The Pre-War House and Other Stories by Alison Moore

Author:Alison Moore
Language: ara, eng, eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Salt Publishing Limited
Published: 2014-07-31T16:11:29+00:00

Static

Wilfred takes the dirty teacup from the bedside table. Dorothy’s eyes are closed, but she is still awake, just resting. The gilt-edged, rose-print Duchess has seen better days. The inside is stained with tannin and the gilding is worn.

‘I’ll be back with a fresh one,’ he says. He closes the bedroom door behind him and climbs slowly down the stairs, the bone china cup trembling on its saucer.

In the kitchen, he puts the used teacup in the empty stainless steel sink and stands for a few minutes looking out of the window into the back garden. They have lived in this house their whole married life. From time to time, Dorothy has suggested moving – sometimes to another town or to the countryside, sometimes to the sea or even abroad. They could even travel, she said, now that their children were grown up and no longer at home. But he would rather stay where they are. He grew up in this town; he has never lived anywhere else in his life.

The things on the windowsill are Dorothy’s. There is a small frame containing an old photograph of a woman. She is so familiar. She has been on the kitchen windowsill for forty years and he has no doubt looked at her every day, and yet he has no idea, he thinks now, who she is. She looks a lot like his Dorothy – perhaps he knew once that it was a favourite aunt or a grandmother, but if he ever knew he doesn’t know now.

Next to the photograph is an empty vase, and a stone the size of his fist. He picks it up, weighs it on his palm. It has a hole worn through the middle; it is like a cored apple. He wonders how it got there, the hole. Through it he can see his own hand, the naked pinkness, his life line and his love line.

Dorothy listens to a programme called Love Line on a local radio station. Listeners call in with their own stories about how they met someone or lost someone, with proposals and confessions, and then they request a dedication, a love song. Sentimental popcorn, says Wilfred. He is not one of the world’s great romantics, says Dorothy. She used to tease him about calling in with a request for her, but she hasn’t mentioned it in a while.

The radio isn’t working properly. When he turns it on there is interference, white noise. He picks it up, takes it over to the table and sits down. For a minute, he just holds it, this beautiful, broken old thing, and then he takes a coin out of his pocket, fits it in the slot on top of the plastic case, and twists. The case pops apart.

It is a lovely little transistor radio, a Constant, turquoise and gold. It is the radio Dorothy brought into the antiques shop where he used to work, asking if they did repairs. He wasn’t supposed to, said Wilfred, not unless she was selling.

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