Art
Art
It took Art three attempts to unlock his front door, as his hands kept shaking. It was almost as cold and unwelcoming inside as out. Due to the outrageous cost of fuel and his lack of any savings or income, other than his state pension, the only radiator turned on in Art’s house was in his bedroom.
Art climbed the stairs. The staircase he’d crawled up as a baby, tobogganed down in a sleeping bag as a child, then bounded up with his first girlfriend as a teenager, shedding articles of clothing on the way, then quickly retrieving them so they wouldn’t be spotted by his mother. The staircase he could still picture his young wife climbing, with a mound of washing under one arm and a baby on her hip. Recently, climbing these stairs felt like ascending a small mountain. Today, more than ever.
Without even removing his shoes, Art got into bed, pulling the musty-smelling duvet over his head.
···
A noise penetrated Art’s dreamless sleep. His room was dark, with only the dull light of a streetlamp leeching around the edges of his tatty curtains. The digital alarm clock—the height of sophistication back in 1986—on his bedside table read 8:02. Could it really be so early still?
He heard the noise again. A rattle against glass. William had been throwing stones at this window to attract Art’s attention since the 1950s. This house, built just after the last war, had belonged to the council back then and had been rented by his parents. Art had bought it in the 1980s, under Thatcher’s Right to Buy scheme.
Yet another thing to feel guilty about: profiting personally from a policy that had completely depleted the stock of available, affordable local housing. It was selfish of Art to live here all by himself when so many large families were squashed into tiny apartments. If he had any decency, he’d give it up for a family of Afghan or Ukrainian refugees and shuffle off into an old people’s home.
“Art! I know you’re there!” said William, ringing the doorbell several times. “Will you let me in?”
Art pulled the duvet back over his head.
“Amy’s made you a casserole. I’m leaving it on your doorstep,” said William.
Amy was one of William’s daughters-in-law, a reminder of how very different his life was from Art’s. William’s sizable family all lived within a few miles of William, and were continually in and out of each other’s houses. They’d very kindly adopted Art as one of their own. They made huge efforts to ensure he felt loved and included, not knowing that, much as he adored them, they were a constant, painful reminder to him of everything he’d lost.
Would they really want Art around them and their children now they knew who he really was? A liar. A leech. A parasite. A common thief. And how could he ever return to the social club—if indeed there was one to return to, after today’s debacle—loaded with such shame and humiliation?
For a while he’d been flying so high! He’d been busy, admired, thanked. He remembered the thrill of the audience’s applause as he’d taken his bow, his pride in his cast, in himself for having done the right thing, his conviction that they’d saved the community center.
Then, just seconds later, as if a trapdoor in the stage had opened, he’d been plunged into a whole different reality. It was clear to him now that he hadn’t solved any of his problems—all he’d done was cover them with sticking plaster and a handful of glitter. And now they were exposed to the air again: his lack of money, the end of a career that had never even begun, his addiction to stealing, and, underlying all of it, his overwhelming shame at what he’d done to his family so many years ago.
But even they couldn’t possibly hate him more than he hated himself.
Better to die of shame or humiliation? he considered shouting down to William, but he couldn’t summon the strength.
Art thought that William must have gone, but then there was another long ring on the doorbell. He heard William shout up at the window, “I’ll be back tomorrow, Art. You’re not doing this to me again.”