Story: The Cleaner Returns. Chapter 55.

by BigBird74

Dahlia was finding it increasingly hard to ignore the growing sense of dread she felt as she neared the address Melissa had given her. Her last encounter with Katherine, just before leaving Hilltop, had been unsettling. She was angry at the cleaner’s “rude” disturbance of Ms Western and had warned ‘Petra’ to be at the house early the next morning. Having forgotten that the press conference was to be held tomorrow, Dahlia was fretting over how fast things were moving and how she had no control over events. After a long anxious wait, she was relieved to see that the bus back into Barton was empty and she was able to hide out the journey far away from any sneering kids and judgemental adults. Already Dahlia’s fragile mind was adjusting itself from that of a pampered princess loved by all to a relative outsider who felt shy about her looks. While she still valued the ability to step out of the public eye, the risks of losing everything was now apparent and explained a great deal of her unease.

Once back in Barton, it had taken some time to orient herself and find Edge Road. If a description had ever fitted a name, this was it. The closest end of the road was situated not far from the main bus station, with all the dubious charms common to those districts around the world: beggars, homeless vagrants, sex shops and bars all covered in graffiti and litter. Wherever she looked something unappealing caught her eye. The roughest denizens of Barton seemed to inhabit this space and it shocked Dahlia. Of course, no-one paid her the slightest attention. Why would they, she caught herself thinking? In her current guise she was no better than any of them. In fact, given her gross weight, lack of money and worn through dress, she was arguably worse off.

The momentary sense of relief she felt at leaving the station behind was short lived. Built in the 1960s or thereabouts, Edge Road was long and straight, lined with a mixture of council housing and tall tower blocks. The sickly yellow fluorescence of the street lighting added to the bleakness of the place. Everything about it looked in need of repair: crumbling walls and pavement, pot holes in the tarmac, cracked rendering and plaster work, and worn out windows. However, unlike the station, which exuded menace from every dark corner, Edge Road felt safer. It was clearly a social sink, inhabited by families, single parents and older people that society had forgotten. Dahlia remembered the term used in a less politically correct era was ‘underclass,’ a controversial term for good reason but, if it exists, this was where it was to be found. The people here clearly eked out their lives on handouts, a sense of decay hanging over the place.

When Dahlia found number 27, her heart sank. Whatever it was she might have expected, this was not it. As she gazed upwards at the tower that confronted her, she felt her sense of unease dive into a mild depression. The entranceway was dark, with only half the lighting actually working. She was early but did not want to wait inside, choosing instead to stand outside, watching for whoever was supposed to meet her. In Dahlia’s mind this moment represented a threshold. Despite all she had been through since leaving the clinic, deep down inside, Dahlia had still clung to the belief that this was all something unreal, a kind of roleplaying exercise. But as she stood there, clutching at the piece of paper Melissa had given her, it was all starting to feel more real than a temporary holiday away from herself. As she recalled Melissa’s harsh tone and the manner in which she had left Dahlia hanging, a sense of anger rose up within her. How could Melissa have conspired against her like this? The evident pleasure Melissa had when confronting her earlier today and the detailed scheming that had obviously taken place was patently clear. On reflection the most galling thing had been the manner in which Dahlia had blinkered herself the whole time, seeing only what she wanted to see. With hindsight, it should have been obvious what she had done to herself and the damage she had wrought on her body and spirit. She felt acutely ashamed, sensing that the sexual enjoyment she had derived at pursuing such extremes were signs of a terrible perversion that had taken hold. Even now, though it had been terrifying at the time, she still derived a sexual thrill from the memory of how Melissa had scorned her and made her admit the ‘truth’ as she saw it. Calling her sister Ms Western, while she was referred to as ‘Petra’, had on reflection touched her deep inside. A powerful moment in which her game took another step closer to reality.

“Petra McMahon?”                                                                                                

Dahli’s reverie was broken as a very bland, grey man in his late 40s approached her.

“Yes, that’s me,” she answered, taking note for the first time of her ‘surname’. Where did Melissa dig that up from?

“Good. I am here to give your keys and show you to the flat,” he answered, clearly impatient to be done with this and to head home.

A somewhat eerie sensation rippled down Dahlia’s spine as she entered the tower block. The single lift serving the twelve-storey building took its time rumbling up and down the shaft. It smelled of stale urine and, as its doors shut, Dahlia felt claustrophobic, surrounded by dirt and decay. That image stuck with her as she was shown about the flat, which was equally foreboding. Though clean, the property was not presentable and Dahlia would have felt acutely embarrassed to bring anyone she knew up here. The furnishings were drab and worn. The kitchen appliances were old and also used up. She knew where the bathroom was from the incessant dripping of the poorly maintained tap into a rusting old bath. Dahlia felt as though the rooms were closing in on her as though the flat itself was taking hold of her. She felt dirty and unclean and wanted to run away, but had no idea where to.

Once the agent had left and she was left alone, Dahlia took her time to look through the flat noting all the things missing that she had come to take for granted. Curious stains marked the floor in the living room. The curtains did not fit properly and only reached three quarters of the way across the width of the windows. In the bedroom cupboard she found another grey dress, just like that one she was wearing that was nearly worn through. The décor was like something out of the eighties. In fact, it probably was from the eighties and no doubt the last time this flat had been renovated. Dahlia opened the window trying to release some of the stale air that had built up inside. At least the building was warm, the heating provided by communal radiators. Dahlia felt confused and conflicted. On the whole the flat was terrible, but it was better than some of the housing she had seen on her walk through Barton. Curiously, she almost felt a sense of gratitude that the flat – though small, cramped and worn out – was not worse. Maybe that was a reflection of how far Dahlia’s sense of self-worth had fallen in the past 24 hours.

The effect of being alone – truly alone – for the first time in a few months felt unusual. Dahlia stared out of the window to the street below. It looked unwelcoming and rough in the fading light, but beyond that, over the rows of houses and flats, the dim glow of the town’s centre reminded her of how inconsequential she now was and how life went on. She could walk anywhere she wished and no-one would ever recognise her. She had been a big fish in a small pond. Trapped and unable to live freely, a prisoner of the gilded cage she had constructed around herself, she had found a way outside without anyone noticing. Anyone that saw her would think she had been Petra all her life. Never could or would they suspect the truth. How would that agent have felt meeting her just three months ago? He likely would have been as star-struck as most of the men she met. He would have taken in her unique beauty, her sublime figure, her crown of golden hair, those long shapely legs and have wanted her for himself. Like all men wanted to possess her to claim her for themselves. For years she had determined that maintaining her desirability was more important than anything else. She knew how to flirt like the best and how to wrap a man around her finger, cajoling his ego with smiles and lingering eye contact.

But the agent showing her the flat demonstrated not one bit of interest in her. Till just a few days before, she had harboured the idea that she was just a diet away from returning to her old self. Over the past day it had dawned on her that her transformation had been so comprehensive and so extreme that it would take a lot more than willpower and a few months of work to regain her old self. The way people now regarded her was the root opposite of what she was used to and this affected her confidence. Each time she had experienced that look of contempt and mockery, she felt a little farther from ever being able to recapture her former life. Each look of disgust, each look of pity or disdain undermined her confidence and ate away at inner resolve. Her iron will, so long her ally in sustaining her career, had become her enemy as she manically gained weight trying to lose herself.  Now she had succeeded in that task too, she was no longer Dahlia Western. She was Petra McMahon, an overweight, sexually frustrated cleaner living from hand to mouth on the fringes of Barton.

As she opened the last of the drawers in the bedroom, she found some clean underwear, again the same as she was wearing. Then in the final drawer, she found some magazines. Lifting them out, her mouth dropped open a little. It was her collection of front covers from leading publications, like Vogue and Cosmopolitan. She reached out and touched the lean figure pictured there, tracing her short nails along the curve of her face and torso, marvelling at the perfection. She looked up and into the mirror hanging on the adjoining wall. Dahlia’s eyes flicked between the image on the magazine cover and that reflected in the mirror, searching for similarities, searching for a way back. To the casual observer, there was no similarity. How could there be? One resembled a beached whale, the other a body of perfection. But as she looked harder and harder, she could see the similar outlines of her eyes and nose, her full lips. It was all still there, just hidden under a layer of fat which totally distorted everything. No-one would typically look beyond the fat, but Dahlia could and did. And in that moment, she saw that tiny crumb of comfort. Despite everything that had happened, she was still Dahlia. No matter how many times Melissa told her otherwise, she was Dahlia Western.

 

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