THE MYSTERY OF THE LAUNDRY BENCH IS SOLVED

I saw her jump when I opened the door to go in to the laundry. She was sitting on the bench folding a pair of large white knickers. Her laundry trolley was next to her.
‘Morning,’ I said.
‘Oh, hello,’ she said.
‘I made you jump,’ I said, ‘when I came in.’
‘Yes,’ she said.
I loaded the machines and we didn’t speak. I thought of saying something about the weather, it getting colder, but didn’t.
Then I said, ‘You don’t use the folding tables, then?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I can’t stand for more than two minutes. It’s my hip,’ she said, ‘if I stand for too long I have to sit down which is why I’m over here.’
‘Oh,’ I said.
I closed the washer doors, put the powder in the top and selected the programme with the dial: half load for one, full the other, and pressed the on button on both. i hung my bag off the two door handles as if to protect or assert ownership.
‘Well, bye,’ I said. ‘See you later.’
‘Bye,’ she said, folding a pair of the dark blue trousers she wears.

When I went down to take my laundry out the washers and put it through the extractor then into the dryer the caretaker was mopping the floor and the walls.
‘Morning,’ I said.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Alright?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
I watched him work as I leaned against the extractor.
‘They’ll be in to finish the tiles tomorrow,’ he said, ‘level them, smooth the grout.’
‘Oh,’ I said.
‘Oh, yes, I can see…like there?’ I said pointing.
‘I’m surprised they did that one,’ he said, ‘I didn’t put it on the sheet and if you don’t put it on the sheet they don’t usually do it.’
‘That’s good of them,’ I said.
I watched him a bit more.
‘Do you know why they moved the bench over there?’ I said. ‘I was talking to O earlier, who’s in here a bit earlier and she said she couldn’t use the folding tables anymore because she can’t stand long enough so she sits on the bench and I made her jump when I came in this morning and she’s said she feels a bit exposed sat there which is why I don’t sit there anymore, not that I sat there much but, you know...’
‘Someone asked them to do it,’ he said.
‘Is one person all it took?’
‘Depends who it is,’ he said.
‘Who was it?’ I said.
‘It’s the woman from India,’ he said but I said I thought she spoke Spanish and was from South America, Colombia maybe, she told me in the lift, or something…anyway, he maintained India but wherever we new who we meant.
‘What happened for her to say something?’
‘She said she’d been verbally abused when the bench was over there and she’d feel safer if it was by the door, not so hemmed in.’
‘Oh,’ I said.
‘She’s got a voice, you know, so people listen…’
‘Ah,’ I said.
‘That’s what you want though, isn’t it?’ he said, ‘people to have a voice?’
‘True,’ I said, ‘but I don’t think the move was a good one.’
‘I haven’t had anyone come up to me and say they think it was a good idea,’ he said.
And with that, he put the mop in the bucket and left the laundry without a word further.