She waits, very impatiently. Complete anticipation. Sat on the arm of the settee, half uncomfortable, half un, she is completely ready to jump. She bites her bottom lip, rhythmically bounces her left leg up and down, and with index finger and thumb gripped on gold, she twiddles her wedding ring whilst staring out of the window.
The clock says eleven-thirty-one. He’s usually been and gone by now. “A watched kettle”, she thinks almost aloud. She’s excited, but finds the wait unbearable. A Jeremy Kyle re-run spews violent noises from the TV speakers that battle with the kitchen’s Radio 4 radiations. A mess of noise that may as well be neat silence.
She’s forty something with short blonde hair, and in some indescribable way, just by looking at her, you can tell she prefers a life indoors.
A clatter. She springs. She twitches at the curtain to see. He’s just walked through the gate. He’s approaching the front door now. She stands; back flat against the wall watches the letterbox. It’s flap, flips open and from the space the flap had previously been flipped and briefly left a rectangular gap behind. From this gap a box protruded, before extending so far it fell away, in and down and bounced away from the door.
Excitedly, she grabs the box and rushes towards the sofa. Carefully, she removes each piece of tape. She opens the box, her hands shaking, a wry smile curling up the edges of her mouth. She can see it now. There, folded up inside the box. She closes her eyes and sniffs the contents. It’s like a drug. She up ends the box onto the table and out falls the fur. The animal’s skin. She unfolds it and spreads it over her lap. She’s ecstatic. She loves fur.
She is the Lady Countess Of Nowhere. Her home is nothing special, her bank account near empty, her T.V bought on finance, her children from home absconded, her carpet old and scruffy, her windows wiped clean weekly, her kitchen smells of bleach, her bedroom soft and cosy, her walls attached on both sides to two others, and one another, the flowers in the vase fake, the lamp lit bright and sparsely, the laptop permanently plugged in and the kid’s toys in the attic. She has little, but manages to get by. She buys fur to remind her of better times, imaginary times.
