When a stranger calls

A storm has come. Up here at the top of our house, it feels like I’m on a ship; the Velux windows perfectly slanted to catch every angry drop. It’s loud. But not so loud that I don’t hear the doorbell ring downstairs or my husband’s genial tone as he says: “Oh, my wife’ll kill me if I don’t ask you to take your shoes off — sorry!” He’s right. I would kill him — and the shoe guy too. 

I am a self-professed slattern in almost every way. Except one. My floors are spotless. Honestly, you could eat your food off them. Nobody comes in with shoes — not unless they’re trampling over my dead body. Look all you like, you’ll never find a sticky patch or a cluster of crumbs to stick to your socks. The idea of trudging bits around our house, transporting the grot of pavements and children’s classrooms and public toilets and dog poo and food debris on our feet — it’s more than I can bear. I don’t want the outside coming in. My front door is a hard border: leave your shoes or step no further. 

And so. I hear them go into the kitchen and begin my creep down the loft stairs. From the first floor landing, I look down. Of course! Shoe guy has taken his shoes off two-thirds of the way down the corridor: a serious breach of floor protocols. What next? Maybe he’d like to dance a Tarantella on my bed in his fucking shoes! I go down and stop on the bottom step, thinking, oscillating. I swing myself round the bannister in the most ungainly way possible and do a wide stance walk to avoid the patches of floor he’s contaminated with his wet shoes. Thank Christ nobody can see me. I jump my feet in just before I arrive in the kitchen, where the perpetrator stands, wearing mismatched socks. Oh hello. 

“Hi”, I say with a Raptor smile as I make a beeline for the cupboard under the sink. I grab the bottle of Dettol, rip off two pieces of kitchen roll and exit. And then I start spraying like a maniac. I mutter ungenerous things under my breath in Farsi, wiping like my life depends on it. Satisfied that the germs are gone, I pick up shoe guy’s shoes and deposit them where they belong: on the doormat. Equilibrium has been restored. Almost. I take off my socks (just in case I stepped on some outdoor juice). And my trousers (I did kneel down while I was spraying). And: breathe. Realising I’m now wearing knickers and a jumper with a stranger only a couple of feet away, I run up the stairs. At the top I stop and look in the mirror. When was the last time I plucked my eyebrows? The doorbell rings. 

My husband shouts “Are you alright to get the door?” Oh sure, I’ve got nothing better to do than answer the door. I go back down and grab the trousers I just took off. I put them on and open it. Another random guy, carrying a box of things that look suspiciously like tools. What’s this one come for? The garden? The drains? Something to do with bricks or electricity or pipes or any of the other things I couldn’t care less about? 

As if he can read my mind, he tells me: “I’ve come to look at your drains”. Oh good, well come on in, join the party. He steps in onto the doormat and I can tell he’s not going to take his shoes off! He’s about to step onto the wood — not so fast there, pal.
“Can you take your shoes off please?”
He hesitates, and replies: “I’ll have to put them on again to go out the back.”

I want to say: And your point is…? But instead I say “Yeah, sorry.”.

I watch as he makes a meal of unlacing his boots — it’s an award-winning bit of business. He finally picks them up and walks through with an air of huffiness. He hates me. And I’m absolutely fine with that. I follow him into the kitchen and give my husband a death stare. Original shoe guy is still there, writing something on a clipboard. I look at them both in their socks and wonder if there’s more to it, this resistance to taking off your shoes. They look more real, more exposed, standing there in their socks. Maybe the shoes are one more layer of protection, one more barrier between them and the world. Or maybe they just don’t want people to see their socks. I guide the new guy to the doormat, turn to give my husband one final look of fury, and leave.

Back upstairs, I take off my trousers again and look for the tweezers. My dressing table is an abomination. Piles of brushes lie on top of lipsticks; a chain wrapped around an eyelash curler; a lone earring in a pile of eyeshadows and pencils, some with lids and some without; little apothecary bottles, perfumes, creams, all jumbled together like some sort of cosmetic casserole. I think about what my mum would say if she saw this. The doorbell rings. “For fuck’s sake!” I run to the landing. “Make sure they take their shoes off — on the mat this time!”