Frazer Lee - The Lamplighters

“Where the hell is it?” She was shouting now.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you feeling all right?”

Marla’s red mist solidified into a wall of pent-up rage.

“I’ve seen you looking at me. Watching my every move. Perving over me when I locked myself out. Biding your time until…”

“What’s going on here?”

A sharp voice, from up the hall. Brilliant. Marla’s landlady was standing there, fixing her with an angry stare. She opted for a defensive stance, raising her hands in surrender.

“My… my room’s been burgled. My laptop’s gone. I was just asking this guy if he knew anything about it…”

“Accusing me, more like,” he said, indignant.

The landlady cleared her throat. “Mr. James is one of my best, most reliable tenants,” she said. Her voice wobbled with anger, sounding like a detuned radio announcer. “Unlike you, Miss Neuborn, he always pays his rent on time. I was just on my way up here with this.”

She held out Marla’s rent check. The bank had rubber stamped it. The words “REFER TO DRAWER” burned into Marla’s eyes.

“You have two weeks’ notice to vacate your room.”

Marla’s voice dropped to a breathless retort. “But my laptop has been stolen. I…”

“No buts Miss Neuborn. I warned you last time, three strikes and you’re out. This is the third and last time. And if you bother Mr. James again, I’ll be forced to evict you immediately.”

Marla glared at James. He looked as shocked as she did. Her eyes filled with tears. She turned and ran back to her room, slamming the door.

This time it closed properly.

A week had passed since she’d been given her notice and Marla still hadn’t found a new place. For days now, she’d got up early and headed out to scour the newsagent notice boards and local classified ads—nothing affordable. She’d logged onto countless property websites, using the computers at the local library for lack of a machine of her own. If her friendly local neighborhood pervert hadn’t done it, she could only imagine that bastard Carlo had broken in and taken her laptop. His laptop . Still she couldn’t find anything affordable. Her overdraft was maxed out, and no credit card company would touch her—not with her rating. As usual, the agents were asking for a month’s deposit plus six weeks in advance. Daylight robbery , frowned Marla as she headed back to the bed-sit, her home for one more week.

Crashing into the bombsite that was her room, Marla kicked aside yesterday’s t-shirt, socks and panties. She flopped onto the bed and squeezed her eyes shut in frustration. There had to be some way of appeasing her landlady. Anything would be preferable to the nightmare of moving. If she could just buy some time until she heard about the job.

The job. She’d almost forgotten to mail the personality test back to them after her scene in the hallway the other day. Surely they’d had time to go through it by now? Probably just a scam , she thought bitterly, they’ll get back to me and offer me some crappy telemarketing gig . Sighing, Marla curled up under the womblike darkness of her bedclothes, contemplating dull years of work cold-calling angry strangers through a plastic headset. Perhaps that was her destiny; maybe she should just resign herself to it.

It felt like only minutes had passed when Marla was awoken by a sharp rapping at her door. Blinking tiny traces of sleep from her eyes, she mumbled, “Who is it?” The sharp knocking again, rap-rap-rap. Not her landlady again, not now please . Marla shook off the duvet and stomped sleepily over to the door.

It was Mr. James.

“Sorry to disturb you. Were you sleeping?”

“No, not really, I…” Marla tried to waken herself up. “I was just chilling, taking a quick nap.”

“There’s a phone call for you. On the payphone, downstairs.”

“Oh, thanks.”

Marla slipped out of the door. Mr. James stepped back to give her some room to get by. An awkward moment passed between them. Marla felt suddenly embarrassed about shouting at him, accusing him. She turned.

“Listen, by the way, I’m really sorry about the other day.”

He smiled back at her, “It’s okay. No hard feelings. And it sucks—about your laptop, I mean.”

“Never really worked properly anyway,” said Marla as she headed for the stairs. I can identify with it , she thought to herself.

“Ms. Neuborn? We received your personality test. I wanted to personally thank you for taking the time to complete it for us…”

The voice on the phone was just as friendly as before. Friendlier. Here it comes , she thought.

“And I wanted to be the first to congratulate you on making the selection.”

What? Oh no, not another interview. I’ll simply die.

“Ms. Neuborn? Are you still there?”

“Yes I am still. Here.”

“Pending contractual arrangements, we’d like to offer you the position of maintenance operative as part of The Consortium’s island workforce.”

“Oh.”

Marla had a sudden, violent, urge to pee.

“Oh!”

“May I ask if you’re still interested in the position?”

“Oh yes. Yes. I am.” The urge to pee stopped, replaced by vague thoughts of a strong alcoholic drink.

“Well I guess that makes you a Lamplighter. Congratulations Ms Neuborn. And welcome to the team. We’ll be in touch with all the details.”

The walk back to her room was a blur. Marla sat down on the bed, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, her face a tragicomic mask of both reactions. She rolled a celebratory cigarette and breathed the smoke in and out deeply.

Only then did she notice something else was missing from her room, something that had definitely been there when she left to answer the phone. She’d seen them only moments ago. Her used panties, from yesterday. She dropped the cigarette into the ashtray and scrambled around on the floor for them. Gone. A sick feeling hit her stomach. Anger building inside her, Marla left the room, cursing the latch. She crossed the hallway and stood in front of Mr. James’ door. Loud pornography bellowed from inside his room accompanied by his unmistakably urgent grunts and groans.

Marla returned to her room and started packing her rucksack. It was time to get away, far, far away, from this rat hole.

Welland was waiting for Marla outside Nice airport arrivals in a sleek black open-topped car. He grinned at her as she approached, those perfect white teeth gleaming in the morning sun.

“How was the flight?”

Marla smiled her thanks as he helped with her bag.

“It was Business Class.”

He laughed in recognition as he put his sunglasses on. Marla hadn’t flown for a while and had clearly never flown Business before. She looked so much more relaxed than she had on the day of her interview.

“Only the best for our employees, Marla. And you’d better start getting used to life’s little luxuries. The island has more riches to offer than Business travel. Think of it as First Class,” he winked slyly. “You’re about to get an upgrade.”

“My second today,” giggled Marla.

The car’s powerful engine throbbed as he hit the accelerator. Marla grabbed her own sunglasses as they drove out into the bright sunlight. The breeze blew through her hair like a cleansing breath. London and her depressing bed-sit already seemed to be a million miles away. Good riddance. She kicked back in the comfort of the leather passenger seat and looked at the passing cars.

“Comfy?” asked Welland.

“Oh yes,” Marla said as she stretched a little, catlike.