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A
Good Drying Day, Sheila Corbishley
As they left the ward, the nurse said again: ‘I’m sorry.’
Short and stocky, with a round freckled face and a ginger ponytail,
she looked as if she should have been in school, or on the hockey
pitch, not consoling two middle-aged women.
They walked out blindly, past the huddle of people waiting outside
the doors, who fell back to let them through, eyes devouring them
with greedy curiosity. Elaine still clutched the flowers she’d
brought: long slender stems of freesia, already knowing that as long
as she lived, she would hate their heady sweetness.
Outside, in the sleepy heat of the car park, Patricia stopped. ‘Oh
God, how are we going to tell her?’
They drove in silence, unable to take it in. Weeks, the hospital had
said. And now: ‘They’re just like the weather forecast,’
Patricia said bitterly; ‘you can’t believe a word they
say.’
Elaine, numbly driving, had no idea what she was talking about. She
couldn’t ask. She didn’t know what her voice would do.
The front door was open, as it always was. Dad didn’t like it
shut. He was forever pottering through from the front garden, or the
allotment, with arms full of leeks or whatever, and he took a closed
door as a personal rejection. He liked to march straight in - no faffing
about with keys or doorbells: an urgent, impetuous man, who had had
no patience with his weakening body and been astonished when it finally
refused to obey him.
They walked the plank along the strip of sunlight across the hall
carpet, and into the neat kitchen where the ironing board stood ready,
a riot of pink roses patterning the padded cover.
‘Too fancy by half,’ Dad used to grumble, pressing knife-sharp
creases into his best trousers, using one of the newest tea-towels
as a pressing cloth.
From the doorway they watched their mother taking clothes from the
washing line, dropping them into a blue plastic basket. She turned
as they came slowly across the lawn; her hand still unpegging a pyjama
jacket.
‘You’re back early,’ she said. ‘How was he?’
Then she saw the flowers, and for a fleeting moment she seemed to
shrink and freeze, then she said: ‘It’s a good drying
day. I’ll be able to give your dad these jamas tonight. He always
says he can smell the wallflowers on them when they’ve dried
outside.’
She folded the jacket with infinite care, holding it against her chest,
stroking it into a neat square. Her voice was tight and dry.
‘He hates those maroon ones. I warned him when we got them,
“You’ve never liked that poly-cotton,” but he wouldn’t
be told. You know what he’s like.’
She caught her breath in a little laugh. ‘He’s always
wanted silk ones, you know. I suppose, if you wanted to get him something
for his birthday...’
Patricia cast her sister an agonised look - the same look she’d
given her when they were little and they’d dropped the bottle
of milk, coming back from the corner shop.
‘Mum...’ Elaine, usually brisk and abrasive, had never
spoken so gently, but her mother’s eyes dared her to continue.
‘Mind, half the time he wouldn’t wear them. I mean, if
I thought he’d wear them, I’d have got him some.’
She caressed the sun-warmed pyjama top with a trembling hand and spoke
to her girls as if it was the most natural thing in the world for
them to stand in the garden, on a glorious sunny day, their faces
drenched with tears.
‘Eeh, do you remember, our Patricia, the shock you got when
you discovered he wore nought in bed? You were that disgusted and
he laughed and laughed. I suppose you’re happy now he has a
clean pair every day.’
She bent and placed the jacket gently on top of the washing. ‘I’ll
just go and iron this. You see if the bottoms are dry, Elaine. They
might still be a bit damp where the elastic is.’ She cradled
the basket as her eyes strayed round the garden. ‘Or another
azalea. He loves his azaleas.’
Through the kitchen window they saw her stand uncertainly for a moment;
then she plugged in the iron, and picked up the jacket.
Judging the competition, Anne Graham said: This story is a
little gem. Hooked immediately by its sense of loss and place, we
meet Elaine and Patricia and then quickly discover that there’s
one more person who will be even more affected ‘...how are we
going to tell her?’ The story of denial in the face of the death
of a loved one has many eloquent touches of poignancy and humour.
Mum isn’t ready to be told and denies the knowledge that she
can see in the undelivered freesias. Sheila shows us a picture of
a normal loving family and I challenge anyone to read that last paragraph
of defiant bravery without having to brush away a tear. |
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