Cold Call

This week, a slightly spooky story about a knock at the door, and a lot of doubling. I wasn't planning for this to be Hallowe'en themed, but I suppose it turned out that way. Sorry I couldn't offer you something appropriate for All Saints' Day instead; I only really remember that one song from the soundtrack to The Beach.

This week's daily stories

Monday

There was the tiniest piece of grit in the salad, and she bit down on it every time: a boulder between her teeth, the way things feel big in the mouth. When she was done chewing she rolled it to the tip of her tongue, and then to a finger. A beautiful little thing, crystalline and perfectly itself. She wasn’t used to washing salad. At the supermarket it came clean, bagged and anonymous, like a packet of crisps. She placed the grit back on her tongue, the first stone in a wall.

Tuesday

Dad was sitting in a folding chair by the open kitchen door, looking out into the dark. He was worried he had upset the cat and she wouldn’t come home. “Of course she’ll come home,” I said, “Don’t worry.” He smiled as best he could and said, “I know she will. I’m just daft, you know that.” All through the night I heard him shaking the bag of treats. I thought about the time I got lost in the shopping centre and he didn’t even notice. Curled at my feet, the cat was the only one asleep.

Wednesday

After two hours in the lift, someone answered the emergency call button. You need to think more positively, they said. This idea of being trapped is keeping you in the lift. When you feel stuck, take ten deep breaths. Ask yourself: why do I believe this thought? And try to get out of the lift just a little bit each time. She tore the panel off the wall with a strength she didn’t know she had, and used the edge of it to lever the doors open. At the reception desk, a smiling man in a suit greeted her. There we go, he said. I’ll mark you down as a success.

Thursday

Auntie Mona had the biggest tub of biscuit cutters you’ve ever seen, and somehow she knew exactly what was in there. One of us would name a shape, she would reach in, and there it was. A mushroom, a Pikachu, a battery, Australia. We thought: there’s no way they all fit in there. She must be magic. So when Mum and Dad went away for the weekend and we stayed over, I crept down in the night and had a look. I tipped them out onto the floor, and I was right: there was no way to fit them back in.

Friday

Between the channels on the radio, if you listen long enough and gentle enough, there are voices whispering. Sometimes there is strange music, a melody you never quite hear properly but find yourself humming days later. It’s an enchanting place, between the channels, in the static and the noise. You feel you are discovering something deeper and truer. You aren’t. Turn the dial again. Tune back to one of those stations you have been ignoring. There are real voices there, and real music. Listen long and gentle. This is what you were searching for.

Saturday

It didn’t take long to untie a few knots, loosen a screw here and there, and put a dab of glue where glue ought not be. A little rearranging of the world to make it safer, like cutting a firebreak. The machine would start again tomorrow, even so. But every knot retied and screw tightened was a choice, one that could be made differently. The machine would start again every day, until one day it didn’t.

Sunday

There had been snow on the ground for two weeks, fresh falls covering what had melted and refrozen, so that there was a hard layer under the soft and it was impossible to imagine the world being colourful again. Impossible for everyone but Mr Garland, whose eyes turned to the soft curves outside his door and thought of what was hidden underneath. While the snow lasted, he could not move it, and the world could not see it. Fate kept its hands tucked in its pockets for warmth. But in time the snow would melt, and they would all see it, and him.

I have been reading...

• The Double by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (translated by Jessie Coulson). I hadn't heard of The Double until I found it at a second-hand book stall the summer after my short story 'The Double' was published, which is quite embarrassing but also satisfyingly appropriate. I think I've got away with it, and could convincingly pretend my story is "in dialogue with Dostoyevsky", rather than merely unoriginal.
• The Enlightenment of Katzuo Nakamatsu by Augusto Higa Oshiro (translated by Jennifer Shyue). A fine partner to The Double in this week's 'man buffeted around a city as he goes mad' double-bill. Where Mr Golyadkin's identity is displaced by his externalised double, Katzuo's is smeared out by all the multiplicity within him. I really enjoyed this, and I'm feeling very tempted by Archipelago Books' digital membership.

If you buy books linked to from Scattering, I may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops.

This week's story: Cold Call

The man on the step had a big wide smile that made me wish our door had a chain. He wore a navy blue fleece with black embroidery on the breast, and at the end of his lanyard was a badge in a plastic holder that had fogged up in the autumn air.

"Good morning, I won't keep you too long," he said, stepping past me. I had stood filling the doorway, I was sure of it, but now I was all turned around, and he was almost to the end of the hall. "Do close the door," he said, "we don't all the heat getting out."

He went through to the kitchen. By the time I got there he was sat at the table, a spiral-bound A4 notebook in front of him. He frowned as if a tricky problem had just crossed his mind, and began drawing long spirals across the ruled lines.

I re-tied the cord of my dressing gown.

After three lines of spirals he clicked the nib of his pen away and stood, the chair making a long, neuralgic scrape on the tiles. I had retreated, putting the breakfast bar between us. He took a step towards me and placed a cup of hot tea on the the faux granite. "You're very kind," he said, "but if I had a cup of tea on every visit I'd be in the loo all day." The tea steamed. My coffee was cold. "Let's go out to the garden," he said.

He stood on the lawn and poked at fallen leaves with a booted toe. The fresh air seemed to bring me round a little, and I said, "I'm sorry, why are you here?"

"I'm with my dog," he said. The dog was off sniffing at the bushes. Dew sparkled on its fur.

"That's what animal you've got," I said. "Why are you here?"

He took a smaller notebook from his fleece pocket, and made a note. The dog trotted over and nosed my ankles. Then the back door opened, and another man came out, with a different face but the same smile. I wasn't sure which of them had been the man at the door.

"Sorry about that," said the man who had just come out. "We don't want to keep you waiting. How are we getting on out here?"

The sun had just slipped over next door's roof, and was shining in my eyes. I heard myself say, "Getting there, I think."

The man with the dog slipped a lead around its neck. "Yes, I think so," he said. "Let's go back in."

Inside, one of them sat at the dining table while the other stayed standing. The man at the dining table filled in forms and slid them into a white envelope. The other man had plugged something into one of the power sockets. Every now and then it beeped, and he pressed a button and called out a number to the man with the forms.

"Will this take long?" I asked. "I have to take my mother to the hospital."

"Don't worry," said the man at the table, "we can see ourselves out. But I'm sure it won't be necessary. I hope it's nothing serious."

The box beeped, but the man attending to it waited with his finger by the button.

"Oh no," I said, "we don't think so."

"That's wonderful to hear," the man said. And when I didn't reply for a few seconds, his colleague said, "Eighteen," and pressed the button.

I went back to the kitchen and microwaved my coffee a little too long. I added a splash of cold water. It hardly tasted of anything.

Back in the dining room, the man was packing the box into a little fabric case. "All done," he said. "I'll get out of your hair."

I walked him to the door, and opened it for him. "These are for you," he said, handing me the white envelope. "If there's anything you need, just give us a call." He handed me a business card, and stepped out. I closed the door without watching to see where he went. The card was good heavy stock, matte finished, and blank white on both sides. I took it through to the kitchen, and pinned it to the noticeboard.