Chapter 1

Chapter 1
‘Why’d you do that if you knew I was coming? I thought we arranged you’d have them cleaned once a month. Why would you clean the windows if you know you have a window cleaner?’ ‘Well, I didn’t know when you were going to come did I? They were dirty and needed cleaning so I cleaned them myself. The next day I come home to see you’ve left your stupid little card saying you’d just cleaned’em for me.’ Mrs Beston’s face swelled crimson and its bloodshot, bulging eyes glared with an unjustified menace. Barry attempted to reason with the thing before him, although he was wasting his breath. ‘Yes, because that’s the arrangement we’d agreed upon remember, once every month?’ ‘I don’t think I’m going to want you to do them anymore.’ Barry didn’t feel particularly upset he wouldn’t be cleaning Mrs Beston’s windows again: it was; after all, only a five pound job. And even if it had of been a much larger one, it still wasn’t worth the amount of grief he’d received. ‘Okay, that’s fine—no problem.’ Mrs Beston walked back into her house with its nose ostentatiously turned skywards. Believing she had gone to go and get his money for the final clean he’d done, Barry waited only to find she didn’t come back. Becoming annoyed, he knocked loudly on Mrs Beston’s front door. ‘What do you want now?’ she asked angrily. ‘I’m waiting for you to pay me for doing your windows, you owe me five pounds.’
1 ‘I’m not paying you because they didn’t need doing,’ she said, spitting the words out with biting venom. ‘How the hell was I supposed to know you’d cleaned them the day before I came,’ said Barry, really beginning to get riled now. He had a few more choice words for this miserable hag but managed to catch his tongue, well at least partially. ‘I spent my time cleaning them as we agreed and now you suddenly decide you don’t have to pay me? It’s not my fault you’re an idiot who cleans the windows when you’ve got a window cleaner.’ Revelling in the infliction of suffering, and knowing in this instance she was untouchable, Mrs Beston looked down her long nose at the man before it and said: ‘No, I don’t think I’ll bother paying you—good day.’ With the completion of this closing sentence she shut the door in the window cleaner’s face. Muttering profanities as he trudged back to his clapped-out car, his ancient, vomit-beige Volkswagen Golf, Barry understandably was in a foul mood. ‘That vile animal, I hope she burns in hell. Some people bloody deserve to burn.’ The life of a struggling window cleaner is not an enviable one; although, you could say most lives where there is great deal of struggling involved are not enviable ones either, irrespective of whether window cleaning is present or not. Barry struggled mainly because his customers believed his existence to be of less value than a microbe, making it okay to treat him with the same contempt they’d treat dog excrement. At this current juncture in his life he was on his money collections, one of his most-hated parts of the job. This loathing was probably down to the fact his customers seemed intent on paying him as infrequently as they possibly could.
2 What his customers failed to realise, or even if they did they didn’t seem too concerned, was that window cleaning was Barry’s living, his only source of income. Luckily however he still lived at home with his Mum—Maggie Broomfield—so he didn’t ever have to go hungry, yet… Living with his Mum was okay, but Barry had recently turned thirty-four years old and thought maybe now was the time to get his own place, though because the majority of his clientele didn’t actually pay him, this was a dream that’s likelihood of becoming reality was highly unlikely. Regrettably there was also no chance of him ever getting a regular well-paid job with the qualifications and experience he had. Since leaving school with nothing to show for his time there except a fully-functional box he’d made in woodwork, window cleaning was the best career he could get. Mrs Pitts was next on the list for collection of payment. She was a rather timeworn individual that preferred to give her window cleaner trinkets of bad advice rather than money. ‘Hi there, here to collect for the window cleaning.’ ‘Oh sorry I haven’t got any cash on me at the moment Barry.’ ‘That’s what you said last time.’ ‘I tell you what—I’ve got something even better.’ Mrs Pitts then disappeared, before returning a moment later with a can of Coke and a packet of Jelly Babies. ‘Arrhh come on. I’m thirty-four years old. I need money.’ ‘What for, you live with your Mum don’t you?’ said Mrs Pitts, squeezing Barry’s chubby cheek. ‘Yeah, but I need it for going out to the clubs. I’m mad fer it me.’