Steven Hastings
Window Cleaner
It’s the way she tableaued-out on the bedroom floor,
like something from the last act of an opera,
a trail of brilliant pills snaking from the brown glass bottle.
It looks so like a suicide I half-expect some TV cop to turn up,
take a look and drawl Suicide? I don’t think so ...
The time between phoning and hearing the sirens
is strange. Empty. Then they come. The police,
the ambulancemen. They commandeer my ladder,
smash the window to get in. Soon the husband arrives
(he can’t believe she didn’t leave a note,
given that they lived by notes) but not the son,
who’s on a history trip to Warwick Castle.
I need my ladder back, but it’s awkward hanging around:
there’s a fairly healthy crowd of sick people gathering
and I don’t want folk thinking I’m waiting to be paid,
not when I didn’t actually clean any windows (always
start with the bedroom - it’s your best chance of catching
some action. You know, before they hear you’re around).
Eventually I’m on my way, half a day behind myself
but not unduly traumatised. It’s different seeing things
through glass: I once went nose to nose with a hammerhead
at that aquarium in Scarborough. But some people live
their whole lives like that. Untouchable. Insensitive.
Just bloody lucky, maybe. Take this husband here.
Two months on he’s got the lover moved in, the son boarded out,
and his right buttock insulated against the winter months
by a large wad of insurance money.
Page(s) 12
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