The knocking had been insistent. Essie opened the door to a woman, possibly in her mid-fifties, with dark blonde hair cut into an unflatteringly poker-straight bob. She was wearing a navy blue blazer with three quarter length sleeves. There was a lanyard around her neck and a clipboard in her manicured hands.
“Good afternoon,” the woman said brightly. She lifted up her lanyard to show Essie, but in doing so obscured what was written on it with her fingers. “My name’s Dawn, are your parents in?”
Essie gave a weak smile. “This is my house.”
“Your house? Oh wow, but you look much too young! Are you having a lovely day today?”
Essie glanced over her shoulder to look at the clock. She had just filled the kitchen sink with hot water.
“Don’t worry, I won’t take up too much of your time,” Dawn said, cocking her head to one side and grinning so forcefully her eyes were swallowed by her cheeks. “Are you working from home today?”
“Yes, I am actually. I’m on my lunchbreak.”
“Oh, that must be lovely! Do you work at home every day, or do you have to go into the office sometimes?”
Essie hesitated. Her eyes flicked down to Dawn’s lanyard, which was now covered by the clipboard.
“I work at home all the time,” she said eventually.
“That must be so nice. I’m on my feet all day. It’s fine on warm days like today, but it can be so horrible in the cold and the rain! But I won’t keep you long. I’m Dawn…I said that already, didn’t I? Silly me. Anyway, I’m sure you recognise the logo of the charity I represent.”
Dawn tapped a badge on her lapel. It had an odd symbol on it – three red squiggles over what appeared to be a misshapen baby’s head. Or perhaps it was a roundish animal. Or a country’s outline.
“My colleagues and I have been going door to door in the local area,” Dawn continued. “We’re gathering feedback on some of our recent campaigns, and it would be incredibly beneficial if you could answer a few quick questions. Would that be okay? I promise it will take five minutes, no more than that.”
Sensing that she was about to be asked to give up more than just her time, Essie gripped hold of the door.
“I don’t know…”
“You’ll be helping us to make a real difference to the lives of so many, Essie.”
“It’s just I really have to go back to work in a little bit. I have meetings.”
“Of course, it won’t take long, I promise you. Five minutes. Is that okay with yourself today? Just a quick five minutes?”
“But…”
“There’s a free pen in it for you!”
Dawn produced a ballpoint pen from somewhere, which had the same logo as her badge. She thrust it in Essie’s face and Essie reflexively took it.
“Excellent!” Dawn studied at her clipboard. “Okay, so first question, have you heard of the All Hands Together campaign?”
Essie thought for a moment.
“No I haven’t, sorry.”
“Really? That’s funny, because all of your neighbours said they’ve seen the posters in town. The lady at number sixteen was sure you’d know – me and her had a lovely chat about everyone down your road.”
Essie didn’t have a clue who lived at number sixteen. After four years in the house she had only recently begun to recognise her immediate neighbours by the cars they drove, and definitely couldn’t guess their names or what they would or wouldn’t know.
“Oh, not to worry,” Dawn soothed. “Keep yourself to yourself then?”
“No. Not really. Well, it’s just…”
“No worries, no worries at all. Okay, so just to fill you in, All Hands Together is a really lovely campaign that we started this year to get more volunteers helping those who need it most. Would you be happy to share your email address so I can pop some details over to you, maybe even get you involved?”
“No, sorry, I don’t…”
“It’s okay, you can say no! I completely understand. We get so many emails these days, don’t we? But do let me know if you change your mind. Now onto my next question, I’d like to ask you about the number of hours you spend each week watching television. Would you say you watch one to two, three to four, five to six, or seven and more hours?”
“Is that how many hours I watch television in a whole week?”
“Yes.”
“Then I suppose…seven and more?”
A sneer briefly pulled at Dawn’s mouth as she circled one of the options on her clipboard, but she was smiling again by the time she looked back up.
“Wonderful, so my next question is about the amount of donations you give to charities on a monthly basis. Would you say that…”
A loud thump at the back of the house pulled Essie’s attention away from the conversation. It sounded like something heavy. She took a step back from Dawn and turned her head to hear better.
“…or would you say you donate to bigger charities, such as…”
“One second, please,” Essie said, holding her finger up and taking another step back to listen.
“Oh sorry, is your phone ringing? I can’t hear anything.”
“No, it’s just…”
“I won’t be much longer now, I promise. I know you’re working from home. People don’t think it’s really working, do they? They say it all the time, but it is! You’re definitely still working just as hard as I am on my feet all day, it’s just different. Are you happy for me to ask my next question? I haven’t got many left.”
Essie couldn’t hear any other noises. Perhaps it had been the house creaking – it tended to do that when the weather grew warmer.
Dawn breathed out impatiently through her nose.
“Okay, I think the survey is interfering with your day, and we wouldn’t want that. What I can do is email you over our online survey, which you can fill out in your own time. It won’t take long, no more than ten minutes, and we won’t email you about all the silly stuff other charities do, you can unsubscribe at any time and…”
“No, sorry, I’m not interested in any emails.”
Dawn’s smile slowly drooped.
“Oh. Okay. Right. Well, that’s no problem, of course, I’ll just need your consent to use the information you’ve given me today.”
“I’m sorry,” Essie said, holding up her hands, “but I don’t know what I’m consenting to, I don’t even know what charity you work for.”
Dawn jabbed at her badge.
“I was quite clear upfront. And it’s just the normal consent form that everyone uses. But if you really have an issue with the way I’ve spoken to you today, I’ll call my supervisor so he can arrange a visit to take the matter further.”
“Is that really necessary?”
“Yes. We take our work very, very seriously, and I have to report any instances of consent refusal otherwise I could lose my job. It’s protocol, part of our ethics policy.”
Essie weighed up her options. She could sign the form, or she could close the door on the woman and ignore any managery-looking men that came knocking in the future. But she knew what would end up happening – her wife would be home the day Dawn’s manager called by and would agree to an extortionate monthly donation, just to be polite. She’d then forget to cancel it for months. Or worse, she’d get embarrassed and beg Essie to call up to explain why they’ve selfishly keeping money away from the needy.
“Fine,” Essie relented. “I’ll give my consent. I just want to get back to work.”
Dawn clutched her clipboard to her chest with glee.
“Wonderful! Could you sign here? Just a quick squiggle with your finger then I’ll be out of your hair, I promise!”
Dawn took her phone out of her pocket, pressed a few buttons, then presented it to Essie. On the screen were the words ‘opt in’, and there was a dotted line across the bottom. As Essie dragged her finger across the glass, she felt a sharp pain in the tip of her finger. She yanked her hand away.
A red streak appeared across the screen for a second, then disappeared.
“Fuck, what was that? I think your phone just cut me.”
Essie looked at her fingertip. There was a tiny vertical scratch with a single bead of blood at the bottom. When she looked back up, Dawn was gone.
Essie stepped out of the front door and onto her driveway. She looked up and down the road, but she couldn’t see Dawn anywhere. Placing her finger in her month, Essie stepped back inside and shut the door.
The house was eerily silent, as if it was holding its breath. The hair on Essie’s arms stood up. Remembering the thud sound from before, she rushed down the hallway to the back of the house to see if she could find the source of the noise.
The kitchen looked the same. The pile of dishes was still next to the sink. Nothing had dropped onto the floor. No pictures had fallen from the walls.
Then Essie noticed the back door was wide open. She wouldn’t have left it that way – it was warm out, but not that warm.
She went to pull it shut, but the bottom of the door caught something. It looked like a tangle of brown leaves.
Essie bent down to brush the leaves away, but they weren’t leaves at all – it was a small doll made of wicker and twine. On the doll’s stomach, painted in red, was the symbol from Dawn’s badge.
Essie looked at her finger, which had begun to drip with blood. A hot feeling spread across the pit of her stomach.
What exactly had she consented to?
If you enjoyed this short story…
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A young girl is tormented by things only she can see. A man becomes dangerously obsessed with his incompetent colleague. A job that seems too good to be true turns out to be exactly that.
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FOREGROUND includes: Thirsty, The Conference Room, What They Hear, Average Joe and Empty Worth.
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