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Ruins

by
Ellen O’Donohue Oddy

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Every afternoon I hear screams from outside. They come from passersby on the street. Where cars roll and cigarettes are stamped out. The street that gets you to the park and to the supermarket, from the nice part of the city to the not-so-nice.

Other than that, life is quiet.

The first day I hear them, I spend the morning outside, reading distractedly on a deckchair in my garden. My fingers hold the paper page, waiting to turn it, but thoughts weigh on my mind. I’m a freeze frame amongst overgrown hydrangeas, clouds taking form, birds circling. When the wind blows the neighbour’s blossom tree, petals fall into my lap. I stroke the silk dot with my hot thumb and worry for my neighbour.

In the afternoon, I make phone calls and wait for deliveries. New paint brushes arrive and I put on a big navy boiler suit that I used to see on girls with short hair. I cover the furniture with old plastic sheets that throw dust from past redecorating efforts and make me cough. I am leaning with one foot precariously off the ladder when I first hear the screams.

I place the roller into the pool of paint and walk to my front room, my neck craning to the window before my foot crosses the threshold. I stand at the window where a crack lets in a breeze that hardens the wet paint at the creases of my fingers. She is wearing a pink vest top and tracksuit bottoms. Her burnt shoulders are hunched and bouncing, and her little feet move rapidly beneath her small frame. She stops, tilts her head to the sky and opens her mouth.

The next day I apply factor 30 and find an old sunhat. There is a smell in the air that is a little sweet, a little rotten, like the steam from the cocoa factory mixing with the heat from the drains. The city raising its hot armpit after car engines and oil fryers are switched off. I close all the windows in the house, but it still lingers in corners and on landings.

I am in the middle of my weekly cigarette when a delivery arrives. I stand at my kitchen and wipe down each food item, throwing cans and fruit into a sink of soapy water, when I hear two new screams. They come from a man and a different woman, shuffling angrily next to each other, gesturing. One stops, the other continues faster, the other catches up, wailing a name in a chalky voice that makes vowels sound like consonants. The argument continues as they walk on, holding hands.

The next day I sit opposite a pile of clothes with fraying buttons and loose hems. I blow dust off the sewing machine and carry it into the front room in front of the TV. Caroline Aherne lights up indoors. I long for the taste swimming around my mouth and throat, but my phone shudders with the rising death toll. It has the timing of an angel with the sanctioning of a parent. I window-smoke instead.

I am patchworking a back pocket, torn from being used as a handle, when I hear the screaming again. This time I don’t look up until he has his back to me. An England football shirt brushed the top of a pair of thighs that are as thin as arms. He staggers badly. After he is gone, I notice that a can has been left on my front wall. I pull on a pair of latex gloves and step outside. As I place it into the blue bin, and the gloves into the black, I remember the blue of his eyes. How long it has been since I was that close to a stranger.

Later that day, I stand on my porch, nodding politely at neighbours who clang pans amongst the applause. But there is a sound from my open back door, travelling through my house, a whirring, a whining, softly blowing from the streets behind.

At dusk, the streets are emptiest here. The tree-lined avenues stretch out parallel to each other, and offer a two metre width between pedestrians. I take a picture of a white blossoms tree against the dark lilac sky. My flash unintentionally goes off and I feel embarrassed; but when I look later, tossing and turning in bed, too awake to sleep, I see the glare pulled out the cream in the blossom.

The next day, in the bathroom mirror, I see freckles growing. I hear a loud thud from my garden and walk to the kitchen window, but nothing is there. I open the fridge to get a bottle of wine. Another thud again. I peer out from behind my fridge door and see my garden gate prise open, as if in slow motion, revealing eight police officers gathered in a circle around one man.

The body of officers sway from side to side under the motion of his rage. Blood covers one side of his face. His mouth is open bellowing merciless threats, but his eyes are the loudest, bursting wide. The police look to one another and, with a heavy struggle, they pull him down with the weight of their circle, landing in my garden like a wave crashing onto the shore. The man’s arms are pulled behind his back as more police surround him. For a second he twists his neck up and looks at me, then his eyes disappear beneath the bodies.

Moments later it is quiet again, and all that is left is a patch of blood on the concrete, leading up to my broken gate.