cold tea

Sue craned her neck towards Chris. He was glued to the television. For the last hour she had been pacing about the house pretending she was doing things she wasn’t.

‘Aren’t we gonna go to bed soon, Chris?’ She asked.

He squinted, twisting his head towards the screen as if somebody had just turned down the volume.

‘This football seems to be every night at the moment. When does the season end again?’

‘Er…not long. A few weeks’. He put off the reply for as long as he dared.

‘I can’t stand it any more!’ She said, pushing herself up from the armchair with her heavy arms and standing between him and the action.

‘Hey!’

‘Got your attention now have I?’

‘What’s got into you?’

Sue placed her hands on her hips and gave him a cold stare. Her mouth was pursed in such a way that half of her bottom lip was covering the upper part. Looking as if she was there for the long haul, Chris yanked his chair to one side almost tipping it over in the process.

‘Are you feeling ok? Is it your mum again? What’s happened to her this time? -’

‘Just because I’m making a bloody stand against your god-awful football, it doesn’t mean somebody else has caused it. Maybe it’s just you.’

She then trudged off to the kitchen leaving Chris shaking his head and checking the carpet for scorch marks.

The hall grandfather clock was chiming, but Chris had lost count and wasn’t sure if it was eleven or twelve. He was never any good at maths. The lousy football match had been dead for a while and now he wished he’d been more productive with his evening: mowing the lawn, clearing the kitchen, phoning his dad. His dad…Crikey, when was the last time he’d spoken to him?

Problem was the last time he rang him the call was punctuated with long silences, making him feel uneasy and reminding him of rainy days en route to Southend-on-sea, just after mum left.

Upstairs, he could hear Sue rummaging about in drawers. He wondered what she was searching for - a gun, perhaps? This led him to think he ought to avoid the bathroom for the time being; he had recently seen a programme on Oscar Pistorius and didn’t want it repeated in Guildford. Though, in all seriousness, she was more likely building up a head of steam, busy spinning an intricate cobweb just the other side of the doorway: stronger than steel, he was sure he could do without that right now. He remembered those threads were so fine that you hardly even knew you were in them until your ear was being bitten off just as the lights went out. He’d stay down here again tonight.

The clock struck one (he was certain this time) and he awoke with a start from a dream – sticky, his shirt sweat-filled and cool to the touch. He ran his fingers through his greying hair, sighed and lay back down on the sofa again. Thoughts of his father were everywhere. He took a sip of cold tea. Dad drank cold tea all the time, but he was uncertain if he meant to have it that way, or that nobody was there to remind him to drink it in time. Chris felt a little shiver as it made its way down.

Eventually, Sue got into bed. She flicked through the first few pages of her gardening magazine as if they were in her way. A section on ‘weeding out the borders’ brought her to a halt, and for a moment her furrowed brow faded from view. But it wasn’t long before the folds were deepening, and her ever-tightening grip was bending the magazine to a close. Memories of the argument flooded in. It wasn’t what was said, or how it was said, or the fact that he didn’t want to come to bed for a bit of slap and tickle (that was normal). No. It was her voice. They had argued before, oh yes, but this one came from a depth she hadn’t known. Something primal. Immediately she began hunting through the cupboards and drawers, her wide brown eyes darting through every conceivable angle - her fingers all spidery and dancing. It must be here somewhere, it just has to be, she thought.

Downstairs, and Chris took off his damp shirt and wrapped a blanket round his shoulders. He shivered again, more out of self-pity than of feeling the chill. Now the cold tea fed him only the dregs, forcing him to swallow them in a hurry to avoid any bitterness. This led him to think about heading to the bedroom, for it had gone quiet up there and his back and neck were aching from lying on the soft cushions for so long. He collected the things on the table and made his way to the kitchen to tidy up.

Their bedroom was odd: it had six walls which were all different sizes; all the photos hung crookedly as if there had been a minor tremor earlier that day; and there were no curtains, just a tatty blind, which was hanging half down like some kind of postscript. In the farthest reaches of the room was a bedside cabinet, and leaning on it with her elbow was Sue holding a picture under the light. The only movement seen was from her twitching nose, which breathed heavy sniffs in quick gunfire succession, making her shadow on the opposite wall jig about.

When he saw the light was still on in the bedroom, he almost turned around. He stopped, gripped the bannister of the stairs and dropped his head in contemplation while biting on the side of his forefinger. Nobody could save him now, he thought, not even spending the rest of the night on the couch. ‘Never put off for tomorrow what you can do today’, that’s what dad always said. Theoretically, he was too late and it was already tomorrow but dad wouldn’t know and the thought was there.

Hearing the creak of the weak boards on the landing, Sue flashed a look towards the closed door. She then placed the bent photo underneath her pillow and lay with her back to the doorway.

On entering, Chris wasn’t surprised to see his wife curled up into a ball with her back to him. But the fact that it was so late, the light was on, she was not under the duvet, and he could barely see the floor for stuff, made this a bit out of the ordinary.

‘Sue?’ He had spoken so softly not even he was sure if he’d said anything. With this in mind, he towed on some extra words for good measure.

‘Sue, are you still awake?’ This time he wasn’t holding his hand to his mouth.

‘Yeah.’

Oh – you ok?’

As he was waiting for a reply he picked up a few items from the bed preparing himself to lie down. His body was stiffening. After a pause, she said:

‘Do you know what I want, Chris?’ She half twisted her head towards him and blinked hard. ‘D’ you know what I really want?’

‘Me – to, er, stop watching the football?’ He answered, knowing it could be well off the mark.

She thrust a black and white photo right under his nose. He recoiled, banging his head slightly on the wall.

The picture was of her mother free-wheeling on a bike down a country path, her legs held out straight at a right angle, her smile as wide as her ballooning dress.

‘See.’

‘Your mum. I don’t get it.’ Chris said, scrunching up his eyes in bewilderment.

‘I want this - she might not have long left, but I want this, I want her, her…her zest, her bloody zest and guts, Chris.

She paused, held her palms to her head, before adding –

‘I don’t want to lose her fight, Chris.’

‘They were good to us, our parents, made up for the other ones didn’t they,’ she said, turning away from him once more, bringing her knees tight to her chest.

He placed his hand on her shoulder; she went to touch him but missed.

Downstairs, Chris put the kettle on, not because he wanted to make a drink but because he thought it was the right thing to do. He removed his smeared glasses and tried to clean them with the sleeve of his sweater, catching his hunched reflection in the window as he did so. He sat down and pondered if anything was resolved, if his father would be pleased, whether it was too late now; whether there was still time. He wondered what he had done with his cup of tea, the one left and forgotten on the sideboard, the one now waiting to go cold.