Fate

A sickly wind blew through the town. It lingered in alleyways and died in gutters, doing nothing to alleviate the heat. Worse, it carried the stench of the late summer with it, smothering the decent doings of the townspeople with the smell of rot. Small sensations turn pervasive in such weather: a dry mouth is intolerable, and sweat itself makes one feel weary.

A woman crying on a hot day becomes a terrible mess. There should have been a strong man to comfort her, but there was just me, and I shrank from her as she sat on the balcony, letting ants crawl over her. The crystalline pureness of the grass framed her white form, and gave her the immediacy of a vision. It was obvious that she didn't want me to look at her, and yet I couldn't help it all the same. She really wasn't at all beautiful in that moment, and so she fascinated me.

But more than that, I needed my tip. I could tell that in the midst of her histrionics lay a sort of revulsion for me - that I could think of money at such a time. They were all the same. A job's a job, and where would we be if we didn't abide by such things? Eventually she rose and walked over to the small table by my side. I would have passed her handbag over, but it would be improper to handle a woman's purse.

As she took the money out, I saw her fingers go stiff. She was wrestling the impulse to throw the money to the floor. People had done, in the past. I never stooped - it was not in my job description - but armed with my polite cough I would wait for them to come around to my way of thinking. When I received the coins from her, they were already damp with her sweat. I bowed and walked out of the room, and past the torn envelope that lay where she had dropped it in the hall.

The next house featured a young, married couple who were always arguing. I could hear them shouting at each other to get the door for some seconds following my unobtrusive knock, and then eventually the man came to the door. He too was flustered in the heat, perhaps thrown also by my pristine uniform and serene air. So instead of tipping me instantly, he opened the telegram that was addressed to his wife.

It was always a good idea to wait, because if the telegram was good news they were prone to tipping handsomely. However, it was clearly not good news. His face turned white, and then red. He turned suddenly, attempting to slam the door in my face, but I had thrust in a well-polished boot. Without looking at me, he took out his wallet and left me a handsome tip. I thanked him and left.

I was making unusually good progress as I walked over to the poor side of town, and felt inclined to whistle as I stepped among the rubbish. I forced open the gate of an old mining house, on the sort of street where it looks as if the architect has tried to carve as many dwellings as possible out of a single block of white stone. A troupe of handsome children ran to the door. Avoiding them as much as possible, I reached over with the telegram and placed it in the mother's hands.

"Thank you."

Being poor, of course, they always spoke to me. It was rather infuriatingly informal, to tell the truth, and I kept up a haughty silence on my end. She would often speak at me, on whatever pretence her loneliness forced on her - mothers, of course, being among the loneliest of all. She was an earnest, well-scrubbed type, the sort of person who being hit by an ambulance would say, "that was lucky".

She looked up, and smiled, although sometimes eyes have a truth in them they can't conceal.

"I'm afraid I can't pay you."

I smiled back.

"I'll wait."

She disappeared into the darkness of the house. One of the smaller children remained in her wake, staring up at me. I tried to deflect her gaze by looking in a constant way above her head, but after a while it became most disconcerting. For the first time I felt the heat of the day reach past my uniform, and sweat prickled at my neck.

"Ask your mother if she'll be long."

Instead of leaving, the insolent brute merely looked back into the cottage and shouted for her mother. Then she returned her eyes to my face again, when no answer came. I decided that enough was enough, and narrowly resisting clipping the child around the ear, turned on my heel and departed the awful place.

I met my boss in an old pub where he and I liked to lunch together. The ancient glass of the windows produced a narrow shimmer, like a coil of smoke, that made the world outside seem small and dreamlike. My boss had already begun his poacher's pie, and merely gesticulated to the bench in front of him as I entered.

"Afternoon, Harold. Devilish hot, ain't it?"

Without waiting for me to reply, he suddenly raised his yellow eyes at me.

"How was the rounds?"

"Well ... not too bad. I think the weather's baked people's brains."

"Oh, yes?"

"People were acting strange when I gave them their telegrams, that's for sure."

He raised a straggly eyebrow.

"Did you have many telegrams, today, Harold?"

"Oh, the usual."

"Harold, today we got into your locker. We found steaming apparatus, a typewriter and a bunch of opened telegrams."

By that time I was out of the door. The blast of heat carried with it his voice, rising in anger:

"Harold! ... Harold!"