Babe
These two, the walking wounded. Him with a stony (unsympathetic) face, furrowed with irritation, voice cracking to match the mood. She answers back, sharp but not bitter…fists clenched, trying to stand her ground, to defend the spot on which she currently occupies. This is all she owns at this moment. This one spot where two feet are standing. I wonder if she is feeling the ground shake beneath her, brought on by her own insecurities and uncertainties… the tickle on the wrist giving way. The darting glances, eyes shifting side to side, trying to think of something, anything to change the conversation. But it’s in full boil now and there’s no way around it. Either she surrenders her ground or prepares for battle.
Celia
“Well this is a bit one-sided, don’t you think?”
There he sat, corduroy legs wide open, shaking simultaneously with manly confidence (cockiness) to an imaginary beat. He had a Cheshire cat grin on his face. Both arms outstretched across the back of the seat. I wonder if that was a rhetorical question. She sits across from him, eyes facing down, a bit embarrassed at the apparent coercion. She fights the urge to give in to him, twisting her fingers red and biting her lip. They are not sheltered from the world. There is no bond that wraps them safely like two embryos, protecting a profound deepness that only lovers feel. No, not here. There is no placental shroud. Only infertile ground where nothing is sacred.
Ruby
No matter what she said, or what solution she came up with, he blew it off, as if nothing she could say would ever make sense. Her comments were not logical to him, the rational one, and nothing she could say would ever help the situation not even in the smallest way, which is exactly how she felt. Bent over the counter, hands outstretched, gripping the sink, she felt his piranha chew through her at incredible speed. She closed in on it. Close enough to smell last night’s left-overs. Grey is many things, but it is not a state of mind. Once one falls victim to it, the whole house is all sixes and sevens.
Hence, it began… again. That feeling of uselessness wrapping ‘round and ‘round that kept everything nice and tight. The empty greyness of which she now accommodates, speaks quietly to her in a gnawing tone of resentment. It helps itself to a little piece of her each day, until she is no one, and yet anyone, who is not Ruby. It happens to all of us at some point. For Alice, it was the day when she caught a glimpse of it in the bedroom mirror. A mangy, wet sponge had usurped the perfectly formed peach that once resided there.
The grey is not a color, like the bright red Santa sack that fills her socket. It isn’t even purgatory which would be a welcome reprieve right about now. No, the grey is not any of those things. It is merely a scene from an old classic film, black and white, where their mouths move but nothing comes out. But it will all be ok, because just as the lamb was taken to the cold, stainless-steel table and offered up on Mt Moriah, the sun came out.
Kay
I was still asleep when the smell of burnt toast came wafting up through the iron grate in the floor. 5:30 a.m. and there in the kitchen, one floor below, the obnoxious sound begins. Kay proceeded to scrape the black off every piece of toast and waited for a second, then before spreading an oily dollop of margarine across it. Of course, that pause was meant for me, not the cooling of the toast, as she would so indignantly reply whenever anyone asked the million-dollar question; why not adjust the toaster dial? She would not adjust the dial or anything else, not once from the day she bought it. That incessant pitch of scrape-scrape-scrape-scrape-scrape on every inch of the burnt toast, was akin to fingernails on a chalkboard. Scraping toast became the most nurturing moment that Kay would ever be capable of.
The smell of stove oil and Sunlight dish soap permeated every inch of her kitchen. I can’t complain really. At least it kept me from falling asleep in my cereal. Funny, how after all these years, if I think about it, I can still smell the scent of Kay’s kitchen. It was her calling card. Before entering the hallway from the front door, you knew she was home when the sicky smell of smoky asphalt, diesel and lemon came wafting out of the kitchen. But, she liked it that way, because it was “her” way.
Everything had a place there, right down to the mangy piece of steel wool that was kept next to plastic dish pan. I could never understand why she even needed a dish pan, which sat inside the aluminum double sink. The recently installed, brand-new aluminum double sink. But then again, anything new was “junk”. Kay did not like “newfangled” things. She felt most comfortable with the ‘tried and true’. She was most comfortable when in control… of everything and everyone.
It couldn’t have been easy, for her grown kids to sit around her melamine kitchen table, covered with Corning Ware dishes, heaped with steaming grub. The memory of her overcooked roast, soggy vegetables and salty gravy will remain in many memories. The ‘kids’ were now adults married and with families of their own. But there was a time, many years ago, when they crawled around like baby birds with open mouths, chirping frantically for a scrap of bread. Those were the glory days of the war. Bright red lipstick and fingernails, stocking lines drawn up the back of the leg, and young girls brazenly showing their knickers while swing dancing with sailors, or what the old folk called, a “shameful display of un-Christian like behavior”.
No, Kay did not regret the good times, the fun with girlfriends, chat-ups and having her drinks bought all night. Her “pin money” from washing floors and polishing silverware, was put to use at New York Fashions dress shop, and Madge’s hair salon. Once a week she had her hair “done”, while baby Roy toddled out of his wellie boots, two sizes too big for his small feet. The whispers and nods that took place at the second-hand shop, did not bother Kay in the least. She just continued to flick through the long rack of clothing pretending to ignore the shop ladies, who loved to gossip about the patrons. They were always happy to see Kay, who was a main event in the gossip circles.
“Would you look at the likes of her Shirl, comin’ in here like that, all dolled up. Is she divorced? And her a “Mc”, and a mother, with no man at home. But can you blame ‘im? Just look at the state of those kids. And she spends every penny on herself, while her kids starve to death. Shameful, that’s what it is. Oh and did you hear that she was seen hanging around John Brown’s door way? The bed wasn’t even cold, when she had him up there. Oh I can’t remember who told me… but I’m sure it’s true.”
Wearing light blue slippers too big for her deformed, arthritic feet, she scuffles over to the kitchen table and places a china tea cup next to a plate of toast. She walks over to the black cast iron cook stove and brings a small aluminum tea pot back to the table. Kay wipes the butter from her greasy fingers onto her apron and lets her mind wander back to those earlier days, while enjoying her toast and tea. “Those bitches at the pub that liked to gossip… they’ll get theirs. Just you wait. Mark my words” and so on. She recalls her youth, the years with ‘him’, and their troubles.
The afternoon teas with fair-weather friends who found themselves in the precarious position of running out the kitchen back door, coats and hats in hand. One always knew that the ‘shit was about to hit the fan’, at the sound of slamming doors, heavy work boots, and a growling, inebriated man filled with toxic jealousy which was fueled by pub gossip. Oh yes, it always kicked off hard with the smash of a bottle, youngsters told to ‘get under the table’, followed by those rough, stevedore hands gripped around her skinny throat. Her feet dangling, kicking the wall, eyes bulging with panic, staring at the proximity of the checkered floor, while the weight of her pregnant belly attempted to ground her. The late nights of ‘him’ on top of her, ramming his “if you know what’s good for you” nearly into her throat. The wee hours of the morning spent sitting on the toilet crying, while pressing a cold facecloth against a blood-soaked womb, all while he snored a deep sleep. A very, deep sleep.
But today, she smiles as she considers his ‘comeuppance’, all those years ago.
“Who’s crying now eh?” It is now nearly 6 am. Kay flips through ‘Women’s Weekly’, smiling back at the glossy, happy people in the adverts. She glances towards the kitchen window, which faces the muddy, grass-pocked backyard, and sees bits of dust caught in the early morning light.
“Ain’t it funny how a bit of dust can shine like diamonds”? She asks while I eat my cereal. “Yes Gran”, I say and notice her staring at the shafts of light reflected across the checkered floor.
Laurie-Lynn McGlynn is Toronto born and currently works and resides in Caledon, Ontario. She is a visual artist who’s won several awards and is also a writer. In 2016 she completed a BFA Honours with Distinction from the University of Waterloo. McGlynn recently returned to Ontario from Halifax where she completed the Fall term of the MFA program at NSCAD University. She was recently accepted as an Artist Member of Gallery1313 in Toronto.
