“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.”
