He found a call on his answering machine about a letter.
It was from the woman who lived further up the street. She said it was for him, but had the wrong house number. He could call in on any morning to collect it. He thought it was good of her to let him know, but couldn’t ignore the local gossip that said she was a bit odd. She apparently never went out. This made sense when he considered the fact that most people would simply redeliver it next time they passed the intended house; just put it in their mail box. With all these considerations, he was a little apprehensive about calling in to collect it.
The following morning, he’d shrugged all these silly thoughts off, he’d never regarded himself as yellow. He rang her doorbell. As the door opened he was hit with a waft of spicy odour, it was pungent, but not unpleasant. The woman answering the door had a big smile. She was wiping her hands on an apron. “Please come in,” she said, “I’ll get your letter. I have a pot of saffron rice on the boil at the moment. I won’t be a minute, go on through.” She pointed to a door and disappeared back into the kitchen.
He pushed the door open and went in. He stood for a moment, blinking. The room was yellow; really yellow. He stood taking it all in. The walls were yellow. They were hung with pictures of canaries, sunflowers and daffodils. The curtains, carpet, lampshade, sofa, plastic coffee table with a bowl of plastic lemons, and an old style plastic telephone were all yellow. Arty objects of various sizes, such as a toy taxi, strings of beads, china eggcups and so on, were scattered around on the table, on the shelves, in fact on any surface flat enough to place them. They were all yellow.
She came in with a grateful smile and handed him the letter. “I see you’re admiring my lounge.” Her other hand came up. “Would you like a banana?”
