Accidental Crime - 1

Dawn

It had been an unusually busy morning.

Woken at 5 by a neighbour’s insistence on publicising their departure for work, Dawn had found herself in an irritable mood and such a discovery could never be met with even a degree of appreciation.

She had risen at 5.10, offering herself a ten minute possibility of returning to the dream she had resented being jolted out of, but soon resigned herself to the reality that her inability to sleep once roused was unlikely to be solved, today of all days. Slinging her faded pink dressing-gown over her stuttering frame, she crept out of her room, glancing furtively towards Jarrod’s door-knob. Sucking in her breath, she turned back towards the stairs and slowly slid down each step, still steeped in slumber, carefully avoiding the ‘creak zones’ that he had so helpfully pointed out the morning after he moved in.

Yesterday’s post had been tidied into size-order, leaving Gemma’s wedding invitation – years of copying her work in French lessons had left Dawn over-familiar with the handwriting – at the very top of the pile. She’d spent almost twelve hours not opening it and so she could surely wait another few minutes, if not hours, before tearing through the ‘G & T’ heart-shaped-seal securing the envelope. There were few suitable activities one could perform at 5.10 and that most certainly was not one of them.

She shuffled towards the breakfast table, eyeing-up the ‘to-do’ list she had composed under the new-found semblance of organisation she was keen to bring to her life.

7 am – wake up.

She had known at the time it was a ludicrous waste of ink.

Slumping into the chair before her, she noticed that an additional column had been added on the far-right of the A5 page she had meticulously mapped her life upon.

‘Jarrod’s day’.

A blank column. An empty day.

He would, no doubt, express some notion that one can never know what one’s day might bring and that we are merely actors ready to walk upon an empty stage, encountering whatever God/fate/chance (delete as appropriate) lay before us. But, what was of more pressing concern to Dawn was the manner of his intrusion. Intrusion was to be expected – desired, at times – but never in the same colour. This was addition.

She shook her head, bemused at the time it had taken for her to fill the kettle. Perhaps it should have been on the list? Or was the very presence of the list the reason for her delay?

As the water powered into the limescale-laden kettle, it occurred to her that she had always awoken and prepared her morning tea without prompting from last night’s pen. The list had brought nothing but guilt and confusion. If she had the energy, she would tear it from the pad.

She glanced down at the faded guide outlining just how much water she needed for a single cup of tea. Images of innocent birds trapped in monstrous mounds of discarded plastic bags flooded her head, while the unnecessary water wound its way ever downwards – recycling in action. She would do what she could.

Don’t up-set, off-set!

It was unlikely to launch her to international slogan-stardom but she was, nevertheless, impressed by her creativity almost two hours before her official wake-up time.

‘You’re making tea.’

It took a moment for Dawn to realise the words had been voiced by a whisper in the doorway. She replayed the last five minutes at breakneck speed, querying the decibel level of each action, before recalling that the breakfast chair belonged to the same early-morning-avoidance-areas-family as the ‘creak zones’ she had remembered to side-step only minutes earlier. She winced, as his disappointment drove deep down into the –

‘It’s 5 am.’

‘Quarter past actually.’

‘You’re making tea.’

She glanced down at the crumpled tea-bag clutched within her left hand, briefly considering returning it to the canister in an act of defiant contradiction.

‘Yes’.

‘It’s 5 am.’

She finally turned, his fingers lingering on the frame a little longer than the rest of his already-departed body. Slowly, he peeled each finger away, as if counting down to the deadline for an appropriate response to warrant his return to the scene.

She feasted her eyes on the flaking paint of the door-frame as her ears traced his ascent. Her fingers closed around the tea-bag. Instinctively, she thrust a mug beneath, half-expecting brewed drops to begin filtering through. Slogan-stardom and the world’s first human tea maker in one morning. And all before 5.20.

The click of the kettle confirming it was ready to do what her hand could not prompted a sharp ‘shush’ to pass through her slightly dampened lips. She closed her eyes, willing him away in case he were standing behind her ready to identify how illogical it was to command inanimate objects to be quiet.

Enough. Pour the water. Brew the bag. Drink the drink. Regain control of this morning.

She nodded to no-one and proceeded to fill the patient mug before her.

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