Chapter Three
The next morning I’m awoken from slumber by the sound of my next-door neighbour Mrs Casablancas hammering on my door.
I know it’s her because no one else in this day and age knocks on people’s doors completely unannounced, and also because Mrs Casablancas is calling through the keyhole, ‘Gertie, honey! It’s me, Mrs Casablancas!
Open up your door to me!’ Her bellowing is accompanied by a single determined bark from Squish, the rambunctious chihuahua–pug cross that Mrs Casablancas secretly regrets adopting a few weeks ago.
With a groan, I roll out of my bed, the extra cocktail I had last night making its presence known in the throb of my head.
‘Just a second, Mrs Casablancas!’ I croak.
Prising open my sticky eyes, I shove on my prescription sunglasses, slip on my robe and shuffle two metres to the front door.
I open it to reveal Mrs Casablancas wearing a long, flowy purple dress covered in hand-stitched pink roses, and carrying a huge Tupperware box.
Squish dashes past her, heading straight for my stone plant pot where he lifts his back leg, leans sharply to the left and empties his bladder.
‘Squish, no!’ Mrs Casablancas chides in the weary voice of a woman who has said the same thing many times to no avail. ‘Gertie, I’m very sorry!’
‘Does he do it in your house too?’ I grimace, grabbing some paper towels to clean up the mess.
‘No! He chews my slippers, he steals my Reuben sandwiches and, as you know, he likes to bark along whenever he hears the Gilmore Girls theme song, but he never ever pees indoors. It must be the scent of the soil in your fig plant. It makes him think he’s in the open air.’
‘It’s a fake plant.’
‘Is it really? Wow. Looks real to me. Must look real to him too.’
It occurs to me to ask Mrs Casablancas to put Squish on a lead when she brings him over, but since Henry left and my characters have stopped talking to me, Mrs Casablanca’s company has been my only balm.
I don’t want to do anything that means she stops popping over – then I really would be completely alone.
I scoop Squish’s chubby little body into my arms. He licks my nose and nuzzles his cheek against mine.
‘Well, now I immediately forgive you,’ I mutter, enjoying the feel of his fuzzy warmth on my face. As soon as I reveal my affection Squish wants out, scrambling frantically back onto the floor and running away from me to sniff around the perimeter of my flat.
‘You are a soft touch,’ Mrs Casablancas rolls her eyes. ‘Just like me. No wonder he is so naughty.’ She plonks the box she’s carrying down onto the kitchen table and puts her hands on her hips.
Mrs Casablancas looks like someone drew a stack of circles on top of one another and put a smiling face on the highest one.
Everything about her is completely, pleasingly spherical; head, breasts, eyes, curly silver hair, ankles, even her hands, covered in too-tight gold rings that make little muffin tops of her knuckles.
Mrs Casablancas used to be a professor of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London, but since her retirement two years ago, has been exploring more creative endeavours.
‘Which cocktails did you try last night?’ she asks, taking in the state of me. ‘All of them?’
‘Just the Tequilatini,’ I grimace, pressing a hand to my forehead. ‘So strong. So delicious.’
‘Like I said, he knows what he’s doing, does old Mr Tooch.’
I glance at my phone while Mrs Casablancas busies herself prising open the lid of the Tupperware. One missed call from Bridget. Nothing from Henry. Nothing from Henry. Nothing from Henry.
I switch off my phone, swap my sunglasses for my regular glasses and gasp, as I always do, when Mrs Casablancas reveals the most recent hats she has made.
The hats are usually themed depending on what season it is, or what Mrs Casablancas has been contemplating that week.
They are often adorned with sequins or rhinestones or jewels she’s liberated from charity shop brooches.
I would describe the hats as unique, though I have heard others describe them as ‘quite unsettling’ and, once, ‘ugly as fuck’.
‘Wow!’ I say, taking in the various options she presents me with – a fedora made out of pink towelling, a baseball cap covered in miniature baseball caps, a beanie with a border of red and orange felt flames.
I pick out a red beret with a big pipe-cleaner spider perched on the side.
The spider’s eyes are made of tiny little emeralds.
This one is actually not bad. For the first time since I’ve been buying these hats, I actually quite like it.
‘It’s giving Tim Burton, yes?’ Mrs Casablancas grins, taking the hat from me and placing it on my head just so. ‘I’ve been binge-watching Wednesday and it has renewed my natural inclination for the macabre.’ She passes me a gold-framed hand mirror from the box and holds it up to me.
I look batshit.
‘Do you love it?’ Mrs Casablancas asks.
‘I love it,’ I say firmly. ‘I’ll take it, please.’
‘This one is a little more expensive, honey. The emerald eyes, see. Would fifty pounds be okay?’
I flinch, but keep it internal. I once accidentally opened Mrs Casablancas’s mail when it was delivered to me – it was a letter from the bank denying a loan application. London is getting more and more expensive and from what I’ve read online, academic pensions leave a lot to be desired.
‘It’s a total bargain,’ I tell her.
Mrs Casablancas gives me a happy kiss on the cheek, the familiar fresh orange blossom scent of her shampoo momentarily lifting my subdued spirits.
‘Gertie, you are my most loyal customer. You have made my day …’ Mrs Casablancas pulls a face and sighs. ‘But I’m afraid I didn’t just come here to bring you wonderful hats. I have something to say to you … and I’m not sure you’re going to like it.’