Sell Us the Rope by Stephen May

Author:Stephen May
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sandstone Press Ltd
Published: 2021-12-15T13:15:58+00:00

14

Fun

For ten minutes after the morning’s self-defence training, Elli and Rosa can’t do anything other than slump in stupefied silence on the bench they have just used for step-ups. They are exhausted and in pain. They sit and listen to the savage grumbling of their bodies. Muscles protest, tendons mutter mutinously – even to take a breath prompts ribs to complain in no uncertain terms. They are also sheathed in a slick patina of sweat.

Edith Garrud has really done a number on them. If pain really is just weakness leaving the body then this time it had a party before it went. Really trashed the place.

Eventually, Elli recovers enough to suggest that it’s maybe time to get ready for the first meetings of the day, to help set the rows of chairs out. Rosa asks her what’s the big rush? Nothing is decided in the mornings.

‘I am a woman with a fragile hip. I’ve just been tortured for an hour. I’m not doing anything until I’ve had a long hot bath. I’m not spending another day perching on one of those ridiculous chairs itching and sniffing my own sweat!’

Elli laughs. Her friend sounds as if she is rousing tired troops to storm some Bastille.

Rosa smiles. ‘Besides,’ she says in a softer voice, ‘I can do without Leo seething beside me, stopping me thinking by radiating his negative energy.’

She nods to the door of the hall where Leo Jogiches has just entered with a group of other men and it’s true that he wears the scowl of a man spoiling for a fight. He glowers at them.

Elli laughs, ‘Yes, all right. I agree. It’s true. Nothing happens in the mornings except men talking.’

Which is how, ten minutes later, Elli finds herself at the Haggeston Baths around the corner in Whiston Road.

‘A cathedral of cleanliness,’ says Rosa, and she’s not wrong. The Haggeston Baths are new and housed in a sternly impressive building, one that rises above and dominates the rows of small shops on either side. A bright, clean, solid lavender-scented future intimidating the scruffy and dirty past. The baths are busy, too, the noise of laughter and splashing echoing off the tiled walls.

Whoever thinks the poorer classes enjoy the dirt in which they are forced to live has never been to Haggeston Baths on a weekday morning.

It is obvious that Rosa has been here before, that she knows her way around. She pays the entrance fee and hires towels for them both from a bored child at the front desk and leads Elli to the vaulted room at the back of the building. Within minutes they have undressed in the chilly communal changing room, stowed their clothes in lockers and are stretched out in neighbouring slipper baths, washing with fresh soap, Elli’s head angled so her plait is safely hanging over the tub’s edge away from the water.

Up to now Elli has appreciated the spartan bathrooms and the warmish water you can use to fill the wide sinks in the YWCA, but here in Whiston Road is a whole other level of comfort.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.