Scruffy Buttons

by Chris Castle

(Continued)
     Stan snapped back into life. They had been robbed. Their friends had been emptied out while they were in charge. He walked through the room and let his hand drift through the air where once possessions had been. He let his fingers open out, as if he might feel the outline in dust where all the items had once sat. He walked to the end of the room. He turned and walked all the way back. Jen watched him the whole while; so far into her panic she couldn’t ask what he was doing.
     Strangers had been in here. In the last few hours people he would never know or recognise had stood exactly where he had stood. Traces of their breath were left in the dust and the oxygen he was now drawing in. He tried to taste these strangers on his lips. He wondered how they acted when they were in this room. Had they worked in silence, methodical and careful? Or had they laughed as they lifted the gear with their hands, not being able to believe their luck? Were they happy and keen as they stripped the carpet and hoisted the table? He wanted to know how long it had taken to dismantle someone’s life the way they had.
     "How long have you been here for?" Stan asked. He didn’t use her name. He didn’t want to have to do that until he needed to, in case more tears fell. That was his cushion, his shield for when he needed it most.
     "Since four? Four-thirty. I was going to clean up for when they came back. I pushed the key into the lock and opened the door and just & nothing. The lock wasn’t even broken; I don’t know how they got in." She wrung her hands together. He noticed this more than what she said. It made her look older. He took her hands in his to stop her from doing it anymore. He didn’t want to be with a girl who grew old before his eyes. "I just stood there for the longest time. I don’t know for how long. I just was numb. Shock. Then when I tried to move, I just couldn’t. I felt as if I was paralysed standing up. For the longest time I didn’t even know whether I could move or not. I just saw all this white in front of me. Like an over-exposed photograph, or a place embalmed in snow. There was just nothing. And when my mind kicked in, I just thought about my Aunt Grace. I couldn’t think of anything else. And then I started to cry and then the next thing I remember is when I was speaking to you on the phone."
     Stan remembered Aunt Grace. She had looked after Jen each summer after her parents broke up. She died two summers ago, on the first of June. Brain just ruptured. Fell into a blueberry bush and tore the dress Jen had brought her for Christmas, the one the two of them picked out for her on Christmas Eve, an hour before the shop shut.
     "How did it remind you of Grace?" he asked. Subconsciously when he spoke about the old lady now he ran a finger to his head, trying to feel if any of his veins seemed raised, as if to check if the rupturing was just bubbling below the surface. He didn’t want to call her Aunt, or Auntie, because it made him feel like a fraud.
     "Did I never tell you?" she said absent-mindedly. "She said when she was sixteen she was seeing a man who was older than her. One night they broke into a stranger’s house and he stole her a flower vase to put the flowers he had brought her in. Said he was tired of seeing the flowers he bought her with the best of intentions turn brown in the corner of her room. Said he wanted her to be able to remember him when he was off doing whatever needed to be done. She said it was the strangest feeling to be in a house that was not your own. I felt a little like that when we moved in together, Stan. Like we were staying in a stranger’s house. "
     Stan looked at her again. Suddenly her hands felt cold in his. She kept talking. "I didn’t even think that they might still be in the house or anything like that, I just remembered Aunt Grace and how that dress was in tatters when they found her." The cold fingers tightened around his. "After a while I wandered around to see what else they’d taken. They were thorough. They picked the place to pieces. It’s just the bed and the linen now. That’s all that’s left. "
     "Have you rung the police?" Stan imagined being quizzed by the sergeant. He felt his throat go dry at the very idea of it. He didn’t like being appraised by people in looks. Questions he could deal with, but looks, gestures, unspoken communication drove him crazy, because there was no way to counter it.
     "I have. They came round, took some notes. I thought they’d be angry with me when I said I’d been round the place, but they said it was okay. They said that if they were being this thorough they would have worn gloves and things. They wouldn’t have been lazy, was how he put it. One of the men had a scar on his chin that I couldn't stop staring at. He caught me looking at it and said people always assumed it was from his line of work. Said he’d actually got it when his wife flipped the car bonnet up on holiday. I laughed so much I nearly cried when he said that. It made me feel a lot better."
     Stan dropped to the floor and sat. He wondered how much money they would get for all the things they had stolen. Probably not a lot. He tried to think of the last thing he had stolen. Once, when he was going through a bad time of it with the girl before Jen, he had broken in and stolen some of her clothes and blamed it on a burglar. The girl had believed him at first and then later, when things got really bad, had accused him all over again until he admitted it. Jen slowly got to the floor and sat facing him. She seemed to want to be facing him all the time tonight, as if his face would betray him. Or if she was looking into his face for an answer that his voice couldn’t provide.
     "Do you think we would make a good team, being thieves? Cat burglars? " he asked, trying to think of a set up. She being stealthy and climbing through windows, he being shrewd and figuring out where jewels were kept.
     "I don’t know, baby. I haven’t given it a lot of thought. Can we stay with this right now? What are we going to do? They come back in less than twelve hours. Shall I ring them? "
     "No," he said, "let them have their holiday. Let them have a full two weeks and end on a high. There’s no point queering the holiday at the eleventh like this, is there? I’d hate to be upset at an airport lounge. And then there’s the flight. One thing you don’t want is to be on a flight with a turned-around mind. That’s bad news all over." He’d thought this through, he told her. She seemed to roll each word over in her head the way water rolls across your skin.
     "You’re right. There's no point upsetting them when they’re facing stress soon enough. I guess it would be better just to wait." She leaned forward so that her face was closer than it had been all evening. " I’m glad you’re here with me to deal with this, Stan. I need help on this one." Her hands furled over his. It felt as if she was all over him. He liked that feeling. He liked feeling good for someone else.