Mrs Bell's bulrushes

Five brown bulrushes are in my hand for old Mrs Bell my next door neighbour. My right leg turns sideways and hangs, a mid-air question mark, undecided which basinet of reeds to jump to next. Rain begins to spot down on us, but the midges don’t care, it mixes with our sweat and is gravy to them. Jim is tracking behind, watching my feet. Already he’s almost lost the left foot of his ten-bob sannie to the mouth of the swamp. One blue denim leg is black stinked, the oily suck of glaur eating up his thigh. Back there I thought he was going to die, but didn’t, just cried and wiped his eyes. His face fettles and brows settle on a darkened sky of nearly, or maybe, or right or wrong, but for fate, or luck, or the grace of God. Brown plastic sandals squelch, water runs between my big toes and little piggy toes as I totter on a tussock of grass that bends, but holds as I make a mad grab for it. I’m tired, with rusty cramped legs and a tin man’s long leap from the safety of the fence near the cottages on Singers Road, when the sky lets go and wipes all weather clean. There are no words, but a head down nodding and a plodding walk through the scary tunnel beneath the rail track which offers us some relief from the rain. Too cold to care we walk up Boquanran Road yoked together in common misery.

‘See yeh later smelligator.’ Jim face is cheekbone sharp, a shining sodding skull which flashes white teeth for a second. He pauses at Daft Rab’s privet hedge, which runs parallel to and divides his and mine, his hair a side-shed show that only I can see. I watch him slopping and slouching inside his sodden yellow t-shirt, growing taller into another gallus boy when he hits the home run of concrete stairs to his house. The whip of the bulrushes in my hand, impervious to wetness, seems to be the only thing in the world that has remained dry.

I nudge open the door to our four-in-a-block, smell dinner, and am suddenly ravenous enough to even eat cabbage or even broccoli. The diamonds in my short-sleeve shirt are stippled to my chest. Denims slosh, as I walk up the hall, as if I’ve given birth to them; cow’s lick has buckled, been rechristened, wiped clean on my forehead and my sandals are shiny as a new and lucky three-penny bit. My head drops, but I can’t help smirking, revelling in the glory of how miserable I must appear. Stephen is sitting in front of the fire in the living room one bar orange aglow, rationing heat. He glances at me and rocks back and forth, but does not laugh out loud, before his deep set and crinkling eyes return to staring at Department S on the telly.

Mum’s at the cooker, a fork in her hand, testing potatoes in the big pot. She turns and catches sight of me standing in the kitchen door and sighs. ‘You’re drookit.’ My nod is enough to draw her smile.

I step into the kitchen, the windows are steamed up and I shiver and limp wristed, hold out the bulrushes. ‘I got these for Mrs Bell.’

Mum’s all business now. The bulrushes are taken off me and placed out of the way in the bigger of the two sinks at the window. Hot water is tested by letting it run over her fingers. She shakes her head and I know it’s no good. ‘Put the immerser on,’ she shouts through to Stephen, but the boiler takes hours to heat water. Mum makes-do. She moves the potato pot across to another ring at the back of the electric cooker and, saving time, fills the big kettle and puts it on the red- hot ring beside it. Her eyes seek me out then her hands find me and draw me into the aproned warmth of her body. I lean into her and the waft of talc, stale sweat and fag smoke. She mops my hair with the dish towel that’s sitting on the back of the chair and tickles me under the chin. ‘What am I goin’ to do with you?’

I look up through my eyelashes at Mum. There’s no answer, just the beating of my heart. I hold my arms up like a child as she worms my shirt off and lets it fall onto the linoleum. My sandals are kicked off under the table. I unbutton my denims, unzip, and let them slither down my legs before stepping out of them. They crumple and slump to the side like a game of dead man’s fall and create their own puddle of blue light. I sit on the chair in my white Y-fronts, facing the window, arms crossed over for warmth, clutching at my chest and I manage a weak smile.

Mum’s bum’s against the sink. Static from the nylon on her dress crackles as she moves, her fingers searching for the lighter in her apron pocket. She lights a fag as she waits for the kettle to boil. ‘Not be long now.’ She leans across, stroking my cheek with the back of her hand. The basin from the cupboard underneath the sinks is clattered down at my toes. Mum swings the big kettle round in an arc in front of my face and my feet flinch and jump out of the basin. ‘It’s not too hot is it? She stands frozen in doubt, a worried frown on her face.

I tender one foot in. ‘No.’ I giggle with my hands on my laps, protecting my little man, and put the other foot in. The water is warm and healing and soon the kettle is empty. The potatoes are boiling over on the ring, sizzling and splashing. Mum holds her neck and chin up so not to blow smoke on me and also not to get fag-ash on the cooker. She uses a fork to nudge the lid off.

The fag is mechanically stabbed out on an ashtray on top of the sink. Mum gets a flannel and a green bar of Sunlight, bends down to soap the cloth, and then attacks me. My face is wiped clean, but I’m giggling and she’s giggling as she soaps down my left arm, before switching to my right. My chest is little more than a hand swipe, but I’m conscious of my little man, my head falling to look at my pants. We become a bit more serious. She soaps my legs from the thigh down. The cloth is wrung out and she starts again dabbing at me with the cloth like a cat, until I’m glowing. ‘Wash your feet.’ Mum gives me the soap and goes away to get the towels from the boiler cupboard where they’ll be kept nice and warm.

Her arms make a tent of the towel and wrap around me. My head lies on her shoulder. ‘Do you think Mrs Bell will like her bulrushes?’

‘She’ll love them.’ Mum lifts me straight up in the air and cuddles me like a child. I squirm at first, but am a bit disappointed when she gently puts me back down on the seat. ‘But where did you get them?’

‘Down at the swamp, the other side of Singer’s Park.’ My voice has a hard edge.

‘Isn’t that quite dangerous?’

‘Nah. It’s easy-peasy.’