Carol is enjoying giving her creative side license to write; this is her second story for Deborah's website.
My legs are freezing. A cold Ohariu Valley morning with white frost spread across the grass like a cloak. The baby is wailing on my lap. I look down at the angelic contorted little face, my hair draping across my eyes. Damn it, I didn’t have time to tie my hair back after my shower. Jessica, please go to Mummy’s dressing table and find Mummy’s brush and a hair tie - brown or black - it doesn’t matter. Thankfully that doesn’t matter but everything else seems to matter a lot. How to juggle these two little mites? The shower this morning had been grabbed between everything else. Listening to the baby wailing I pulled on my shapeless red skirt over my wobbly jelly tummy, then the jersey that didn’t go at all, to hell with it. Put some stockings on, you should have grabbed the trousers, stupid woman. No, I can’t stand that wailing any longer the stockings will have to wait. My legs are freezing. I shout through “Jessica love, can you see any socks there too? You are such a big grown up girl helping Mummy and baby Henry.” She toddles back with the hairbrush and socks but not the hair tie. Bite your tongue, she is only two and a half, bless her. Murray breezes in, how dare he be so chirpy. Cup of tea? Take the baby first, I need to finish dressing. How come you are half dressed? Don’t go there. Are you okay? No. But you are always okay. Well I am not now. I burst into tears. A possum in the headlights, he walks over, takes the baby, and then Jessica’s hand. I love that tableau but gladly leave it behind to relish three minutes for me, I might even be able to finish off this cry in peace. Carol has written as part of her career. She is now enjoying writing to tell her stories.
I stood in front of the large two-storey house. It seemed like a fairy tale house, much bigger than where we lived then. Looking back however, I cannot remember the house we moved from, only this house that we moved to. The house seemed to twinkle in the sunshine, its windows beaming down at me. We went around to the back of the house where there was a large section that cascaded down in terraces. The front, which would eventually hold my mother's roses, was like a roughly furled field the sods of dirt interleaving. Why did the front garden look like a field? It didn't seem to fit. It was like Gran and Grandad's place; they lived in the country where they grew berries, collected eggs, fed the goose that pecked angrily at the back door. Are we going to live here? I asked my mother. Yes, she said. I had conflicting emotions. Excited and scared. I felt very small looking up at this big house that appeared friendly but imposing; like a gentle giant towering over me with a puffed up chest. My mother and I walked around the house hand-in-hand. I can't remember going in. Maybe she didn't have a key. I was a little shocked when I re-visited this house in 2008. It was humble and not very big. I had grown much taller. The garage my father built, and that had housed his beloved Rover, was still there. One of the first cars in a street of houses that were all the same. The imposing giant had vanished. |
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