I am sitting at my desk, which is still in my bedroom, hard at work. A voice somewhere nearby says my name softly. Or maybe it doesn’t. I was concentrating; the window is open. It could have been anything.
A voice says my name again, possibly. I look behind me. I stand up and open the door, where I find Chris the painter sitting on the top step. “Oh, well heard,” he says. “Just to say, I’ve painted the middle of the stairs to here, so you might want to walk on the sides.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say.
“I’ll leave the landing until tomorrow,” Chris says. “So you can escape.”
“No need,” I say. “I’m working. Paint me in.”
“If you’re sure,” he says.
Fifteen minutes later, I develop an overwhelming urge to drink coffee while standing in the kitchen. I try to ignore it, but my concentration deserts me. I waddle down the stairs, feet spread wide, until I reach the landing. It’s unclear whether it’s been painted yet, but the stairs below it have only had their edges done. I grip the bannister spindles tightly and jump from step to step, bypassing the landing altogether. At the bottom, I find Chris painting the floor outside the kitchen door.
“Sorry,” I say, tiptoeing past.
“Not at all,” Chris says.
In the kitchen, I notice that my palms are a tasteful shade of dark grey, a perfect match for the bannister spindles. I wash them and make a coffee, which I’m drinking while staring out of the window when my wife comes round the corner and through the garden door with two bags of shopping.
“Busy day?” she asks.
“I’m trapped down here,” I say. “Surrounded by wet paint.”
“He’ll be done by tomorrow,” she says. “This is the worst bit.”
“I can’t work like this,” I say.
“You can take down that mirror,” she says.
“What mirror?” I say.
“There,” she says, pointing out of the window. An old mirror in a metal frame, left by the previous owners, hangs from the back garden wall. It looks very well secured.
“I like that mirror,” I say.
“It’s going,” she says. The cat walks in, trailing little off-white paw prints.
“Fine,” I say.
My wife follows me to the end of the garden. The mirror is held in place by a single rusted bolt. I wiggle it from side to side, then wrench it upwards. I pull backwards, twisting one way, then the other.
“Do you need a ladder?” my wife asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. “It might just…” The mirror suddenly comes free, with me holding it over my head. “Holy shit,” I say. “It’s incredibly heavy.”
“Put it down then,” my wife says.
“I can’t,” I say. “My back is going.”
“Just drop it,” she says.
“It’s glass!” I say.
“I’m getting rid of it!” she says.
I crouch very slowly, until I can rest the lower edge of the mirror on my knees. Readjusting my grip, I lever myself out from under it and lean it against the wall.
“Just out to the skip,” my wife says.
“I’m not lifting that again,” I say.
The next day, I return from running errands to find Chris and my wife settling up in the kitchen. Wrinkled paint receipts are spread across the table. I pull off my shoes. “I should be out of your hair by the afternoon,” Chris says. His industry and unfailing politeness have been making me look bad for nearly three weeks, but the place will seem empty without him.
My wife turns to me. “Chris carried that mirror all the way out to the front this morning,” she says.
I look at my wife, and then at Chris. “Heavy, wasn’t it?” I say.
“It was quite heavy,” Chris says. “And you were busy.”
“I’m a businessman,” I say.
A brief silence follows.
“Yeah, right,” my wife says.
“If you’ll excuse me,” I say, leaving the room. Chris says something I don’t hear, but I take his meaning as soon as I feel the wet paint soaking through my sock.
