New Knickers

It did not look like it would rain this afternoon. It had in fact, rained three days already this week so she had put off doing the washing until today. There was not much to do anyway. Just a couple of bras, a blouse, some tights and a few pairs of drawers. She used to separate her washing but nowadays she just put it all in together and used a cold wash. Nothing was ever that dirty anyway.

The sky was clear and bright as she walked down the garden path with the washing basket in her arms. She used wooden pegs to hang her American tan tights on the line. It was not easy to get them nowadays, whereas once upon a time they were all any women would wear it seemed. She still wore them.

A wire had half come out of one of the bras and patiently she threaded it back in, mentally noting to stitch it later on. Bras were not cheap. This particular one she had had a number of years. It did not fit her like it should anymore but she was not about to waste money on a new bra. She pushed the washing basket along the path with her leg as she moved sideways down the washing line and hung up the blouse. It was white. Not as white as it had once been but white enough to still be seen as white rather than that greyish white that white blouses tend to go. It was plain and simple and had cost eight pounds ninety-nine from Ali’s stall on the Thursday market about five years ago.

She moved down the path pushing the basket with her feet as she went along. She pegged out her knickers. They were comfortable drawers, mostly plain but one or two pairs had a flower pattern on, small daisy’s or tiny red roses. The knickers themselves were enormous. That is compared to hers from the house behind. Their gardens backed on to one another. She just wore tangas that one. She had red shoulder length hair and a foreign sounding name. The neighbours all referred to her as Red, after the colour of her hair. She was not foreign, just her name was. Her parents had been on holiday somewhere on the continent and brought it back with them so to speak. There was never a bra on her line oh no. She did not own one. Slut!!!

Rows and rows of tangas or sexy undies hung on her washing line. Plastic pegs she used. She was single obviously. She was the type men dated but never married. They might live with her even – for a while. But never a ring. She sun bathed topless in the garden. The boys next door loved it of course. They were nine and eleven years old. She did not care that they were watching from an upstairs bedroom window. She seemed to encourage them even. Pervert!!! Tangas – little tiny bits of material or lace. Leopard skin pattern ones she had and all sorts. Nothing ordinary, nothing plain, all her knickers craved attention, demanded it they did, just like her. And they and she got it.

The next pair she hung out had long since seen better days. They were no longer fit to wear. Once they were dry, she would put them in the cupboard under the sink. They were about to start their new life as a duster. Well, there was no point in buying them when a pair of old drawers would do just as good. Jenny, who lived next door and was in fact the mother of the two junior peeping toms, washed her dusters and hung them on the line. Bright yellow they were. That was good housekeeping. But then, being a mother and running a family needed good housekeeping. They were very happily married Jenny and Mike. He was a painter and decorator, she worked part time in the school.

Jenny did not own a tanga. Or at least if she did one never showed itself on her washing line. Private things should be kept private. She had nice knickers. Pretty pairs of lace and cotton, some quite small but nothing vulgar, nothing cheap looking. Sexy yes, but not cheap looking, not slutty.

She knew they were very happily married because their bedroom shared a wall with hers. They did not make a great noise, no song and dance act but the headboard kept a regular rhythm several times a week. She didn’t mind. She thought of moving her bed to the other side of the room or even moving into another bedroom, she had two spare ones. But no, somehow, she had got used to it. It would have been different if they were arguing all the time, screaming and shouting at one another half the night. But they were not. In fact she had never heard them row.

It was comforting in a way. It was nice to be almost included in their happiness. It reminded her of her late husband John and her. They had been happy. They had had three children who had now grown up and moved away. Her youngest son lived in Australia, her daughter in Scotland and her other son in Spain on some Costa, she had never been to visit. She got letters and postcards and phone calls. They had their lives to lead, she understood that. She was excited for her youngest son when he came home and announced he was emigrating to Australia. Oh both John and she were concerned, up-set that they would not see him again but as John said, they could not stop him going out into the world and making a man himself. They did not try to stop him. It was his adventure, his journey, his life. The airport was perhaps too hard, too painful. It came out of nowhere really, one moment she was smiling and telling him to watch out for Kangaroos and the next she was shaking like a leaf and tears streaming down her face. She was losing her baby! John was a rock. She could never have got through it without him.

When their daughter told them that she was getting married to a man from Edinburgh and would be moving there, it did not seem too bad. It was at least in the UK. It is funny, her son had been back to visit twice over the years. Her daughter not once. Some distances are more emotional than miles.

It came as no surprise to either John or her that their eldest son moved off to Spain. He used to watch programmes about it on the telly. They could almost see it coming. It would mean cheap holidays too so great. They had been to Spain on a package holiday in 1980, she still had the straw donkey somewhere. Off he went to sun, sea and sangria with Sandra from the chip shop. She came back after three months, he did not. She works in the kebab shop now.

It was almost like being young again, having the house to themselves. No-one taking too long in the bathroom getting ready for work or to go out in the evening. No-one shouting down from upstairs, questions like “Mum, where’s my red shirt”? or “Mum, what time’s dinner”? Just her and John. There was hardly any mess to clean up with just the two of them. It was nice, comfortable, secure. John had a heart attack carrying vegetables home form the market. He should have caught the bus but he would walk. Just to save one pound ten.

Her youngest was not able to make it back from Australia in time for the funeral; he was very sorry and sent some lovely flowers. The other two came though. The daughter – just for the day, she could not stop over night as she was doing a course and had got special permission to miss the day but she could not miss two days. They hardly spoke, she was there and gone. And so was John. The house changed. It was not just quiet and tidy anymore but empty. Jam packed full of memories but completely empty. She did not know that silence could be so loud. Time heals – actually that’s bollocks you just cope, you go numb and you cope because you have to and that’s that.

Then suddenly, the sound of next door’s headboard knocking on the wall seems like a lovely sound. It brings back all those wonderful memories. Those feelings of happiness and security. It brings back the past in a most unexpected yet fabulous way. A quiet, comforting way that offers peace somehow. She would not move her bed to the other side of the room. Not yet anyway.

John had been dead twelve years and her headboard had not moved since. Not once. Red did not have a headboard, what would be the point? It would smash its way through to the house next door like a pneumatic drill and the screaming would be from her, not it. Oh she made a noise. When she dragged some bloke up her stairs the entire area knew about it. She made sure they did. She took some strange pleasure in grabbing as much attention as she could. God knows why. It’s not something most normal people would want to do. But she was like it in every aspect of her life. Attention grabbing. Wherever she was she would talk loudly and instead of keeping her eyes fixed on the person she was talking to, she would scour the vicinity to see if anyone was listening and then pounce. She would direct a comment right at them and bring them into the conversation. Even when they clearly did not want to be a part of it. All the attention had to be on her. Even when she was alone in her own garden. Why else sun bath topless? Perhaps it was not just the little boys next door who were looking.

Despite the tangas and flowing locks, she had spent more and more nights alone as the years rolled by had Red. There had been a time when there was a procession of young men climbing her stairs, it was almost like a local rite of passage. But as the years passed by the men started to do so too. Nowadays she was left with very meagre pickings and as the number of men dwindled, the amount of vodka she consumed increased. Once she been a bit of a slut. Now, she was a drunken lonely slut desperate for attention – even from the neighbours’ little boys. But even so, there were still nights when the bedroom window would be open and her orgasmic orchestra played to the residents of the three surrounding streets. Isn’t KY jelly marvellous?

One of the pairs of knickers she was hanging out had a hole in the gusset. They would do for polishing too so it did not matter. She looked around the gardens, to the other washing lines. It seemed the entire neighbourhood had decided that today was wash day. Well, a dry day is almost always wash day here. So many pairs of knickers! Red’s tangas, Jenny’s slips, and her old tired bloomers. It hit her like a thunder bolt. You could tell the kind of life these women had by looking at their underwear. Of course she wore tired out old drawers, she was tired out. Hang on. No she was not. Why on earth was she wearing these horrible baggy old things? She might never have worn tangas but she used to wear nice knickers, nice knickers like Jenny’s. Her life had become so dull, so uninteresting, so lonely that she simply did not care about her underwear. No-one was going go see it, it did not matter.

So that was that. She had given up living. But she did not know she had given up. She had not meant to. After John died, she must have just drifted into a kind of getting by mode and somehow, she had stayed that way. Just getting by, but not actually living. John was dead. He had been dead for twelve years but she was not dead. She looked at Red’s tangas and laughed. That definitely was not her, but she would never think badly of Red again. Red had always been single and had always wanted not to be. And she was still trying not to be even now, in her early fifties. When she looked at Jenny’s washing line, she prayed that she would never see bloomers on it – ever.

She walked down the garden path grabbing the knickers off the line. She went indoors, threw them into the rubbish bin, went upstairs and moved her bed to the other side of the room. Then, she went out to get a new life and some new knickers.

This is one of the stories in my book, The Image of a word, which is available through Amazon in both ebook form or paperback.