When Jane went on holiday by herself to try and make her husband and son appreciate her more, they still didn’t get the message.
“Mum, have you ironed my shirts for work tomorrow”? Bob called from the kitchen. “Do them yourself. You’re big enough.”, Jane replied in a tone which suggested she was getting to the end of her patience. “I have two jobs and you have an able body and two good hands. Your father’s just the same. It isn’t a mother and wife you two need it’s a servant”. With that she went upstairs to pack.
Dave came in, walking all the mud from his boots straight through the hall and into the kitchen as usual. If Jane had asked him once she’d asked him a thousand times to take off his shoes or wipe his feet first. “What do you think the door mat’s for”? She’d call to him. Then she’d say in a sarcastic tone: “Oh I know don’t I? To run around after you”. He’d long since learned to tune her out when she started on that tack. Either he’d read the paper or turn on the television so he could see the football. What she needed was a holiday. Having a holiday with her husband wasn’t much of a holiday after all. He’d insist on going fishing which bored her to tears and sulk if he couldn’t get his own way. What she wanted to do was go dancing like they’d done in their youth to some of the sixties music but he was always too tired when he came home so all he did then was slump in front of the t.v. and on holiday fish. Since he insisted they go self catering it wasn’t much of a change for her then either since she still had to do a fair bit of cooking and his washing. Then when she got home Bob would have saved up all his dirty laundry for her to do so if she had found time to relax she knew that she would soon be worn to a frazzle again in no time and have lost what few benefits she had gained from her time away.
When Angie, her friend, rang her up from Wiltshire, saying she’d love to see her in order to show off her new house which she’d not long bought, Jane decided it was now or never. She’d jolly well go on holiday and see her without them and they could learn to fend for themselves. Great lazy lumps! Before she went she did one last act of defiance – She sold the ironing board. From now on if they wanted it doing they could go to the laundry or buy clothes that didn’t need it.
There were terrible scenes at the meal table when the two unreconstructed males in her house came in from work and plonked themselves down at the teatable with mouths open waiting to be fed. She marched them both out to the kitchen, saying in a voice that mimicked her old cookery teacher: “And this is a cooker. You use this to heat food in. First you turn it on like this, wait for about ten minutes for the oven to warm up and then put your meat inside – You know! Parts of dead animal that you are both so fond of. And these are potatoes, Big nobbly things that need peeling and heating in a saucepan of water. I’m telling you both this because I’m off to Angie’s tomorrow so you will have to fend for yourselves for a few days – Seven to be precise. You know! The number after six and before eight”! “But mum you can’t!” Bob cried in alarm and Dave started rubbing his chest saying: “I have pains. I’m not well. Suppose I have a coronary while you’re away”? “You may well do, dear. The shock of looking after yourself for the first time in twenty-eight years may well prove fatal. Still it’s a chance I’m prepared to take.” The two men looked dumb struck and actually chatted to each other for the first time in ages. Blind panic had opened their mouths and kept the television off for the evening.
Jane’s train arrived a few minutes late but Angie was on time. They hugged and gave each other a quick peck on the cheek. They’d not met for ages as Jane always found excuses not to leave her cave men and Angie was beginning to think she really didn’t want to come after all. Now though she was here and they’d have a great week together, reminiscing about old times when they worked together in the sweet factory and before Angie’s lottery numbers came up and she could leave her old job and buy this splendid house. They had a time to remember – Walking in the Wiltshire countryside and driving around the surrounding area. Not once did Jane worry about the men she’d left behind but did keep checking the news reports to make sure there hadn’t been a fire in SW15. “They’ll eat out”, she said to Angie. “They’ll cheat and eat out and I’ll have a mountain of dirty washing to go back to”. “Leave it there”, she said. Jane knew that was the only way to make her point but she knew deep down that she wouldn’t be able to stand the sight of the growing mountain of dirty socks not to mention the smell from them.
Like a couple of bookends they were propping up the bar in their local. “What mum needs is to feel appreciated. It’s your fault dad. You never take her anywhere except fishing and she never has anything new to show how much you love her”. “Rubbish! Anyway women are liberated now and she goes to work. If I started buying her stuff to wear she’d say I had chosen the wrong style or colour and she’d moan about it being the wrong size. You’re the one that takes her for granted. Never once do you think of getting out the hoover or washing up. You’re always on that computer of yours or blasting that bloody stereo of yours. I haven’t seen you give her anything new either lately”. By the time they got home they’d had a blooming good row about who was the most thoughtless and nothing to eat. Bob looked for the ironing board so he could try and iron his shirt for the next day, only to find A note was pinned to the iron which read: “I’m lonely without my friend the board. Please take your shirts to the laundry or buy drip dry ones from now on. I have been made redundant”. Bob put a towel on the table and burnt the fabric of his shirt as he had the iron too hot. He spent the remainder of the evening trying to scrape it off.
Only at breakfast time did he remember it would soon be Mother’s day. He asked his father what he thought his mother would like. “I know what I’d like”, Dave said. “That is for Jane to come home. You’d better come home too, straight after work and help me get this tip cleaned up. She’ll about turn and go again if she finds it in this state when she gets back”. “I will. I’ve got the afternoon off. There’s an errand I have to do. It’s mother’s day on Sunday so I must get her something special”. His father started rubbing his chest again. “That’s a turn up!” He said.
“Yes thanks. That one. How much is it? Oh right then”. Feeling pleased with himself, Bob manoeuvred the parcel out into the street and humped it up across his shoulders and put it in his car. “It even looks like the old one”, he said to his father before wrapping it up”Even down to the little tear in the fabric, look there!”
Jane was amazed at the state of the house and the smell of a meal cooking in the kitchen. Dave had cheated a bit – Aunt Bessie’s mash and sausages with baked beans but that was more than he ever did when she was there. She tried not to comment that the sausages were burned and ate her meal with a certain amount of relish. Then Bob appeared almost dwarfed behind his walking parcel. When she opened it she screamed and threw the frying pan at him and he only just ducked in time. There, leaning up against her as she fought for breath she was so angry, was her old ironing board, retrieved from the charity shop she’d sold it to. Dave was doubled up with laughter and Bob was hiding under the stairs. “You haven’t learned a bloody thing either of you”, she said and stomped off out with the dog.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
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