Her Victory by Sillitoe Alan;

Author:Sillitoe, Alan; [Sillitoe, Alan;]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

4

The kitchen was clean enough, Pam thought, but not really clean. Wanting a rest from two hours of reading, she went up the ladder with a damp rag soaked in detergent, and rubbed a circle of cleanliness the size of a large coin that might be taken for a dab of fresh plaster whose whiteness had not yet merged. Then she rubbed until the paint under the grease became as large as the memorial plaque sent by the King and his grateful people to John’s parents.

An attempt at proper cleanliness would mean enlarging the pristine area to take up the whole room. She looked from the ladder and saw dust everywhere. Closer to the ceiling there were cobwebs and spiders’ nests. The floor had been swept but not washed. It was tidy but not clean, calling for days of work.

Everything clean was not quite clean. Lace curtains wanted washing, and the water would darken when they were dipped. Folded tea towels needed a visit to the laundrette, and cutlery could do with a rinse and a polish. Heavier curtains in the living-room should go to the cleaners. The pelmets and woodwork ought to be washed down. Everywhere called for dusting, sweeping and scrubbing.

Was life worth throwing away on such labour every week, month, year? You took one breath only in order to draw another, and laboured from birth till no more breath would come. Everything you did in life was useless, except that it kept death at bay and allowed you to live with as much ease as could be managed. Cleanliness was comfort if you had been brought up that way – though it’s no business of mine who cleans the flat, she thought, coming down the ladder and putting buckets and rags away. He’ll have to get someone else for the job.

She read again for half an hour, then peeled potatoes and put them into boiling water, laid lamb chops under the grill, and cleaned lettuce. While he carried, searched, sorted, pondered and evaluated the long undisturbed hoard she walked in and out of the dining-room, setting the table and putting down a first course. The immersion in a different life pattern, as well as the long time since breakfast, made her stomach turn with hunger like a swimmer coming up for air. The corkscrew was difficult to pull. ‘I took a bottle of Mersault from the fridge.’

He opened it.

‘You look as if you’ve just done the nightshift in a soot factory,’ she said.

He washed, then sat diagonally from her. With rolled-up sleeves, and a shirt open at the neck, it seemed as if he had lived in the flat all his bachelor days. Even his subdued and worried state emphasized the fact. ‘You must have had an interesting hour or two.’

He paused in his eating. ‘I’ll tell you about it.’

‘Take your time.’

‘I still don’t know who I am, but I’m getting a rough idea as to who I might have been, and that’s a beginning.’

She put more of the fish on his plate.

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