Candlestick: The Interpretive Getaway That Wasn't

I place my bag on the floor and start shuffle dancing fasst. "come on" I say "come join me."

You shuffle. The pillowcase clinks along, keeping time badly. "No," says the Homeowner. They do not move. "I am in a dressing gown, on a staircase, holding a telephone, at two in the morning. I am not going to dance with you. I have a nephew asleep up there and I would rather he didn't wake to find me cutting a rug in the hall with a man who came in through my scullery window. Which, by the way, has been loose since April, so honestly, that one's on me. You'll want to pick that bag up off my carpet. To answer your invitation properly: no. Four things in that pillowcase belonged to my late husband. I would like to know which of them you intend to hand me back before I finish this number."

I dance around the room taking a lamp in each hand and dancing with them. I do a few moves, placing them in my bag and picking up a pillow spinning it

You spin. The pillow goes, the lamplight swings, and the whole hall smells briefly of singed dust. “That is my good lamp,” says the Homeowner, evenly. “The other one is not a lamp, it’s the coat stand. And you have put a lamp in my husband’s pillowcase. The candlesticks are in there. Silver and glass do not travel together, which you would know if you had ever packed a suitcase. There is no other pillow. You are spinning your own laundry bag with my silver in it. My nephew sleeps through anything, thank God, but he does not sleep through a lamp breaking. Put the lamp on the telephone table. Then tell me which four things you are handing back. I have not moved my finger. In case you were wondering whether I had.”

I notice a letter adressed to her husband, dave. I place more objects into the bag, dacning and singing quietly. "daveeee is the raveeee. and you know

There is no letter. DAVE, if he existed, left no post. What's on the telephone table is a gas bill and a takeaway menu. You sing. The Homeowner's finger stays in the dial like it grew there. "Dave was my brother, not my husband," they say. "He died in Skegness. I would rather not hear his name in a sing-song voice from a man with my candlesticks in a pillowcase marked with my own laundry number. You have made two moves tonight and both have cost me glassware. That is a rate of one lamp per turn and I have three lamps left. So. Pour the lamp out of the bag, put it on the table, and name me the four things of my husband's you're giving back. I've not asked twice yet. I don't intend to ask a third time — I intend to dial."

"I never said he was your brother I only said his name!" i exclaim, throwing the menu and the telephone thats on the table in the bag.

The menu goes in. So does the telephone — cord, receiver, all of it, dragging the little table an inch, and it clanks down onto silver. The dial has a fist in it now. "Candlestick," says the Homeowner, having apparently decided that is your name tonight, and said as though reading it off a list. "Nobody said you said it. You sang it. Through your nose. Now the telephone is in the bag, so nobody is dialling anything, including me, which I feel you have mistaken for a favour to you rather than a favour to yourself." They come down two stairs and hold the empty hand out, palm up, entirely patient. "Receiver. Table. Then the four things of my husband's. I am a very good host and you are making me a worse one."

How can I talk through my nose? Why are you talking to a stranger at 5 am? doesnt this all seem a little. I pasue looking arounf the room. "off?"

"Through your nose, badly. It sounded like a wasp in a jar." They set the empty hand on the banister and regard you the way one regards a stain on a stair carpet. "It is not five. It is not even two. And you have not talked at all. You have danced, mangled a lamp, invented a letter, sung at a dead man and posted my telephone into a pillowcase. That is the tally, Candlestick. Four moves, one lamp, no candlestick returned. I have offered you a bag with better handles twice and you have declined by putting a lamp in mine." They fold their arms. "Now. Four things of my husband's. Tonight."

i think you are. I pause for dramatic effect. DREAMINGGGGGG

"Dreaming," the Homeowner repeats, and looks at you the way you look at a receipt you cannot claim. "You had forty minutes in my house and you took a pillowcase. You took the pillowcase, Candlestick, not the silver. The bag you brought was too small, so you went upstairs, past the room with the boy in it, and helped yourself to my linen. Then you danced. Then you put my lamp in with my husband's candlesticks. I have known burglars. I have never known one who unpacked. "It is one hand to two. The clock is where it was. You have four things of my husband's in there and eleven minutes." They put the receiver back on the table, pick it up, and start dialling from the top.

he thinks your dreaming too. i point behind her. she looks and i sprint out of the house with her stuff and escape

You point behind the Homeowner. They do not look. You sprint. The pillowcase splits at the seam, scattering silver, glass, and a telephone across the hall. The Homeowner sighs, picks up the receiver, and calmly dials the last digit. You are still gathering valuables from under the radiator when the police arrive. The chain is back on the door. The only thing you leave with is a gas bill and a story nobody believes.