“I need some other clothes. I mean, I have to get something else.” And she adds trying for laughs, “I can’t stand up in these all the time, can I?” Aretta gave her an appraising look and steered her towards the ladies trousers. With a skillful eye she guessed Brenda’s size and chose a pair of jeans that had barely been worn. Pimlico. Brenda, amazed at the skill, the attention and the clothes accumulating on Aretta’s sturdy arm, could only nod. “You can try them on in here” Aretta said warm and kind. “I’ll see what else I can find.” Some forty pounds later Brenda has had more new clothes in one go than she has had in all her adult life. And she had some jewelry and shoes, even a handbag of her own.

Later that day, while Brenda was parading about the kitchen in selected outfits and getting ready for the boiler man to arrive, Aretta was sighing to her husband. “These women, they never ask for help. They’re so afraid. It’s like a disease.” Michael looked up from his despatch box at his lovely wife, “It is a disease, but they are just the symptoms. You see it’s almost worse because you cannot help her except with her clothes. You said the same last week, the same problem, women with bruises, women who don’t know how to get help, women who won’t tell.” 

Some of the clothes that Aretta has found for Brenda look almost new. They are modern, stylish and Brenda doesn’t recognise herself when she puts them on. She settles on a pair of loose fitting linen trousers in navy blue. The Meringo cardigan looks especially nice with them, moonlight shining over midnight. Aretta has also picked out a sequin embellished tee shirt in pale green which works wonderfully with the navy and cream. Brenda has paid careful attention to Aretta’s advice, memorised the combinations, but still spent the afternoon in the kitchen mixing up different combinations, just to see. To Brenda’s eye all the outfits work. Aretta was right about all of it. When it’s almost time for the boilerman to arrive, Brenda finds herself combing her hair, and stealing a swipe of lipstick from Audrey’s dressing table. But when Brenda hears the doorbell ring she drags her hand across her mouth to wipe it away. When Brenda heaves open the door, Mimis Chipman is standing deferential and polite. “That door wants planing” he smiled and handed her his card.

Brenda ushered him in, pulling at her teeshirt and wishing she knew what she was supposed to say to a boiler repair man. This boiler repair man is younger than Brenda, dark haired, olive skinned and strong looking. As she notes the width of his shoulders, the powerful forearms, she shrinks away and carefully peers at his card. “I am sorry I couldn’t come last week. It was a mess and I hope you’ve been ok without the boiler” his eyebrows raised in enquiry. “Oh, yes, yes it’s fine. I um I yes.” Brenda smiled. They stood there awkwardly for a few moments, Mimis waiting to be shown the boiler, Brenda wondering what she might be supposed to do. “It’s in here” she said, “this way” before stopping at the kitchen door having no idea where the boiler was or even what it looked like. Mimis waited expectantly for a moment and then, “right” he said, “I’ll just get my tools from the van. Shall I bring a dust sheet or do you want to use your own?” Brenda knew about dustsheets for painting but had no idea where one might be hiding in Audrey’s house. Mildly confident she said “er, er you, er you can bring yours”. As soon as Mimis was heading for his van Brenda racked her brains as to where a boiler might be lurking. It wasn’t downstairs in the basement she was sure. And why would it be? It could only be in the kitchen. But she had looked in every cupboard and not seen a boiler. 

Mimis was carting in a large toolbox and noticed Brenda’s slight flush under her messy grey hair. “Lead the way” he said brightly and as Brenda shifted her weight from foot to foot, he jokingly said “is it gone missing then absent in the line of?” “Well you see, I don’t really know. Where should it be? It isn’t in the kitchen …”. “Shall we look upstairs” Mimis replied, unaware of the effect this simple sentence was having on Brenda. She blushed “yes, that’s it, it’s probably upstairs, in the bathroom perhaps.” And as she headed that way Mimis watched her bare heels clip the stairs and found a line running unbidden in his head “her blue veined feet unsandaled were”. It was from Christabel he was pretty sure. And then unexpectedly he said it aloud followed by “Coleridge”. And Brenda turning on the stair saw, she was quite certain, a man who wasn’t there and said so. It was the only bit of poetry she could remember. Mimis was drawing a blank. “Yesterday upon the stair I saw a man who wasn’t there. He wasn’t there again today, I wish that man would go away” Brenda repeated. “It’s not really a poem, more a nursery rhyme I think. But it’s the only poetry I can remember. I don’t know why I said it. I can see you’re really there”. Brenda felt oddly bashful and slightly too warm in her Merino cardigan as she moved on towards the bathroom, following her Mimis was frowning slightly.

There skulking in a floor to ceiling cupboard was a fairly new combi gas boiler. Mimis spread out his dustsheet and started unpacking his tools. “What was that about the feet?” Brenda asked with some trepidation. Her own were entirely blue with cold, not just the veiny parts. “It’s from Christabel, the poem, Coleridge. I can’t remember all of it, just bits. I’m quite keen on poetry you know.” Brenda adrift in confusion tried to answer. The best she could manage was, “… poetry? Would you like a cup of tea?” Mimis smiled wide “I’d prefer a strong black coffee if you have it?” And Brenda scuttled bluefooted and relieved back down to the kitchen, but the black coffee was to prove tricky. There was no instant coffee in Audrey’s house, and Brenda had no knowledge of any other sort. There was just the strange machine and the kettle. She put the kettle onto boil and pressed a switch on the machine to see if it made a difference. Nothing. Inert. Unwilling. Unhelpful. Unfulfilling as to Mimis’s request. And then soundlessly he was there, suddenly present, at her elbow, watching with a quizzical expression as Brenda looked back at the kettle, her hand resting on the coffee machine. “Can I help? You’re looking like you don’t know what you’re doing, if you don’t mind me saying.” He grinned. “Shall I do it? Let me help. We drink a lot of coffee in my house.”