Looking In

He comes into the front room, small and round, a mixture of confidence edged with uncertainty. His shock of white hair is sharp against his soft, pink complexion. She is aware of the hard mound of his beer belly resting under his shirt, and thinks how his low centre of gravity must be vital for climbing the long ladders piled on top of his pale yellow van. He looks intently at her through bloodshot pale blue eyes, his soft throat-folds trembling slightly as he talks.
“To be honest,” he says, “people don’t understand house painting. They say after three weeks: but you said it would only take two, so I have to explain to them about the weather. Surely they’ve noticed that it rained for three days that week, but no, they just don’t remember, do they? I always go out of my way to explain though. After all, you can’t paint on wet surfaces, can you?”
“No, I expect not,” she replies. “I’ll be working from home while you’re here, so I’ll leave coffee and tea out in the kitchen for you to make your own - if you don’t mind.”
“Right.” His eyes shift. “You see, I’m not one to cut corners in my work - but you’ll soon realise that. Some painters do you know.” He expands, talking up his achievements, his ways of doing things, how strangers have noticed and praised his work, how able and quickly he gets things done. How lucky she is that he’s prepared to go up high ladders.
“Most young men these days won’t think of doing it,” he says, “and before you know it you’ve got a bill for a couple of thousand for scaffolding.” She thanks him. He looks satisfied, pleased with her - and then he carries on. She is mesmerised by the weight of his detail, then becomes restless. Her mind wanders, drifting off into what to eat for supper. Then she notices his feet. They’re in a ballet position, his hips thrust forward.
He goes when he’s ready to go. When he’s said all he needs to.
When she’s been quietened.

The next morning he arrives early, and only when she hears the clanking of ladders does she remember to keep the curtains closed to dress, and feels foolish. He comes into the kitchen, to make himself a coffee while she’s breakfasting.
“I didn’t come in and start until I saw you moving about,” he says, “I’ve learnt to be very sensitive about when and where to start, and I’ll soon learn your routine.”
But over the next few days he catches her hiding behind the kitchen door in her pyjamas, dashing half naked from the bathroom along
the landing. Suddenly he’s always there, looking in on her life.
“Having a long weekend are we?” he asks on Monday morning.
“Sorry?”
“Well, you were very slow getting going this morning.” His eyes twinkle.
“I like to arrive early,” he comments over her breakfast. “But I didn’t start painting the bathroom window, I carried on downstairs. So I’ll go up there after you’ve finished, you know, in there.” She feels the shock of him imagining her in there. Later she tries to pee silently, wondering if he’s outside painting the soil pipe, listening for the flush to run down.

She veers away from him, immersing herself in work. But he comes upstairs to find her, to tell her what he’s working on each day, and when he’s finished, he comes to tell her what he’s done. He starts standing in the doorway of her office, leaning on the chest of drawers as though holding a pint of beer.

“Families are funny things,” he says. “I was an after thought. All the others had left and married by the time I arrived, so I lived with my parents in the same house I was born into - until they died. Then I did it up from top to bottom. Wiring, windows, plastering, roof. I can do most things,” he pauses. “But in the end I sold it. I live alone now.”
She gets up to make herself a cup of tea.

…