the landing, there were two doors immediately in front of me, and I stared at them, feeling a bit like I was on some sort of game show where you opened the wrong door and got splashed with green goo or something. I walked up to one, thinking I'd just knock and see, although the thought of interrupting Luke's dad's Saturday afternoon nap didn't come across as very fun.

Suddenly a flash of blue caught my eye, and I turned and came face to face with another door, painted dark blue. It had been hidden behind a wall, so from the landing it was invisible. I took a chance and knocked. There was silence, and I found myself not wanting to knock again, thinking about what I'd say if I actually was confronted by a sleepy man in his boxers.

Then suddenly the door opened and Luke was standing there, dressed in jeans and a plain white t-shirt and smelling faintly of vanilla. “Hey,” he said casually, as if I lived on the landing outside his room.

“Can I come in?” I asked.

“I'm actually kind of-” He stepped back smartly and narrowly avoided being thrown into the door frame as I walked past him into his room. The smell of vanilla dominated.