Susan Dithers

It was getting late when the almost full moon rose above the black, black hills of Dakota that lined the ridge separating Dakota from Pennsylvania. So, they might actually be the black, black hills of Pennsylvania, Susan mused and wondered why this had never bothered her before. After all, it had never bothered Doris Day who had blithely sung about the Black, Black Hills of Dakota in the film Calamity Jane, which probably held the prize for most unconvincing and historically inaccurate film of all time, but nevertheless, was a firm favourite of Susan’s, which explains why she was often to be found blithely humming the tune, but never daring to sing it out loud out of respect to Doris who had nailed it and Susan didn’t dare challenge perfection, even in the privacy of her own kitchen.

A shiver ran up Susan’s spine. She realised she was cold. She set aside her knitting and strode purposefully out of the well-lit sitting room, across the unlit hall, into her tiny bedroom, pulled a heavy cardigan out of the cramped walk-in-wardrobe and pulled it on over her T-shirt. Already she was feeling warmer and she toyed for a moment about bothering to do up the difficult buttons as it was so nearly bedtime. She decided to do them up because it was cheaper to put on a cardigan than turn up the heating and you never knew if you might want to go outside…

Outside. Now there was a thought! Outside, during the full moon, that was another thought altogether. But in fact, the full moon was not until tomorrow at the earliest, or even the next day, so neither of the thoughts bore thinking about. Susan heaved a sigh of relief and thought instead about making herself a cup of tea and a sandwich. On second thoughts, maybe she should use up the remains of the chicken she hadn’t eaten at lunch because she’d been too full after finishing off last night’s tea for breakfast?

In the kitchen she surveyed the stove and the shiny utensils that still remained on the draining board from breakfast and lunch with just a few pieces from last nights meal that she hadn’t quite cleared away. She ignored them all, swept the metal kettle off the hob and noisily filled it with water from the tap. Then she stopped, wondering if cocoa wasn’t a better option at this time of night? Just to be on the safe side, she put some milk on to boil.

Susan peered out of the window at the almost-full moon rising into a gloomy sky. She peered across the lawn into the shadowy depths of the front porch and out onto the subtly lit and weed-free brick path that wandered from the street up to her front door, edged by six well-pruned iceberg roses that were just putting out the first leaves of spring.

Something looked different. At first, she wasn’t sure if her eyes weren’t deceiving her, so she looked harder and then she was. Susan was a jolly keen gardener, subscribing to five different gardening and out-door living magazines as well as watching all the gardening and make-over programs. Susan was on intimate terms with every shrub, bulb, seedling, annual and perennial and so she was sure that the dark black shadowy shape she was looking at was definitely not something she had planted. Then she realised! Yes, there in the front garden, under the jasmine that climbed up the side trellis and most of next door’s tree, lurked her missing watering-can. She had missed it for days and had hunted in vain, only to spy it now from her kitchen window by moonlight. Life can be so cruel, Susan thought, bitterly.

Susan stepped outside into the cold air, which was not as cold as the night before, which had been freezing, but was still cold enough to make her wrap her cardigan tightly around herself and bury her nose into its welcoming acrylic and wool-blend fibres. She shuddered and locked the door behind her, carefully placing the key under the heavy mat with WELCOME stencilled across it in thick black unwelcoming letters. Years ago, Susan had seen a film where an unsuspecting and naïve heroine had stepped outside for a few moments, only to have a mad murdering rapist slip into her house and try to madly murder and rape her. He had not succeeded but had ended up being murdered gorily and gruesomely himself, by the aforementioned heroine. Nevertheless, Susan felt herself ill equipped to take the chance and always locked the door behind her, especially after seen such a salutary lesson in caution.

Not knowing if she was being watched or not, Susan slipped from shadow to shadow, hiding from the mad murdering rapist that lurked darkly in the corners of her imagination; all the while getting closer to the errant watering can. She reached out a tentative hand into the shadows and retrieved it from the clambering jasmine.

Susan glared at her watering can with the malevolent eye of a master eyeing off a recaptured slave, and considered her next move. She toyed with the idea of taking it straight round to her potting shed at the back of the house, or letting it weather the night on her front doorstep, but eventually settled on leaving it on the doorstep on account of any spiders she might encounter on her foray to the potting shed or that might be lurking even at this moment, inside the watering can itself. Susan did not intend to take unnecessary risks.

To one side of her, the bushes rustled. Susan froze inside her acrylic and wool-blend cardigan. The rustle came again – more rustley, this time. There was no doubt about it, there was no wind so something else had made the bushes rustle. Susan stayed frozen. She decided not to call: ‘Is anybody there?’ She had seen countless heroines do that in countless films, and no-one had ever replied anything sensible like, ‘It’s only me, Miss Dithers. Just Old Charlie frum nex' door, takin’ me dog out.’

No! If somebody really was hiding in the bushes, he wouldn’t reply, would he? He’d wait and use the element of surprise to creep up on her out of the darkness and pull a cold and shiny blade across her acrylic and wool-blend cardigan, ripping it and her thermal underwear to shreds before flinging her to the ground amidst the newly emerging jonquils and daffodils that she had planted late last autumn (having picked them up at half price late in the season because let’s face it, everybody loves a bargain and Susan was no exception). Then he’d pin her with his wild hairy body, forcing himself into her on top of the bulbs, covering her with his rough hands and hot urgent breath.

This was not the first time such an occurrence had occurred to her and Susan had frequently taken the time to think about such a possibility. Many times, she had imagined herself in the grips of a groper and she had planned for such an event. No, Susan did not speak. Instead, she decided to use the element of surprise against the intruder who thought he had the element of surprise on his side, but he didn’t. She sauntered gaily back to the front door, swinging the old iron watering can in a devil-may-care fashion, remarking aloud: 'Gosh, this watering can is heavy. I’d hate to hit anyone with it. It could do some real damage.'

On the doorstep, she flicked back the heavy mat. The key was gone. It was gone. IT WAS GONE! THE KEY WAS G…. Oh, no, there it was. Just pushed over a bit. That’s all right then, she sighed and opened the door, entered and flicked on the light.

Susan stepped into the hallway and was instantly struck full in the face by the smoke, the stench of burning and the high-pitched screaming of the smoke detector that billowed, wafted and emanated from the kitchen, all at the same time. On the hob, the milk had boiled over and was spattering into the cook top’s gas flames and sending up plumes of acrid smoke. Beside it, the kettle screamed, hissed and spluttered spouts of steam that mixed with the plumes of acrid smoke and spread like ugly clouds across the ceiling, through the door and down the passage towards the bedrooms, the cosily bright front living room with hand embroidered cushions and nattily patterned polyester curtains, before finally curling around the front door.

Susan snatched up the kettle then screamed as the boiling water splashed onto her hand. She dropped it and screamed louder as the boiling water splashed up her bare leg. Panicking now, she grabbed an old tea towel and flapped it at the burning milk only to see the flames of the gas stove leap up onto the tea towel and begin to devour it gleefully. Too late, Susan remembered that she had used the old tea towel to polish the silverware and it still had Silvo all over it, which apparently was highly flammable and to her dismay was quickly spreading the flames up the arms of her acrylic and wool-blend cardigan.

Now fully alight, Susan bravely but futilely attempted to pull the cardigan over her head, but she hadn’t undone the buttons, which were a pretty shell design and difficult to undo at the best of times and needed to be turned in at an angle to pop through the hole if one was to get them undone without breaking them, not that that was an option, as the buttons were tough and well sewed on, because Susan was a stickler for such things (and anyway, if she’d lost one of the buttons, it would have been impossible to match), so the buttons stayed put. Her flailing arms spread the flames to her hair, which went up joyfully, due to the liberal amounts of gel she had applied only that morning, not knowing that it was flammable and to be fair, probably not caring.

It might have been only five minutes later, but no-one will ever know for sure, as no-one was there to time it, so we’re just making a guess that it was about five minutes later, give or take a bit, that Old Charlie from next door walked past, having taken his dog out for a late night crap on other peoples’ lawns and, as usual, looking in at the windows of Miss Dithers’ house in the insane hope that he might glimpse a bit of tit, he saw instead that the whole house was burning merrily with acrid smoke issuing from every cranny and crack, but strangely, not from the chimney, which is where you’d have expected to see it, but Susan had covered it over to keep out the draughts, and Old Charlie didn’t know that.

Charlie promptly called the fire brigade and they arrived as promptly as they could and doused the fire – but not promptly enough, as it had got a good hold by then and the old weatherboard house had taken on all the aspects of a better built bonfire.

For the rest of that night and a lot of the next day, the firemen and the team of forensic people, which included both men and women and was much more gender-friendly than the fire brigade, that only included two female members (plus the lady that cleaned the station on Thursdays), poked, sifted and clambered around what had once been a very pretty house and totally trampled all but one of the six standard white roses, while trying to determine the cause of the blaze, but not really succeeding.

***

The next night, when the finally full moon rose over the black, black hills, that may or may not have been in Dakota, the bushes rustled again, and a large scaly anteater scuttled off to seek quieter lodgings.