The Caller

THREE

Stanley Frayte had an hour to kill before he showed up for work. He drove down Holt Avenue in his white Ford Econoline van stamped with the chunky blue lettering of Frayte Electrical Services. He pulled into the parking lot at the south end of Astoria Park. At 8.30 a.m., it was quieter than it would have been an hour before when the dawn walkers, runners and swimmers were making their way back home to take a shower before work.

He got out of the van and let the cool breeze from the East River raise goosebumps on his bare arms. Where he stood – by the park, under the Triborough Bridge – was Astoria as it had always been to him. On the Shore Boulevard side, the luxury condos that looked over the tennis courts on one side and Manhattan on the other represented change. Like Brooklyn, Astoria had lured people out of the city and was going through the makeover to prove it. Stan liked it all. He was just happy to be anywhere he could feel the sun, look out over beautiful water, walk through the trees, sit on a bench. When it hit 8.50 a.m., he went back to his van.

He drove down 19th Street and pulled into the small parking lot of the apartment building he had been working on for the previous two weeks. He unloaded his equipment and walked up the flagstone path. He stopped halfway and bent down, laying his gear beside him and pulling a penknife from his utility belt. He flipped it open and sliced at a weed that was pushing up through a gap in the cement. June, the receptionist, waved to him from behind the front desk as he walked towards her. He pushed through the front door into the lobby. The smell was lemon disinfectant, rising from the shiny floor tiles. June’s desk was on the left-hand side, a crescent moon that curved towards the door. The walls were pale gold with a cream dado rail that traced around the corner to the elevator bank. Behind the desk, free-standing plastic barriers closed off the corridor to everyone except the construction workers who were renovating that section of the building all the way up to the fourth floor.

‘Hey, Flat Stanley,’ said June, smiling up from her desk. Flat Stanley was a character from a children’s book who in a tragic accident got flattened to 2-D. The Stanley standing in front of June was not flat; he was Stanley with a belly inflated to bursting point. Stan grunted, shifting the utility belt that only ever came to rest under his gut, no matter how high he tried to move it.

‘Anything I need to know?’ he said.

‘Just that Mary Burig on the second floor is going to plant that little strip of flower-bed you’ve been kind enough to lend her.’

‘Mary?’ His face lit up. ‘Today?’

June nodded. ‘Yup.’ She smiled. ‘I think someone has you wrapped around her little finger.’

He frowned. ‘She likes flowers.’

Mary Burig checked her smartphone. It held everything she needed to remember: phone numbers, addresses, bank account details, appointments, shopping lists, birthdays, anniversaries, maps and guides. She spent fifteen minutes tidying her living room, starting by the front door and working clockwise through each corner. She moved into the kitchen and wiped down the surfaces. She was about to unload the dishwasher when the doorbell rang. She jogged back to the front door and opened it.

‘Hi, Magda,’ she said. ‘Come in. I’m working hard here. Tea?’

‘Coffee,’ said Magda, hugging her. ‘Thank you. I can make it.’

Magda Oleszak was in her early fifties, with a healthy glow from eating good food and walking everywhere. She came to New York from Poland with her two teenage children ten years earlier, learned perfect English, but never lost her accent.

‘The place looks great,’ said Magda, walking around as she took off her light vinyl jacket. Upside down and open beside Mary’s bed was Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.

‘Are you reading Rebecca again?’ said Magda.

‘I know,’ said Mary. ‘It’s cheating because I know it inside out.’

‘It’s not cheating,’ said Magda, turning to her, holding her hands passionately. ‘Don’t ever let me hear you say that again, Mary. It’s beautiful what you and Rebecca have. You are friends for life. She’ll always be with you, won’t she? Or whatever that girl’s name is. Does she have a name? I don’t think she does, does she? I get confused myself, see? I get confused. You don’t. It’s wonderful, Mary. You hang on to that feeling. You remember what Rebecca brought you when you were lying on your bed as a young girl.’

Mary smiled.

‘Now, because we are talking about books,’ said Magda, ‘I have some good news for you. Stan Frayte, you know Stan, is going to do your makeover on the library.

Mary clapped. ‘Cool.’ Then she frowned. ‘So do you think it’ll wind up looking more like a library than a store window?’

‘Nothing is happening with the glass if that’s what you mean. We want to make sure no-one’s making trouble in there.’

‘No-one makes trouble in libraries.’

‘They do, going right to the dirty bits in all those romance novels. Hot throbbing whatever.’

‘Magda!’

Magda laughed.

‘I wish they’d do something about the other windows,’ said Mary. ‘They’re too high up. You can’t see out if you sit down. You’re just staring at a blank wall.’

‘You know what?’ said Magda. ‘I like to think that the reader uses it as a blank screen and they project onto it the world of whatever book they’re reading at that time.’

Mary thought about it. ‘I’ll go with that,’ she said. ‘I like it.’

‘Oh, you want to know how they got the money to do the library? Stan himself. He said he got a discount on some light fixtures for the hallway. I’m not so sure.’

‘That’s so kind,’ said Mary. She paused. ‘There’s something sad about Stan.’

Magda went into the kitchen. ‘You’re out of coffee, Mary.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry.’ She hit Tasks on her phone menu and added coffee to her grocery list.

‘So,’ said Mary, ‘what’s going on?’

‘David’s coming this morning, isn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ said Mary. ‘There’s cake in there. I’m not hungry, but you can help yourself.’

Magda opened the bread bin and pulled out a cake wrapped in aluminium foil. It was covered in mould. She flipped the lid of the bin and threw it inside.

‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘but I’ve eaten.’ She came back into the living room and sat down on the sofa. ‘Will I stay until David comes?’

‘That would be great,’ said Mary. ‘Today is ironing day, so I’m going to start now, if you don’t mind.’

‘Go ahead,’ said Magda.

David Burig was thirty-four years old, looked younger, and spent most of his time dressed in a suit so his staff would take him seriously. He ran a successful catering business he bought after offloading an overvalued software firm nine years earlier.

‘Hello there,’ he said, hugging Mary and kissing her on the cheek.

‘David,’ she said. ‘Yaaay!’

‘If only everyone had that response when they saw me.’

‘Yaaay!’ said Magda.

He laughed. ‘Why thank you, both. I feel very special. So,’ he said to Mary. ‘I believe it’s time for bed.’

Mary frowned. She looked at the clock. ‘But it’s only 10 a.m.!’

He smiled. ‘ Flower -beds.’

She shook her head. ‘Is that supposed to be funny?’

‘Yes.’

‘Just because you say so, I’m still not sure that means it is.’

He held his hands up. ‘It actually wasn’t funny at all.’

‘It was dumb,’ said Magda.

‘Worth a try, though,’ said David. ‘Let me go change. And can I ask? What are you wearing?’

‘Do I look nuts?’ said Mary.

‘You look… creative.’

Mary smiled because David did. ‘I thought it was kind of cool.’ She was wearing a pair of orange baggy cotton pants that tapered at the ankle, a green vest and white sneakers.

David laughed and disappeared into the bedroom with his sports bag.

‘OK,’ said Magda. ‘Have you got what you need for gardening?’

Mary pointed to the tools lined up on the table: ‘Two trowels, mat to kneel on, watering can, fork thing… is that everything?’

‘Yes,’ said Magda. ‘There’s a faucet at the back of the building.’

David appeared in a battered pair of jeans, a blue long-sleeved T-shirt and green retro Pumas. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I am ready to garden. I am proud – no, I’m shocked – to be assisting in such a noble endeavour. Come on, lady in scary pants, let’s go down and bring that dirty brown soil to life.’

‘I’ll take the elevator with you,’ said Magda.

Mary laid down the mat in front of the flower-bed that ran along the edge of the property, fifty feet away from the back of the apartment block. A row of pots filled with chrysanthemums in bright shades of yellow, orange and magenta was lined up against the wall.

‘They’re so beautiful,’ said Mary.

‘They are,’ said David. ‘Stan always sticks with the same colour theme, doesn’t he? Just changes the flowers in fall.’

She nodded.

David turned to the bare flower-bed and laughed. ‘Look – he’s marked out where we can plant: the shadiest, quietest corner-’

Mary smiled. ‘In case we do it wrong?’

‘I’d say so.’

‘But I’ve helped him before, he knows I’m good.’

‘You. But not me.’

‘OK,’ said Mary. ‘We need to take the flowers out of the pots, break up the roots gently and plant them here in a pattern.’ She handed him a piece of paper with a rough diagram.

‘That should be easy,’ said David.

Mary knelt down on the mat and started to dig a hole. David tended to the pots, pushing a small trowel into the first one, working it around the roots, pulling the plant free and shaking off the excess soil.

‘Everyone I know is at the office right now,’ he said. ‘Do you know how good that makes me feel?’

Mary smiled. ‘Thanks for helping me.’

‘Helping you? I’m helping myself, here,’ he said. ‘This is therapy. This is what life’s all about. Outdoors, fresh air, office avoidance.’

He spotted a weed, growing by the grass at the edge of the flower-bed. He pulled it out and held it up. ‘Isn’t it funny?’ he said. ‘How easy it is for beauty to attract such ugly, clinging things.’

‘Like the garden in Manderley,’ said Mary.

‘Yes!’ said David. ‘Exactly.’

They worked on, talking and laughing for over an hour. David stopped and watched his little sister, her concentration unwavering, stooped over the bright petals, holding them gently in her tiny hand, pouring her heart into the job.

‘How are you doing?’ he said.

She looked up at him. ‘I guess I’m OK.’

He squeezed her hand. ‘That’s good. That’s good, Mare.’

She smiled. They continued in silence until David stopped again. He looked at her and started a quote from Rebecca: ‘We all of us have our particular devil who rides us and torments us.’

Mary smiled sadly and continued. ‘ And we must give battle in the end. We have conquered ours…’

David let out a breath. ‘ Or so we believe.’