“Oh.” Kevin dismissed the subject. He eyed me up and down. “You don’t look like you’d be much of a handyman,” he ventured.
Not like a handyman? What did Kevin expect? I knew that I didn’t have the muscular frame of a labourer, but many smaller men, Napoleon leapt to mind, were capable of changing the world. I stroked my developing Van Dyke beard, something else that I had initially resisted. Now, I appreciated the air of distinction it gave me and thanked whatever gods there were for its lovely silky silver appearance, unlike the orange brush so many men sported. The beard said “writer”, not “handyman”. I could see why Kevin’s hasty assessment placed me in the non-handyman category.
“You’re right,” I told him.
“Great! ’Cause if you was wanting any odd jobs done, stuff fixed, lawn mowed, whatever, why you just have to give me a shout, and I’ll be over here like a shot. It’s what I do, eh? Odd jobs. ‘No job too big, no job too small, Kev’s your man, he does them all’.” This last he rhymed off in a singsong voice. “Everyone knows me around here. Kev Jollimore. Not much I can’t fix or do.” He took another long swallow and settled back in the chair, looking at me with an appraising glint in his eye. “I hear you writers pull in a good buck, eh? Like those broads on Oprah. Sell millions they do. They gotta make at least ten bucks a pop. That’s gotta add up after a million books.” He shifted his weight in the chair. I heard it creak under the strain.
I saw his eyes look around and take in my little home with an appraising glint.
“I can give you a good deal. Strictly cash, eh? Your pocket to mine. Fix this up for you. Little bit of paint. New siding. Wouldn’t take much. Say forty per cent up front, and the rest when I’m done. We can work it out.”
“Wonderful, Mr. Jollimore. I shall certainly keep that in mind.” If his shack across the road was any testament to his handyman skills, I doubted I’d be calling on him any time soon.
I stood up, hoping he’d take the hint and go, but having got his business over with, Kevin settled in for a neighbourly chat. “So, got a wife? Little buggers?”
“What?” I asked as I placed my laptop on the top step of the back porch.
“Family? You got any?”
“I’m afraid I’m quite alone in the world. I tend to be a bit of a recluse.” He looked puzzled. “I like to be by myself.” In desperation, I folded up my lawn chair. “We writers are often solitary types.”
Kevin took another long pull of his bottle. “No family, eh? Lucky you. Family’s a bitch! Costs an arm and leg, specially with the little bugger. Raisin’ a kid soaks up the dough. And the wife’s always wantin’ something new, too. Although it’s nice to have a warm body next to you in bed on a cold winter’s night.” His lascivious wink invited me to share the joke. I shuddered at the thought of Kevin with anyone in a bed of any kind in any weather.
“KEVIN! Where the hell are you? Food’s on the table!” The Voice crashed over us like a sonic boom.
“I’m coming, woman,” he bellowed back. “Don’t get your tits in a wringer.” Kevin pushed himself up with a grunt, farted loudly, muttered, “Oops, better out than in,” and scratched his belly. His bulk blocked the last rays of the setting sun. “Women!” he said with a shrug as he spat into the wild rose bushes under the kitchen window.
The cat chose this moment to reappear. It eyed Kevin’s boots, keeping well out of range as it made its way towards the back door. It sat on the top step, poised to slip inside the minute I opened the door.
“That your cat? My old aunt Mildred usta have one like that. Bad luck, they say, a black cat. Don’t let Arleen see it. She’s that superstitious she’d shoot it.”
“It’s not all black. It has a touch of white under the chin,” I told him, wondering why I felt I had to leap to the defense of the cat.
“Mebbe so, but it sure looks like a black cat from twenty yards away.” Kevin shambled off across the road, swigging from his bottle as he went. “See you later, neighbour,” he hollered as he turned into his driveway.
“Did you ask him about the clothesline?” The invisible Arleen might as well have been on the patio beside me as her words reverberated on the air.
“Yeah. The line’s there, you might as well use it. Don’t look like he will.” The resounding slam of a door ended their discussion.
I stood in a daze for a moment, unable to move or think. This was the longest period in which I’d needed to maintain my new persona of Charles Trenchant. It had proved harder than anticipated. I felt as if I’d undergone a baptism of fire. Before I met and conversed with people with IQs substantially higher than Kevin’s, I’d have to learn to think on my feet and improvise, until Charles Trenchant became as much a part of me as Eric Spratt had once been.
Thinking of Kevin reminded me of Arleen, The Voice. Oh, God! For all I knew, today could be her laundry day! The muse would have to wait; that clothesline needed to come down now!
I sought out the ladder I’d noticed in the back of the woodshed. Removing the clothesline proved to be difficult. Kevin had been right about my lack of practical skills. The line sagged between the house and a large spruce tree. The hook on the house came down with no trouble, but the hook in the spruce tree had become overgrown. In the midst of sawing off the short prickly, branches around it while hanging onto the ladder for dear life, not having much of a head for heights, I heard the crunch of tires in the driveway.
For five days, no one had come near me. Now, in the space of an hour, the world was beating a path to my door.
I took a deep breath. No doubt it was just the Welcome Wagon making a call, I told myself, determined not to give way to my continuing panicky fears of being discovered.
“Good day, sir. Are you putting it up or taking it down, not that you have to do either, of course, especially with the wonderful clothes dryers they have these days, not that Dottie would ever use such a thing, but some people do, not everyone of course, depending on whether they have enough power for it, the clothes dryer that is, not the wash line, although it is handy if the power goes off, not that it does very often, although last winter, it seemed every second day it was off . . .”
“For heavens sake, Donald. Don’t get started.” A second voice cut in, this one a woman’s.
I realized in a moment that the man and woman at the bottom of the ladder peering up at me bore little resemblance to the nemesis I feared. Not two goons, but a rotund middle-aged couple with welcoming smiles. Although a little voice whispered in the back of my brain, what better way to lull me into a false sense of security?
“Just taking this old clothesline down,” I squeaked, trying to force my voice to sound normal and relaxed. I gave a mighty heave on the pulley, and, without warning, the whole contraption gave way, landing on my hapless visitors.
“I’m so sorry! Are you all right?” I scrambled down the ladder.
“Oh shoot! Oh my soul!” My male visitor struggled to remove several yards of clothesline wire from around his head and shoulders. “Oh my stars!” he exclaimed as he pirouetted around several times, which only served to tangle him further. “At least I’m all right, not a scratch, not that I know of. And you’re all right, aren’t you, Dottie? No harm done.” I found myself facing a large man with a boyish face over his well-padded, middle-aged body. A shining white clerical collar and black suit proclaimed his calling, but his resemblance to Tweedledum made it difficult for me to view him in a spiritual context. The woman with him looked like his Tweedledee counterpart, albeit several inches taller and with a great deal more hair on her head.
“I’m the Reverend Donald Peasgood,” he announced, stepping out of the last coils of clothesline wire. He shook my hand as he enthusiastically bounced up