by Sarah Peploe
(520 words)
Wrists sunk in froth at the kitchen sink. I do the glasses first of course. Sponge-scrub firmly out and in and round and pay especial attention to the lip where lips touch. Wash the lacy spittle off them under the hot tap. Then turn the tap off, for water efficiency. Save enough to fill 180 Olympic swimming pools if everyone did that. Little things add up. Koalas burn in their trees. Onto the draining board bottom up. Next. There are lots of glasses. I don’t even particularly notice when I do the one. It is just in with the others. Scour the sludge out of the bottom. “I should have stirred it more,” I said, last night, “then you wouldn’t’ve had t—”
“Don’t worry about it.” That’s how she said it. Full stop. Bang and the worry is gone. Off to the seaside. Down through the pipes. A filthy secret system which is none of your beeswax.
On to the plates. Odd grains of rice going maggoty in the water. We had a curry last night. That’s the kind of detail might come up. “It shouldn’t,” she said. But it’s as well to remember I think. People believe you, if you say things like we had a curry. They believe in you, as a person like them.
Tap on for the last plate. Then, all of a sudden, the water thins to a moderate trickle. I turn the tap up all the way but it doesn’t make much difference. I realise the pressure must have changed because the bathroom tap is being run. She’s back. I didn’t hear the door. Maybe she got back a minute ago, when I was doing my thing. The face like I’m screaming but not actually screaming, just a hiss, and my fingers in my ears. The lovely peace there.
Private things are going on one wall away. They are none of my concern and I am busy, I am doing my job and she hers. Everything is in order. It’s when people stick their noses in that problems start isn’t it. If something is not your business you just let it happen, don’t you. Quiet and blameless. Small and harmless. Bird-bone shoulder blades, big trusting eyes.
So I stay here while she sluices blood down the plughole of the sink in the room where only dirtiness happens, where everything is TMI. Levers red worms from under her nails incy wincy. Right here with my hands buried in bubbles like so much baby’s breath. I never wear the gloves. I must be itching with cleanness. Soon that twining thread of water will go thick and forceful. The lather underneath will pop pop pop. In she’ll come. Through the kitchen door behind me not saying a word, not laying a finger, giving me her distance and her presence to lie back against like a summer cliff. Strange that she’s home so quick. Not that I’m ungrateful, never, but I hoped I would have more time. It takes some getting used to, all the unknowing you have to do. Pans now.
END
Sarah Peploe’s short stories have appeared in various publications including Mslexia, Cursed Morsels’ Antifa Splatterpunk and Sliced Up Press’s Monstroddities. She also writes and draws comics as part of Mindstain Comics co-operative. She lives in York. Twitter acct: @SarahPeploe