Limmy Limmy - That’s Your Lot

He took a walk to the gate and had another look, making sure again that he wasn’t spotted by Linda. He looked in the pebbles and the grass, and in the path behind the gate, but there was nothing. It was puzzling.

Perhaps somebody did snatch the keys, but the type of person that did such a thing would be out their face at the time, and they’ve since forgotten where the keys came from. Perhaps there was a thief somewhere out there, wondering whose keys were in his pocket.

Gary took off the padlock and threw it in the bin, and told himself to remember to buy a new one, so that Linda didn’t ask questions. He also reminded himself to get a copy of the key to the back door, because if they lost the one they had left, Linda would ask what happened to the other one. And she’d see the look on his face. Then she’d find out about how he left the keys in the padlock, and that he left the house unoccupied with all the lights off and the curtains open, putting everything at risk.

Gary went to the shops and replaced the padlock. He got an extra key cut for the back door, and put them on a keyring that looked just the same as the old one. Linda didn’t suspect a thing.

Everything was going to be all right. Linda had been a bit funny with him since the perving incident with Teresa, but with regards to the keys, everything was going to be all right.

Then, a few days later, while Gary was looking out the bedroom window upstairs, he saw a guy cycling about outside in the street. There was something about him that Gary didn’t like the look of.

The guy wasn’t wearing cycling clothes. He was wearing denims and a jacket, and he wasn’t wearing a helmet. That would usually be unremarkable, because you don’t have to have all the bright clothes and a helmet to ride a bike. But usually, the only people you saw without a helmet were younger guys on a BMX. But this guy was about 30 years old, and he was cycling on a mountain bike that looked dodgy. The bike looked featureless, it was completely black with no logo, like it had been spray-painted black. And why was that? Because it had probably been knocked, and probably by the guy himself.

The guy went up the street, past the house. But when he got a few doors up, he doubled back.

Gary stepped away from the window to look out the side of the curtain, so that he couldn’t be seen. He saw the guy look at a few houses, which gave Gary some relief, because it didn’t look like the guy had an interest in Gary’s house in particular. But as the guy cycled past Gary’s front gate, he turned his head quickly to look at the living-room window. And he kept looking at it, even as he passed the houses further down the street.

It was him.

He was the man with the keys.

Gary knew what was coming. It was at that point that Gary thought that he really should tell Linda. He should tell Linda the fucking truth. He should tell Linda that he was sorry, he was so fucking sorry, but he’d left the keys in the padlock around the back, and now there was a guy casing their house. They should go to the police. They were about to get everything stolen.

But it would cost a fortune to get that lock replaced.

And it wasn’t just that either. It was the fact that he caused it. And then lied about it. Plus he’d left the house unoccupied, with the lights off and curtain open, knowing that they could have had their computers stolen. Plus there was the thing with Teresa. Him and Linda had been heading for the rocks ever since that happened, and he could have turned it around with a truthful explanation, but instead of that he just let it happen.

A couple of days passed, with no sight of the guy on the bike. But Gary knew the guy was out there, just biding his time. All it would take was one more night away from home.

‘We’re going through to my mum’s and dad’s tonight,’ said Linda.

But he made every excuse to not go.

He told her he didn’t feel well, his head was killing him. But she said he could just take a couple of painkillers and lie in bed when he got there.

He told her that he didn’t like her dad, which was partly true. He told her that he didn’t like the way her dad patted Gary’s belly almost every time he went over, making a comment about Gary ‘putting on the beef’. But Linda just told him to get over it, or say something back, or lose weight.

He told her that he didn’t like her mum either.

Gary and Linda fell out, and she went through to her mum’s and dad’s by herself. He felt bad, but there was no alternative, none that he could think of.

He slept in the house that night with every light on. He balanced a brush against the patio door in the kitchen so that it would fall over and hit the tiles if the door was opened. He tested it and it made a clatter that he could hear from anywhere in the house.

The night passed with no break-in, and Gary waited for Linda to come home the next day, but she texted him to say that she’d be staying for not one night but two.

Gary saw the guy on the bike again while she was away, this time cycling down the path behind the house. Gary could only see the top of the guy’s head, but he saw the head slow down near his gate, before speeding up and cycling off.

He felt like phoning the police, but he didn’t. It was just too late now.

He could have just phoned them or gone over to the station and asked them to keep things confidential. It might have been enough for the police to get a description of the guy. They might have known who Gary was talking about and paid the guy a visit, which would have scared the guy off. He’d maybe get the keys back.

But he didn’t do any of that. He just wanted it all to go away.

When Linda returned, she said she was going to sleep on the couch, in the living room. She reckoned that was her and him finished.

He could’ve just told her then. He could have told her that he left the keys in the padlock out in the gate, that he wasn’t shagging Teresa next door or looking at her or whatever it was that Linda thought was going on. He could have said he was sorry for leaving the house unoccupied, and hope that she understood why he lied.

He may as well have just told her the truth, if she reckoned that was her and him finished. There was nothing to lose. But he didn’t. He still had hope that it would work out somehow.

Then, one night, while he was lying awake upstairs in bed and she was sleeping downstairs in the living room, he heard the brush hit the tiles.

If there was a time to come clean, that was it.

Everything worth stealing was in the living room. The telly, the stereo, and probably the tablet. All the stuff worth knocking was in the living room, and the burglar probably knew that. They probably learned all about that in jail.

All he had to do was run downstairs and chase away the burglar.

But then Linda would ask questions, and she’d see the look on his face.

Martin was a cobbler. But like most cobblers, he didn’t just mend shoes. He cut keys. He did engravings. He engraved things like trophies and medals and nameplates for doors. People could either come in with the nameplates to be engraved, or they could pick one of the ones he had for sale on the shelves.

He also had trophies and medals for sale, which sat on the shelf above the nameplates and door knockers. It made the wall look like something you’d see in a football club, like a trophy cabinet. Martin used to make a joke about it with customers who were in to get their shoes fixed.

They’d point to their shoes and ask him, ‘Are you able to fix this? Is that something you do?’

And he’d say, ‘I do that. And you willnae find anybody better. Just look at my trophies!’

But he didn’t bother making that joke anymore.