A short story
No amount of cleaning could clear the dust. It hung about the heavy velvet curtains and nooks of bookshelves, and settled into cracks blemishing time-worn furniture. Its particles danced in the afternoon sunlight, twisting mid air, going nowhere, mocking everywhere. Patricia sat and sighed, dropping the rag into her lap, her tired joints creaking like an old ship rocking in port.
Dead, happy faces smiled at her from picture frames. Mother, faded sepia, in ladylike white gloves pushing a baby stroller; rambunctious youthful brother: fit, laughing, and frozen; and Hal, squinting taciturn into the midday sun. He hated having his picture taken.
But the loves and hates disappeared – never to return. Maybe if she wasn’t so bone tired, this would be more gut wrenching, but she already felt as if the folds of her brain were going to implode under the endless crush of memories, and she had felt that way for some time. God, my ankles look dreadful, she thought, like swollen jellyfish in compression hose, and above that, white and purple knocking mismatched knees. And to think all those men used to fancy me. It really wasn’t that long ago.
Her heart heaved in her chest; one beat too strong, the next a whimper, a familiar pairing of discomfort always leading to that strained, raspy cough. She began to absentmindedly tug at her wedding ring, a nervous habit, and lately the gold band couldn’t even fit over her knotted knuckle. Her once-lovely hands were now a jungle of gnarled violet veins and shiny beige blotches, so tender that one wrong move could send jags of pain up and down her arms. Hands that held dolls, bibles, knives, flowers, cocks, steering wheels... now lay limp and grotesque on a dusty rag. She flung the rag on the floor. It was so typically odd to witness yourself decaying.
Sometimes she forgot she was old, even though her body was so very intent on reminding her. If the right tune came on the radio, she could dissolve into some other time or space, if only for minutes, and on the rare chance she slipped into an unmedicated sleep, vivid dreams would reunite her with pink cotton candy on the pier or heel-pitted dance floors. But then, predictably, she would return to reality – and, she supposed she ought to feel grateful in a way, that she was still alive, but living so long carries a great deal of baggage.
A shriek of children playing outside shocked her out of deep thought and memories’ snags. While she’d had children of her own, she was never fond of others, and she hoped they wouldn’t toss a ball into her garden or even worse, ring the bell and scurry off giggling, making her feel even more like a cross old witch. 4 pm. Perhaps time for a cuppa. I can’t sit here feeling sorry for myself all day, can I?
Hoisting herself up on rickety limbs, she tottered towards the kitchen’s faded tangerine tiles. The sun ate greedily, bleaching everything, and drenched and dazzled her cataract eyes. When she was growing up, kitchens were still very much considered the woman’s domain, and in early marriage she spent many hours polishing and scrubbing and simmering and baking. And ignoring. Ignoring the empty whisky bottles piling up under the sink, sticky and pungent, then disappearing, until more appeared in an endless cycle. Now Patty, it wouldn’t be right to say anything – he has a very stressful job – her mother tutted. And he was kind, so kind, and handsome, and gentle – and she had heard stories of the men who would get blackout drunk and then beat their wives. Angie down the street used makeup to cover her bruises, but powder could only do so much, and the purples and yellows on her cheekbones, or the little scarlet cut under her lower lip betrayed the betrayal. One day Angie knocked at the front door, shivering, and crumbled on the couch, a sniffing blur of tears: But if I left him, where would I even go? No one had an answer.
Cat tails swirled and caressed Patricia’s ankles, and once the kitties were fed, the kettle was on. She carefully unwrapped some biscuits, and plumes of powdered sugar escaped as she arranged them delicately on a pink dessert plate. Carol’s husband has a cocaine problem, but at least he isn’t chasing girls all over town like that slobbering fat Fernando. At his age, it’s just embarrassing The gossip was fierce. And Hal never invited that. He was supportive and loyal, in his own quiet way. You’re so lucky to have him, Patty. I found Jim down at the casino absolutely off his head with a younger woman. She threw a drink in his face when she saw me! He’d been lying to the both of us! Patricia closed her eyes and bit into the crumby, dry sweetness of the cookie, which melted into her tongue. Eating was perhaps the last remaining pleasure in old age.
*caw... cawwww*
In a flutter of black wings, a crow landed on the back porch.
“Ahh there he is,” she smiled.
The crow hopped along the railing, inching closer towards the kitchen window. Taking inventory of his surroundings, he tilted his head and blinked, flashing his milky white nictitating membrane, or third eyelid, and then crouched down, fanned his tail feathers, and poured all of his weight into another guttural caaaaawwwww.
Moon showed up early last Spring, nimbly swooping in and out of the gnarly oak trees lining the yard and rattle-calling his arrival. The previous winter had been hard, losing Hal, and birdwatching soothed Patricia’s soul when nothing else helped. Early on, she noticed Moon’s foot looked slightly mangled, or deformed, missing a toe, but he appeared to get along quite well regardless of this mishap, with a brash strut conveying that he – and no one else – ran the neighbourhood.
Charmed by such exuberance, the old woman began leaving table scraps and oily brown cat treats along the porch railing. At first, Moon approached with caution, sidestepping towards the offerings and blinking thoughtfully, before snatching them in his beak and jumping backwards, as if startled by his own boldness. Soon, he brought his partner, White Patch, and they trotted up and down the lush backyard grass as a pair, their sleek black backs drinking in the sunlight. As his trust in his new human friend increased, Moon would even leave shiny little offerings, bottlecaps and safety pins, on the weather-beaten rail.
Hal had loved birds too. That first summer together, walking hand in hand on white hot pavement towards the plaza’s sun drenched limestone, he held a finger up, “wait here,” and reappeared with a small paper bag of bird seed. “For the pigeons, not you,” he laughed. Patricia pouted in mock disappointment, and he laughed again, rolling his eyes before tracing a finger under her chin, “cheer up, buttercup. I have a different present for you later.” And beneath the cotton eyelets of her pale yellow dress, she felt a stir from her thighs to the centre of her chest; everything was new, everything was youth.
He was sweet, laughing as he cooed at the purring pigeons, tossing them seeds as they scurried in haphazard pirouettes across the plaza steps. A sandy tendril stuck to his forehead and the gold four-leaf clover charm he wore around his neck glinted against his chest. Every so often a breeze would raise delicate mist from the rushing central fountain, kissing the bare skin of her arms and dusting her eyelids. Skinned-knee kids and languid ladies-who-lunch disappeared, the crowd evaporated and it felt like only Hal, her, and the pigeons existed. Gliding down from telephone wires and scowling old men statues, they were unchained by human construct, and yet housed the grit to co-exist and survive urbanity.
And as the sun set, he led her past the chaos of rush hour, the dying call of street vendors, and clipped voices, towards winding alleys, cobblestoned and candlelit, further into the depths of the city. They drank wine at an outdoor bar, and when memories swelled, as they did now, she could feel things, taste them, down to the burgundy dust of sediment on her tongue. Often it felt like dying, this vivid rush of the past... was it dying? Time and memories seemed to be racing towards something, and she wasn’t sure she could hold them in for much longer, as the colours ran outside of the scattered lines of her mind.
His fingers interlaced with hers as they left the bar, and the wine rushed through her veins to her head, and she laughed. He pulled her into a corridor, away from passerby, and looked into her eyes with that strange blue seriousness, and kissed her, his stubble rough on her neck.
If only I had known this is what being young was...
Stresses piled on. Money, always the divider, ate their peace. Scrub the floors like a decent wife; provide like a good husband. Roles to separate their spirits, so conjoined at first, and in order to, of course, “keep up appearances.” And the ever-present, unaddressed empty bottles. I wished we could fly away from everyone, and everything.
Moon cawed impatiently, and she landed back into her current kitchen-self, and wiped the powdered sugar off of her arthritic fingers, grabbed a handful of cat treats, and opened the back door. He hopped back, somewhere between expectant and startled, then looked at her with his thoughtful head tilt. “Hello, lovely,” she cooed, and lined the treats along the railing, before shuffling back inside.
For months after Hal passed, she wouldn’t let her mind pause on his face, not in old age, with its crevices and fault lines of stress and fatigue, and his thinning crown of pewter hair, nor in youth, as he gazed at her with lusty wonder under an impossibly dark veil of lashes. There were ways to keep busy; nothing is permanent, even you, especially you... and she felt a combined longing and dread to lose her own life. She had to relearn how to exist: to wake up alone, to eat alone, to go to sleep alone. Some days she even missed the bottles that killed him.
Yet eventually, she still found herself, through sleep mostly, returning to that summer. She was there again, defiant of time, smooth and sun-kissed. And oh, how they loved. The awkwardness of teenage experimentation with other boyfriends, fumbling and sloppy with prodding tongues and fingers, felt a lifetime ago, and her previous shyness faded, as she succumbed to brazen climax after brazen climax. A disgruntled neighbour threw a cast iron pot against the wall, and Hal and her erupted into peals of laughter.
As leaves dried and fell silently to the ground, turning to autumn, they walked to the edge of the city park. He was distant. Was he falling out of love? She pulled her grey sweater snugly around her torso as a light shiver struck her: perhaps it was the weather, perhaps it was fear of everything coming to an end. But it was there, on tufted grass, under the weeping branches of an ash tree, where he asked her to marry him.
On a Tuesday, just before dawn, she heaved herself out of the rosy warmth of bed, her joints collectively moaning. Another day of teaspoons, aches, dust, and memories. Such was the labour of life, and hers confused her more with each passing day. I am here, but not here.
Cawwww.....
Patricia’s crumpled face, previously lost in thought, lit up. Moon is here early today. She shuffled her way towards the kitchen door, but the crow had already flown high into the trees, joining White Patch and the rest of his murder with a series of calls. On the railing, something sparkled in the dim violet light. It was a small charm, a four-leaf clover.
