Quiet types, p.1
Quiet Types, page 1
Quiet Types
Quiet Love Book One
By L.H. Cosway
Copyright L.H. Cosway 2024.
All rights reserved.
Cover design by L.H. Cosway. Cover Images from Shutterstock.com.
Developmental Editing by Emerald Edits.
Proofreading by Olivia Kalb.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s (and publisher’s) exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
Contents
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15.
16.
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22.
23.
Epilogue.
Coming Next!
Meet the Author
Books by L.H. Cosway
Dedication
A very special thanks to Jezka Brash, Cindy Warschauer, Amanda Montgomery, Angie Reed, Jeanine Alexander Howley, Becky Zaman, Kaylin Molnar, Amanda White, Milica and Soňa Š for all of your support and encouragement on Patreon while I wrote this story <3
“We sit and talk,
quietly, with long lapses of silence
and I am aware of the stream
that has no language, coursing
beneath the quiet heaven of
your eyes
― William Carlos Williams, Paterson.
1.
Maggie
Anyone who’s lived in a busy city has, at one time or another, witnessed someone walking down the street crying their eyes out.
I saw them frequently, these poor strangers, often while I stared out the window of the bus I took to work each day. I’d wonder what had happened to cause such a public display of emotion, walking the streets with stress and grief written all over their faces. I wanted to ask them what went wrong because I sympathised with them, but I didn’t truly understand their plight until I was the person crying as I walked down the street.
I needed to clean myself up before I reached the bus stop; otherwise, he might notice. The man I saw each day, who I thought about often. He was a stranger I knew nothing about, a stranger who always watched me. I didn’t want him to think I was a blubbering mess who let her boss drive her to tears, but that was exactly what I was.
Normally, I could tolerate Mrs Reynolds’ meanness, letting her cruel and stinging words wash right over me, but today was different. Today, those words managed to penetrate my armour.
I cleaned houses for a living, and I liked most of my clients well enough, but she was a different story. By all accounts, Mrs Reynolds had the perfect life: a successful husband, three healthy children, and a large house on Shrewsbury Road, one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in Dublin.
Despite all this, she still found it necessary to make life harder for the woman who kept her home spotless. That woman being me, Maggie Lydon, the thirty-one-year-old who lived alone in a studio flat and whose picture would never grace the society pages of glossy magazines or news websites like Sariah Reynolds’ picture did.
I was nobody, a scraping-by quiet type who didn’t bother anyone and didn’t blame others for my minuscule lot in life. But that didn’t matter to Mrs Reynolds.
It hadn’t always been this way with her. The first few weeks I worked for her, she was reserved but polite towards me. Then slowly over time, her mask came off, and the needling set in. Her criticisms were never personal, at least. They were always about my performance as her cleaner, but because none of my other clients complained as she did I soon realised I wasn’t the problem. No matter who cleaned her house, Mrs Reynolds would find a way to criticize that person, even if they were nothing but a loyal, conscientious worker for her. Sometimes, I’d wonder why she was like that, but perhaps the answer to that question was simple.
She enjoyed the power.
She found things to critique about the way I cleaned—like spots of non-existent dust I missed or how the end of the toilet rolls I folded weren’t quite sharp and pointy enough. How the couch was a millimetre off when I pushed it back in after pulling it out to vacuum behind it.
I’d come to consider her commentary part and parcel of the job. Mrs Reynolds liked to complain, and I was more than certain she found a perverse sort of release in laying those complaints at my doorstep. I tolerated her because not everyone was lucky enough to have a nice boss. And besides, I didn’t have to deal with her every day because I only cleaned for her once a week.
I used to work for an agency but made the change to self-employed a few years back. It was better in a way because I got to set my own schedule and not work such gruelling hours for less pay, but it also meant I had to keep the people I worked for happy. I no longer had an agency to find me a new gig if someone decided to drop me.
As established, Mrs Reynolds was the toughest client to keep happy. Normally, I was very good at persevering through her tirades. I’d mastered the art of stoicism, taking her passive aggressiveness on the chin, but today was more than I could handle.
I was in the kitchen, kneeling on the floor as I cleaned the oven, when I heard her arrive home with the kids. She had twin ten-year-old boys, Tadhg and Ben, and a seven-year-old girl named Marla. I didn’t interact with the children much, and they typically ignored me, which was fine, but today, I’d neglected to put enough kitchen roll on the floor to catch the brown, watery liquid that dripped from the oven as I cleaned it. I hadn’t expected anyone to come into the kitchen, but then one of the twins appeared and stepped in some of the oven juice.
I know, it’s a disgusting term, but how else was I to describe it?
The boy wore his sports gear for his after-school training, and the brown liquid stained the toe of his white rugby boot.
“Eww! What’s that?” he asked, a grim expression on his face as he held his foot up to inspect it.
“Oh my goodness. I’m so sorry,” I said, wincing when I heard Mrs Reynolds’ heels clipping towards the kitchen.
“Maggie,” she interrupted as she entered the room. “What have you done to Tadhg’s new boots?”
I hastily grabbed some kitchen roll and tried to mop up the mess. “My apologies. I didn’t see the lad come in. If he wants to take off the boots, I can pop them in the washing machine, and they’ll be good as new.”
Mrs Reynolds pursed her lips, a glower gracing her dewy face. The dewy aspect came from regular trips to a cosmetic clinic, though it was so well done and subtle you’d barely notice her youthful glow wasn’t natural.
“No, not the washing machine. That’ll only damage them. You’ll need to scrub them by hand. Tadhg, take off your boots and give them to Maggie. Maggie, please apologise to my son for ruining his boots with this sloppy mess you’ve left all over the floor. I thought I paid you to keep the house clean, not make it dirtier.”
I stared at her, my eyebrows rising slowly in disbelief. “I’m in the middle of cleaning the oven. I planned to mop the floor before I finished. It’s not like I was going to leave it like this.”
“I can’t believe you’re making excuses,” Mrs Reynolds scoffed. “Tadhg’s lucky he didn’t slip and injure himself in all that grease. I should dock your pay for this. Now, apologise to him immediately.”
My stomach roiled, and a sense of defiance filled me. She was trying to humiliate me, in front of her son no less, and even though I was kneeling on the floor, I wasn’t going to bow down to her. I at least had enough pride to keep my head held high, despite my current position.
“I already told Tadhg I was sorry before you came in,” I said, voice tight.
“Do it again.”
Another burst of defiance shot through me. “No. You’re making far too big a deal out of this.”
The corner of her eye twitched. “Excuse me?”
“Mammy, it’s fine,” Tadhg interrupted, sensing the tension, but she shushed him.
“Take off your shoes, and go get your other pair from the closet.”
“Okay,” her son replied with a sigh as he slipped off his boots and left the kitchen.
Mrs Reynolds turned her attention back to me, eyes narrowed, and I saw a flash of venom as she folded her arms. “You’re aware I could have you fired from all the houses you clean in this neighbourhood with just a few short phone calls?”
Her words rattled me, a feeling of sickness rolling in. I didn’t doubt she’d follow through with her threat. It was one of the reasons I still worked for her, the fear of being blacklisted if I quit. Cleaning houses was my livelihood, and Mrs Reynolds had influence. As I’d said, I didn’t work for an agency anymore and needed to keep my clients happy. So, although I disliked Mrs Reynolds greatly, I had to tolerate her. Pissing her off could lead to me becoming unemployed, especially because my education was limited, and my only experience was cleaning. I wasn’t exactly a glo wing candidate for potential employers. I also couldn’t afford to go back to minimum wage because it wouldn’t cover my rent.
“Listen,” I relented, “if you want me to apologise to Tadhg again, I will.”
I saw the triumph in her eyes. She had me under foot, exactly where she liked me. I felt like crying and being sick all at once. So much for my sense of pride. It currently mingled on the floor with the oven juice. I wondered what it must feel like to be so powerful and rich no one dared disrespect you. That would never be me. Not only had I started two feet below the bottom rung of the ladder, but I also lacked the ruthless ambition to climb higher.
Mrs Reynolds unfolded her arms and moved away from the kitchen island. “No need. Just finish up with the oven and get going. I’m not paying you overtime. Oh, and don’t forget to clean Tadhg’s boots.”
With that, she left, and I deflated. I felt like the smallest person in the world at that moment. I managed to hold it together long enough to finish cleaning the oven, mop the floor and scrub clean Tadhg’s boots, but by the time I left the house and was walking down the dark, lamp lit street to the bus stop, my tears erupted. I couldn’t hold them back any longer.
And that was how I became just another of those people crying as they walked down the street.
I felt invisible. Unimportant. My tears were more from frustration and anger than true sadness. I was stuck in an untenable position with Mrs Reynolds, trapped working for her. She had this way of making me feel lesser, like I was a pointless human barely fit to lick her boots.
A part of me just wished I’d let loose and told her exactly what I thought of her. I wished I’d told her where she could shove her job.
But no. A moment of righteous indignation wasn’t in the cards for me, sadly.
I couldn’t afford one.
I dug some tissues from my bag and dabbed away the tears. There wasn’t much I could do about the redness, but hopefully, no one would notice.
I especially hoped he wouldn’t notice.
Unlike how Mrs Reynolds made me feel, I never felt invisible when I was around him.
My stranger from the bus. We’d never spoken, but one day, I caught him watching me, and now, I was always aware of him. He was the bright spot of my week. When Mrs Reynolds was in a particularly critical mood, I always looked forward to seeing his face. He seemed to be around my age, early thirties, and he must’ve lived nearby because we both got off at the same stop.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. The bloke could be a serial killer, but that wasn’t the vibe I got from him, and I had experience with bad people, thanks to my mother and the chaotic childhood she put me through.
The man on the bus, I couldn’t imagine him being anything like Mam or the string of boyfriends who’d lived with us. He had an interesting face, a time traveller’s face, I liked to think. It was the sort of face you saw in old, black-and-white photos from the turn of the century. The face of a soldier who’d fought in World War I. Or someone’s great-great-grandfather who worked in a factory long since shut down that made commodities the world no longer had need for.
He reminded me of a young Richard Burton back when he was just a working-class Welsh lad before that acting teacher swept him away from his humble beginnings, gave him a new name and turned him into a star.
My upstairs neighbour, Siobhan, and I watched a documentary about Burton a few months ago, and I hadn’t been able to forget how much he reminded me of the man from the bus. Well, except the man on the bus was much larger and taller than Burton. In fact, he was large in a way that was slightly intimidating. People rarely took the seat next to him, not unless the bus was jam packed and there were no other options.
We took the same route to work every morning and the same one home in the evening. He dressed plainly in black pants, a black shirt and a grey jacket, his clothes inexpensive and well-worn. I sensed that whatever he did for a living wasn’t fancy. He always looked bone tired at the end of the day, just as I did.
He was a scraping by quiet type, too, it seemed.
Perhaps that was why he looked at me that first day. He sensed a kinship. The way he stared at me was strangely intense, but the only discomfort I felt was my inability to break the wall of silence to ask, Who are you?
I wanted to know why he always looked at me. Did he wonder if we were the same?
There were lots of other people waiting at the bus stop when I arrived. I spotted him standing behind two older men chatting amiably as they waited. One had a newspaper tucked under his arm, and the other wore clothes stained with dust and debris, a construction labourer. His eyes remained steady on the middle distance as rush hour traffic went by sluggishly on the road. My attention ran over his short, dark hair and his eyes. I still couldn’t quite tell what colour they were. Sometimes they looked green, other times grey.
I stood next to a smartly dressed woman, one of the city’s many office types, keeping my head down so as not to draw attention to my red, puffy eyes. My pride still smarted after the dressing down I’d received from Mrs Reynolds, and I really didn’t feel like being looked at.
I heard the rumble of the bus and smelled the overpowering odour of diesel from the engine as it rolled to a stop.
Finally, I thought, I’m one step closer to curling up in my pyjamas and settling in with my latest audiobook. I certainly needed a cosy, relaxing night after the day I’d had.
I glanced up for just a second, the back of my neck prickling as I sensed someone’s attention. He was looking at me.
My heart skipped a beat, and air filled my lungs. There was something so penetrating about his stare. He held my gaze longer than usual. Normally, our eyes met for a second, maybe two, but never a prolonged moment like this one. It was jarring. There was a small change in his expression, his brows knitting together and his jaw tensing. His attention was on my face, in particular the redness around my eyes.
Was he … concerned?
Time seemed to stand still. For some inexplicable reason, I couldn’t look away from him. I was vaguely aware of others moving by us to board the bus, but I was mostly held captive by his eyes. Now I saw they were neither grey nor green. They were a mesmerising combination of both.
A swarm of butterflies swept through my stomach until I realised it was just the two of us standing on the damp, leaf covered pavement.
Some intangible thread seemed to string us together until I tore my gaze away from his and quickly boarded the bus. I swiped my travel card and took my usual seat, three rows from the front, next to the window. I kept my eyes down as I sensed him pass, the final person to board before the driver pulled away from the stop and merged with traffic.
I was weirdly attuned to his presence. I always knew if he was close. A faint tingling at the back of my neck usually alerted me. I didn’t have to look to know he sat two rows behind me. He never took the window seat, instead preferring the aisle. I couldn’t tell if it were because he liked the freedom to exit without anyone having to stand up for him or, as I often wondered with a strange fluttery sensation in my stomach, because the position allowed him a better view of where I was sitting?
Normally, I enjoyed his attention. It was pathetically one of the most exciting parts of my day to be so watched by a virtual stranger. But not today. Today, I’d been torn apart by Mrs Reynolds, and I simply wished to disappear until I could sew back together the pieces of my shredded confidence.
I stared out the window as the bus travelled from the south side of the city, through the busy centre, and across to the other side. I lived in Phibsborough, on the north side of Dublin, not too far from where I grew up. It was a vibrant community, originally working class but a little bit gentrified now.
The trip took close to forty minutes, and the entire time, I wondered if he were still watching me. It started to rain, condensation building on the window and casting the city in a hazy glow behind the glass.
Being late Autumn, it was beginning to get darker in the evenings, which I wasn’t a fan of. I disliked waiting around in the dark for the bus, even if there were other people about.
Soon, we reached my stop. Well, our stop. I knew he’d be getting off just behind me. It was probably the most electrifying part of the journey, feeling his presence as we alighted. Then, when we were on the street, I’d turn left, heading to my flat, and he’d turn right, going in the direction of some place unknown to me.
