No.11 Carcassonne

With the worrying thought in her mind that she would be denied entry from the pearly gates of heaven, as depicted in her poem, Serena was jolted back to the present. Noticing with some alarm that her neck was beginning to wrinkle she stretched it upwards slightly. Her image in the mirror was softened by the evening light as it gently started to envelop the city. Glancing over at the clock on the mantelpiece it resolutely stated half past five; another thirty minutes to go before a much-needed drink could be poured. Recently her friend Abbey had taken to visiting and slyly putting the clock forward by twenty minutes so that they could convince themselves they weren't verging on alcoholism.
Her business was going well, and Serena had plenty of glowing internet reviews. This amused her. It wasn't that the routine bored her, but rather that once she had met the challenge of a new venture, she found herself distracted and looking for new horizons. This morning she had been rather offhand with a guest who had complained about a triviality. Now she longed for a glass of cooling rose from the bottle that had been carefully selected earlier on. It had been a frustrating day overall and now her current guests were knocking on her door, wanting fresh glasses and ice cubes for their aperitifs.
Whilst Serena was serving them, she fed them titbits of information about the area, which she knew off by heart. It was easy to view Carcassonne as a tourist trap, but she liked to guide her visitors off the beaten track. The more sociable of the guests would join her for a glass of wine and they would exchange life stories of travels and more. Serena would never say that her life was boring per se but the inevitability of it all sometimes felt like a heavy blanket draped over her.
Earlier that day the garage had telephoned her to inform her that her beloved VW Golf convertible which had been towed away after breaking down for the umpteenth time was dead.
'Vraiment, elle est morte' the man had shouted at her as she feigned disbelief, a note of triumph in his voice that he had successfully conveyed the news to her
'Okay' Serena had mumbled unhappily terminating the unsatisfactory conversation. Abbey hadn't yet appeared, so her thoughts turned to sampling some of the home-grown hashish she had been entrusted with. She had just taken a tentative puff when the phone rang shrilly, and she felt compelled to answer it immediately. The voice of her boisterous cousin boomed at her, jangling her nerves. Being both male and half-French, she knew that his dealings with the garage would be far more productive and had asked him to challenge the car's death sentence. It had been a mistake to indulge in the ill-rolled joint because she began to feel hazy and disorientated as he continued his conversation.
'The man from the garage says because it's a classic car it's worth opening up the engine.' He waited for her response.
'How much?' Serena asked fearfully. The figure he quoted was prohibitive as she knew it would be.
'He says they are collectable' he added as though this would soften the blow. Serena paused letting out a tired sigh.
'Sleep on it' he suggested, knowing a replacement was out of the question. 'Yes I will, thanks' she agreed, placing the phone back in its little cradle and finally feeling slightly pacified by the effects of the spliff.
Serena awoke the next day but felt slightly fuzzy for no reason. Her left leg had been painful for a couple of weeks and she had felt both numbness and tingling in her left arm. She had pushed it from her mind, thinking that she sat too long at the computer on an unsuitable chair. She was permanently tired these days. Accepting the fact that age was finally creeping up on her, she hadn't noticed another stealthy shadow inching slowly closer, waiting to envelop her in darkness. Breathing out deeply, she wondered for the umpteenth time how things had come to this point. She had never in her life lived like this, forced to sleep in the attic alongside a portable loo so that the full letting potential of the apartment could be realised. To reach her 'bedroom' she had to climb up some precarious metal stepladders and crawl through a tiny hole roughly sawn through the ancient beams in the ceiling. Once she had clambered her way up there however the large new Velux window at least let in some light. If she placed a worn a paint splattered wooden stepladder carefully underneath it, she could climb up and survey the rooftops of the city and the mountains beyond.
She would look at the stars and silently laugh to herself that she could survey her rooftop world undisturbed and unseen. When she had first dragged her camp bed up there, she would lie rigid, imagining rats scurrying over the rooftops in search of food, terrified that they would linger by her open window and slink down and crawl over her bed.
Such was her fear that she scrupulously combed the dusty floorboards for crumbs or signs of vermin droppings. Once convincing herself that the rats weren't interested in visiting her attic, she began to worry that the rooftop cats would find her and seek comfort from her warm slumbering body. Serena dreaded waking up to find a ghastly fat stray animal with matted stinking fur lying contentedly beside her. But neither of these nightmares materialized and she began to enjoy the anonymity of her den.

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