Flicking Vs

Thursday night, she reached for the last jam doughnut after the post-watershed adverts tried to sell her expensive face creams and cars she was never going to buy. Glued to the final segment of a documentary about a man in America who had to be winched by crane out of his house because he was too fat to get to the hospital on his own, Cynthia thought she might kill herself rather than get like that. She crunched up the brown bag the doughnuts came in and threw it. It landed somewhere in the general direction of the wicker waste bin, which wouldn’t have been good enough for Cynthia’s father, who had been in the navy and ran a very tight ship, but was good enough for Cynthia.

The next morning the struggle from sleep to surface was brutal. The alarm had not yet gone off and the light coming through the Austrian blind that didn’t Austrian anymore was dull. What? A deep rumble outside. Buggeration! It was bloody Friday! Bin collection day and hers was sitting on the bloody patio. After flinching once in indecision, she threw back the covers and leapt out of bed. Quickly she pulled on black, holey leggings and a long tee shirt, and thundered down the short hallway to the front door. Her buttocks scrabbled against each other as her bare feet slapped on the laminate and her shoulder nudged a picture on the wall as she weaved between stacks of old newspapers. She reached out for the door keys on the way. Stuff shoes! She tore outdoors, bracing herself against the wind, grabbed the big plastic handle of the wheelie bin and belted along the path at the side of the house.

‘Fuck,’ said Cynthia. She only had breath for that. The dustbin lorry was nine houses away already. She leaned forward, gagging at the effort gone to on an empty stomach. Like a pregnant woman, she couldn’t quite bend in the middle. She dragged the bin back down the path and went indoors, switched on the kettle and threw a tea bag into a mug, then went to fetch her dressing gown and mule slippers.

On the way back to the kitchen, she straightened the picture frame with the old black and white photograph of her parents on their wedding day. Her father looking starched and correct in his uniform, but indisputably proud, her mother skinny as a rake and slightly shy, Wormwood Scrubs in the background of the shot.

Cynthia emerged from a deep sleep the following Friday morning. Having done a double shift at work, she had been so tired she had barely moved overnight; the blankets pinned her to the mattress. In the middle of a wide yawn that made her jaw crack she heard it. Bloody Hell! The bin! Back went the blankets, on went the leggings. She skidded on the laminate and tripped up at the front door but her chunky legs didn’t hold her back. Despite the bin being weighed down by three weeks’ worth of rubbish, she made good time. The bin lorry was four houses away.

‘Hey!’ Cynthia yelled. ‘Hey! Can you just take this?’

The bin men waved genially.

‘Fucking unhelpful fuckers!’

She straightened the picture of her parents again when she came back indoors.

The following week Cynthia got the bin out on the street the night before. That rubbish had to go. When she heard the deep rumble of the dustbin lorry she turned over in bed, pulled up the blankets around her ears and snoozed.

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ Cynthia told the street in general a few hours later. ‘What the fuck is this?’ She dragged the bin and her shame back down the path at the side of the flat. 

Saturday was spent working out the best way to deal with the problem and working up the energy to do it. As the light faded, she was grubbing around in the bin yanking out rotten food and the like, and re-bagging it. She did the job at the back of the house and hoped nobody in the houses with gardens backing onto hers were watching. She felt unclean, burdened until bent, and she sobbed once with frustration. When the rubbish was all bagged up and ready to go she put two bags in the bin and lined the others up in a regimented row by the wall. Her shoulders felt different as she looked at her handiwork. Looked like a bloody art installation she thought, and she smiled.

Coming inside put an upper limit on the lifting of her spirits. Used and dirty plates, mugs and cutlery lined the work surfaces in the kitchen, and a pumpkin-orange coloured washing up bowl in the sink was filled with foul smelling water. It had started fresh. Cynthia had rinsed the plates and jugs. But the actual washing was left for later, and gradually, after several days, the water developed into this rank swill. She shoved it aside and filled the blue plastic kettle with water, waited for it to boil and made tea.

Later someone was calling through the letter box.

‘Cyn? You in? Cyn?’

Cynthia opened her eyes and rose from her chair. The mug she’d been holding slipped and a dribble of cold tea soaked into her fleece.

‘Coming,’ Cynthia called. She opened the door to find Sharon, wet from head to slim toe holding a newspaper over her head. The idea that the newspaper would stave off the downpour was clearly faulty. ‘Oh, love, come in, quick. I’ll put the kettle on.’

‘Look at my hair. All that money for a cut and blow by Sebastian. Wasted,’ said Sharon as she took off her jacket and looked for somewhere to put it. ‘Thought I’d pop in and see how you’re managing?’ She made her way between the piles of unwanted, unread free press. ‘Not tidied up yet then?’

Cynthia’s shoulders drooped a bit more. ‘It’s got away from me. I made a start but you know what–’ Cynthia noticed that Sharon had a look on her face as though she’d popped off.

‘Cyn, what’s that smell?’ Sharon’s nostrils flared slightly. ‘Smells like a rubbish tip?’

‘Well, that’s what I’m tellin’ you. Those fuckers, they didn’t take my bin. Bastards.’

‘Why not?’

‘Too fucking full. Slapped a fucking sticker on it with a shed load of rules and regulations about the ac-fucking-ceptable limits of rubbish disposal. Bastards. I ‘ad to clear it all out and re-bag it. Not ‘ad a bath yet.’ Cynthia turned back to the kettle which was now boiling and made tea. ‘Get us the milk, Shar.’ Cynthia nodded in the direction of the fridge.

‘At least that sour milk smell’s gone from the fridge. Little and often like I said?’ Sharon asked, a gentle approving tone in her voice.

‘Not really. That spilled milk’s been there so long it’s dried. Don’t smell no more.’

‘Why don’t you get somebody in?’

‘I don’t want strangers in ‘ere.’

‘My Jimmy drinks with a bloke down the Prince and Frog, he’s set up a cleaning business.’

‘I already said. I don’t want strangers in.’

‘He wouldn’t be a stranger, he’s Jimmy’s mate. Then you could start fresh.’

Ermine Street collections were Wednesdays. On her way to the doctor’s Cynthia passed the dustbin lorry. The men were darting across the road, efficiently shoving the wheelies up and down the pavements. Smart bastards shoved the wheelies up and down behind her, narrowly missing her by an inch or so.

‘Cheer up love! It might never ‘appen!’ one of them shouted and then, flouting health and safety, he hopped onto the back of the dust cart as though onto the back of a dodgem ride at the fairground. Cynthia scowled and flicked a V at him. Several Vs. When he wasn’t looking. But it jogged her memory. When she got home, she blutacked a note on the inside of the front door to remind herself to put out the bin.

Thursday night came and Cynthia didn’t sleep well. When dim light peered through the broken blind she got out of bed. She moved a pile of washed clothes awaiting the iron and sat down by the big bay window at the front. Absently she pulled a pair of denims to her nose. They’d lost that newly-laundered smell. About ten minutes later she watched a curly-haired bin man come toward her wheelie. He looked past the bin, at the window. At her. He had a kind face. He wheeled the container to the lorry and pushed it on. Satisfied, Cynthia got up, made tea and got ready for her day. She had no inkling that her success with bins was restricted.

‘Look, I already said. I ‘aven’t got a bin,’ complained Cynthia, on the telephone, to the woman at the local authority.

‘Well, have you never had a bin? How long have you lived at the property without a bin?’

‘Of course I ‘ad a bin. I’ve been here for . . .’ Cynthia’s brow wrinkled while she tried to pin down dates. ‘Look, I don’t know! I can’t remember. What does it matter? I just need a bin.’

‘What happened to the old one?’

‘I already said! I put it out and it didn’t come back! Bloody–’

‘Madam, I will have to ask you, one final time, to curb your language.’

‘Sorry. But I need a bin. I’ve nowhere to put my rubbish. It’s all bagged up out the back.’

‘Well, there’s no need to swear at me.’

‘I’m not swearin’ at you. I’m swearin’ to you.’

‘Madam, there is really no need to swear at all. It is my human right to attend my place of employment without being harangued by filthy-mouthed callers. Now.’ Cynthia just knew the woman was pursing her lips. ‘Name please?’

‘I reckon it’s my yuman right to ‘ave a bin for my rubbish. And if it ‘aint, I certainly paid me poll tax to get one.’

‘It is not poll tax. It is council tax.’

‘Whatever. It’s tax and I paid it.’

Cynthia heard a tight little sigh at the other end of the line.

‘Madam, I can tell you this: I am aware that, on occasion, they get chewed up on the lorry. This is almost certainly what has happened in this instance. Name please?’

‘De Wreller. Capital D . . .’

‘Here Cyn, look I brought you this.’ Sharon gave Cynthia a crumpled bit of paper.

‘What is it?’

‘What do you mean what is it? It’s the number for that cleaning company. Jimmy’s mate.’

‘You must think I’ve money to chuck away.’

‘No, I don’t. I just think a bit of help would . . .well, help.’ While Sharon was talking, she’d cleared debris from the top of the fridge. Cynthia looked on, envious of the casual efficiency, a space clearing in her mind as she looked at the gleam Sharon wiped onto the tiles.

They could have taken the bin. They saw her running with it. They could’ve fucking taken it. If it had been Sharon, they’d have been falling all over themselves to help her. It was always the same. Cynthia knew herself to be kind-hearted and generous. But others, they took one look and thought ‘fat’. Or sometimes ‘fat cow’. It was like a lightbulb went on over their heads. Like that judge in court. Bastard. Like it was her fault Vinny had been drink-driving. She flicked a final V at the back of the departing bin men.

‘Fuckers!’ She trundled the new wheelie back to the patio. Indoors, she straightened the photograph of mum and dad and then, helpless with fury, she sat and surveyed the morning room and kitchen. She was going to have to do something about the mess. Well, she was doing something! They just wouldn’t take the bin! She let her head fall back and rest against the wall and watched cobwebs fluxing like something by Tracy Emin from the tobacco-stained ceiling. She could really do with a bit if help.

‘Want a bit of help?’

‘Who are you?’ Cynthia was disconcerted. Had she left the door open?

‘You left the door open,’ the large, mind-reading man explained. He moved toward her and she recoiled slightly.

‘It’s all right, love. Your friend Sharon said you might be interested. Look–’ and he came closer to show her his business card: Terry Keane Fairy Godmother Cleaning Services. He smiled.

‘She ought not to ‘ave. I can’t afford to pay.’

‘Yeah, she said you’d say that. Look, to be honest, I’m just starting out so I’m not charging top whack. Or we could do the job together? That way I don’t have to pay anyone else?’ Cynthia’s defences crumpled like a paper bag.

‘Oh, Cyn, I bet you’re pleased,’ Sharon said. ‘Oh, it is nice. All those newspapers gone, all those bottles for recycling. Ooh, lovely. All gone. You can walk about now. See out the windows. Sit on any chair, without moving stuff.’

‘Yeah, beat those fucking bin men at their own game. Once we dropped off the recycling and charity stuff, Terry and me took everything to the tip in his van. Tell you what, Shar, I’ll go up the offie and get us a bottle of somethin’ to celebrate.’

Coming out of the off-licence, Cynthia tucked a strand of her freshly washed hair behind her ear and the bottle of Spumante under her arm. She heard a deep thunderous rumbling. Delayed for some reason this particular Friday, the dustbin lorry turned into the street. The bin man with the curly hair and kind face set about his business, pushing and shoving the wheelies. It was sort of choreographed, Cynthia thought. But Curly Locks hadn’t practised enough. When they got level with her, he let go of one of the empty bins so fast it rolled back, smashed her in the knee and pinned her slipper with a wheel.

‘Hey! You need to be more careful. That’s my fuckin’ leg!’ she shouted but her voice was drowned out by the lorry machinery as it hungrily swallowed waste. She swore a bit more and then there was confusion. Cynthia’s slipper was somehow now attached to the wheelie bin and Curly Locks was coming towards her. Cynthia panicked, pulled her foot out from under and ran like the blazes, one slipper on, one bare foot. When she looked back Curly Locks was giving chase.

‘Fuck off! Go on, fuck off!’ Cynthia shouted over her shoulder, and flicked some Vs for good measure. She ran down the path at the side of the house calling out to Sharon.

‘Whatever’s the matter?’ asked Sharon as Cynthia clattered over the threshold. Before Cynthia could get her breath, Curly Locks rounded the corner of the house.

‘Sorry about the bin,’ he gasped, I’ve brought your slipper.’