Kingfisher

The Secret of the Sock Drawer

The night was dark and cold. In limbo between the comforting presence of Mave at the docks and the promise of Michael when she arrived at his house, Claire had time to focus on her inability to live up to the standards she set for herself. The wonderful ascetic image that she wished to become was never so far off that it seemed irrational to pursue it, yet the outcome of her attempts always seemed worthy of scorn. Claire swung between considering herself to be pretty fucking awesome, destined to achieve great things, and regarding the sniveling runt that was known by her name a pathetic, miserable creature.

Considering her shortfalls on this particular night, though, she felt rather closer to the former than the latter. She was pretty awesome, she decided.

And so it was a relatively arrogant Claire Ainsworth who turned the corner into Ridgewood, Michael's neck of the Aceltonian woods. She always felt a little awkward walking through this part of town: it was the district that kept sending Labour councilors to City Hall, with semidetached and England flags in the windows. To be sure, it would have taken someone like Claire to call it "sketchy." But for as much as she knew she was being snobby, she didn't know any other words to describe pebbledash facades, occasional parked-up white vans and piles of fly-tipped waste in the local railway station car park.

Besides, a part of her discomfort was warranted concern that her snobbery would be noticed. She was always acutely aware that she wrinkled her nose involuntarily at the sight of a Nissan Altima and she didn't think that really reflected well on her. At least there were no burnt-out mattresses in people's gardens or overflowing black bins. She probably would have found a trip to Stoke-on-Trent a traumatic experience.

Deep within Ridgewood was Queen's Drive and the Krassens at Number 14. For as samey as the 1930s houses were, theirs could be easily identified by the Irish and German flags in the front window and the "Vote Labour" sign that appeared on the front lawn within two or three months of even the most obscure election. Claire couldn't imagine being that enthusiastic about anything, let alone the political status quo. "Hooray, continuity of government"? She turned off the street and marched up to Michael's front door.

She knocked politely. No response.

This was not the kind of place where she appreciated being left on the doorstep. In the distance she could hear someone's dog barking.

Come in a sec, dw

I'm literally seconds away from being in the shower but just wait in my room

Sometimes Claire actually could not believe how rude Michael was. This was admittedly not one of those times; she had been left to sit waiting politely on his bed before. It occurred to her as she pushed the door open that, technically, he was "literally seconds away from" everything that he would ever do in his life. His promise was thus scant reassurance against the fact that he usually took fifteen minutes to shower.

The interior of 14 Queen's Drive was just as lower middle-class as its surroundings implied. Claire took her shoes off at the door and her bony feet sank into the scratchy mushroom-beige carpet. What colour would that have been sold as? she thought to herself. Anaemic dog shit? Three-day-old coffee stain? The Krassens had the same carpet upstairs as down and so silently casting her aspersions occupied her thoughts as far as Michael's room, where the floor was instead a blue-green colour that she had to admit she kind of liked. His room was smaller than hers but larger than most.

Her usual activity when waiting for Michael was to snoop through his shit and being in a better mood than usual only encouraged her natural nosiness.

Most of the seven foot by eight space was taken up with bulky furnite: a desk, a bed, a wardrobe, and three separate bookshelf, each of which was filled with non-fiction volumes and literary classics that she knew her lover had no intention of ever reading. On his desk there was a small pile of pithy political autobiographies and a copy of Wilt, which Claire suspected was probably the extent of Michael's actual reading. The walls were painted in a sickly shade of green that must have been the same as when he was a child. His old box of toys still sat in one corner, gathering dust. An old mobile still hung from the ceiling.