Accidental Crime - 17

Dawn

It was 7.30am.

Dawn had already been wearing her suit for over an hour and yet it seemed to make little difference as she stared soullessly at the sandwich before her. Nigel, a man who prided himself on not only thinking ‘out of the box’ but discarding of the box altogether, had set the challenge last Wednesday: rebrand the sandwich. That was it. No tips, no guidelines, no outline of what he’d be looking for. Simply a deadline – 11am that morning. Three and a half more hours for Dawn to come up with something. Anything.

She had made a ham sandwich; white bread, a thin spread of margarine and two slices of honey-roast ham. If she made a sandwich and then stared at the sandwich, she felt, she would become a sandwich. Well, not the sandwich itself of course, but the concept of sandwich. She would get inside/behind what it means to be a sandwich and hope that somehow, somewhere, someday she would see the future for the sandwich.

Her pen was on standby, having written the word ‘Sandwich’ at the top of the notepad before her when she first took her seat, and was rocking back and forth between her fingers, like a clock ticking down to the ever-approaching deadline.

Need some lunch? Have a munch.

It was the best she had come up with so far but it still seemed a waste of ink to commit it to paper.

Make the most of your lunch: Munch.

The words found their way onto the notepad, scrawled at a slight angle. She was still a little unsure of the full stop and flirted briefly with an exclamation mark after ‘Munch’ before rewriting the words in a neater hand, as if to demonstrate that there had been a redrafting process, albeit a process that had yet to yield any changes.

She was growing to like ‘Munch’. Sure wasn’t yet sure what it was exactly but the word worked. Rhyming always worked.

Simplicity was the key. Simplicity and affordability. Munch would have set prices for set sizes. And no messing around with all that 99p or £1.99 rubbish. If something’s £1, charge £1 for it, don’t overload people’s wallets with copper coins they’ll probably just toss in a wishing well or shovel into machines at the penny arcade. Gone were the days when penny sweets cost a penny. False advertising flourished as inflation struck. It was the same, in fact, with the penny arcade, which now seemed to be demanding your silvers, filling the moving shelves of the machine with the temptation of precariously balanced piles of 10p coins shuffling ever closer to the victory trough that lay beneath. Naive fingers slotted in coin after coin in search of the bounty that might just about pay back the coins they have put into the machine, as the laws of gravity, geometry and God knows what constructed leaning towers beyond Pisa’s wildest dreams.

She took a deep breath.

Packaging would be basic and fully recyclable. Cardboard: Nature’s friend. If only she could find some way to justifiably squeeze the words ‘Reduces your carbon footprint’ just below the price. A reference to rain forests would no doubt help too.

Munch: Because the world’s worth it.

*

The creak of a chair in the room above brought thoughts of Jarrod into direct competition with the sandwich. She had found herself distracted by an ambivalent sense of sympathy and pity whenever he reminded her, intentionally or not, that he was sitting alone, as if waiting for the world to change, or at least for it to bring him some sign that it was taking him seriously.

It was more than two weeks since he had sat patiently waiting in the living room, aligning and re-aligning coasters and crisps, silently sojourning for a solitary hour before Have I Got News for You broke the silence at 9, and Dawn had discerned a noticeable change in his outlook towards the most mundane moments ever since. Adverbs of time began to be applied to everything in an onslaught of unwarranted criticism. Milk always went off just when you needed it. There was never a clean glass available. And – Dawn’s personal favourite – ‘you always never don’t leave me alone’. The opportunity to question whether that counted as a double negative – something Jarrod had made quite clear he disapproved of in every sense – never seemed quite appropriate and, on the one occasion that the moment had presented itself as Jarrod lingered longer than usual at the door, a flurry of guilt had held her words back and maintained the evening’s peace.

The evening of the Friday itself had proved equally restless for Dawn, as she returned to the original plan of faking a trip to the toilet the moment the doorbell rang and waited patiently in her room for her curtain call. At five past 8 the explanations were clear – she was running late, there was bad traffic, her watch was slow – but by twenty past, as Dawn’s bladder began its protestations at her refusal to submit to its calling, the excuses were becoming more far-fetched. There had, no doubt, been a terrible accident, probably involving a hamster, and any moment now the phone would ring and the words ‘no, that’s OK, of course I understand, the hamster has to come first’ would escape Jarrod’s lips with only a mild hint of bitterness and anger as his eyes rested on the uneaten crisps that lay before him. Or perhaps she had slipped on her walk home from work – it was a near certainty that she was the kind of person who seized every opportunity to get a good workout – and the slip of paper with Jarrod’s name, address, telephone number and whatever else he might have scribbled on it, had slipped out of her hand and slipped onto the slippery slope beneath her feet as she trekked uphill, recovering her composure after her knees briefly grazed the granite beneath, her eyes missing the discarded white square of ever-dampening paper now being trampled further underfoot by those closing in behind her.

Every three minutes she had heard Jarrod repeat the same short walk from the living room to the front door, checking there was nobody waiting behind the door, before heading back to his seat and taking a solitary bite into the ever-diminishing pile of crisps that he would surely need to replenish if the top sank any lower into the bowl.

What had begun as amusing and exciting was now becoming agonising and painful, and that was just for her bladder, whose complaints were rising by the second, as Dawn continued to resist the urge to break from her plan. The fake trip would now need to be combined with a real trip, which certainly lessened the charge of fraud, but she could not risk being heard going twice. Jarrod had a suspicious ear.

As the opening credits of Have I Got News for You sliced through the silence, Dawn had begun to acknowledge that, not only had Jarrod taken a hour to resign himself to the lonely evening that lay ahead but she too had spent sixty minutes perched by the door of her room, counting the seconds as her ears mourned the absence of the promised guest. This had been how she had spent her Friday evening. While Deborah no doubt clinked glasses with the fiancé she saw at weekends in their pent-house London suite, she had sat, sometimes squatted, by the door of her bedroom on the upper-floor of her mid-terrace, in eager anticipation of someone else’s guest.

She had finally trekked to the toilet, a full five minutes into the show, clouded in a sense of shame as she tip-toed carefully around the creak zones, and it was with some relief that she took her seat, burying her head in her hands as she finally relaxed her aching muscles. She stared through two doors to the room that awaited her return, to the room where she was guaranteed a warm reception, with not the slightest sigh of disapproval in sight. Her legs twitched at the prospect that she might instead descend the stairs and fulfil the role of Jarrod’s absent guest, like an understudy waiting in the wings for her moment to shine, guiltily praying for the lead actress to contract some devastating virus that would pave the way for her unexpected opportunity. Showing sympathy was definitely one of Dawn’s strengths and she had been presented with an inviting scene, whilst the crisps would provide an adequate accompaniment.

As her sweaty palm slid off the flush, however, she knew that her feet would lead her back to the empty waiting room opposite, as the lure of an evening in with Suede and her other mid-90s friends dominating the airwaves grew ever stronger. She could not bring herself to descend the stairs, like a dolled-up teenager heading off to the Ball, claiming any right to interfere with Jarrod’s night ahead. The prospect of his look of disappointment as she entered the room – perhaps not even his second choice guest for the evening – was too troubling to risk the chance that maybe, just maybe, he had set up the whole evening for her, that there was no guest due to arrive and that this was a cunning ploy, however poorly orchestrated, for her to spend the evening with him. It seemed unlikely and, even if it were somehow true, there was little denying that he had treated her disdainfully earlier and had shown restless urgency to get her out of the room before his preferred company arrived. Perhaps it was the adult equivalent of pulling your pig-tails to let you know he liked you, but Dawn wasn’t one to respond with enthusiasm when ushered out of her own living room, especially while Matthew Perry graced the screen.

*

At 7.40 am that morning it was Dawn who sat downstairs, waiting for her inspiration to arrive, while Jarrod sat above, no doubt reflecting on how his brief flirtation with mid-90s indie music had been a grave mistake, whilst tapping away at the keyboard of his overused laptop.

‘Munch’ was the idea of tomorrow, today. She was growing in confidence with every passing minute, even beginning to visualise a vague outline of the food itself. The bread would surely need to be crunchy, thereby opening the door for a Crunch the Munch slogan to be plastered across the screen at the end of the forthcoming television advert, and yet it mustn’t be too crumbly. Her target audience would not be keen on crumbs spraying over their laps, getting in between the keys of the keyboard or clinging on to the fabric of their best cardigan. Seeds were an obvious no-no and surely didn’t support that image of simplicity that she was going for. The bread would be plain, fresh and crunchy, a cross between a French stick and a Ciabatta – another plus point for the equality and diversity fans – and would be shaped to fit the average hand (prior to the first bite). Dawn stared at her hand and agreed that it was most certainly average. For once, she would be the perfect model.

As she clasped the poorly-designed honey-roast ham sandwich she had made earlier before her eyes, she sensed Jarrod’s presence lingering behind her, his eyes no doubt fixated on the ham threatening to slide between the crusts, as the angle at which she held the bread grew ever more inappropriate.

‘Isn’t it a little early for sandwiches?’ he remarked, his voice jolting Dawn’s composure further, causing the ham to jostle for freedom before her quick movement restored the balance and returned it to the stability of the plate below.

She sighed within, angered afresh at his determination to judge each and every thing. ‘It’s for work. I was just...looking at it.’ She despised justifying herself to him but she knew he wouldn’t leave until he was satisfied there was a reason for all he saw and heard.

‘Why a sandwich?’ he persisted.

She turned to face him. ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ she said, with remarkable poise, relishing the momentary sense of superiority the scene had offered.

‘Fine,’ he replied, ‘I never understand you anyway,’ sniffing as he turned away towards the kettle that awaited him.

Dawn found her hand sliding over the words she had written, shielding her ideas with a mingled sense of embarrassment and pride, the act itself drastically elevating the importance of her work. His eyes would no doubt test out their peripheral vision as he stood over-filling the kettle, striving to catch a glimpse of the attractive words that meant so little to him. She could not leave her chair until he had gone and, for a moment, Dawn was overcome by the realisation that she had unwittingly involved him in something that belonged solely to her, potentially prolonging his presence just at the moment that she longed for the solitude she needed to finalise the concept that would make ‘Munch’ a day-changing, if not a life-changing, idea.

He leaned against the work surface, the over-burdened kettle slowly heating behind him, as he rested his eyes on the sandwich that lay before her. Dawn considered offering him a bite, perhaps even the whole lot, but a brief glance at the clock – 7.45 – relegated the invitation and encouraged  the diversion of whatever conversation she could muster.

‘Busy day?’ she found herself asking, offering him brief eye-contact before returning to her momentary scan of the floor-tiles.

‘Hmm? Oh. No more than usual, really,’ he replied, unusually indulging in the uninspiring exchanges that he had always been so eager to avoid. After a moment’s pause he even posed a probing question of his own: ‘you?’

She could tell him everything. She could, perhaps, test the water with Make the most of your lunch: Munch and then see where things went from there. A little smile, a nod of approval, and the mini-questionnaire would be a success. Her eyes skipped between the sandwich and the sample audience standing before her.

The kettle clicked and Jarrod turned, distracted, leaving Dawn to mouth voiceless pleas. She watched in disappointment as the over-worked kettle spluttered, Jarrod’s unsteady hand unable to control the water’s eagerness as it hurriedly splashed in and around the blue mug he always used. She found herself whispering to him inside her head to ‘clean it up’, sighing as another piece of kitchen-roll would need to be unnecessarily deployed to wipe away the evidence.

‘Nothing much really,’ she lied, as she finally brought an overdue answer to his question. ‘I guess I’ve got a meeting later, but that’s normal in my job really.’ Any opportunity to reinforce the fact that she regularly attended meetings was always worth seizing.

She heard him sniff, as he pressurised the tea bag against the side of the mug. Her eyes lingered on the tip of the spoon, as the precariously perched tea bag was slowly raised above the water-level, the last few droplets of tea causing a slight splash as the spoon paused before being unceremoniously dumped in the pedal-bin Jarrod’s right foot was swift to open.

‘Big meeting, is it?’

‘Huh?’ she responded in slight confusion. ‘Oh, no bigger than usual. I mean, they’re all big. What makes you think-’

‘You’re never dressed this early,’ he interrupted, the source of his investigation becoming ever clearer, ‘and I’ve never seen you make a sandwich before 8.’

How much have you seen? she asked herself, smiling in his direction as fear danced within. The thought that he might be documenting her movements, like a watchman checking for anything unusual, unnerved her. It was, of course, not a surprise that he had seen her skulking through the house in her best cotton pyjamas, slumped over a bowl of soggy Weetabix or skipping hurriedly between the bathroom and her bedroom wrapped tightly in the longest available towel, but there was something about the way he indicated such a mastery of her routines that sent a chill through her already cold morning body.

‘It’s for the meeting, OK,’ she quickly added, nodding towards the sandwich with a slightly too violent jerk for her unprepared neck. She found herself rubbing the flesh as he spoke.

‘Why do they need you to bring a sandwich? Are you having a picnic?’

The mockery veiled in his innocent tone reminded Dawn of her earlier desire to be alone. His tea was ready now. He could go. This did not need to continue.

‘I’m not going to take it. It’s just for ideas. Now, can we leave it at that? I’ve got lots to do.’

‘It’s 7.45.’

‘Exactly. I’ve got 15 minutes and then I’m out of here. If I’m not ready-’

‘Yeah, yeah, I get it,’ he interrupted, plucking his mug off the work surface, ‘I’ll go and leave you to your sandwich. I mean, what would I know about a sandwich?’ He smiled and sniffed as he strode past, before lingering in the door-frame. ‘Oh, but I will have a munch if you don’t want it, so leave it for me won’t you,’ he said, raising his mug in the direction of the plate before her, before turning and departing from her sight.

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