Cold Eye of Heaven, The Read Online Free PDF Page B

can see her in the back, the rise and fall of her ample arm, pushing the presser on and off a stretch of steaming cloth. He feels a rush of warmth in his veins; his arms, his legs,his groin. He doesn’t know why he fancies her nor does he know how he possibly could. In fact, every time he sees her he gets a small shock at how, not so much ugly she is – he wouldn’t like to say that exactly – but certainly, peculiar looking. And yet anything like the dirty dreams he has about her! By times he can barely look her in the face he’s so ashamed of them. The dreams are always set here, in this shop; the pair of them hard at it – in the back room with steam pumping all around them; on the counter sliding and slipping off each other’s sweat; even standing up against that big drying machine there gyrating in tune with the big drum inside it. Any and every way; backwards, forwards, sidewards, him well able for it, and she loving every minute. And really, the poor girl has nothing going for her at all, no figure, no face, certainly no personality – except maybe that in all the years she’s been working here, she never seems to have aged. Skin like a pig’s, if the truth is told – all the heat he supposes. Makes her lazy too; even the way she speaks, the effort it seems to cost, like she’s talking with her mouth full of oats. And as for the mad-looking eyes. But for all that, he fancies the arse off her and has done so for years.
    The owner’s hand lifts from the counter, fingers click and begin to beckon the Clery’s bag as if it has a mind of its own. He slides it across the counter to her. Farley looks at her; she thinks she’s so posh, the state of her, with the fancy tailored suit as if she’s running a big international company instead of a poxy little dry-cleaner’s. And the face plastered in so much greasy brown shite you can hardly see her nose. And the skinny lips like a pink elastic band. She catches his eye, he gives her a nod and a small half-smile.
    The heat is making him dozy, the churn of background machinery; the fumes and the tumble of clothes in the machine. The owner, still yapping, lifts her hand again; this time it begins pulling the suit out of the bag. The shoe comes along with it, toppling off the counter and onto the floor by her feet. She’s looking at him, an irritated glint in her eye. She puts her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and goes, ‘I
said
, would it get away with a pressing – do you think?’
    Farley looks at her, puzzled.
    Her hand idly turns the jacket of his suit, turning the cuffs, lifting the sleeves. Then it starts on his trousers, passing up a leg, brushing an inner thigh, patting and pulling at the mickey area – ‘… right so, right, right, and the same to you, happy New Year – o, I’m sure, I’m sure. Goodbye to you so and best to herself.’ She slams down the phone and looks at him. ‘Ah no, a pressing would be
useless
,’ she says, as if it was all his idea, ‘’tis a good cleaning this lad needs.’
    Farley tries to cover his embarrassment, wrapping it up in a joke. ‘When you get to my age, the only suit seems to get any wear is the black one. Probably I could do with a new one but like – is it worth the expense at this stage of the game, I ask myself?’
    â€˜Indeed,’ she says, the joke slipping by her.
    She thinks it’s his only suit, probably. He wants to put her right. To tell her about the other suits; five of them hanging up in his wardrobe, two still in cellophane, cleaned in this very shop. He wants to describe them; the navy pinstripe, Italian cloth. And the charcoal grey that he bought for business – a Savile Row label on the inside. And the summer linen he bought three summers ago and never wore once because he’s still waiting on a decent summer’s day to coincide with a worthy outing. And what