Polka dot blue

Joyce carefully removed each dress in turn from its tissue paper wrapping and laid them side by side on the bed. It was something she did when it all got too much. She liked to look at their skirts, spread out on the coverlet like flower petals. She would stroke the soft folds and hold them up to her faded cheek, closing her eyes to remember. Sometimes she would hold a dress up to her and with one trembling hand holding out the skirt, she would waltz and sway about the room. Today she stood in front of the mirror with the peach poplin. She couldn’t wear it anymore, of course, but she loved to see the way the full skirt fell away in a hundred pleats. They used to call it a ‘shirtwaister‘. Like a little shirt on top, fitted and tight at the waist. How it had flattered her shape! It was the first dress she had ever bought with her wages. A Horrocks dress. That was something, in those days. 10s 9d. Mum had been scandalized. But she had loved to dress up, to feel glamorous and sexy. You didn’t have to show flesh, to look sexy. That’s where they went wrong, these days, she thought. They just looked cheap now in their skimpy tops and mini skirts. The peach poplin didn’t show any forbidden flesh - it just hinted at what was beneath. It was the dress she had been wearing the first time David had kissed her. They’d arranged to go out for the day. He had turned up on a motorbike and she nearly hadn’t gone at all. In the end, he had persuaded her – even got round her mum. She could still feel the wind on her face. It had been a hot day but the wind was cold as she clung tightly to him, smelling the smell of him, cigarettes and bryl-creme, soap and the old leather of his jacket. Her carefully styled hair blowing back from her face…If she closed her eyes and stayed very still, she could sometimes stay inside the memory... After their first kiss he had laughed at her because his kiss made her dizzy. He was so handsome then. Tall and straight. She had always felt tiny beside him. He liked it that way, he said. That was the way it should be. The man should look after the woman, protect her and be the provider. David had been a good provider. She fell for him the first time they met, at the dancehall. After that, they’d danced together every week. “Save the last dance for me,“ he’d say. She always had. Her hand was lost in his grasp, although he held her very gently. He had a boxer’s hands, big with large knuckles. He did some amateur boxing then. Big and gentle and the kindest, most twinkly blue eyes she’d ever seen. Ray was a big man too, but he had never had that gentle touch, like his father. Kindness was a quality very much underrated in a man, she decided. She laid the peach poplin down and picked up the cocktail dress. She had made this one herself. The neckline was scooped and it was sleeveless. The style of the bodice was fitted, with a full skirt. But it was the colour and design of the material she loved. It was lilac, with sprays of silver rosebuds. David used to say she looked just like Marilyn Monroe in that one, she thought. Well, she had had a good bust when she was a young woman and her hair had been blonde and wavy. Her face had never been exactly pretty but men didn’t notice that if you had a good figure and blonde hair, did they? She wore that dress the night he proposed. She knelt on the floor, and pressed her face into the folds of nylon. She stayed there for a time, rocking slightly, lost in the past. When she looked up, her eye fell on the ‘polka dot blue’. That’s what David had called it. Dark blue, with white polka dots. It was his favourite. She knew how proud he had been of the way she dressed. None of the other wives or girlfriends had had quite her touch, or her clever way of copying designs. How many times had she worn that dress? She put out a hand to touch the pretty white collar. “Where’s my tea?” The door of the bedroom opened suddenly and an old man shuffled in. He glared at her. “What are you doing? You should be getting my tea. Not fiddling about in here.” He stared hard at her for a moment. “Are you the one that was here yesterday?” She was quickly wrapping up each dress and putting them back in the box, but at this she looked up. “I’m here every day, David,” she said, perhaps not as patiently as usual. “ It’s not tea-time yet. If you’re hungry I can make you a sandwich. Would you like a sandwich?” She pushed the box under the bed with her foot. She would arrange them properly later. She couldn’t bear to think that he’d seen her with the dresses. She’d thought he’d sleep for longer. “I don’t want a bloody sandwich woman. I want my tea. Chips and eggs – if it’s not too much trouble for you. That’s what you’re here for…isn’t it?” For a moment, he looked uncertain. “Yes, yes, that’s what I‘m here for.” As she passed him in the doorway she caught the unwashed smell of him and said in a gentler tone “ Why don’t you go and have a shower, and I’ll fix your chips and eggs? I could cut your nails for you then. It’d feel nice for you. All clean and fresh.” “I had a shower.” He replied. She sighed. That had been six weeks ago. She couldn’t get him to have a shower. She’d talked to the Social Worker about it. But nothing had happened. As she got out the pan and put the oven chips in the oven, she thought about her decision. In the last six months it had come to the point that she had dreaded. She had finally decided that David would have to go into a home. She had waited for a place for months and now a place had become available. She just couldn’t manage him. He wouldn’t do anything for her anymore. She knew it was because he was frightened and he didn’t know who she was. To him, she was a stranger in his house. And she was beginning to be afraid of him. The strength of him. Not David, her David, but this strange old man, who shouted at her and cursed and threw plates of food at her, and cried, but accepted no comfort from her. What comfort could she give? They had been married for forty years, but for the last eight of those years they had lived like this. She looked out the kitchen window at the little garden they had planted together, and her worn old hands rested on the edge of the sink. There was a time when she would have cried, but she had no tears left. The phone rang, interrupting her thoughts. It was the Social Worker. “Hullo, Joyce? Listen, bit of a problem with the Care Home place, I’m afraid. They say they can’t take him after last week. It’s a security thing. Health and Safety.” Last week, they had tried to settle him in but two hours later he was home again. Walked out and came home on the bus. “You mean because he got out by himself?” asked Joyce. It had been on her mind all week, but she couldn’t think of a way around it. “Well…it’s more staff safety, really. He was pretty aggressive and well, they’re not prepared to take the risk with the staff.” Joyce thought about the bruises on her arms. “I see.” “Look, we’ll have to wait for a place in a Secure Unit.” Then - “We talked about this, didn’t we Joyce? I’ll talk to Dr. Dobson. There may be some medication at first - just until he settles in.” Joyce was silent. “Okay Joyce? Joyce?” “Yes.” “We have to wait for a place but they tell me there should be a space shortly.” In other words, they were waiting for someone to die. “I’ll give you a call and we can set up a meeting. Okay?” Another meeting. “Okay”. Joyce replied. She put the phone down. She stood for a moment in the hall. How could a person always feel tired? Deep down tired. She wanted to close her eyes and lie down somewhere but now that he was up and about, she couldn’t do that. As she started to fry the eggs, she thought about the medication, to help him settle. She decided not to mention it to Ray. He was dead against his father going into residential care. He had been furious when she told him. “How could you Mum? Do you know what those places are like? I don’t believe you. You‘re always on about the old days, how happy you were, how he always looked after you. Now he needs you and you can‘t be bothered. Just take the easy way out.” She wondered about that. It did make her feel guilty. But Ray didn’t know what it was like to be here, 24 hours a day, she thought. He hardly ever came to visit now. He said it depressed him. Well, it was depressing. She didn’t blame him. He had his own life. She placed the plate of eggs and chips on the tray. He didn’t really need a knife, she thought. Just a fork would do. She didn’t think she’d bring a hot drink in to him. He had seemed agitated. Maybe leave it and hope he didn’t ask. In the sitting room, David was watching ’Countdown’. He didn’t look at her as she put the tray on the table in front of him. “I’m just popping to the shops for milk,” she said. He said nothing. There was plenty of milk, but she needed the air. He’d be all right for ten minutes, having his tea, watching the telly. She closed the door quietly behind her with relief. She saw the smoke as she turned the corner into the road. Her first thought was the house. From where she was she couldn’t see exactly where the smoke was coming from and she quickened her pace, her hands clenched in the pockets of her shapeless herringbone jacket. As she drew near the gate, her nostrils caught the pungent smell and she saw the thin spiral rising just beyond the roof. Now she was running up the path, fumbling with the key in the door, cursing. The door banged open against the wall and she stumbled along the hallway and through the kitchen. Ahead of her was the bright oblong of the open doorway, which made a frame for the old man as he stood in the yard with his back to her, tending the small blaze. She moved more slowly now, trying to catch her breath. It was all right then, he was just burning something. He’s done it before, she thought. No harm done. Then she saw it. The peach poplin. He lifted it from the box at his feet. She watched, paralysed as he added it to his bonfire. In that moment, her mind emptied of every emotion but hate. “You fucking bastard! You senile old fuck!” she shouted, and rushed at him. He half turned, one arm raised against the onslaught as she beat at him, punching him again and again, screaming like a demented thing. He cowered at first, bewildered, startled from whatever time and place he had been inhabiting before her arrival. Then his face changed and he seemed to gather himself. Had she been able to notice, his face and figure then resembled more the man in his prime as he straightened and put his shoulders back. Feet apart and with a calculating look in his eye, he held her struggling body away from him and raised a fist. He brought it down with such force and accuracy that she dropped like a stone, and there she lay at his feet, quite still, a small crumpled heap of herringbone. He took a step back and as he did so, his foot struck the side of the box. He reached down and withdrew the next item for the fire. David hesitated for a moment as his mind seemed to clear and some words suddenly came to him. “Polka dot blue” he said aloud. The words made him feel sad, like he had felt when he had seen the dresses on the bed and so he dropped it quickly into the fire. He watched as the flames gathered in the soft folds and as the polka dot material blackened and shrivelled before him, he felt the sadness go away.