Molly used to live in a dream bungalow, mock-tudor, across the road from a quality butcher’s. Seems like a lifetime ago, and she can’t get meat half so good now. ‘The cuts they did then – beautiful, melt-in-the-mouth.’ She turns to her George on the settee. ‘Remember?’
‘Course’ says her George, not looking up.
‘…as for the stuff in the shops now? Rank. Wouldn’t give it to a dog.’ The iron hisses and Molly runs it hard over a tea-towel. ‘Lamb chops. They were his favourite,’ she says quietly to her George, but mostly to herself, steam from the iron stinging her eyes. ‘Remember?’
George looks up, opens his mouth, closes it. He gently pats Molly’s free arm. ‘They were all our favourites,’ his voice heavy as coins.
Molly folds the towel, reaches for a shirt. ‘No, they were his favourite.’
*
Molly loves ironing - dusters, socks, skirts - anything. Some things she does twice, three times even, because she doesn’t like creases, unless she’s the one making them - sharp on her hankies folded into four, the sleeves on an old shirt, that new satiny number all set to shimmer in the Med.
That’s Molly’s favourite ironing – the night before holidays; towels, summer cotton, new shorts for her George, pleats and all. Because next to ironing, holidays are what Molly likes best. Her and her George go off to the sun twice a year even though Molly knows it means coming back to a dirty mess at the surgery that’ll take her ages to put right - the girl they get in as cover whizzes round the place in 40 minutes tops, never mind she’s paid for two hours, lazy cow. But pay peanuts, get monkeys.
Best hols for Molly are on boats. She likes the floating. Makes her feel lighter on her feet, less sick to her stomach than dry land. Her George – he’s not so keen, has trouble keeping his dinner down. But if it makes Molly happy…
*
First glance of Gibraltar took Molly’s breath away – a bit of England, but far from her real England; English still, with no gabbing on or funny food, plus quids-cheaper fags and a blue sky, sunshine and a sea sparkling just like her best earrings. Second glance and Molly saw the monkeys on the rocks, scrabbling over tourists, begging for snacks.
Molly blinked a slow blink. After lamb chops, his next best thing was monkeys, and trips on Sundays to Regent’s Park to poke at them in their cage, then scoffing a hot-dog on the bus home. Molly stood on the deck with watery eyes. ‘It’s nothing,’ she told her George, ‘just the salt from the sea stinging my eyes.’
She would have taken a photo, but what was the point? ‘We ain’t getting off here,’ Molly said. And they didn’t, Molly running out of fags and having to wait till Majorca because no way was she going to pay the rip-off prices they charged on the boat.
Only plus-side was getting to eat at the captain’s table. Thank God for the travel iron – Molly’s frock smoother than the sky, her George in a Tux the same colour, sitting with people from Surrey in crumpled clothes. ‘I don’t care if it is linen,’ Molly said to her George back in their cabin with a window – not super-deluxe but not the cheapest either. ‘They could’ve made an effort.’
That was on the last night, and Molly already had that sinking feeling, holiday almost over, knowing she’d soon be back in her real England, back at the surgery, back on land with no give to it. At the airport she lost the argument at check-in and had to pay a fine for excess baggage, Molly’s cruise ruined in a burst of anger that left her feeling burnt. And all because the girl on the desk wouldn’t budge and hadn’t the first clue what real sorrow was. ‘She’s only doing her job,’ said her George, paying the fine in tenners. ‘Let’s have one last cocktail in departures.’
‘I’d never wear that much slap,’ Molly said.
*
Sure as eggs and the surgery’s a shithole. And the practice manager’s going on about the stink in the gents - like it’s Molly’s fault. And could she do the venetians? And the table in the waiting-room is covered in fingerprints.
‘I’ve only got the one pair of hands,’ Molly mutters, counting the days till the next trip, wondering how it’s come to this, the things she takes pride in; a sheen on laminates, a sparkle on glass.
Molly makes mirrors shine so bright they hurt her eyes.
*
Molly and her George are thinking Christmas, a cruise. Florida. Plenty of sea to cross just to get there. No excess baggage, just a drive down to Southampton and the long-stay car-park. It means Molly can take her own sheets, and towels. Because you never know what you might catch from someone else’s.
Cabin booked, deposit paid and Molly’s singsong happy, singing songs and dusting the clickety-clacking thing on the Asian doctor’s desk. An Executive Toy, he calls it. Newton’s Cradle; five silver balls suspended on strings. Molly likes to click them, watch them swing, listen to their clinking rhythm slow down to nothing.
‘It’s a stress-buster,’ the doctor once told her.
Stress? You don’t know you’re born, Molly thought.
She pulls a ball back and lets it drop. The ball at the other end swings up, too close to Molly’s face and then her mouth is bleeding, one of her long front teeth skittled. The dentist says it’ll have to come out. He can put a bridge in, but it won’t be cheap.
‘How much?’
‘£600.’
‘Work’ll pay,’ Molly tells her George. But the practice manager shuffles on his feet. Molly’s not covered by their insurance - something about being paid in cash, not being on the books. ‘Slippery little shit,’ Molly says.
‘I’m sorry you feel that way,’ the practice manager says.
‘I bet you are.’
£600! For a chipped tooth! The Christmas cruise is put on ice. ‘Never mind, we can save for next summer,’ says George. Next summer? It seems like a lifetime away. Molly phones the surgery. ‘You can stick your job. And you being doctors, you’ll know where. And how.’ She calls them back. ‘It’s been a long day. Maybe I was a bit hasty’. The practice manager agrees to overlook Molly’s outburst.
Molly bangs the phone down. ‘On this occasion? Stuck up little sod’.
*
Molly and her George used to live in a dream bungalow, mock-tudor - black beams dull, white render dirty - down a dead-end street they called a cul-de-sac. Across the road from a quality butcher’s.
A lifetime ago but seems like only yesterday Molly was tripping over his bike in the driveway. And then he’s 18, and off to live with friends in a squat that Molly calls a house because it sounds better.
For his birthday she’d given him a gold chain that cost the earth. Daylight robbery, but pay peanuts and all that, and it’s a special one, 18. Only comes round once.
He still turned up at the bungalow every now and then. But Molly knew it was more for the chops and a handout than anything else. With as many skint stories as hot dinners; payroll’s cocked-up again, Ma, left my wallet at home, no money for the bus, pay you back later. Molly fetched fivers from the jar for rainy days and with her back turned, his hands dipped quick as fish into her handbag.
‘You’re a lifesaver,’ he sniffed.
‘Don’t leave it so long next time, love.’
And off he’d go with Molly’s holiday jewellery clinking in his pockets, knick-knacks to sell for a song, for pick-me-ups-and-bring-me-downs to keep him going. She watched him leave, looking for a flash of gold, heart swelling when she saw the chain still hanging there - everything else sold for powders, but not that.
Not the birthday gold.
Molly grabbed a jumper and called out after him. ‘Might be warm out now, sweetheart, but it’ll be chilly later.’ One last sight of gold - glinting between the collars on a black shirt printed with white peacock feathers. And then he’d turned the corner.
Molly stayed put, gazing at the clouds. Took her a while to notice - the sun and the moon shining in the sky at the same time, stuck up there like stickers in a scrapbook. Magic, she thought. And lucky.
Molly moved away from window, trying not to notice her George’s beer money missing form the mantel. She got her shawl - might be warm out now, sweetheart, but it’ll be chilly later - but the evening stayed balmy like a holiday and Molly went to the bingo. Her numbers came up and she got a full-house and had another lager to celebrate.
She came home tipsy, giggling on the doorstep and saying ‘cheerio’ to Shell, and ‘same time next week,’ and ‘not to worry about that thing with Jim - because it happened to most men once in a while.’
Her George told her in the porch.
Molly dead-headed the geraniums. ‘What are you talking about?’ she shouted. Her George didn’t say anything, just touched her shoulder nervously, like she was electric.
‘It’s not true,’ she said, her voice a beautiful high note, singing like a finger on thin glass.
*
Molly’s favourite cake was a Battenberg – yellow and pink, same colours as the climber’s rope they found him on, swaying from side to side under the arches of a railway bridge.
Molly traced the frosted acorns on the glass in the porch. He’d gone and kicked a football through it once. When – Molly couldn’t remember. It’d cost a bomb to replace it. ‘I’ll swing for that boy,’ she’d said. Only he’d beaten her to it.
Molly slumped to the floor, cracking a pot, her skirt rucking above her knees, her tights the colour of clay, spilt earth everywhere. And still the geraniums refused to die.
*
In the coldest room at the hospital a nurse gave Molly a bag of his things. She held Molly’s hand, and with her other took something from her pocket, gently folding Molly’s fingers over it. Molly caught a glimpse of gold and tightened her grip, tight so the links in his chain made dents in her palm. She took the shirt out of the bag and held it to her cheek, to feel his warmth still in it, like a bed in the morning, sleep clinging to the sheets.
Everything goes cold too quickly, she thought.
Back at home gently, so gently, like he was still inside it, Molly ironed the shirt.
*
For the funeral Molly ordered a wreath spelling out his name in capitals - white carnations on black cardboard. But she wasn’t happy with it. The petals were turning brown at the edges, the backing soggy. And they’d spelt his name wrong. Molly wished she’d never ordered it over the phone. ‘Pay peanuts…’ she began but she couldn’t finish her sentence. And in the car, her grief came out in a lot of very bad language. Her George had to wind the windows up at the traffic lights.
‘
We ain’t staying here another minute,’ Molly said.
‘The lights won’t be long,’ said her George.
‘The bungalow, you moron,’ screamed Molly. ‘We ain’t living there anymore’.
*
Molly loves ironing - so much that she gets through irons at a rate of knots – a phrase she learnt at the captain’s table.
At the end of the day, when her George has gone up, Molly finishes her chores in the dark, just slithers of street-light to guide her hand, turning socks and dusters smooth as a photo.
One last thing, and she’s done.
On its lowest setting Molly runs her new iron over an black and whiteold shirt. To stop it from going cold. She holds it close, pressing the faded feathers against her cheek. To feel his warmth still in it.
~
Pay peanuts, get monkeys by Magnus Nelson was read by Carrie Cohen at the Liars' League Black & White event at The Wheatsheaf, London on Tuesday 11 August 2009
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