Have you ever noticed that life is simply a series of decisions? There are those that you are excited to make, like, do I want the pain au chocolat or the raspberry danish? And there are those that you dread, like, do I break up with him now or wait until after Christmas? And then there are those that are thrust upon us by circumstance and demand an immediate resolution, like, do I stop and help the man currently sprawled across the driveway I just drove past or not. Such was the choice that presented itself to me one sunny Saturday afternoon as I was on the way to a friend’s BBQ, boot full of burgers, buns and cookies.
The decision was made very quickly. I would stop and see if the man was alright. Unlikely, given that he was collapsed on the ground. Unfortunately, by the time I had made this decision, I was in entirely the wrong lane to just pull over, and there was no good place to turn around until I reached the B&Q up the road. Not only that, but there were temporary traffic lights at that junction, so I was crawling along, all the time wondering whether I had in fact made the right decision. I was now so far past the man on the ground that it almost seemed comical to go back and check on him. Someone else must have spotted him by now, I thought. Any minute I would hear an ambulance whip past in that direction to absolve me of any responsibility. But no. I just sat in traffic, feeling the situation devolve further into farce with every passing minute.
Finally I reached the front of the queue and the light was still green. I pulled into the B&Q carpark, spun round, and joined the even longer queue of cars waiting to get out. I felt like laughing. At least I didn’t actually know the collapsed man or by this point I would have totally lost it, probably abandoned the car and started running down the road. Six painful minutes ticked by until I was back on the road again. I reached the house and slowed down to scan the driveway. Yep, there he was, still sprawled on the tarmac. No one else had stopped. I presume because, like me, they had assumed that someone else would.
I managed to pull over and bump up on the pavement, both marginally in and out of everyone’s way. I bolted out of the car and ran across the road.
“Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?” I had pulled my phone out to call an ambulance but I heard a grunt, and he slowly started coming round.
“Who’s that?”
“My name is Benny,” I said. “You’ve collapsed on your driveway.” I could see that he was really hot, and now that I was there I noticed that he was in builders garb, wearing rugged, many-pocketed trousers and a tool belt, paired with a sweaty t shirt.
“Not…mine,” he said, attempting to lever himself off the floor.
“Hang on,” I said, trying to grab his arm to help him up. He shrugged me off but fell back again.
“I think maybe you collapsed from the heat. Should I call you an ambulance?” he grunted again in a derisory tone.
“Ha, no…Waste of time. I’m ok.” And just to prove it he tried to get up and fell back to the floor again. He sat with his legs spread in front of him, looking exhausted.
“Come on,” I said, not taking no for an answer. I reached for his hands again and this time he let me take some of his weight, and we stumbled together towards a wooden bench against the wall of the house, next to the back door.
“You need some water,” I said.
“I have a water bottle somewhere,” he said, clearly struggling to focus. He pointed in the vague direction of the back garden. I went through a wooden gate that had been propped open with a stack of bricks. The garden was beautiful, despite the building detritus spread out on the lawn. It was narrow but long, and I couldn’t see the end. There were some lovely old trees at the back. Don’t ask me what they were, but they were huge. One had a rope swing tied to a branch. There was also a patio at the back of the house, laid out with a table and chairs, and two very full borders down the sides full of colourful flowers and deep green shrubs. Down at the end there was a large outbuilding that looked more like a studio of some sort than a shed. The whole thing reeked of money. I bet they have a gardener, I thought.
After a moment of taking all of this in, I remembered what I was meant to be doing. I hunted round for the water bottle, but when I found it, it was empty, lolling on the ground next to a half-eaten sandwich. Ham, cheese and pickle if I wasn’t mistaken.
I walked back to the man, who seemed a little more human now that he was upright on the bench. But he still didn’t look great.
“Your water bottle was empty,” I said to him, looking around. “I’ll get some from inside.” The man shook his head.
“No,” he said firmly. “The couple I’m working for were very clear that I shouldn’t go into the house.” I was a little taken aback.
“Not even if you nearly die of heatstroke working on it?” He nodded vigorously, which seemed to be a bad move. He turned slightly green and bent forward, holding his head. This is stupid, I thought.
“Are there any keys?”
“I think they keep a spare under the plant pot?” He said, pointing to a large plant in an ornate Grecian pot to the right of the door. “But they said it was for emergencies only.” I actually rolled my eyes at him, which fortunately he didn’t see because he had his head between his knees trying not to puke.
“This is an emergency,” I said, trying to maintain a neutral tone. Before he could object, I had retrieved the key and opened the back door. It was only then that it occurred to me that I might just have triggered an alarm system. I held the door for a moment, feeling very stupid, but there was no sound, and I couldn’t see a keypad on the wall either. Made sense, I thought. Anyone who leaves keys under plant pots probably isn’t the most security conscious.
The back door led into what I believe the better-off, who can afford to dedicate whole rooms to niche purposes, call a ‘mud room’. I only know this because I have watched more episodes of ‘Escape to the Country’ than I am happy to admit to. I went through the door at the end of the room and along the corridor, looking for the kitchen. It was the second door on the left as it turned out. All white, with a ridiculously huge island in the middle with bar stools pulled up to it that you just know that no one ever sat on. Matching glassware was displayed in glass-fronted cupboards, and there was a well-stocked wine rack to the left of an Aga stove in cream with an old-fashioned kettle standing on the cover of one of the hobs. Like I said, money.
I found a glass, filled it from the tap and took it outside. The man took it gratefully and had a huge glug.
“Slowly!” I said, and he stopped and took a breath. I sat down next to him. He still seemed to be too hot. I could see sweat soaking every available inch of his shirt.
“What’s your name?” I said, suddenly realising that I was missing this key piece of information.
“Anton,” he said, finishing his water.
“Ok, Anton,” I said. “I think we should get you inside to cool down.”
“Oh, no. I shouldn’t.”
“Oh come on, you’re not well.” He shook his head. “I’m sure they wouldn’t want your death on their conscience, right?” I said. “Let alone on their driveway.”
“I’m fine,” he said, trying to stand to prove the point but falling back onto the bench.
“No, you’re not.” I said, trying to restrain my frustration. “Look, there’s a bench just inside the door, you don’t have to go through the rest of the house, but you should get out of the sun.” He mumbled something but eventually relented and allowed me to help him into the mudroom. He sat down on a sage green wooden box that did double duty as both seat and storage, while I shut the door against the heat. It wasn’t really that much cooler, but at least it was in the shade. Anton seemed more comfortable at least. I took his glass and went back to the kitchen to refill it, and by the time I came back he was looking a little better. By the end of the third glass he was almost restored. My mind however, was now preoccupied by something else.
As I had been going to and fro, from kitchen to mudroom and back, I had noticed a door off the corridor that had a fairly heavy-duty lock on it. Who does that? What would your average person need to lock up in a room? Anton could see me hovering at the door.
“What?” He said, downing the last of his water.
“Oh it’s…it’s nothing really…just.”
“Just what?”
“Well…there’s this door.” He looked at me like I was some sort of simpleton. It was a house, of course there was a door. I wasn’t explaining myself well. I have a tendency to babble when I get nervous. “No, I mean…” I tried again. There was a pleading note to my voice that I hated. “This door has a lock on it.”
“A lock.” he said.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “A lock, on an inside door. Isn’t that a little odd?” Anton shrugged.
“Bathroom or something?”
“No, this lock is on the outside. You don’t have locks to keep people in bathrooms, right?” He was clearly keen to get out of the house, but I could see that I had piqued his interest, just a little. He didn’t reply for a moment, but just as I thought he was going to tell me to drop it, he sighed and got to his feet.
“Let’s have a look then.” So I took him into the corridor and we both stood in front of the thoroughly average, white-painted, solid-wood door that had an incongruously large catch and padlock attached to it.
“Hmmm” Anton murmured.
“Weird, right?” I could see that he wasn’t entirely convinced.
“Maybe they collect expensive wine or something?” This was an eminently reasonable explanation.
“I guess,” I said. He started walking towards the back door but had to lean on the wall for a moment to steady himself. Clearly he wasn’t quite recovered yet. Meanwhile I still stood there, contemplating the door and its lock.
I have no idea why I did it, but something made me knock on the door. Anton turned back to look at me.
“What are you doing?” I didn’t reply. I’m sure I looked like an idiot but I was committed now.
“Hello?” I called. I could hear Anton scoffing behind me.
“You think they’re keeping people down there? Like a sweatshop or something? In Wilmslow? He started to laugh but then there was a noise and he stopped. We both looked at each other incredulously. I couldn’t make out what the noise was, so I knocked again.
“Is anyone in there?” There was a pause and I held my ear closer to the door. Then suddenly there came a small squeal, followed by what sounded like someone talking, but I couldn’t make out what was being said.
“Hello! Who are you?” I said to the door. Anton came over to join me, disbelief all over his face.
“No way,” he said. “Who’s in there?”
“How should I know?” I put my ear back to the door and tried to make out what the person was saying. “I don’t think they’re speaking English. Anton came next to me and put his ear to the door as well so that our faces were only a few inches from each other.
“Maybe they’re Spanish,” he offered. “Or Portuguese?”
“Do you speak Spanish or Portuguese?”
“No.” He looked at me as if I had asked him if he knew how to perform brain surgery. “Do you?”
“No,” I said. I had only ever learned French, badly, and the only phrase that remained in my head was how to ask for directions to the library. Hardly useful in such situations. We went quiet to listen again. The voice behind the door got more frantic but had a strange cadence to it. It would start and stop with an odd rhythm. Then all of a sudden, there was another voice, and another.
“How many of them are there?” Anton asked.
“I can’t tell,” I said, futilely pulling on the door, testing the efficacy of the padlock which, unfortunately, was performing its duties admirably. “We have to do something,” I said. Anton looked panicked now, but neither of us seemed to have any idea about what to do.
“Should we call the police?” I said finally.
“I mean…we probably should,” he said, not sounding at all convinced. “But I really don’t want to admit that we broke in here.”
“We didn’t break in! They left the key under a plant pot!”
“Yeah, but I was told not to go into the house. We shouldn’t be here.”
“Well at least now we know why,” I said, gesturing to the door, which had gone quiet again. Anton started chewing his fingers.
“Ok, ok,” I said. “Why don’t we call in an anonymous tip?” His eyes immediately brightened at the suggestion.
“Yeah! Good idea,” he said. I turned back to the door.
“Don’t worry,” I said into the wood. “We’re going to get help.” There was more silence followed by another two voices, different ones this time. God! I thought. How many people are in there? I thought.
Anton and I quickly cleaned the glass and wiped down the surfaces we had touched before leaving the house and returning the key to its plant pot. We had a hasty discussion during which it was decided that I would be the one to call in the tip, which I ended up doing at a phone box half way to the BBQ I had been on my way to, and was now rather late for. By the time I arrived, I decided not to mention my adventure to my friends, opting instead for the excuse of oversleeping from an afternoon nap. I wasn’t entirely sure that I had done the right thing, and I didn’t fancy being judged by my friends and being told what I should have done instead. Mostly because they would probably be right.
Police raided an address in Wilmslow this evening following reports of suspicious noises in the property. On entry, police discovered a collection of Furbys, the highly collectible toys from the late 90s that are able to talk to each other in high-pitched voices. Such collections are highly valuable and sell for thousands of pounds. The owners of the house were not in the property at the time but have been apprised of the situation. Police are keen to talk to the person who called in the tip but have so far been unable to locate them.
And now for the weather…
