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The Kindness of Strangers
by Alison Carleton
Copyright 2014 Alison Carleton.
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
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Cover by Alison Carleton using Paint.NET version 3.5.11. Background image by Brenda Clarke (www.flickr.com/photos/brenda-starr/5079922408) used under Creative Commons license.
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Pam was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping her tea and reading the newspaper. She jumped, startled by a loud knock on the front door that echoed through the quiet house.
“Who could that be?”
With a grunt Pam pushed herself up from the table, annoyed to be abandoning her morning ritual, and walked down the hall. She undid the latch and opened the door.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
At her door was a young, slender woman dressed...well, inappropriately was the word that sprang to Pam’s mind. It was a cool day, but the woman was wearing a very short skirt and a crop top, which barely covered her assets. Her long hair was pulled back in a ponytail with beads dotted through its length, some of which jingled when she moved her head. The woman stuck her hand out abruptly in greeting. Pam glanced down at it, then wrapped her cardigan tightly around her body and folded her arms across her chest. The woman let her hand fall back to her side.
“Hello. I was wondering... I know this is a bit weird, but you see, I have these bags,” and she gestured behind her. On the path leading up to Pam’s front door was a stained, brown duffle bag and a large, unnaturally blue vinyl suitcase. Pam noticed one of those ridiculous toy trolls on a key chain, its bright pink hair sticking straight up, attached to the clasp.
Pam looked at the bags and then back to the woman. She pushed her glasses higher up the bridge of her nose.
“Yes?”
The woman grimaced. “I’m sorry. I’m not making any sense, am I? I’m a bit stressed out. My name is Linda. I live, or I used to live, down on the corner, but I just got kicked out of my apartment. I had to gather up my stuff in a real hurry and the bags are so heavy and I have to get to work. It’s a new job and I don’t want them to think—well, I saw your car in the driveway as I was walking to the bus and I just wondered if it would be possible to leave them here with you until I finish work? I can pay you if you like and I will give you my phone number and everything. It’s just…well, they’re really heavy.”
The tears that welled up in Linda’s eyes made Pam uncomfortable.
***
“This is all I need.” Pam muttered to herself as she called the number Linda had given her for the fourth time. “Should have said no, you stupid old woman. You always do this, and it always comes back to bite you.”
The cat strolled in through the back door, reminding her of something that had, in fact, come back to bite her and demanded his dinner. Pam reached down to stroke his sleek orange fur. The cat hissed at her. Sighing, Pam filled his dish and put it down on the cracked tiles.
“Damn cat eats better than I do,” she muttered. Pam looked over at the bags leaning against the bookcase in the lounge room. “Well, I’m going to bed. If she wants her bags, she will have to wait until the morning.”
***
Pam ate her breakfast staring at the bags. She had hardly slept a wink. She had imagined noises coming from the lounge room, or someone at the window trying to break in to get the bags back. Knowing that she was behaving irrationally did nothing to improve Pam’s foul mood. What was she supposed to do? Did this Linda expect her to just wait around all day? That wasn’t going to happen. Pam called the number she had been given again, and grumbled in frustration as the call went through to the message service.
When Linda hadn’t returned to collect the bags by the third day, Pam’s irritation gave way to concern. What if something had happened to the girl? If all her possessions were in those bags, as she had implied, then surely there were things in there that she would need? Clean clothes, at the very least. Pam got out the newspapers from the last few days and scanned for any articles about bus crashes, or some other incident that might explain why Linda had not come back to collect her things, but she found nothing.
“Stop being ridiculous, woman,” she said out loud. “She’s probably just…” Pam was distracted by the sight of the cat’s bowl, still full from last night.
“Where’s that damn cat got to?” Now she thought about it, she hadn’t seen the cat for a couple of days. “Ungrateful sod has probably found another sucker to feed him.”