Anyone for Pizza?
(1200 words)
I parked my moped by the huge black gates and looked down the moonlit drive at the enormous edifice of Humber House. I checked my phone. Yes, it was definitely the correct address. There was no bell push visible, so I tried the gates. Then I noticed a huge rusty padlock and chain holding them shut.
Dave at The Pizza Place had laughed. Oh, Maggie, Humber House, yes, it’s a bit scary, but they’re OK. A bit odd but friendly enough. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”
Now, I began to wonder if Dave had ever actually been here as I unpacked my pizza bag. To the right of the gates there was a narrow door in a high wire fence that ran around the estate. I turned the handle, and to my surprise, it opened.
As I walked down the drive, the moon was a bright silver disc hanging in the sky, casting an eerie light on the potholes and long grass at the edges of the old Edwardian asphalt. It was a long way to the house, perhaps a hundred metres. On either side of the drive, extensive lawns with sporadic trees, black silhouettes in the moonlight.
As I walked along the cracked and decaying driveway, clouds crossed the moon, turning a dark amber, making it hard to see where I was going. Thankfully, I could see a glimmer of light from a first-floor window. The inhabitants hadn’t left a phone number, so I was unable to alert them, but the delivery was on time. They ought to be expecting me. Suddenly, as the moon came out once more, bathing the silent lawns with its sinister silver light, I saw something move out of the corner of my eye.
Perhaps fifty metres away, a man, or something like a man, was running across the lawn, very fast and with no sound at all. The figure was completely black. I could see only the shape, like a dense shadow, even though now in full moonlight. I watched the figure run to one side of the house and disappear.
I admit I felt spooked by that as I reached the huge front door. To my surprise, it was ajar, so I plucked up my courage and went into the house. Inside it was cold and damp, and there was an aura of unlived-in-ness. “Hello, pizza delivery,” I called. “Hello, hello,” my voice reverberated in the long dark hallway. Ahead of me I saw a crack of light at a doorway. “Hello, pizza, hello!”
I entered a room with high bookcases against the walls, full of dusty volumes. Light came from a candelabra high above, where only about half of the bulbs were lit. I pulled a book out at random. Sparkling Cyanide by Agatha Christie, complete with the dust jacket showing a wide, flat-bottomed glass containing yellow liquid, presumably sparkling wine or champagne. Behind it, on a black background, was a large green skull. And it still had the price in the corner – 4/6d. I checked the publishing information. ‘The Crime Club. 1945.’ Hmm, a first edition. From my days at Horton’s Antiquarian Books, I recognised it would be a valuable book, save for its mouldy condition. True, I was more of a dogsbody there, making tea and typing invoices, but I’d squirrelled away bits of information.
“Hello, is anybody here?” I called once more. Just then, I was startled by an enormous crash, like a pile of plates being dropped onto a stone floor from several feet. My heart pounded in my chest, and I felt clammy with a cold sweat. I put the pizza bag down and walked through a doorway and into a corridor in the direction of the crash. At the end was another door, slightly open, with light showing through it. “Hello, pizza delivery from The Pizza Place, hello!” I called, trying to steady my nerves. After all, they had ordered pizza. I had every right to be there. Unless I’d made a terrible mistake, of course, and this wasn’t the right house. I felt breathless at the thought. Maybe I should just go?
In the grand kitchen, bare surfaces, a few pots and pans on a stand. I opened a cupboard. Inside, a small pile of ancient dinner plates with cracked glaze and an intricate floral pattern. But no sign of what could have made the enormous crashing sound I’d heard. That was enough. I was off! I found my pizza bag and ran down the drive, praying that the little door in the fence would still be open. If not? Don’t think about it! Thankfully, it was, and my moped was still there, a dear old friend in the moonlight. I put the pizza bag in the tail box and put my helmet on, then I noticed something dark by the rear wheel. Like a small pool of something. I hoped to God it wasn’t a fuel leak. I bent down and touched a fingertip to it. By the light of my phone, it was something red and sticky. Yuk. At least it wasn’t petrol or oil, though. I wiped my fingers, started the moped up, and felt great relief as the machine roared off and carried me away from that horrible place.
There were no more deliveries, so I decided to have the pizza for tea. I’d be home in fifteen minutes, and it’d still be hot. If not, I’d pop it in the oven for a few minutes.
.
Back home, I put the oven on, having decided a quick reheat would do no harm. I headed to the fridge for some salad ingredients. I felt calmer. I didn’t know what it had been about. Perhaps I’d overreacted? Maybe they’d been called out at short notice. Thinking about it, I should have left the pizza on the kitchen table. Now, perhaps I’d get into trouble? I could imagine Dave and Trish at work: “They’d just popped out to buy some wine. They thought you’d leave it in the kitchen. Scaredy cat, scaredy cat!”
I tried not to think about it as I took a lemon and began to rub it on the grater. The tang of the citrus fruit stimulated my senses, reminding me of a wonderful holiday on the Italian island of Procida with Lawrence, a guy I was engaged to at the time. I remembered their limone pane – lemon bread – where the thick, sweet white pith is sliced right into fresh summer salads with red onion, chilli, mint, and, of course, abundant olio nuovo.
In an attempt to replicate that memory, I made a dressing with olive oil and the fresh lemon juice, together with some wine vinegar, and stirred them up in a small blue China jug with a little silver spoon before pouring it over an improvised salad: a mix of Romaine lettuce, watercress, sliced tomato, some grated red pepper, and olives from a jar at the back of a cupboard. Then I put on Steely Dan’s Aja, poured myself a large glass of nicely chilled Pinot Grigio, and went to the pizza box.
Inside was something I couldn’t quite comprehend at first. Then I began to scream, not so much at the severed hand but at the bloody, twitching fingers.
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