Among Strangling Roots by Georgina Jeffery

Author:Georgina Jeffery [Georgina Jeffery]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Coblyn Press
Published: 2022-09-22T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

The morning dawned in washed out shades of grey. Marion woke from a fitful doze, groggy and suffering with a thrumming headache.

She moved about the house like a zombie, washed and dressed in a haze. Tramped downstairs in sweatpants and a tank top. Her skin crawled with discomfort, simultaneously cold-clammy from moisture in the air and too sticky-warm for sleeves.

In the dining room, she stared at the dinner plates on the table. Flies buzzed around the food left out to congeal overnight. Stupid girl. Why hadn’t she put them in the sink?

‘Lilli!’ she shouted up the stairs. ‘Time to get up!’

She chewed her lip, waiting for a response. A pang of remorse for the words she’d said yesterday found its way onto her tongue. ‘I’m going to make pancakes for breakfast. They’ll be waiting for you. Whenever you’re ready.’

She tidied up the table, cleaned the plates. In the echoing kitchen, grappled with faulty gas rings on the behemoth black range, until one finally clicked and flared into life. Cracked eggs, mixed milk and flour. Poured into a hefty iron frying pan. Waited. Flipped. Waited. Slipped golden discs onto white plates, and garnished with sugar and lemon. And waited.

And waited.

Water dripped from the corroding copper tap over the sink. The pipes gurgled at odd intervals, with dissonant sounds that rebounded off the tiles and stretched into discordant echoes. Slowly, Marion’s resolve unwound.

She chewed through her own pancakes with dead-eyed resentment. The lemon was too sour.

When more than an hour had passed and Lilli still hadn’t shown her face, Marion picked up her daughter’s plate and tipped the food into the bin.

She stamped around the ground floor, simulating her tasks without really doing. Dropped a whole stack of china into a cardboard box, didn’t care that it smashed nearly every piece. Found a sack truck to lift one end of the infernal walnut sideboard, managed to lever it, pivoted slightly, screeching as if from the mouths of all three twisted faces as it gouged deep marks across the floor. She left it like that, askew in the middle of the dining room.

In the garden, she grabbed a hoe and raked at the gravel. Weeds and stones and soil, she dragged it all to the edges, fighting tears as she took out her fury on these meaningless things. Feigning productivity, in the same way she feigned compassion, feigned comfort, like the poor imitation she was.

Eventually, the rage drained out of her. She was empty again, nearly pleasantly numb, and ready to face her daughter.

She climbed the stairs with light footsteps. Plastered a smile on her face as she knocked on Lilli’s door.

‘Lilli, love,’ she called in sing-song. ‘Time to get up, please.’

No answer. Marion tucked a loose hair behind her ear; untied her bun and retied it. ‘Lilli, love,’ she repeated with more bite between her teeth. ‘Get. Up.’

She turned the handle. The door stuck in the frame, warped by the damp air. Marion put her shoulder into it, gave a forceful shove until it came free.

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