The Banging

Went down the Trail this morning, bought a short-sleeved shirt (as you do) for tomorrow's annual concert of the Dowlais Male Choir, came home and got on with editing.
There was a banging of doors from somewhere in our block of flats. Three bangs, like knocks at a door. Being of course half deaf I wondered if someone was AT our door, trying really hard to get my attention.

No, they weren't.

I went back to the editing.

The banging continued. Three rhythmic, almighty bangs at a time. But now, knowing it was nothing to do with me, I tried to ignore it.

Hafway through the afternoon, the school opposite our block turned on its amps and began a concert, mainly seeming composed of kids from the school doing karaoke in front of a crowd.

Got through the day - another sweltering, sweatbox day, sweetened to a large degree by also being payday (woohoo). Took d out for dinner and a movie tonight (Monsters University, since you ask. Big slow for the first half, ends better, still not a patch on Monsters, Inc).

When we came back, the concert was still going strong. And loud. And unable to locate an identifiable note if its life depended on it. Come to our annual concert tomorrow night, you'll have a much better time...

"Damn, it's hot in here," muttered d, wiping the back of her neck.
"Yeah," I agreed, practically wringing out my man-breasts.
There was a banging. Three loud, evenly spaced bangs.
"What the hell was that?" asked d.
"Dunno," I muttered. "S'been doing that most of the day."
"Y'know, screw it," said d. "We slept with the back door open all the time in East freakin' London...what can Merthyr do to us?"
I pondered.
"I said pretty much the same thing about walking home on new year's eve, 1996," I reminded her. New year's eve, 1996 was, for any newbies here, the night I got what is generally considered to be the living shit kicked out of me on the street in Merthyr, and woke up on new year's day 1997 facing surgery to reconstruct - or potentially amputate - my left foot.
"Humph...spoilsport," muttered d, as I went back up to the office to carry on editing.

There was a banging. Three loud bangs, like a knock on the door, audible over the racket across the road.
"Seriously?!" called d. "What the Hell is that??!"
"Seriously!" I called back, "I don't know!"

Half a chapter later, she came upstairs.
"Ok, fine, you're right," she said. "Can't sleep with the doors open."
"I agree, but why?" I asked.
"A total stranger just came to our door...asking if we smoked," said d.
"That's...odd," I admitted, not thinking about it very much.

There was...no banging. I sighed in relief and carried on editing.
The next thing I knew, there was the sound of a woman's voice from downstairs, using our phone, I thought, to complain to the police about the noise from across the road. I figured d had been doing her 'responsible citizen' thing again and finding out out who else was being disturbed by it.

About forty minutes later, she came up.
"Erm..." she said.
"Hi honey," I said.
"The police are downstairs," she said.
"O...K," I said, still thinking it had to do with the concert, which continues past 11pm.
"The woman who wondered if we smoked came back," she explained.
"Right." I blinked.
"Y'know that banging?"
"Yeeeeees..." I said, cautiously, not really feeling the bottom of this conversation underneath my feet.
"It was her. It was her cry for help. She's been trying to kill herself."
"Holy crap!" I exclaimed.
"She's been drinking, she's tried to hang herself...she came to ask if we had a phone, and she called for an ambulance to take her to hospital. I'm going to go with her, cos the police can't find her dad..."
I blinked again.
"Want me to come with?"
"If you could," she said, nodding. I got substantially more dressed. By the time I came downstairs, her dad had been found and she was heading off to hospital, leaving d behind. Apparently she has a history of abandonment issues, meaning every time she feels a relationship's going rocky, she starts tying knots or popping pills.

Is there a moral to this story?
Actually, there are two. First, my wife's more curious and more caring than I even know how to be.
And second, if you hear a persistent banging that isn't accompanied by evocations to some deity or other...go and check what it is. You might be the person who saves a life...