A Good Deed

Fiona Margaret Jones

Autumn, 2018

In the deepening shadows of the dirty alleyway, Desiree spotted a small metallic object, squarish like a chocolate wrapper but thicker, more textured. She kicked it; hearing liquid inside metal, she stooped and picked it up.

A mini hip flask, probably stainless steel, patterned on its flat surface—clean, ungrimed by the damp and littered ground. And full. Small, four fluid ounces at most, but full. Desiree glanced up and down the alleyway between the old church and the tenement backs, quickly pocketing the flask. Whisky, she hoped; but whatever it was—cheap vodka, cough medicine, rubbing alcohol even—she would drink it. When the nights grow longer and colder you don’t sleep. You pull ragged clothes or blanket over your face and try to breathe warmth into yourself; you get up to walk off the cold that has already settled into your bones; or you drink any poison you can get, gladly exchanging whatever it might cost you in health for a night’s oblivion.

Desiree reached the bins near the street end of the alley, and loitered in the growing darkness. Lights and music from the church windows signified an Advent service, and she would wait for the worshippers to emerge. With any luck, some recent film or TV programme might have portrayed trivial generosity in an attractive light, cueing some of them to throw coins for her. Worth a try.

When the church doors opened Desiree advanced into the light at the gates, silently holding out an old flower basket mended with knitting yarn. Not unexpectedly, the people avoided her, pulling their children away from misfortune, unhappiness, probably vice.

Desiree shrugged as the crowd dispersed. Win some, lose some, she told herself, grasping the little flask in her pocket. She trudged back up the alley, stepped through a broken garage, crossed a scrapyard and slipped behind a half-dead tree and a clump of nettles to where a bricked-up railway arch had fallen through just enough to give her access to the interior.

Desiree pulled a sheet of corrugated iron across the gap and groped in the cavelike darkness for her matches and her improvised candle-lamp fuelled by crayon-ends from the rubbish behind the daycare centre three blocks from here. She cupped her hands towards the negligible warmth from the single flame. She arranged her piece of upholstering foam, gathering as much insulation as she could from her various old cushions and garments. The she opened her flask and drank.

Unfamiliar taste. Pleasantly burning, but not like any chemical she had ever taken before. Definitely soporific. Desiree relaxed, conscious for a while of aches and pains fading away. She blew out her light and slept deeply, revelling in the luxury of unconsciousness, dipping ever and again below unconsciousness to the place where your lungs forget to breathe and your heart almost forgets to beat.

Late the next morning Desiree awoke, slowly, still comfortable despite the long hours spent immobile. She shut her eyes again, trying to recapture the cobweb-like threads of a dream. A warm, comforting dream. Something about rescue, about safety, about home. Something so bright, so peaceful, it seemed nothing could ever annoy her again.

Desiree lay through most of the afternoon. The daylight had already begun to fade when she emerged, hungry now, with her basket. She would sit it the glow of the shop fronts, as near as possible to the sandwich shop, and see what came her way.

Automatically Desiree began her usual muttering chant: “Spare a penny sir… Spare a penny ma’am… Spare a penny....” A few coins fell, but not enough for a meal. The peace of the previous night seemed to have receded, leaving her a horrible, nauseating sense of dread. She carried on begging through sheer force of habit, though the nameless fear had driven hunger away.

“XXXX off,” someone retorted. “I pay my taxes.”

Desiree met his eyes, and remembered. She had seen him outside the church the previous evening, and again in her dream. In the dream she had sensed trouble, she could not say what. She had seen a terrible danger, and people—too many people—heading towards it. She had looked across an unfathomable gulf of separation, unable to help.

She stood up, and the man halted in surprise.

“You pay your taxes,” she repeated as though trying to recall the right lines. “It’s not enough. Do something generous.”

“Oh, yeah, great technique,” he scoffed, but he seemed to waver.

“Give me something,” she said, fighting two fears at once. “Not for me. For you.”

Uncomfortably he reached into his pocket and hurriedly held out some money, coins and notes together—clearly willing to pay for release from embarrassment.

“No,” Desiree said, pulling her gaze from the money back to his face. “Not money. Go in and buy me a soup and sandwich.”

Bemused, or curious, the man went into the sandwich shop, ordered, queued, paid, handed the food to Desiree:

“Thank you.”

Desiree felt hungry again, breathing the smell of hot soup and feeling her peace of mind returning. Heading away towards her alley, she too suddenly halted as though puzzled.

She had not said, “Thank you.” He had.