Writing for Fun
Dressing To Kill - Jeanette Rothwell
May 2014
There she was, dressed to kill, and nowhere to go on a Saturday evening. Louise, her best friend, had just rung to say that she had a very bad migraine and couldn't join her that evening at the local Night Club.
Claire had been shopping that morning to buy a sparkly dress and killer heels, had her hair done, taken a long time over her make-up and checked herself from every angle in the bathroom mirror. She and Louise had hoped to meet someone dishy that evening and perhaps go out on a date. Now what should she do? Go to the night club alone? Oh no, she didn't have the nerve.
Oh well! Off with the glad rags and make-up and on with the jogging bottoms, baggy T-shirt, and fluffy slippers. A bag of crisps and can of coke and she flopped down on the sofa, reached for the remote and surfed through the channels for something to divert her mind from the frustration and anger at life and, chiefly, her friend for letting her down. No sympathy for poor Louise and her migraine.
Fast forward two hours of watching a load of rubbish on the television. The door bell rang. Who on earth could that be? She peeped through the spy-hole in the front door and spotted her work colleague, Brian, looking decidedly worried. She opened the door.
'Claire, I desperately need your help,' he blurted out. 'I'm sorry to disturb you but I couldn't think of anyone else to help me.'
'Come on in, Brian. Sit down. Would you like a cup of tea or something stronger?'
'No thanks, but a glass of water would be fine.'
Claire had always liked Brian. He was normally a neatly dressed, quiet, unassuming bloke, not given to exaggeration or making a scene, so Claire knew this must be something important to make him arrive on her doorstep in such a state.
Having settled himself in the nearest armchair and gulped down the water, seemingly in one go, Brian started to unfold his story.
He had been house-sitting for his sister who had gone on holiday to Florida with her husband and two children. He said the house was enormous and extremely well furnished. His brother-in-law was a successful businessman.
His sister seemed to think that the minute it was known that she and her family had gone off on holiday, the burglars would be around with their masks and swag bags to steal the family jewels or whatever they could. She was also very house-proud. So Brian had, foolishly, offered to stay there for the fortnight they were away.
He had found the size and luxury of the house very intimidating. Soft luxurious carpets everywhere, a vast wasteland of a kitchen sporting every modern labour-saving gadget, and being in constant danger of sinking into soft, enveloping sofas. A cleaner came into the house fairly often and a gardener appeared now and again, both had to be paid but money had been left for this purpose.
Normally, Brian lived in a tiny bedsit in the city. In his sister's house he found himself almost scared to make a piece of toast in case he marked the polished surfaces in the kitchen and as for the huge bathrooms? There were three. He found himself spending more time cleaning these places than cleaning himself.
Now we arrived at the dilemma. He had decided to treat himself to a take-away curry that evening and was transferring a particularly appetizing chicken tikka masala onto one of his sister's pieces of white china, when the whole lot had spilled over the kitchen surface, onto the white tiled floor and down his trousers. He didn't care about the trousers but the kitchen floor and surfaces were badly stained and he was no expert when it came to removing the food colouring stuff that goes into a curry.
He had rubbed away at it with hot water but seemed to have made it worse and then discovered that in reaching for the nearest cloth, he had used two tea towels which had originally come from Harrods and they were completely stained as well.
'I then tried to throw the meal away putting some of it in a waste food bag but all I did was block up the sink with rice as I couldn't get it all in the bag.'
As he was beginning to feel very uncomfortable in his damp trousers he ran upstairs to change his clothes but forgot to turn off the tap so when he came down he found the sink was overflowing, fortunately not too much, but enough to make a further mess. He also discovered that he had left a trail of curry-coloured damp footprints on the pale cream hall carpet.
He had brought down his messy clothing and eventually found the state-of-the-art washing machine behind a well-camouflaged kitchen cupboard door, but when he looked at the complicated rows of buttons on the front, he changed his mind, and at that point, with his sister due back on the following day, in desperation he decided to call upon Claire.
'Oh dear, you are in a mess,' exclaimed Claire.
However, she knew exactly what to do. She wasn't her mother's daughter for nothing! Having three brothers, she had come across most of these problems in the past. She went to her tiny kitchen and picked out some bottles of various types of cleaner plus a few rags.
'Come on Brian,' she said, 'Let's go into battle!'
Without pausing to even change her slippers, Claire accompanied Brian to his little car and they shot round to his sister's imposing house where she efficiently dealt with the stains which took a certain amount of elbow grease to remove but gradually disappeared after some vigorous rubbing with the patented cleaners she was using.
She also took a look at the posh washing machine but without some instructions, which were nowhere to be found, she decided against trying to use it.
'I'll take the towels and your clothes home with me and put them through my trusty washing machine with some stain remover, I'm sure they'll come out OK.
'If we scoop up most of the rice, I think we can unblock the sink with a plunger.' This she successfully achieved. Superwoman eat your heart out, Claire had come to the rescue.
Brian breathed a sigh of relief.
'Claire you are a genius, and you've saved my life.' He then coughed nervously. 'Erm, if I go and get us another take-away, will you join me for dinner. One thing my sister does do well is keep a nice stock of wine and I do think we have deserved a bottle between us. Perhaps we had better have pizza though – less mess.'
'Brian, I am hardly dressed to kill, at the moment, but if you can ignore my appearance, I'd love to join you.'
'Claire, you look great to me. You always do. I've been wanting to ask you out for a long time now, but couldn't find the courage.'
'Well,' thought Claire, 'perhaps my sparkly dress and killer heels can go back to the shops on Monday. Dressing to kill isn't always the way to land a date.'