By Phillip Durrant

Quietly he closed the door and surveyed the pile of shopping to be put away, picked up the warm kettle and holding it under the tap, let the noise of rushing water break the silence of the house. Two cups sat on the draining board, saucers resting against them glinting in the soft warm evening sun.

The gentle burbling of the kettle accompanied the tap and rustle as the stack of boxes and cans disappeared in their respective cupboards. The freezer steamed gently as it engulfed its frozen hoard. Full, the door gave a satisfied thunk, echoing the thud of pasta dropping into its round tower. Now for a cup of tea.

Only the rattle of a cup and spoon heralded his approach to the bedroom. The door clicked as he entered, and she turned her head on the stack of pillows to look at him.

" Hello, love: How are you, has the Doc been? What did he say?"

The words tumbled out, his concern obvious. She had spent more time with the doctor and days in bed than she had spent with him. Over the years he had been more like a visitor than her mother.

"He gave me a prescription, I'm not to have heavy food.
You've been a long time, nattering 1 suppose: did you get my milk?" The voice held just the hint of accusation.
"Mum's been, taken the washing and the ironing, and your dinner is in the oven. You only need to tan it on and peel sane potatoes. Have you put my milk in that tea".

Again the tone of accusation. as if he were a small boy.

He sat telling her of his day and the gossip and in return listened to small talk about people he didn't know, and her family's troubles and her mother's aches and pains and what Mrs thingy said and.... Eventually he returned to the kitchen to his now cold tea, with cow's milk. He found the note, her mother would return later with the clothes she had taken.

He poured more hot tea and surveyed the bills. The thinning chequebook matched the thickening pile of envelopes at the end of the table, putting his pen away he straightened the pile and stacked some books to return to the library. He let the late summer sun warm him and drifted into that state of reverie only a sunny afternoon and a quiet house can provoke. He could hear the slap of the water and the snap of sails as the boat went to wherever he wanted to go. The gentle knocking on the hull became insistent, and he nearly fell off the chair as he jerked out of his dream and ran up the stairs.

"Have you been for that prescription yet? I need it! Before you go, bring me another cup of tea".

He returned to the galley and made fresh tea as he sailed across Open Ocean. He poured two cups, cow juice in one, Soya juice in the other, and returned up the companionway. She lay reading, and seemed angry at the interruption. On his way to the library he would collect the prescription and " anything else".
He bent to kiss her but she turned away so he went back down stairs and picked up his books. The banging started again as he opened the front door. The stairs had hardly finished resonating to down before they clumped to his upward movement. He reached the top of the stairs to a tirade of hurt rebuke

"You used cows' milk. You trying to make me sicker?"

The Library was quiet as he moved from shelf to shelf, non-fiction, but was it really non-fiction or was fiction non-fiction? . A history of jazz rubbed backs with a computer manual and two science fiction books, a CD of guitar music completed the stack. The girl who registered the loan and he exchanged pleasantries about the weather. The cool gave way to noise and stifling heat as he braved the bustle of the city.
This is why he had taken the money and run, freedom from the regimentation of work. How different Life now seemed, much more fun when he was out on his own.
He tried to include Lucy but she was either ill or going to her Mum's. She kept asking him when he'd work again and what he was going to do, but why work when life had such new aspects and ... that's different, stockings and shorts! He was enjoying his extended holiday, time enough to find a job.

He filled the prescription and shopped for those things the supermarket didn't stock, and bought everything in all the expensive windows. He could be anywhere; the people he passed spoke different languages. Sometimes he was in France or Spain or, are they Russian? A babel of language and dress, and the cacophony as the buskers played their pieces with varying degrees of competence. He felt part of it, no longer hemmed in by glass walls or the bricks of the house. He longed to tell someone, he felt …..Free.
As he bought flowers on his way home; he told the flower girl "These will cheer her up" as she wrapped the bouquet.

Quiet lay on the inside of the front door, he crept up the stairs and put the medicines on the side-table. Then tea, cake, and a read, before deciding the menu for the evening meal. He was tired of spaghetti, or pizza, he fancied fish but... he would do fish. With new potatoes and some vegetables, she need not have any of the sauce, he found it so difficult to make with plant milk and tasteless anyway. Cheesecake made with tofu would be the dessert; at least that was pleasant. One day he would eat steak and.... He started the meal and, letting it cook he sat for a few minutes as the smell of food pervaded the cooling evening. Spanish guitar music relaxed his mind as he sat and mulled his thoughts in a glass of the Rioja he had bought. A tyre screeched its discontent at being violated and then, as if in reply the oven announced that cooking time was finished.

He laid her tray, and put the portion of fish on her plate, drizzled plant-milk sauce over it and arranged the vegetables around it. It looked appetising as he started up the stairs.

He thought she'd fallen out of bed at the first thump but continued banging propelled him swiftly up the stairs, the tray and its contents precarious but unspilt as he rushed into the bedroom. She was awake.

" You've got Lilies in with these flowers, you know I hate white lilies"......... No mention of the roses and other flowers that made up the bouquet. Just contempt." ···.better get them into a vase, don't forget to put some sugar in the bottom. Did you get the prescription? I hope you used soymilk for this sauce. 1 can't eat all those potatoes. Bring some tea: don't forget my milk this time and throw those 'things 'out"
She started to eat. For someone who hated fish, she tucked in like she'd not seen food for a few days.
"Yes, dear" He said as he laid the flowers and the cup of now cold tea on the spare tray.

Downstairs he ate his dinner and then searched for a vase, carefully arranging the other flowers he laid the lilies on the end of the table. Tea brewed he picked up the tray and made his way upstairs.
The carefully made sauce, so difficult to emulate cows-milk in sauces, congealed against the remains of the fish and potatoes. The cheesecake had gone, she loved cheesecake.

He put the flowers by the window and as he sat beside on the bed she repeated her superstition about lilies. To him all flowers were beautiful. You bought flowers for someone you loved and he loved her.

But she was somewhere else, somewhere in her past. The bedside table told him where, the books in a language he did not understand, the letters with postmarks not of this land, and the rosary. His thoughts went back over the years, it had been a good life but could have been better had her obsession not been so pervading. It could be even better now the children had left but she had been involved so many others life and her interests kept them apart.
She had invited so many into their life, for years the house had had a cosmopolitan feel to it, a cacophony of language. Most of the time he had enjoyed it, the Spaniard that became like a brother, as daft as he was; the little Frenchman who had stretched his schoolboy French to its limits and almost worn out the dictionary. But these had taxed her too, and made a gap that she seemed to refuse to fill. Everything seems to be planned, no spontaneity, no romance no.......

They talked, nothing important, just passing time. As she relaxed he excused himself and returned to the dining room. The lilies looked fresh, as he opened the French windows to allow the house to breathe.

He washed and dried the dishes, placing them quietly and carefully in their racks, and wiped the work surfaces. His thoughts were far away, thinking about the future, the dark haired partner who could share a life of adventure. For a while he sat in the dying sun, smoking the harsh Galouise and sipping the hot sweet black coffee he liked so much. A relic of the Frenchman's visit, a vestige of the past as he pondered on what tomorrow might, could bring.

Blood red the sun lay its head on the horizon as he entered the bedroom, bare feet making no sound on the thick carpet. Black hair spread its darkness over the white and her breathing denoted her meditative state. Gently he lifted the pillow from his side of the bed and gazed at her for a moment. She didn't stir as he replaced the fluffed up pillow back into its place, straightened the sheets over and around her. He gently laid the lilies on her chest and folded her hands across them. Quietly he left the room and returned downstairs.

As darkness gathered he sat gazing out of the window and waited for the day to complete. He was glad he'd bought lilies, they were beautiful and she seemed to like them now.

 

 

 

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