Spit and Polish

A large but charmless house looms on a side street of London, almost obscuring the grey sky. An iron-wrought gate squeals in the wind; an occasional gust slamming it against a latch that doesn’t quite catch. Burned orange leaves, stained by autumn, scuttle by. Some trespass through the bars and gather in the corner of the flagstone steps leading to the garden path that snakes its way toward an ostentatious front door.

Two red stained-glass windows arch over a brass knocker and a wide slit letterbox. It looks like a face, with the eyes of the devil staring down. Judging. Though the inside is nothing like the gothic exterior. Instead, it’s ice cream sweet and candy coloured.

Sophie hates it.

Upstairs, in a bedroom painted by dusk, Sophie strokes the fabric of an exquisite ebony and gold gown that matches her hair and eyes completely. She pulls the hanger to her chin as if wearing the satin dress, and watches her unkempt appearance transform in the floor to ceiling mirrors. A hundred versions of herself in every angle echo around the room, and a small smile illuminates her delicate face.

The crash of the bedroom door startles Sophie, and her smile vanishes. Carmen strides through. The older woman may be past her prime, but despite her grey hair, her worn pale eyes, she still holds the allure of the supermodel she once was. Her beauty clings to her, like the stretched skin against her cheekbones, defying time.

Carmen stops short, casting an accusatory glare at the gown held against Sophie’s body.

Embarrassed, Sophie lowers the dress, fumbling with an apology that doesn’t quite reach her lips. Her pretence is over, the micro moment of make-believe where Sophie is no longer an undervalued housekeeper but something more. A telltale smile leaks across Carmen’s face, proof her employer relishes Sophie’s awkward shame. When Carmen finally speaks, her voice is as sweet as the lilac decor.

“I’ve changed my mind.” Carmen unfastens a clasp on her pale pink cocktail dress, and the silk tumbles from her body; a rose losing its petals.

Sophie diverts her eyes, more from unease than politeness.

“I’ll wear that one instead.” She nods at the dress in Sophie’s hands. “Be a darling and steam off your fingerprints.” Carmen flashes a fake smile as she steps out of her discarded gown. She taps the glass on her diamond-studded watch’s smug face three times. “Be quick about it. Oh, and Sophie?”

Sophie awaits her instructions as Carmen points a remote towards vertical blinds that hum into action. The blinds crawl across the French windows, casting shadows over Sophie, placing her behind bars. They clunk into place. Carmen slinks towards Sophie, her near-nakedness a weapon of power.

“You’ll set the dining table for four, won’t you? The best flatware.” The woman presses closer, and Sophie backs away over the threshold. “And once you see the caterers in, you can see yourself out.”

The bedroom door slams shut on Sophie’s face, and she disappears into darkness.

When Sophie returns ten minutes later with the carefully steam-cleaned gown on a plump satin hanger, there is a note left on Carmen’s closed door, the writing sprawled and rushed:

Don’t forget to take the bins out when you leave.

It shouldn’t feel like an insult, but somehow the underlying symbology has jagged edges, and Sophie feels its teeth sink into her sides. With a sigh, she hangs the dress on the brass doorknob and carries on with her chores.

Downstairs, a match strikes, casting a tepid glow upon Sophie’s tired face. One by one, she lights slender candles in an extravagant candelabra, which illuminates a decadent dinner table awaiting guests. Shadows dance upon the wall as Sophie stares longingly at the arrangement.

Three loud knocks pound the door.

She traipses toward the devil door and welcomes in the caterers, arms full of boxes. They nod courteously and head for the kitchen; they know where they are going—they’ve done this before.

“Oh, Sophie?” Carmen calls from upstairs. The last caterer stops in his tracks. “Tell the chef to make sure he gets the escargot spot on this evening. It was like chewing a nun’s cunny last time.”

Sophie offers an apologetic smile. The chef raises his eyebrows and shrugs.

What can you do? His expression seems to say as he disappears into the yawning double doors of the kitchen.

Finally, Sophie thinks, pulling her phone from her pocket to check for any notifications; a little red symbol or an unseen text to give her the dopamine hit she so desperately needs. To the untrained eye, the phone’s screensaver shows two identical versions of Sophie hugging and smiling. There is a warmth to the picture that has nothing to do with a filter. Sophie traces a finger over the face of the girl on the left and pauses.

Where the hell are you, Jessica? she asks silently.

She opens her message app, scrolling past multiple versions of the same unanswered question until she gets to Jessica’s last reply—

“In your own time.” Carmen chides from behind, her perfume lingering with the scent of wealth.

“I…” Sophie is about to shove her phone back in her pocket with an apology but stops last minute. “It’s my twin,” she says instead. “I haven’t heard from her in days. I think—”

“—I think you’re too clingy.” Carman’s eyes gouge into Sophie’s own. “Poor girl is on holiday. Give her some space.”

“It’s not a holiday, it’s a research trip.”

Carmen offers a placating smile before a chiming doorbell takes the woman away to more important matters. Sophie shoves the phone back in her pocket, and grapples with cleaning implements; stuffing them back into a cupboard overflowing with chemical products.

In the background, the door squeals open and polite greetings are exchanged, but any warmth is lost by the unwelcome guest—the cold draft of autumn’s night slipping through the door behind the visitors. Moments later, with Sophie still fighting the broom cupboard, there is a loud pop. Laughter rises with the sound of clinking glasses, and muffled conversations begin. Sophie checks the time on a grandfather clock’s intimidating face in the hallway.

“Shit!”

She doesn’t want to miss her train out of London. Picking up her pace, she wrestles into a long black puffer jacket, pulls a shapeless woollen beanie onto her head, stuffing her ebony hair beneath it, and slings a rucksack over her shoulders. She makes to leave, a bin bag in each hand as she tiptoes past the dining room.

“Sophie, darling?” Sophie stands frozen on the spot. A rabbit in a hunter’s spotlight. Carmen continues, “Won’t you come and say hello before you leave?”

Carmen turns to her guests. Two men, hungry for something more than food, stare back at Sophie through the doorway as if she would be their next meal, and a woman who looks like she hasn’t eaten in a century regards Sophie with gentle amusement.

“You haven’t met my new help yet, have you?”

“Another one?” a smarmy man laughs, as if Carmen’s succession of broken and demoralised help is a joke. Sophie feels any pittance of self-worth dwindle in the eyes of these wealthy onlookers. Her fists clench around the black bin bags.

“Oh! But she’s such a little trooper, aren’t you, Sophie? And she’s been with me for months now. Come on, come in and say hello.”

Sophie looks down at her tired black jacket over faded black jeans, her once white Converse trainers, then back to the guests at the table wearing designer labels more suited for the opera than dinner at a friend’s house. The stench of leftover food wafts from the bins in her hands. This contrast is almost comical. She gulps down her embarrassment, hoping her cheeks have not flared red as they are wont to do, and steps forward. She places the bin-bags on the ground, and although Carmen does not comment, her eyes slide to them, back to Sophie, and narrow.

Sophie gives a half-hearted, self-conscious wave at the guests and immediately hates herself for doing so. She wishes in this moment to be Jessica—Jessica with the silver tongue and magnetic smile. But she is not Jessica, she is Jessica’s opposite, so instead, Sophie cringes as the tick-tock of the mahogany grandfather clock in the hallway marks the long, awkward silence.

Finally, Carmen flings her hand towards Sophie, neither noticing, nor caring, that red wine spills from the glass, dripping down her wrist.

“You’ll never guess. Sophie isn’t just a housekeeper, are you sweetie?” Sophie shrinks, stepping back. She knows what’s coming and curses herself for sharing her pointless aspirations in her job interview; back when Sophie thought Carmen’s sweetness was sincere instead of a divisive tactic to store information as ammunition. And here it comes, the kill shot: “She’s also an aspiring writer!”

Carmen throws her head back and laughs. With her free hand—the hand not clutching the glass of dwindling wine—she gestures at her heart, as if the joke is too much to take. The men in their tuxes and the fox-like woman with teeth stained red with wine follow suit.

“Of course,” Carmen continues. “It’s her identical twin who has the double dose of talent, isn’t that right, Sophie?”

Sophie’s cheeks do flush this time. She turns away, closing her eyes.

To her guests, “Sophie’s identical twin, Jessica, is doing her PHD in, what was it again?”

“Mythology and folklore.” Sophie mumbles so quietly, she is not sure if anybody hears her.

“Mythology and folklore, of all things!” Carmen laughs. “Off on a research trip, isn’t she, Sophie darling? Leaving you behind to clean up the mess like Cinderella.”

Sophie sighs. This is, paradoxically, both true and untrue all at the same time.

One man notices her unease. His humour falters and he discovers the urge to fill the awkward silence spreading out like a disease.

“And what are you studying, Sophie?” he asks. Not that he cares. Sophie can tell this is a rehearsed politeness.

“Oh, Sophie isn’t at university.” Carmen answers before Sophie can. She has lowered her voice as if Sophie is not in the room but does not wish to be overheard. “Identical in looks, but…” she taps the side of her temple. “Sophie’s a full time cleaner—”

“—I’m supporting my sister’s education, actually.” Sophie defends herself, then mumbles a more honest truth, “and my writing.”

“So, what is it you write?” the man asks, feigning interest to disguise his pity. “A blog, is it? All the rage these days.”

“I’m not a blogger—” Sophie tries to correct him.

“Or a bit of the old Mills and Boon?” asks the second man.

Sophie rolls her eyes. Nearly every man she meets assumes that she must write romance. She mumbles the word no, but drunken laughter spills from the table, drowning out her small voice. Carmen watches on—revelling in the play.

Skinny fox woman is next to chirp in with her trump card. “Probably erotica, as if we need any more shades of that utter rubbish!”

“Didn’t stop you from reading it, though, did it? You saucy little minx!” Carmen squeals with delight.

Raucous laughter fills Sophie’s ears. The clock chimes quarter past the hour. And Sophie feels all the eyes on her—she squirms. At first, the hollow in her gut feels like embarrassment, but as it moves from her stomach to her throat, it changes, morphs into anger. Sophie must shout to be heard, and when she does, her voice cuts through the heckles, silencing the guests. Even the ticking of the clock seems to stop.

“Horror,” Sophie bellows. “I write horror and…”

The guests eye her quizzically, and Sophie’s anger drips to embarrassment once more. She mumbles, fumbling with the cuffs of her winter jacket. “And ghost stories…”

The smarmy man drains his wine in one greedy gulp and stretches across the table to help himself to a top up.

“I’ve always thought there’s something inherently wrong with people who write horror,” his eyes pin on Sophie as he tops up the glasses around the table. “All those ghastly ideas knocking around inside their heads.”

“I once read in an interview that psychologists suggest it comes from suppressed trauma. A troubled childhood?” Fox-Face continues, fake smiling at Sophie with fake sympathy.

Appalled, Sophie stands helpless as they continue.

“And the astonishing thing about this morbid fascination, yes darling, top it up, don’t be shy! The funny thing,” Carmen continues, “is she’s trying to write a movie.”

“What? Nightmare on Carmen’s Street?” one man jokes.

Bawling laughter erupts. Sophie looks for the exit, but she finds she cannot move. She’s frozen to the spot.

“And what is this little movie about?” Fox Face asks. Her eyes gluttonous for more fuel to add to the unfolding joke.

At this point, Sophie is propelled forward by the guests’ impulsion for entertainment. It is as if her mouth is not her own when she tells them, “It’s about an amateur detective called to investigate a suspicious murder only to discover she’s investigating her own future death.”

There is a moment of absolute silence before the laughter erupts again.

Each face flashes before Sophie, mocking, laughing, punching tables with fists, wiping teary eyes. She sees each face closer and closer, their red wine filled mouths dripping as if they have bitten out a piece of her heart. Fox-Face knocks over her glass, a red blood stain like Sophie’s dreams laid bare against the pristine white linen tablecloth.

Louder and louder, they laugh.

Sophie’s eyes squeeze shut, and she counts her breath in her mind for ten slow seconds. But when she opens her eyes, she sees only casual conversation around the table. There is no spilled wine. No spilled blood. No one is laughing. No point in her still being here. She doesn’t know how much was truth and how much was imagination. The lines of reality have blurred. But she suddenly feels like an intruder—the conversations continuing as though she were never there. A ghost in one of her pathetic attempts of story.

She grabs the bin-bags and backs away, unnoticed and unobserved, though voices trail after her as she makes for the door.

“Of course, it’s impossible these days for someone outside the industry to get a spec script optioned,” a male voice booms.

“True. But the twins have this little podcast people seem to like. Personally, I don’t see the fascination. It’s terribly dark.” Carmen chimes before lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “although, between you and I, I’m not entirely sure Sophie is the creative force behind it.”

Sophie reaches for the door handle, the devil eye windows observing her barely contained shame.

Carmen’s voice turns from pity to delight. “Oh! And let me tell you the dreadful story about what happened to the twins’ mother…”

Sophie sighs, and the front door slams shut behind her. She tramps the winding path to the wrought-iron gate, dumping the bins on the pavement. She moves on; hands shoved deep inside pockets, feet crunching on dead leaves.

The gate continues to clank and squeal as Sophie’s footsteps disappear into the enveloping darkness of night.

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