Depreciation, by Winifred Ansty

An original short story extract set in the twentieth century.

The rent was due on Fridays at six, and at six exactly Mrs Hobday knocked three times on the door of the back room. She never knocked twice and she never knocked four times. Clement had lived under her roof for seven weeks, and he had already learned that she did nothing by accident.

‘Two pounds ten,’ she said, holding out her hand before the door was fully open.

He counted the notes into her palm. She folded them once, then again, and put them into the pocket of her apron, but she did not leave. Her eyes went past him to the table under the window, where the typewriter sat beside a tower of library books.

‘That machine,’ she said.

‘I am sorry, Mrs Hobday. I try to strike the keys softly.’

‘There is no softly about it. It goes through the ceiling like a woodpecker. Half past one this morning. I counted.’

Clement had worked a full shift at the bus depot before he sat down to his books, and the examinations were in March. He thought of saying this. Instead he said, ‘It will not happen again.’

‘See that it doesn’t.’ She turned to go, then turned back, and for a moment her face lost its hardness and looked merely tired. ‘What is it you’re writing, anyway? Love letters?’

‘Accountancy,’ he said. ‘Ledgers. Depreciation of assets.’

She stared at him as though he had spoken in another language. Then she gave a short bark that might, in another woman, have been a laugh. ‘My Arthur kept the books for the Co-op for twenty-two years,’ she said. ‘He used to say depreciation was the only honest word in the business.’

The door closed. He heard her slippers on the stairs, slower than usual.

That night he sat with his hands in his lap and did not touch the keys. At eleven there was a knock: one knock, not three. When he opened the door there was nobody there, only a square of green felt on the mat, cut neatly from what looked like the top of an old card table. A note was pinned to it in pencil: ‘Put this under the machine. It was Arthur’s. He typed till two most nights and I never once complained.’

Clement read the last line twice. Then he lifted the typewriter, slid the felt beneath it, and began, very softly, to work.

What impressions does the writer create of the relationship between Mrs Hobday and Clement? How does the writer create these impressions?

You must refer to the language and structure used in the text to support your answer, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate.