The Sisters: Part 2

Although Betty no longer had Arthur to confide in. Or Napoleon, bless his soft paws, she did look forward to visits from her niece, Esther. They would sit together on the sofa, gossiping in the hushed tones of conspirators. 

‘She knows that Monday is my washing day. Monday is always washing day. Has been since Arthur and me first married. It’s deliberate, Esther, you mark my words it’s deliberate. I think he comes because it is washing day.’

‘There’s no need to whisper, Aunt Betty. They can’t hear you. They’ve not got the room bugged.’

‘I wouldn’t put it past them, the devils!’ Betty would contemplatively stroke the black wiry hairs that sprang from her chin like spiders’ legs.

‘But why would they come deliberately on washing day, Aunt Betty? I don’t understand. What’s their motivation?’

Betty’s eyes would sparkle and flash and her voice would tremble with indignation, ‘Why, because of my smalls. I have my smalls on the clothes horse on a Monday. I think helikes to look at them.’

‘Duncan? Poor Duncan likes to look at your smalls?’ Esther would exclaim, feigning horror. Their discussions about Aunt Rose and Poor Duncan had been repeated so often they were imbued with the rhythm and familiarity of a much-loved comedy routine. 

‘Yes, my smalls. What else could it be? He never speaks. Not one single, solitary word. He just sits there glowering, like Rasputin in a tank-top, eyes on the smalls the whole time. Hypnotised. Even a Wagon Wheel won’t distract him.’

Esther would laugh. ‘Your smalls aren’t exactly small, Aunt Betty.’

‘I am sure they are not! I’m a sixty-eight-year old, God-fearing widow living in the North East of England, not Elizabeth Taylor. I know about decency! I know about drafts!’ Here Betty would pause. She would pick up a custard cream. Esther would obediently wait for her aunt to deliver her withering addendum. ‘Unlike some I could mention.’

Time seemed to slow during afternoons in the colliery, it trickled as lethargically as dribbled treacle. Esther was sure the tick of Uncle Arthur’s National Coal Board carriage clock kept its own sweet time, replicating the steady heartbeat of a resting dragon. In earlier years, Esther would have done anything to avoid afternoons such as these. Afternoons perched a worn velour sofa in a room that evoked the sadness of a thousand rainy Sundays. Afternoons fragranced by weak, grey tea and lavender furniture polish. Now, these afternoons felt comforting to Esther. They were part of who she was, who she would always be, right down to her nerves, her blood, her marrow. She had spent years feeling deep shame about her provenance, her roots. She had spent years searching for something better – although she could never articulate what it was she felt that she lacked. Now she treasured afternoons with her Aunt Betty, binding them within her memory and heart with a secret pride and with the certainty of prophesy that her later years would be spent mourning their loss and ruing the years wasted chasing the hollow dream of ‘better’. 

She looked at her aunt who was brushing imaginary biscuit crumbs from her skirt. Her plump hands flitted nervously; their age-spots looked like raisins in pale, pillowy dough. Her home-knit cardigan was buttoned to the neck with a brittle dignity. Her slippers sat perpendicular to the sofa, only to be put on, of course, when ‘company’ had left. Betty had the kind of robust, survivor’s courage that Esther aspired to. She had not been ‘blessed with children,’ and had lost Arthur after just five years of marriage. Yet despite her hardships and disappointments, Betty was an optimist. Esther often struggled to see that life came in colours other that black, but for Betty life was as beautiful and mysterious as oil swirling upon water. Except, of course, when it came to her sister-in-law, Rose. 

‘Aunt Betty, I am sure Poor Duncan doesn’t really ogle your smalls. Maybe he is just looking in that general direction. They are like the Great Smalls of China: probably visible from space, hard to avoid, really.’

They had laughed. Betty liked Esther’s visits. She especially liked telling Rose about them. 

‘Esther popped in to see us for half an hour on Saturday before going to the cemetery,’ Rose would say smugly.

‘Yes, yes. She came here first,’ Betty would reply proudly. ‘She stayed, oh a couple of hours or so. Had her lunch. She’d brought me some fancies from Fenwick’s Food Hall.’ 

Oh, the petty tallies the sisters kept over the years, the thousands of tiny victories and defeats, all carefully classified and recorded. Esther thought The Art of War would read like The Magic Faraway Tree, by comparison.