Red Rubber Bands (Short Fiction)

Lionel was eating breakfast when the post arrived. At the letterbox’s rattle, he put down his cereal spoon, first wiping it on a paper napkin so that it wouldn’t stain the tablecloth, and went out into his dim hallway.
        His post lay in a neat bundle on the mat. He was pleased to see the envelopes were held together by a red rubber band, which he eased off and stretched experimentally. He struggled to open the front door, which had swollen slightly with the damp, and found another red rubber band on his doorstep, where the postman had dropped it.
        Changing quickly from his carpet slippers into his gardening shoes, he checked the front path, then went through his gate and squinted along the pavement, where he found two more. He brought them in and added them to the jar that sat half-full beside the kitchen sink. If The Royal Mail could be so careless in their disposal, then he felt obliged to collect and recycle them.
        He finished his Bran Flakes, rinsed the bowl and spoon and put them in the rack to drain. It was Wednesday and his library day. He would, he thought, take a chance on the weather and walk into town. If he left in the next few minutes, he should arrive just before they were due to open and, with luck, he might see her arrive. He knew which bus she came in on — the 279 — but buses were so unreliable these days. They cancelled services at the drop of a hat. And he didn’t like to think of her having to sit next to some of the types he’d seen hanging around that bus stop. He put his library books in a carrier bag and took his raincoat from its hanger.
        He found three more red rubber bands on his route and a bright yellow one that wasn’t so appealing. He left that one where it was. It began to drizzle, so he walked faster.
        He saw her in the distance as he turned the corner of the library building. He recognized her multi-coloured golfing umbrella as she came towards him. He waited for her to get close enough for him to say something — a casual remark about the unpleasant weather — so that she would look at him, notice him, and make some comment back. He mustn’t stare at her, he knew that. He didn’t want her thinking he was strange — just friendly, that’s all. He tried to think of something witty that would make her laugh. He’d heard her laugh once and wanted to hear it again — be the cause and take the credit. So that she liked him. He checked the books in his bag, glancing sideways to judge the speed of her approach. Then someone called to her and she stopped, turning to the other person — a woman — who caught her up and began walking with her. Disappointment that she was no longer alone deflated him. Now he would have to wait until she was behind the desk before he could say anything to her. And that wasn’t the same, having that desk separating them. She’d just be doing her job, being polite, and that didn’t single him out in any way. He became the same as all the other library users.
        Two other people now waited with him for the library to open. The lights were on and he could see movement inside. A man he’d never seen before came forward with a bunch of keys and unlocked the doors. Lionel nodded at him as he went though, making for the desk, his books already out of the carrier in readiness. But she wasn’t there and another member of staff — an older female who had worked there some time — checked in his returns.
        He went to the gardening section and took two of the For Library Use Only encyclopedias off the shelf and sat down at a table. From this spot he had a good view of the door marked PRIVATE, and he was hopeful that it was only a matter of time before she came out.
        When she eventually appeared, she was pushing a trolley laden with books. She was strong, he thought, noticing how easily she moved it despite its weight. She was wearing a sleeveless blouse and he was close enough to see how the muscles in her arms flexed as she lifted books to place them on the higher shelves. There was something on her right arm, high up near the shoulder — a scar or birthmark perhaps — but he couldn’t quite make out what it was. As she moved from section to section, he followed at a discreet distance, browsing the shelves and picking out a random selection of books.
        Suddenly she reversed her progress, and came back to shelves already visited, a volume on family history ready in her hand. He stepped back as she leaned across to place it according to the reference number on its spine. Her attention to detail was one of the things he admired about her. Her upraised arm gave him a close sight of the mark and he was surprised to discover it was a small tattoo — a finely detailed white rose, its thorns tipped with red.
        This was much more than mere coincidence, he decided. This was surely an omen. The elation he felt made him bold.
        ‘I grow white roses like that one’ he told her, pointing to the tattoo, ‘A very popular variety called Akito...’
        ‘Oh,’ she smiled vaguely at him. ‘That’s nice.’ Then she moved off again, any sense of significance apparently lost on her.
        He brooded for a while, trying to decide how he might impress on her the importance of this connection between them. She had gone back into the room marked PRIVATE and the two hours he allowed himself for the visit was almost up. He took his pile of books to the desk and had them stamped by the man who had earlier unlocked the doors. Of course he wouldn’t read any of these books, he’d simply bring them back the same time the following week.

        Thursday was scheduled as a gardening day. Unusually, there was no post and no red rubber bands. Disappointed, he checked outside his gate and walked a short distance along the pavement in each direction. This lack of evidence indicated to him that there hadn’t been a local delivery at all. He remembered the yellow rubber band and wondered if anyone had picked it up. Did anyone collect the yellow ones? He thought it unlikely.
        Although brighter than the day before, the sun was watery and there was no real warmth in it yet. He went outside at precisely eight o’clock to check the level in the water butt beside the potting shed. He decided to mix up a fresh solution and spray his roses. He never used tap water if he could avoid it, believing in the benefits of rain water and the natural cycle of elements. For the same reason, he didn’t use commercially available chemical treatments. Through extensive reading he had come across more natural remedies to prevent insects and mildew attacking his plants. And, like recipes, he had tried a number of combinations of ingredients until he found which ones were the most effective.
        The potting shed shelves held rows of recycled plastic bottles labelled with their contents. He thought about the librarian as he poured and stirred, imagining all his needs and desires bubbling through these musty-smelling extracts from various leaves and roots, until the thin brown liquid held all the promise of a love potion — a mystical agent of change. He also thought about his mother. His mother wouldn’t have approved of that tattoo, but he rather liked it.
        There was a gusting breeze which carried the fine mist further than he intended. He fiddled with the nozzle, adjusting the pressure and narrowing the angle. He made sure he drenched each plant thoroughly, lifting the leaves and ensuring none were left untreated.
        At last satisfied he’d done a thorough job, he put the can and the spray back in the potting shed and went on slug patrol. There were a number on his rhubarb — small creamy-white ones that left delicate silver slime trails across the crinkled leaves. He picked them off and put them on the bird table with the crusts from his breakfast toast for the thrushes to find.
        Despite wearing his mother’s thick navy cardigan, he was chilled through. It was the only garment of hers he hadn’t taken down the charity shop, and had remained unwashed these past four years and still smelt of her. Shivering, he went indoors for his elevenses.
        The mug of chicken soup warmed him as he listened to the news. He dozed briefly in his chair, thinking of his next visit to the library and planning a new strategy. He didn’t know her name. It was frustrating that unlike many shop assistants, the library staff didn’t wear name badges. He hoped she would have an unusual name — something classical, perhaps. But what if it turned out to be something horribly common and uninteresting? Wouldn’t it be safer to invent a name — choose his own name for her? Then it came to him — he would call her Akito, after the white rose. The idea delighted him and he hummed along to the radio as he rinsed his mug and put it on the drainer. By eleven thirty he was back in his garden.
        Although the rose buds were still tight, the recent rain had caused them to swell noticeably. He took a magnifying glass from his pocket and examined each one for earwigs and aphids but found no trace of either. He noticed a scrape where the fine earth of the rose bed had been disturbed, and suspected next-door’s cat. He took a trowel and uncovered the excrement. Scooping it up, he lobbed it over the hedge and onto their lawn. They were at work all day and out most evenings — arriving home at all hours and waking him with their door-slamming and loud boozy voices — so why have a cat when they were hardly there? He would have to write Scent Off capsules on his shopping list. The pepper dust he’d scattered obviously hadn’t worked — its effectiveness weakened by the recent rain. He was annoyed by this, but only mildly. Thinking of her — his Akito — kept him calm.

        Friday was his supermarket shopping day. He got ready early and waited in the hall, his overcoat and shoes on, the carefully folded and much-used plastic carrier bags he habitually took with him bulging from one pocket. He anticipated the post might arrive before he left to catch the courtesy bus that picked up near the park gates. Minutes before he planned to leave, a fat bundle of post was forced through the letterbox. He caught it before it reached the mat. The large brown envelope was the Carter’s Rose Specialist catalogue he’d been expecting. It was folded round and bound to several smaller envelopes — a gas bill, two charity appeals and selection of junk mail — by a longer and thicker than usual red rubber band. This upgrade from the normal sized band had to have some significance. He tested its strength by stretching it round the edge of the hall table. This one, he thought, would be especially useful.
        He found three more on his walk to the bus stop, all regular size, which put him in a very good mood. The bus was on time and there were only four other passengers so he didn’t have to sit too close to anyone. He settled into a seat at the back, having a choice of windows to look through. The bus route took them past the library and he allowed himself a casual glance, thinking he might catch a glimpse of her. He saw someone who could have been her, but the windows of the bus were dirty and the bus was travelling quite fast, so it was impossible to be sure. He wondered if their connection — the symbolic white rose — gave her any sense of his proximity. Did she momentarily experience some frisson that she couldn’t explain? The thought made him breathless. He took out his shopping list and wrote fruit cake on it. He needed to be prepared, should she accept his invitation.
        The store wasn’t very crowded and he’d collected all but one of the things on his list in the time he’d allotted to the task. He asked one of the shelf-fillers about the beeswax polish that he couldn’t find and was told it was a discontinued line. When he demanded to know why, the young man just shrugged at him and said there wasn’t any call for it. Exasperated, Lionel commented he’d been buying that same brand for years, so of course there was a call for it. The assistant said he should complain to the manager. Lionel said he hadn’t time now — he would write to their head office — and made his way to the checkout.
        It really was too bad, he decided. Flustered by this unforeseen turn of events, he forgot to hand the girl on the till his money-off coupons, only realizing his mistake when he was outside the store and hurrying for the bus. The bus back was unusually crowded and a young woman with a toddler squashed herself into the seat next to him. Her closeness made him feel very uncomfortable, so he twisted round so that his back was towards her and stared out the window.
        Seeing as his schedule was already disrupted, he got off two stops early and went into a corner store he only used for what he considered real emergencies. His tight household budget didn’t normally stretch far enough to accommodate their prices, but the polish was an essential. Mother had always waxed the furniture every week without fail, and he had to keep to that routine. The thought of breaking it filled him with a giddy sort of dread. He searched the rather jumbled shelves and found a small dust-covered pot that claimed to be genuine beeswax as recommended by professional cabinet makers. It didn’t have a price on it.
        ‘Excuse me,’ he cleared his throat, trying to attract the attention of a large woman in a flowered overall who was unpacking a cardboard box. He held the pot up so that she could see it. ‘There’s no label on this — can you tell me how much it is, please?’
        The woman came over and took it from him. ‘Mmm, it’s been around a while — old stock by the looks. Can’t rightly remember, to tell you the truth. We haven’t ordered any of this for ages. How about a pound? — Would that suit you?’
        He grunted and took a pound coin from the zipped pouch inside his wallet. While she rang up the purchase he noticed a red rubber band on the floor and stooped to pick it up. A good omen. He began to feel a lot calmer.

        He spent all day Saturday on his laundry, apart from checking briefly to make sure no parasites were attacking his roses. The buds were bigger, the sepals now parting very slightly to hint at the whiteness of the promised flowers beneath. The air was warmer, the sun grew stronger as the few clouds dispersed, and it felt more like approaching summer. He hung out a full line of washing and left the back door open while he did his ironing. The postman had knocked earlier because there was a packet too bulky to go through the letterbox. It was the free gift part of his subscription to his gardening magazine — a pair of gardening gloves and a set of six small biodegradable plant pots. There was no other post and no red rubber bands on the doorstep or along the path. In the glass jar beside the sink, the rubber bands he had already collected coiled like a heap of thin red tape worms in a transparent gut, and as he ironed his shirts he considered the various uses he might put them to.

        Sunday was housework day. He had stopped going to church when they changed the service. He didn’t much like the new vicar, either. Too young, too modern in his views and very little time for tradition. Lionel had expected attendance at St. Cuthberts to drop, but the congregation seemed to like Reverend Palmer and, much to Lionel’s surprise, numbers actually increased if the parish newsletter was to be believed. But Lionel stayed away as a protest at the changes and hadn’t gone back. Although recent events had got him thinking. What if she should want to get married in church? Maybe he should go once in a while, just to show his face. It made sense to cover all the bases.
        He vacuumed right through the house and took the rugs outside to beat them. The new pot of polish turned out to be very satisfactory. Mother would have been impressed with the shine he achieved. Her antique sideboard and dining room table glowed, as did the banisters and the hall table. While dusting in Mother’s room, he thought he really should empty the cupboards and drawers of the few things he’d kept of hers. There were piles of knitting patterns and women’s magazines, very old chocolate boxes full of greetings cards and holiday postcards received from friends and members of the family now long-dead. There was a selection of unopened toiletries— talc and hand cream, bath oil and cologne, all in their packets, the cellophane yellowing but intact — Christmas and birthday gifts that she hadn’t got round to using. He boxed everything and took it all up to the attic.
        The bed was a double one with a heavy oak frame. It was the bed she had shared with his father, and the one she had died in. Lionel had never slept in it although there had been times when he had considered abandoning his much smaller bedroom — the room he’d had all his life — and moving his things into the best bedroom, as she had called it. But habit kept stalling him. His room was his room, hers was still hers — even though she was four years dead. He folded back the patchwork bedspread and examined the mattress. It was clean but looked lumpy. He would have to buy a new one. No woman would knowingly want to sleep on her dead mother-in-law’s mattress. In fact, he would change the carpet and curtains, too. It was such a radical idea, he had to sit down for a minute.

        By the time Wednesday came round he had everything planned like military campaign. He took extra care with his appearance and put on a shirt he’d been keeping for a special occasion, plus his father’s old regimental tie. After a lot of dithering, he cut the finest of the rose buds to wear in his lapel. He was careful to remove the thorns and wrap the stem in damp cotton wool before sliding it into a silver plated buttonhole holder — a relic from countless family weddings. He also located and unboxed his father’s ancient, battered Panama, determined to wear it even though it was a size too big for him and was inclined to slip forwards. He believed this gave him a slightly rakish air. He had prepared a list of books that he would ask for — titles and authors likely to impress her.
        When he set off for the library, he felt confident and hummed to himself as he walked, interpreting the glances from passers-by as admiring ones. Today was a crucial one — a turning point. He’d found no less than six red rubber bands — a small heap of them — dropped on his doorstep. That had to be deeply significant. Just out of curiosity he kept an eye open for the yellow one he’d seen the previous week, but there was no trace of it.
        She was unlocking the library door as he arrived, and he tipped his hat as she opened it to let him in. She looked amused by something — as though holding in a laugh — and he felt encouraged to take this as a cue. He followed her to the returns desk where she checked his books in while he waited.
        ‘They’re fine.’ She glanced up, acknowledging him briefly, then looked past him to the next person in the queue. Realizing he’d been dismissed, he walked to the notice board and pretended to read the information pinned there. He would have to wait until she wasn’t busy before carrying out the next part of his plan. It was a good job he’d allowed himself an extra couple of hours this week. He needed to be more flexible, he knew that. Things would be changing soon — his whole routine would be different with another woman in the house. Someone who wasn’t his mother.
        An hour went by and he became anxious that he might not get the chance to speak to her properly. He only needed a few minutes with her on her own, but a steady stream of people came through the door who she had to attend to, plus the male colleague kept finding excuses to go to the desk and exchange a word, until he began to thoroughly resent the man and all the other library users. He looked down at the perfect white rosebud on his lapel, imagining it pinned to the front of her blouse, as though twinned with its likeness on her arm. He was certain they belonged together.
        Lionel made a show of hunting the shelves for the books on his list and found one of them — a very worn copy of The Cruel Sea — despite not looking very hard. As his anxiety grew, he wound one of the red rubber bands around his fingers until it bit into the flesh, restricting the blood flow, and his hand began to throb. He was getting a headache, too.
        At last she left the desk and the man took over. She went across to the rack of advertising leaflets and began tidying them. He spied his chance and took it.
        ‘Excuse me, I have a list of books I need to find... Could you help me, please?’
        She glanced at the piece of paper he was holding out. ‘If you ask Christine,’ she indicated the older woman seated at the central inquiry desk, ‘she’ll be glad to help you. I’m just going for my break.’ She walked over to the door marked PRIVATE without looking back.
        He would wait, he decided, thinking her break wouldn’t be more than fifteen minutes — half an hour at most. But after forty minutes, she still hadn’t come back, his time was running out, and he had no contingency for this. He’d noticed the man watching him and it made him feel self-conscious and vulnerable. He was beginning to suspect the man had designs on her, and the idea filled him with a sense of injury. But it was wrong of her to encourage the man by being so friendly. He probably didn’t realize she was already spoken for.
        Lionel unwound the red rubber band from his fingers and allowed the blood to flow back. The pain focused him on what he had to do. He must ignore his schedule for the rest of the day and return later — when she finished work.
        He left the library without the copy of The Cruel Sea and went into the town centre, where he bought sandwiches and a bottle of mineral water from a lunch bar, and took them into the park, thinking he would sit quietly and plan the best way of inviting her to tea at his house. But all the seats were occupied and he ended up sitting on a low wall by the flower garden. He looked at the rose bushes and felt some satisfaction that the were so inferior to his own.
        There was a lot of time to kill before the library closed and Lionel wasn’t used to having nothing to do. He watched the couples playing tennis, then went and stood by the fence next to the children’s play area until unfriendly stares from some of the adults made him uncomfortable enough to move on. He avoided the public toilets and made for the small café.
        He made one cup of tea last as long as he could, sipping at it and watching a girl emptying the glass case on the counter of the few slices of dried out sponge and one jam tart that remained unsold. It was clear they were getting ready to close. The girl then began spraying and wiping down the surfaces. Their clock was four minutes fast. He was certain of this because he checked his wrist watch every morning when he tuned in to the shipping forecast. He finished his tea, dabbed at his mouth with one of their cheap serviettes, and took the cup and saucer over to the counter. He asked the girl if there was a toilet. She nodded, pointing to a sign on the wall.
        The cubicle was very cramped and he couldn’t imagine how a large person would manage at all. His mother had been a large woman and it was one of the reasons she would never use public toilets. That and the poor standard of hygiene. He finished and washed his hands in the tiny basin. The hand dryer wasn’t working and there were no paper towels left in the dispenser. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and three of the red rubber bands came with it and fell on the wet floor tiles. He hesitated, now noticing the trickle that came from under the cubicle door and pooled where the bands had fallen. He made the unhappy decision to leave them there.
        His intention was to time it so that he arrived back at the library just before they were due to close. He walked purposefully, measuring his progress by the other pedestrians he overtook. He’d passed eleven, but was then thrown by sight of her crossing the street ahead of him. Why had she left work early? Where was she going? It seemed reasonable to follow her.
        She went up some steps and through the door of a well-kept terrace property that had a brass plaque on the wall. It was a dentist’s surgery. Relieved at this explanation, he looked around for somewhere to wait where he wouldn’t look too conspicuous. He chose a nearby bus stop. Twenty minutes later she emerged, but before he could approach her a car pulled into the kerb, she greeted someone he couldn’t see and got in it. He watched the car drive off, stunned by the realization that his plans were ruined.

        That night he slept in his mother’s bed, the navy cardigan that still smelt of her on the pillow beside him. He had taken the rose bud from his lapel and put it in a pot beside his parents’ wedding photograph on the mantelpiece. He’d re-boxed his father’s Panama hat and added three red rubber bands to the jar by the sink.

        The newspaper report said she was thirty seven. Lionel would have put her younger than that. The photograph of her wasn’t a very flattering one, but he cut it out anyway. And now he knew her name — Geraldine Townsend. Very disappointing after Akito. And there’d been that girl in his class called Geraldine — a spiteful, lumpish creature with a thick brown plait that hung down her back like a bell pull. Enough to put anyone off the name. Besides, Mother definitely wouldn’t have approved of a Geraldine. He read to the end of the article. He wasn’t surprised she’d gone missing. Getting into strange cars like that when she could have been having tea with him. They were appealing for witnesses — anyone who saw her after she left the dentist’s surgery. He wondered if anyone would come forward.