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Don’t Do Dishes

Lisa Gray

    I don’t do dishes. I never have. But Carlo does. He insists upon it.
    “You no do dishes. You no be tied to kitchen sink,” he’d said. “You leave dishes to me.”
    I’d been glad to.
    I smiled as I pressed the button on the television remote control. Carlo would do them when he returned from his night shift. A real new-age man.
    Though he hadn’t always been.
    I remembered when he first moved in and we’d had our first meal together.
    “Who’s doing the dishes?” I’d said.
    Carlo had looked at me surprised.
    “I no do dishes,” he’d said. “That’s women’s work.”
    And he hadn’t.
    And neither had I.
    The dishes had lain there for a whole week before I could stand it no longer.
    Not that I minded doing them once I got started. I could watch the trains go by. The fast ones racing with their cargo of commuters and the slow ones sliding by with their half-empty carriages of slumbering suburbans. Sometimes one even stopped, stuck at some solitary signal and then you could see right into the carriages. I pointed this out to Carlo. Like I pointed out it was his turn to do the dishes.
    “Don’t do dishes!” I said.
    It took a while but he came round to my way of thinking. I was surprised. But then you never really know anyone.
    Now he did all the dishes. And I did none.
     I was so lucky. Except for the night shift.
    I sank into the brown plush sofa and turned up the volume on the television.
    “Police are hunting a man suspected of murdering a girl on the Gatwick Express.”
    I shuddered. The news was always depressing. Murder on a train. You weren’t safe anywhere nowadays. And the Gatwick Express. It passed right by my flat.
    A train roared by and drowned out the rest of the news broadcast.
    That was the only thing that annoyed me about the trains. I’d often thought if anyone was being murdered in the flats, no-one would hear a thing when the train passed. But I didn’t know that when I bought the flat.
     “Don’t buy a flat near a railway line,” my friend Jo had said.
    “Why not?” I said.
    “Noise,” she said. “Danger!”
    “Danger!” I laughed. “What kind of danger?”
    “What if a train gets de-railed and runs slap bang into your flat?”
    I laughed.
    “Now your imagination is running away with you,” I said.
    “And you’ll get all sorts of undesirables hanging about railway tracks,” she went on.
     Of course I’d ignored her. Trains didn’t frighten me. Quite the contrary. I found the roar of them rushing by strangely comforting, particularly at night, when I lay in bed. Alone.
     I was suddenly conscious that I was spot-lit like a light-bulb in a dark room. I crossed the room and pulled the curtains. As I did so, there was a movement in the bushes outside.
    The wind? More likely a squirrel, I thought.
    I remembered Jo’s words.
    “You’ll get all sorts of undesirables hanging about railway tracks.”
    And now there was a murderer on the loose.
    I moved into the kitchen and switched on the light. My eyes were drawn towards the huge pile of dirty dishes by the black window.
    I knew I should have got a blind or curtains months ago, I thought.
     It was then I saw it. The face at the window. I screamed. The face dropped from sight. I rushed over to the window and looked out. A lean, brown fox was slinking off, his foray for food unrealised.
    I laughed at myself.
    Now whose imagination is running away with them, I thought. That’s what comes of having a job working odd hours for an airline.
    I looked around to see if there was any message from Carlo. No. Just the usual one. I laughed looking at it stuck to the fridge door!
    DON’T DO DISHES!
    It was his idea of a joke. It had been from that day! Every time I came home from a trip, it would be there. Though I knew he meant it.
    I went through to the bedroom, slipped out of my uniform gratefully and wended my way wearily to the shower, trying to force the thought of the next day’s three day trip from my mind. Still today had been a bonus. I’d been on standby at the airport and hadn’t been called.
    Carlo will get a surprise to see me, I thought.
    I’d tried calling him on his mobile but it had been switched off.
    Probably busy at work, I thought.
    I looked again at the pile of dirty dishes when I re-emerged from the shower.
    Maybe I should help him out, I thought, guiltily.
    Then I remembered the last time I’d tried to.
    Carlo had got quite angry.
    “Don’t do dishes!” he’d said in his funny European English.
    I must have looked surprised.
    “You no do dishes!” he laughed, his stern expression dissolving instantly.
    And I laughed back.
    How well Carlo knew me!
    I walked into the living room and was about to turn the television back on when I heard the rustle outside the patio door.
    That fox returned, I thought.
    I pulled back the curtain.
    The shadow was taller than a fox.
    I pulled the curtain back across the window.
    Someone was out there. Prowling around.
    If only Carlo were here, I thought.
    Then I heard the tap. Quite softly on the patio door.
    I froze, praying he would not spot my shadow through the curtain.
    There was another tap.
    I ran for the phone and dialed my upstairs neighbour.
    “There’s someone prowling outside my patio door!” I almost shouted down the phone.
    She laughed.
    “I know there is,” she said. “It’s my husband!”
     “Your husband?” I gasped.
    I dropped the phone and rushed to the patio door.
    “I hope I didn’t give you a fright,” said a familiar voice, as I opened the door. “I just heard someone prowling around in your flat and, as you’re always away, I thought I’d better check on it. You never know who’s around these days.”
    I should have felt comforted, glad that I had such good neighbours. But I still left the light on when I went to bed. I only switched it off when Carlo was there.
    I couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t the trains. I found the noise of them racing by strangely comforting. They reminded me of Carlo and me. The fast ones like me dashing frantically about all over the place, unconcerned with details like dishes and the slow ones like Carlo, sliding steadily along, swaying to a stop and waiting for a change of signal. But we were both on the same track. Weren’t we?
    As I lay in bed, I wondered. At a signal from me, I knew Carlo had changed. But me? I was a selfish, thoughtless individual.
    I had to be if I expected a man to come home from night-shift and do all those dishes, I thought.
     But I could change too. I didn’t need to wait for a signal from Carlo. I got out of bed, padded through to the kitchen and switched on the light.
     I don’t do dishes. Never have. Since that night. I don’t watch the trains either. Trains frighten me. Not the fast ones with their cargo of commuters or even the slow ones sliding steadily to a halt with their slumbering suburbans.
    It’s the people on them that do.
    The pretty blonde girl in the last empty carriage of the train that had halted outside at some unseen signal didn’t frighten me. It was the man who was thrusting the long carving knife into her breast that did.
    But then Carlo had always been very insistent.

 

    Previously published in The Aputamkon Review Vol. 1V.

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