By Greg MonksThe ad read, simply:
Domestic Help Wanted.
Live in.
Room and board provided.
Wage commensurate with experience.
Ref's Reqd.
What caught her eye was the address which was somewhere in England. She sighed, scanned the rest of the ads which were nothing but pure dreck, paused to sip at the tea she didn't want but had to purchase for the privilege of sitting in the coffee shop, and flipped back to the only ad that appealed.
England. Dream on! She had six years of experience as a chambermaid, having worked in a cheap motel, but well knew such training to be very limited. She harboured no illusions about being qualified to work someplace fancy. Besides, she couldn't afford the air fare. For that matter, she couldn't even afford to pay her rent. Twelve more days and she and her few mean belongings would be out on the street.
Unwillingly, she found her eyes drawn back to the phone number. Would it hurt to call? Would it matter? She smiled, humourlessly. Hardly. Soon she wouldn't have a phone. Besides, who was she kidding? She well knew her interest was borne of a desire to escape, to flee to some place that sounded romantic and exotic only because it was far away. She had seen pictures of English cities on television. They looked every bit as dull and hopeless as downtown anytown, anywhere else.
Turning to look outside to see if the rain was still coming down in slanting torrents, she was caught at once by the reflection of a complete stranger. Was that really herself? that pale, tired-looking girl whose despair-bruised features stared back at her with large, brown, desperate eyes? Who would hire that thing? Confidence was what got hired . . . confidence and strength, two commodities she didn't possess. And that unruly tangle of tight, dark curls! She turned away, feeling an habitual bitterness towards the jest of God that was her life. 'Even my name,' she mused. 'Pamela Dee. It sounds like I've got an initial for a last name. That's what happens when your parents never wanted you. You're left with no identity, no future . . . '
That was unjust, but had the appearance of truth from where she stood. Her parents had split up when she was very small. A few years later, when she was going on four, her mother had taken her to a shopping mall and abandoned her, and like her father had never been heard from again.
What followed was a nightmare succession of orphanages, foster homes, group homes, and finally, living on the streets. But it could have been worse. Odd jobs had saved her from total despair, from drugs and alcohol, from having to sell her body as many girls in her situation resorted to. By the time she was twelve she got a job doing laundry in a cheap motel, the Skylark Motor Inn, and there she had stayed for six years until the owner suddenly died.
That was last month, almost to the day. She sighed, thinking of the crusty old lady she had worked for. In the six years they had known each other, they had hardly exchanged more than a dozen words. Yet for all her cantankerousness, the woman had fed her and given her a job, and for the first while a place to live. That was the closest thing to kindness Pamela had ever experienced.
And now, like her parents, the old lady, too, was no more than a memory.
Pamela tossed back the last of her cold tea, folded the paper, stuffed it into her coat pocket and steeled herself to make the twelve block journey back to her flat through the driving, numbing, November downpour.
The cold wind was merciless, sending its chilling, invasive fingers probing through her threadbare, inadequate clothing. Within the space of a block she was soaked to the skin and shivering miserably. Few would have tolerated such discomfort, but comfort was as much a stranger to her as kindness. From long habit she plunged ahead doggedly, thinking only of the relative warmth of her tiny apartment and the few days left ahead of her when she would still have a warm bed to sleep in.
And after that?
But Pamela's mind didn't work that way. To preserve herself she lived in the moment, with the future a dull guess that would be dealt with some other day when it arrived. If it arrived.
A number of times she passed by groups of street people standing around rusted steel barrels with yellow flames licking at their interiors, illuminating sallow faces and needy eyes, lending warmth to outstretched hands. Glittering ominously in the firelight, their eyes followed her incuriously, drawn by movement. Instinctively she avoided them, picking up her pace, knowing that they were more unpredictable on evenings like this, that shared misery often sought a common outlet, sometimes kindling without warning into sudden violence; most often venting itself upon an innocent bystander, someone unsuspecting who had strayed into their midst entirely by chance; someone who normally was and felt safe in their company.
She tried to tell herself that the rain was good for at least one thing, that it washed away that stale, sour smell of old garbage and urine; but right now, bad smells were preferable to mind-numbing discomfort and the feeling that she was not safe.
By the time she reached the small brownstone apartment building she was giddy with cold and past the point of shivering. Her thighs were soon aching dully as she mounted the three steep, narrow flights of stairs, which she navigated more by feel and from memory than by sight; the stairwell was very dim, lighted only from high above the top landing by the grimy remnant of an ancient chandelier. From the moment she entered the building, her senses were assaulted with the musty, damp smell and the closeness of the place, things which, though offensive to most, to her meant home, safety, security. Things no one else wanted always felt safe to her, be they a place to live, a few mean belongings, even the odd stray cat she'd fed.
She mused for a moment on stray cats to divert her attention from her aching legs. You could never make a pet out of a stray: you fed them, cared for them, but in a way that was both guilty and one-sided. The animals couldn't be approached, let alone petted. They came only because they were hungry and left the moment they'd eaten. Once you'd fed one, you had to keep on feeding it to avoid the guilty thought of the poor unloved creature going hungry, perhaps and very probably starving to death. But it was more than that. She knew, without examining such a thought too closely that she empathised with their plight. And somewhere, in her heart of hearts, she knew that their fate, their lot in life, was her own.
The air in her flat was uncomfortably cool, damp and stuffy, but her attention was soon diverted to other matters of more pressing importance. There was no mail on the floor. Her pleas for employment had gone unanswered. The lack of such paper litter on the floor made her feel momentarily empty inside, a feeling like that of all the Christmases she had spent as a child, alone, unloved and forgotten. For a long moment it felt as though she were staring at some yawning gulf rather than the floor. Taking off her coat and shoes did nothing to improve her mood. One of the sleeves of her jacket badly needed mending and the soles of her shoes were beginning to separate. Even if she managed to land a job, what was she going to do about clothes and an apartment? It was highly unlikely that anyone would give her the sizable advance she would need just to get started. No, they would take someone with new clothes, with a look of confidence, someone self-reliant and bright like a brand-new penny, who would ask for nothing, who would need nothing.
'Shut up!' Trying to block out her own thoughts, she put her hand over her ears, feeling as though she were about to begin screaming uncontrollably. 'Shut up, shut up!' Forcing herself into motion, she began peeling off her wet things. Shivering in the cool air, she went into the bathroom and started the bath.
There was no hot water.
Cursing, almost weeping in frustration, she went to her kitchenette, got out four battered aluminum pots, and began heating water.
An hour and a half later, she lay in the lap of warmth, and therefore, to her mind at least, luxury, letting the heat soak into her body, rebuild her flagging reserves of confidence and hope. By degrees her thoughts turned back to the ad she had read. 'It's probably long gone already,' she told herself, reasoning that by the time the ad appeared in the paper, some local back in England would already have heard or read about it and snapped it up. But thoughts of it kept niggling at her, teasing her with unrealistic thoughts of hope and escape, adventure and romance, of . . .
And there she stopped. She suddenly remembered a dream she used to have, a recurring fantasy, a sort of wish-fulfilment, where she lived in some far-off place, with a man she didn't know. His features were unknown to her, but she knew certain things about him. He was tall, solidly built, very wide across the shoulders, taper-waisted and strong. He was dark, confident, and . . . frightening. Daunting. Sometimes terrifying. He was a fair bit older than herself, worldly, towering over her in every way. And she feared him. Yet the fear itself attracted her; it was desirable, in a way that eluded her-
Stop! That's enough! Stop torturing me!
Suddenly, she found that her mind was made up. She was going to call the number, if only to stop her own mind from tormenting her with unrealistic nonsense. She was in no position to waste time in idle daydreaming or fantasizing. And she was so bloody sick of life's uncertainty! She would put the matter to rest, now, once and for all. She got out of the bath and began drying herself.
Staring at the phone number for a moment, she suddenly blinked. No area code? It seemed to be a local number. No wonder the first three digits appeared familiar. Hesitantly, her heart pounding for no discernable reason, she began dialling . . .
With an angry moan she slammed the receiver back into its cradle. Why was she so nervous? You'd think she was about to walk a tightrope between two skyscrapers or something! Swallowing, taking a deep breath, she picked up the receiver and began dialling once more . . .
'Hello?'
It was a woman's voice. Amazingly, that one word conveyed a great deal. Class. Status. Education. Refinement. It was unmistakably British, and not the sort of voice belonging to an employee. Pamela swore to herself mentally as all confidence deserted her. It was obviously someone's home and not an agency of some sort. Business people she had learned to talk to but family people made her feel very uncomfortable, like a lowly, unwelcome, uninvited intruder. 'Sorry, I seem to have got a wrong number.' She was about to replace the receiver when the woman spoke again
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