The Stain

‘Do you need them in a hurry?’ 

Ann said she didn’t. 

The man called from the back, sharply demanding the woman’s presence.

‘Excuse me,’ she said with her timid smile, and passed back through the bead curtain. Ann could hear the man barking something, the woman quietly responding. Ann’s jacket was lying abandoned on the counter. She could see the dark brown stain, and it made her shiver. She folded the jacket so the stain was hidden.

‘It’ll probably be the end of the week?’ the woman said, returning. She said it as if were a question, and Ann wondered whether that was just the way she spoke or if she was really asking whether a week would be all right. She said the end of the week was fine.

A big man with hairy shoulders in a white vest stepped from the fume-filled rear of the shop carrying an armful of bagged-up garments. 

‘So they’ll be ready on Friday?’ the woman said, taking down Ann’s details on the counterfoil of her receipt book. Ann was distracted, watching the man as he placed the clothing on the rails. He was hugely obese, with a scowling face. He looked as if he’d been pumped up with air, over inflated, and was angry about it. His vest was damp with sweat, his hair plastered to his wet scalp. 

‘Sorry?’ Ann said.

‘Friday morning.’ She handed Ann the receipt. 

There was something about the dry cleaner that reminded her of Harry. Not physically – Harry had been a slim man – but in his bullying demeanour, the way he treated his shop assistant. She didn’t like the way he had made her think of Harry.

She needed some air.

Ann walked along the beach for a while, crunching through the shingle and watching the waves break noisily on the pebbles before hissing away again. She even walked to the end of the ugly concrete pier, and stood watching the men fishing. 

Harry had always been violent. It was in his nature, it ran in his family. His brothers were as bad. The three of them had always had a reputation for being London hard men. But they were getting older, and Harry had started bringing his frustrations home, taking them out on Ann. When she killed him it had been in self-defence, clean and simple. The judge had even sympathised with her. Harry’s brothers didn’t see it that way. There was family honour at stake. If they ever tracked her down… 

On the way back to the bus stop she passed a hairdresser and, on a whim, went inside to book an appointment for a new style. A completely new look.

‘And the name?’ said the blonde girl on reception duties.

The name. Ann nearly said Johnson, an automatic response. But she remembered just in time. ‘Um, it’s Singleton,’ she said, spelling it out as much for her own sake as for the blonde girl. Ann watched her write out the unfamiliar name. She could see now that the girl was a bottle blonde, her dark roots showing as she hunched over the appointments book. 

‘I wonder how I would look blonde?’ Ann thought, as she sat on the top deck home.

That afternoon the phone in the hall began to ring, making her jump. It was her first phone call in her new home. She wondered who could be calling her. She was half afraid to answer it. Eventually, she picked up the receiver, said her new number into the mouthpiece.

‘Hello?’ said a stern male voice. ‘Is that Mrs Johnson?’

‘W—What?’

‘Is that Mrs Johnson? Mrs Ann Johnson?’

‘No!’ said Ann, slamming the phone down before the man could say any more. Her heart was pounding, cold sweat pricking her. She’d been here for less than two days, barely forty eight hours, and already someone had tracked her down! The phone began to ring again, but Ann couldn’t move. It rang and rang. Tears were burning her eyes. Would it never stop?