Washing
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Washing
Outside is just too big. The sky is the worst thing, stretching out to the ends of vision. She could reach out her arm and see her hand against the sky, and there is just so much distance beyond her reach. It makes her giddy, her outstretched hand the only stable thing as the light and sky and air swirls around her. To make it closer, to stop it shifting, she imagines patterns on it. Turning it into a canvas, flat and solid. In her minds eye she traces firm, black lines across her field of vision, the kind of patterns she saw once on the hennaed hands of a woman on TV. It makes the space she’s looking at seem closer, less ethereal, more solid.
But even with her sky painting she could only bear to look up for a few seconds at a time. And then it was only being outside for a few minutes at a time. And then not being outside at all.
It isn’t raining. This is disappointing. The sky should be a weighty black, dark clouds ominous with drops of doom. From the bed where she sits in an overlarge grubby t-shirt she can see sky through the window. Or, a reassuringly small chink of it between the walls of the tower blocks. Grey enough, she supposes, and heads into the kitchen.
Breakfast. Toast is easy. Push the bread in, search for a clean knife. Warm marge on the counter. Yank the lid off the tub. Millions of tiny black and brown crumbs are embedded in the yellow, ugly churned up sections around the edges. Blobs of pre-used spread cling to the side where they have been scraped off a previous knife. She stands very still as tears fill her eyes, then leaves the knife on the counter and walks into the living room, holding dry toast in her hands.
She sits on the edge of the sofa, not too comfortable. The corner of her dressing gown flops into a cup of filmy tea, on the floor from last night. Several minutes pass before she notices; she pulls it out with a part sigh part whimper. She sees other dried stains along the hem, wrinkles her nose. Then lets the gown fall back to the floor. Something must change.
The flat is too hot. The days now are milder, but the evenings still crisp and the storage heating must be on the night before to be any use. So if she switches it off now, there’ll be no heat tonight. After Michael died the house was too much, so she sold up, bought the flat. And gradually she disappeared inside it. Her flat is on the ground floor, with a tiny yard out the back – quite a prize in the city, but one wasted on her.
Toast half eaten, she gets up from the sofa and begins to pace the room. Her dressing gown makes her too warm, she can feel a sweat building up across the bridge of her nose, in the middle of her back. Crumbs and grit embed themselves in her bare soles and she circles the living room. Despite the heat her feet are cold and clammy – no socks on, although she knows her circulation is poor. On the kitchen lino the dirt digs in harder, and she doesn’t bother to brush it off. It’s good to feel something.
The bloody margarine is still on the side, soft and oily and obscenely yellow. The knife has left ploughed furrows along the side of the tub, studded with toast crumbs. She curls her lip in distaste at the sight of it. To her surprise, she can feel hot anger bubbling up in her stomach. Anger at the margarine, the dirty floor, the unwashed dishes. There is beauty, somewhere, there must be. If only she can find it. She doesn’t want to believe that there isn’t anything beautiful, inspiring, in the world that she inhabits. But it’s so hard to see.
Something must change.
She grabs the tub, stamps her foot down on the peddle of the bin and hurls it inside. The lid flaps down and she stands still for a moment, shocked at her sudden action. Then she hurries to the bedroom, strips the sheets, grabs a pile of damp towels from the bathroom floor, scooping up dirty clothes along the way, then shoves it all in the washing machine. Quickly, as if something bad will happen if she doesn’t hurry, she pours detergent in the drawer, slams it shut and switches the machine on. It’s only once she can hear the water rushing into the drum that she catches her breath.
A shower helps rinse off the grimy, gloomy feeling that the marge has covered her in. Standing in the bathtub, she can see out through the sliver of open window, following the steam as it escapes into the unfathomable sky. She shudders, but rests her hand on the window frame.
She wants to work outside. Something difficult, muddy. Building, or maybe knocking down. Either way you could see what you’ve done at the end of the day. Ridiculous really, when even the thought of the outside freezes her guts. But she doesn’t want to feel that way. Something must change.
June is coming today. June comes twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays. She brings a little shopping, hangs out the washing on the rotary line, runs errands that can’t be done over the phone or via the wonderful, life saving, internet. June volunteers, helps people like her, people afraid of the air or the wind or the sun. People afraid of the world. Pathetic, really. She wonders how June stands it, all these scaredy cats hiding in their boxes.
She is glad that when June arrives there will be washing to put out. She likes to watch the washing from her window on blustery days. It blows and snaps out in the wind, cutting the shape of gulls across a storm cloud sky. Sheets, towels, pillowcases swell and then flatten, like the breathing belly of a great white bear. It gives her something to focus on, distracting her from the endless space. Like a ring of dancing girls the washing twirls round and around and she can almost feel that breeze on her skin, feel her hands clasped by the other dancers, feel part of the circle spinning in the open.
The washing machine has completed its cycle. She has phoned June, told her not to come. The basket of wet washing is at her feet.