The Laundry Fairy

I'm doing a reading at the St Albans Literary Festival in November as part of a flash fiction group.  I've enjoyed playing around with a new genre.  Here's a little story I put together today entitled 'The Laundry Fairy'.

“I said to him, ‘Who do you think puts your dirty clothes back in the drawers all clean and fresh?  The Laundy Fairy?’” Shirley smoothed the candlewick bed spread over the expanse of her stomach.

“That’s good.  I like that.  The Laundry Fairy!” Brenda was sitting on a dining room chair, conveniently placed by the bed for sympathetic visitors.

“I told him he had to sort the whites from the darks.  He made some bloody stupid racist remark as usual, but I was having none of that.  ‘Just keep my white undies away from your filthy work kegs’, I told him, ‘and stop your moaning.’”

“And did he do it?”

“He did. But you’d have thought I’d asked him to pick up dog dirt with his bare hands.”

“Men!”  Brenda helped herself to a Turkish delight from the box she had bought her friend.

“I had to yell down the stairs, being as how I couldn’t get out of bed with one leg bandaged up like a mummy and the other with a surgical stocking from me ankle to me fanny.  Doctor told me I had to keep it on for a week if I didn’t want to get a deep vein trombone.”

“’You need that like a hole in the head.”

“It’s a clot in the leg, Brenda,” Shirey corrected.  “So I shouted down to put the whites on a forty degree wash.  I didn’t want him to ruin our Samantha’s delicates.

“What did he say?”

“He yelled I wasn’t to be so bloody interfering.  He’d been working down that garage for over thirty years; if he could strip down an engine he could work an effing washing machine.”

“Blimey, Shirl.  He was a bit confident for a bloke who never puts a foot inside your kitchen except to eat his dinner and Swarfega his hands in the sink.” They both ate another Turkish delight.

“Give him his due.  He did put the wash on.  An hour later he took it all out and hung it on the airer in front of the electric fire.  I was that surprised.  It almost made it worth having me varicose vein stripped, just to think he’d hung me knickers up.”

“Instead of pulling them down, you mean.”

“Don’t be dirty, Brenda.  I thought it was lovely . . . sort of romantic.”

“Bloody hell, Shirl!  Pass me the tissues, I’m tearing up”

“Then Samantha comes home.  She’s in a proper strop.  Sees her new white vest top with the lacy trim and stomps up the stairs shouting about how the mascara marks haven’t come out and she wants to wear it to work the next day.”

“He should have soaked it first.” Brenda hitched up her bosom with a pair of capable arms as if to underline the point.

“I told her that Dad was on laundry duty and she should address any complaints to him. . . No, ‘How’s your leg, Mum?’  or ‘Can I bring you a cup-a-tea.”

“Kids!”

“Jimmy was proper put out.  The two of them had a blaring row right here in this room, me lying on the bed recovering from surgery and needing plenty of rest and a nice quiet fag. Samantha’s got her top in one hand and Billy’s school shirt in the other, still covered with grass stains from the footy. ‘There must be something wrong with the washing machine,’ says Jim.”

“I hope not, Shirl.  You can’t have finished the repayments yet.”

“’Did you put the powder in?’ I asked. ‘Course I bleeding did!’ He was proper cross by now ‘And you turned the dial to forty degrees?’ ‘I turned the effing dial,’ he says.

“He’s only gone and broke it!”

“Wait, Brenda.  I haven’t finished.  So I reached across and grabbed Billy’s shirt off Sam to take a closer look.  I could tell straight away something was wrong.”

“What?”

“Dry! Bone bloody dry.  He never pushed the start button.  He’s put all the dirty washing in.  After an hour he took all the dirty washing out and hung it on the airer.”

“And he never noticed it wasn’t wet?”

“Nope! I’ve always said that man’s as sensitive as a brick. 

“I suppose you’re back doing the washing again.”

“You’d think so, but I told the two of them they both needed a bit more practice on the domestic front.  I’ve been de-skilling them for years, all the running round I’ve been doing.” 

There was one sweet left.  Brenda offered the box to her friend. “You have it.  I bought them for you, seeing as how you’re bedridden.  I’ve been a bloody pig.”

“Oh, I’m not bedridden, Bren.  I’ve been walking for days. Doctor said I had to keep me circulation going . . . I only take to me bed when there’s someone else in the house.  

“You lazy cow!”

“Not at all.  I’m training fairies.”

 

Blood Test

My husband’s not been sleeping.  He suffers from an auto-immune disease requiring a cocktail of pills.  As hangovers are to cocktails, so side effects are to drugs. In his case, insomnia and fatigue.

His doctor suggested a fasting blood test, just to make sure there wasn’t anything else going on. He set off early. The Pathology Lab fills up quickly and he wanted to get it over with and be home for breakfast.  Once the kids were off to school, I began my daily dog walk.

Half way round the park, my mobile rang.  My pastor was on the line, telling me not to worry but my other half had been rushed by ambulance to another hospital in another town.  The nurse was asking me to come, and my husband was concerned I might not want to drive around the notorious one way system. The pastor offered me a lift.  I rushed home and was collected five minutes later.

We arrived to find him in the emergency room, electrodes stuck to his chest, nurses checking his blood pressure and heart rate.

“What happened?” I asked. “Did you feel faint?”

“No, I felt fine.  But the phlebotomist hit my vein” he replied.

“You were having a blood test.  She was supposed to hit the vein!”

“But it really hurt. I just . . . went. I must have been out for quite a while because I remember dreaming so deeply that when I woke up I couldn’t remember where I was.”

By then the phlebotomists had called an ambulance to take him to the nearest accident and emergency centre. When he came round from his nap he was being stretchered past a large backlog of people who were waiting for the Laboratory to re-open and were now anticipating their own blood test with increasing concern.

After five hours in the hospital and a full examination by a doctor, it was suggested he would need another blood test to rule out some other possible problems.  I left them to it.

Talking to a member of staff in the waiting area I mentioned that I needed to be home in time for the children’s return from school.  I would have to take the train or call a taxi because my husband’s car was still parked outside the Pathology Lab and mine was at home.  A lady sitting waiting for her mother to come out of surgery overheard the conversation.

“My Dad’s going back home in a few minutes.  He lives near you.  He can drop you off.”  For a brief moment, I considered the wisdom of accepting a lift from a complete stranger.  She seemed very nice, not the type to have an axe murderer in the family. I was in a bit of a jam, so I accepted.  A few minutes later, a very doddery gentleman in his mid eighties walked into the waiting area.  Slowly and loudly his daughter explained that he would be giving me a lift home.

With some trepidation, I took Harold to the cubicle to meet my husband.

“Darling, this is Harold.  He’s going to take me home.” From the expression on his face, I could see he had his doubts, but was too woozy to object. 

“Are we going on the motorway,” I asked as we got in the car.  Harold assured me we were not, nor were we going to hit the one way system.  He reversed out the parking space, narrowly missing an oncoming car.

Driving at a constant twenty miles an hour we took the back route home. Harold mentioned that he had his insulin with him “just in case,” taking his hand off the wheel several times to tap his jacket pocket.  He told me the story of his wife’s medical problem, while I listened and tactfully drew his attention to the red lights ahead.  I told him he had been an angel of mercy in my time of need, though I suspected his daughter had cleverly recruited me as an escort to accompany him safely home.

After a day in bed and a very nice Chile con carne courtesy of the National Health Service, my husband walked to the station and caught the train home.  All tests were negative.

In future, if he has trouble going to sleep I’ll just stick him with a needle!

 

 

From Perfect Pet to Top Predator

He didn’t understand the screams.  He couldn’t comprehend the tears.  He had found something special in the garden, and brought it straight into the house for them to see.

He would have given it to them freely.  They didn’t need to bribe him with a piece of beef, shove it into a plastic carrier bag and whisk it away. Astounding ignorance!  It was a treasure to be carried proudly, tossed in the air, plucked until a fall of feathers drifted across the carpet.

A red-legged partridge, bred at nearby Gorhambury Estate for the English toffs to shoot escaped his doom and made a bid for freedom.  A rest on the journey, a quiet peck, a friend who wanted a game and played a little too roughly, loved a little too much. From perfect pet to top predator in a matter of seconds. R.I.P. beautiful bird.

Chapter 1 of 'Waters of Grace': An extract from my second, completed novel

Prologue

Nadege stood up to her ankles in the lake. Mosquitoes buzzed over the bright surface. If she looked closely at her toes she could see that the glistening waters were teeming with minute wriggling creatures. She lazily stirred the water with one foot. A dark cloud billowed from the muddy bottom and swallowed the creatures in its gloom. Her feet were sore after the two-kilometre walk from the village. Other children were paddling too, the older ones standing in deeper water and the small ones splashing at the edges. The sun blazed white hot, the sky shimmering like a blue cloth covering the earth. She bent to fill her battered water container, the pale brown liquid visible through the opaque plastic. When it was a quarter full and not too heavy, she lifted it to her lips and drank. It tasted of the hot earth and decaying leaves. It tasted of Africa.

Chapter 1

Father Anthony pulled his scarf across his chest and puffed white vapour into the darkness. It was nearly eight o’clock and he was running late. Despite the dampness of the grass and the black shadows waiting to trip him up, he decided to take the short cut across the churchyard to Mrs Goldie’s house. The gate at the bottom of the Rectory garden clanged behind him; a bird fluttered from its roost, startled and disorientated.

Pale headstones gleamed in the moonlight, frost forming on their weathered faces. As parish priest he was, of course, unmoved by the fears and superstitions of the villagers. After all, what could be more comforting than being gathered round the ankles of the church, listening to the living singing praises to the Almighty and lying next to generations of one’s family and neighbours until the end of time? He had once articulated this thought to Fenella, and been met with an incredulous stare.

What would eternity feel like, he wondered? Each moment so perfect that a thousand years would pass like a day, or each day last for a thousand years? Even on earth, time expanded and contracted in mysterious ways. Was it only three weeks since he had received the e-mail from his friend Samuel Goodman outlining the need for a bore hole in the African village of Igbo Tambo? That was when the idea for a fund raising committee had been born.

Coincidentally, he had received a Christmas card from Fenella on the same day. The Lord had told her they had no future together, she had written. Father Anthony wished the Lord had spoken to him about the matter, particularly before he made a fool of himself by singing her a love song and posting it on YouTube. It was strange that God, who held the delicate balance of the universe in his mind, should have had the time and inclination to tell Fenella to start dating an American dentist called Chuck. Perhaps the bureaucracy of a new committee would dull the sting of his pierced and bloodied heart.

He skirted along the north side of the church, fumbling in his pocket, a folder of committee papers wedged tightly under his arm. This file was the fruit of several evenings spent reading reports from Togo, West Africa.

A fat cloud scudded across of the moon. He switched on his torch, unearthed from the depths of his winter coat. The light flashed onto a nearby stone. The inscription read:

Joseph John Kirkland

Lived with his wife Harriet Jane for over forty years

Died 21 January 1903

Renouncing hell and trusting in the hope of a better life.

Next to this was the headstone of the wife.

Here lies Harriet Jane Kirkland

1842 - 1920

Silent at last.

His torch flicked to the right and left as he crunched along the shingle path; it seemed to him that the churchyard was filled with married couples, buried by grief stricken children.

Albert George Heskith

20 April 1891 - 12 September 1962

Leaves wife Catherine and son Ronald

Hoping for an inheritance that will never perish, spoil or fade

His throat constricted. Would he find someone to lie in the soft earth next to him in the years to come? Was there someone to love him in life and wait with him in death for the final resurrection? Would he leave children to mourn his passing? He thought not.              

Mentally spurning the self-pity which threatened to engulf the evening, the Vicar quickened his step. It was a New Year. Time for a new start! The darkest days were behind, that dreary stretch between Midnight Mass (when his parishioners disappeared into the bosom of their families for the duration of the festive season) and New Year’s Day (when they suddenly reappeared in the local newsagents and chemist shops to purchase milk, Alka-Seltzer and emergency contraception). Dark days and dark nights indeed, hiding in the Rectory, unwashed, unshaven and alone, possessed by a kind of madness, thankfully now passed.

He turned a corner and began to walk in the direction of the compost heap at the far end of the cemetery. Here was the gate leading onto the Village Green. Looking up from the uneven path, he was startled to see a small light hovering some distance ahead. He switched off his torch. Who could be lingering in the churchyard on an icy Friday night? Kids? Vandals? Thieves? Drug dealers? Lovers? He stepped backwards into the shadow of the church, his shoulder resting against the grey stone wall.

The light was directed downwards. The stranger was standing in the place where the ashes of those recently cremated were interred or scattered. There were rows of small plaques and vases of artificial flowers squeezed closely together for lack of space. Father Anthony knew that drug dealers sometimes left small packets hidden under stones and in pots - drop offs agreed over the internet and paid for through PayPal. Perhaps this was a customer searching for his weekend indulgence.

The light held still for some moments. Father Anthony buried his hands in his coat pockets. It was too cold to stand here much longer and he was going to be late. He should either walk past, trusting it wasn’t a mugger, or turn around and walk the long way to Mrs Goldie’s house on the road.

He was just about to walk back the way he had come when the light moved upwards and bobbed back and forth. Father Anthony shrank closer to the wall of the church. The beam approached, swaying to the left and right with each footstep. As long as the stranger’s light was trained on the path, the Vicar would be hidden in the deep shadows.

The uneven crunch of footsteps cut through the cold night air. A tall shape loomed out of the shadows. It was impossible to make out the stranger’s features because the light from the torch plunged everything surrounding it into even deeper gloom. The shape passed. Father Anthony turned to watch the figure walk away and saw the silhouette of a tall man wearing an old fashioned trilby hat. He was limping slowly, leaning heavily on a stick.

 

Defrosting the Freezer

Defrosting the freezer, like marriage, should not be undertaken unadvisedly, lightly or wantonly, but reverently, soberly and in the fear of God. 

My workaholic husband has had to take some time off work while the doctor tries to balance his medication for a progressive spinal condition.  Unfortunately there is only so much snooker a man can watch.  As someone whose professional life involves streamlining systems, itemising assets and maximising returns he decided to turn his forensic eye to my management of the home.

I returned from a pleasant afternoon spent with my lady friends today to discover he had made a spur of the moment decision to defrost the freezer.  The kitchen counters were piled high with dripping boxes of fish fingers and ice lollies, vegetarian pies, chicken breasts, oven chips and frozen peas, crusty rolls and half finished packets of pita bread.  The empty freezer drawers were piled next to the sink, and he was attacking the ice at the top of the freezer with a wooden spatula. 

In case anybody else’s husband decides to surprise their wife by defrosting the freezer, here are some helpful hints.

1.       Plan in advance.  Run down your freezer to the bare minimum first.  Don’t choose a time when it has been recently re-stocked.

2.       When you remove the drawers, don’t remove the food.  Keep the packets close together so they retain the cold.  Don’t spread them out on the expensive hard wood kitchen tops so that they defrost and leave water marks.

3.       Turn the freezer off.  If you don’t do this, the warm air from the kitchen will kick the thermostat into overdrive to prevent the problematic build-up of ice from melting.

4.       Put a bowl at the bottom of the freezer to catch the drips and loosened ice, this will stop the melt water streaming onto the floor.

5.       Put towels on the floor to stop water from saturating the expensive wood flooring, making it darken and swell.

6.       Work quickly.  To this end, you could use a hair dryer or place bowls of hot water in the freezer to speed up the melting process.  When using electrical items, ensure that extension leads and plugs are not trailing across puddles of water.

7.       If you defrost the kitchen freezer and spread the contents on every available surface, DON’T decide half way through that it would be good to defrost the freezer in the garage at the SAME TIME. 

8.       Remember, ice cream that has melted and re-frozen, will not be eaten by the kids.

9.       Chicken that has melted and re-frozen, can cause death!

Having thrown away three bagfuls of defrosting food, we now have two freezers which will bear close inspection by the most meticulous of housewives (my mother included).  As I write this, he has begun to reorganise the bathroom . . .  

Growth Rings

The risk to our ancient woodlands has made me think about identity and growth.  There are forests in England that have existed since the last ice age.  They are mentioned in the Doomsday book so they can be accounted for on the great day of judgement.  Individual, trees have fallen, rotted, and become compost for new seedlings, yet corporately the woods have existed for millennia. 

Similarly, every cell our bodies has died and been replaced many times over. Hair, skin, nails, brain cells - all have endured their own minute deaths and been resurrected, replicated, renewed.  How can we be the same person we were ten, twenty or thirty years ago? On a physical level, personal identity resides in our DNA.  Psychologically speaking, we recognise ourselves through our memories and character. 

The rings of a tree document the years that have passed - the hard winters and warm summers, the floods and the droughts.  Our personalities display the characteristics that have been forged through the dark days and the light.  Often our greatest growth occurs during our darkest times. “Can we depend on ourselves during this time? Forget about it. It is precisely in rough waters, and when our resources are exhausted, that we cannot depend on ourselves. Growth occurs on the rim of risk. You risk failure, disappointment, loss. You gain growth. Occasionally, God has to nudge (okay, shove is more like it) us out of our comfort zones to enlarge our rings" (Carol O'Casey, Unwrapping Wonder: Finding Hope in the Gift of Nature)

The rings remind us that growth is slow, hard won, and needs to be sustained and valued.

 

The loss of an individual tree does not destroy the forest.  But concrete over the entire woodland for new housing and it is not only the environmental impact on other species that needs to be considered.  We lose the memory and the character of our countryside, a sense of identity with the landscape which can never be replaced.  Our forests are at the rim of risk.  They face destruction.  We need to push ourselves out of our comfort zone and enlarge our rings, if only by signing a petition. https://t.co/h61S7gORWG

My New Skirt

I had some Christmas vouchers to spend and went into a big department store.  There were racks of clothes in the sale, still all over-priced to my mind and all the wrong colours or sizes or lengths.  I had money to spend, but I put the vouchers away for another day.

As I had time left on my parking ticket, I popped into a charity shop.  I found a beautiful skirt by White Stuff, brand new with the label still on, the right size and colour.  It fitted!  It cost £9.99.

I came away feeling happy with my purchase, not just because I found something I wanted at a reasonable price, but also because I had thumbed my nose at big business and helped a good cause (Age UK).

This has got me thinking.  There is no downside to the principle of giving.  The lady who gave the skirt uncluttered her wardrobe and donated something she no longer wanted to a cause she believed in.  I was delighted with my purchase.  The charity received £9.99.  According to the recycling experts, Wrap, the British public sends 350,000 tonnes of used clothing to landfill each year . . . but not my skirt!  Charity shops have helped reduce what we bin, as well as saving an estimated million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year -  the carbon footprint of Iceland.  The number of charity shops has increased 30% since 2008 and have performed well as other retail outlets have struggled in the current economic climate.  They have rejuvenated failing High Streets, drawn together a community of volunteers and clothed those on a budget.

Giving creates a virtuous circle of beneficial consequences, for those who give and for those who receive. We shouldn't be surprised that this principle cuts through and subverts other principles at work in the world - capitalism, consumerisem, survival of the fittest - for it's a principle established from the dawn of time by the God who gave of himself through his work of creation and salvation.  As I redeemed my second hand skirt from the landfill, I believe he will redeem a people through the gift of his son.




 

Debt

I have the advantage of having a husband who is good with numbers.  He has been mulling over the size of the US and UK debt.

America is carrying $17.3 trillion of debt as at 6 January 2014.  If you took one second to post a dollar into a slot, and you spent 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, posting dollars to pay off this debt, it would take a staggering 550,000 years. 

BUT, this is just the debt as at 6 January 2014.  Based on current trends, US debt is increasing by approximately $1 trillion a year.  Each trillion will take 32,000 years to pay off.  So, for each of the 550,000 years you spend paying off the original debt you will be gaining another 32,000 years of debt repayment.  In otherwords, 550,000 x 32,000 years . . . to infinitiy and beyond!

China and Japan are the largest purchasers of this debt.  I think we see before us a new world order, where the politics of power is no longer based on military might but on financial leverage.

In the UK we have £1.4 trillion of debt which will take 45,000 years to repay at one pound per second.

It's too easy to think that this is just virtual money.  Money, after all, does not exist in any tangible way.  Money is just a gentleman's agreement to pay.  Fluctuating interest and exchange rates, the volatility of stocks and shares, rates of inflation teach us that we live in a world of shifting sand.  But at some point these relativities impact on the real world as we have seen with the credit crunch and recent austerity measures. 

This all begs the question, how can we possibly help developing countries when we in the west are effectively bankrupt?  What heritage are we leaving our children? We have stolen their future, for debt denies opportunities for tomorrow. 

Jesus says in Matthew, chapter 6 verses 19 - 21,"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Happy New Year

In 2013 I set up my blogsite, and then didn't do anything with it.  My New Year resolution is to be more disciplined in posting what I have learned through the year as a writer.

2013 was a busy year.  I uploaded my first novel 'Highway Code' onto the Harper Collins authonomy website and began writing my second novel 'Waters of Grace'.  Trying to balance two projects at once - taking on board and responding to reader comments on authonomy whilst writing new material - was a distraction to both endeavours.  I realised that the re-editing process can be as creative as the intial flood of ideas.  'Waters of Grace' was completed by May and uploaded to authonomy for reader feedback.

Being a member of the authonomy community has given me a thicker skin, a greater willingness to 'murder my darlings' and cut the stuff that doesn't work.  I no longer focus so much on my experience as a writer, but spend more time thinking about the reader experience.  This is more than looking to the markets.  It is about wanting to give the reader pleasure, allowing them to suspend their disbelief and bring their own imaginations into a story.

Both books have been sent to agents and rejected; both submitted to competitions and come nowhere.  However, I am now starting to write my third novel, tentatively entitled 'The Gardener's Daughter'.  This time I am using a more structured approach, plotting each scene in detail before I begin to write.  This is a less enjoyable experience for me, but I am hoping to have less re-writing as a result.

In this New Year of new beginnings, I am starting my new novel from the end point and working backwards.  This reminds me of the way in which God knows the end from the beginning.  All that we now experience is driven not only by the past, but also by the final resolution that has already been mapped out.  Will I be the kind of character who takes off in a direction all of my own, digressing from the central thrust of the plot, or will I stick with the Author's intentions and live my story according to his will?  Only time will tell.