TIMING
 

                                                 Fiction  By Sam Reed

 

 

     He had been every afternoon since his father’s funeral, moving from room to room taking an inventory.  The few items he would keep lay in a small suitcase on the sofa in the living room.  They all belonged to his mother, except two of his father’s suits, which he had used to pad out the case.

    He had seen both his parents decline here, at hand to care for their final days. Tears for his father came on the first three days after the funeral.   His grief was a different affair when his mother died.  Indeed he found at times it was his mother he was crying for again.  Resentment toward his father had become magnified after her death.  Though he did not blame him for that.

    He had become aware how much he resembled his father and so developed a  dull resentment, manifested toward the house.  Left alone here it forced him to look at himself.  Rachel his sister had been too busy with her own family and lived on the other side of the country.  She would have to deal with the sale and clearance of the house, he had had enough.

 

    All of his possessions -clothes and toiletries- were back at his own home.  The only place left to check was the loft. This had been converted thirty five years ago to use as a guest bedroom.  It became Brian’s room when his father’s mother moved in with them, as she was unable to climb the steep retractable steps. Rachel who was fifteen protested, being so attached to her own room.  His first memory of the loft was creatively murdering his action man over and over, dropping him onto the landing, through the horizontal door.  He remembered climbing into the loft being a feat in itself.

    Pulling the cord light switch as he climbed up and entering the room through the floor, brought back an old familiarity.  This left him once inside.  Thirty years of no longer useful, personal and general tat accumulated at both ends of the room, gave it a different shape and feel;  the neglect of pushed aside forgotten family history, complete with layers of dust.  He was only interested in finding his own past, ending when he went to college at eighteen.  Walking over old carpet he opened the curtains of the only window, set high in a recess.  Early afternoon light flooded the yellow electric, shimmering slightly through disturbed dust, billowing from the curtains.  The rest of the house was cold but spring sunshine on the roof gave the loft a soft dry warmth.

 

 

    On the left side standing with his back to the window he could see the covered shape of his rocking horse, passed reluctantly down to him from Rachel.  Everything at that end of the room was protected by sheets and no doubt of more dated origin.  Moving over to this he carefully removed the first sheet in front of him, folding it over and lifting it off with most of the dust still on it.  All that lay beneath belonged to Rachel.  A small trunk from the end of her bed, a number of cardboard boxes, sealed with Rachel across the top in large black felt tip and two black bin liners full of soft toys.  He moved all this to position it behind him toward the centre of the room.   Next he lifted and moved the rocking horse, still covered, down from the top of a small set of drawers. These were also covered by a sheet but obvious in shape.  He felt stifled in the small room after this exertion.  Looking at the window he moved as if to open it then took off his pullover instead - allowing air to his hot skin, beginning to prickle with sweat under his shirt.

 

    Removing the last sheet uncovered his old set of drawers.  Also two cardboard boxes, cricket pads with bat and stumps and a pair of football boots.  The boots were too small when he left them and the football had gone with him.  The larger of the boxes held toys, not used since long before leaving home; Meccano, Hornby trains and some novelty board games.  All packed and preserved neatly.  His daughter would not want them but his sister’s children might be interested; he no longer was.  The smaller box contained some comic book annuals and all of his schoolwork; notebooks, artwork and a few textbooks.  Without unsealing it to look he pulled it to position in front of the set of draws and sat down on it.

    The solid, drawers were still in good condition.  They were bought when he moved into the loft and had remained there since he left.  Smaller than he remembered they were obviously designed for a child’s room.   Two half width top draws and the two full draws below them contained his collections.  Running his hand over the top surface he noticed the shaped edges.  The two raised edges at either end were smoothly rounded with a bevelled groove along them, the handles seemed to give them age.  They had some quality.

    Reaching out again he pulled the sturdy brass knob of the top left drawer.  It slid open with a soft scraping and tilted down slightly to rest two thirds extended.  Shifting round he let light from behind illuminate the contents, a stack of albums.  Lifting the top one out he opened the cover displaying the first page and scanned the six stamps inserted into separate translucent paper envelopes, glued down in two columns.  Each had a short description of origin, age, cost and worth, written under them in pencil.  With a sigh he turned the page, then the next, pausing only to take in the careful layouts.  Looking up into the drawer there were three similar albums.  These were not what he was particularly looking for, he could take his time and rediscover them later, at home.  Placing the album on top he pulled out the right hand drawer.

 

 

    It contained two flat wooden boxes, one on top of the other.  His hand went immediately to the top one and lifted it out.  Laying it on the draws he undid the two brass catches at the front and opened the lid fully to rest angled back on its hinges.  The craftsmanship of the container was less than he remembered.  The bottom had a layer of foam and the whole box was lined with blue velvet. Through the velvet into the foam, had been cut twelve slits and each one of these held a clear plastic envelope.  In each envelope was a small dark coin.  Roman coins in various states of erosion.  Taking out the other box he opened this placing them side-by-side.  It also had twelve slots though some of the coins were larger, not so old.  He sighed again, there were his gold sovereign and Victorian commemorative coins.

    These were his most precious possessions as a child, his treasure.  Their value was not great and it was not for this he sought them out.   Many of the coins were collected by his father as a child, who presented them to him on his tenth birthday.  He increased the collection with his fathers help.  Going to collectors fairs, where his interest in stamps also bloomed, were the only times he spent alone with his father.  Sitting staring at the coins he felt nothing.  Concentrating, he felt tension but nothing else.  Shoulders drooping he lowered the lids, fastening the clasps.  He did not have the strength to find his father in them.

    Drained, he pushed the two top drawers shut and with exaggerated effort pulled open the one below.  This held two more thick albums on the left and three small shoeboxes to the right.  The albums contained coins of lesser import and the boxes were filled with football cards and tea coupons. The cards would take him back to carefree times in the school playground.  This was not the time and without even considering them he pushed the drawer shut again.  Far from interested, he pulled open the bottom drawer as a matter of course.  It was the last place not looked at, then he could take what little was wanted and go back to his life.  Separate finally from his parents and leave the weight of their influence behind with the house.

    The drawer jerked open and banged against his foot. Chinking of glass on glass alerted his curiosity, there would be marbles in there but this was the sound of bottles or such like.  Standing and pushing the box seat away he crouched to one side of the open drawer.  Pulling out two cloth moneybags full of marbles, he pushed aside one of the two shoeboxes labelled ‘Matchbox Cars’.  There were a number of jam jars lined up against the back of the drawer.  Lifting out the other shoebox labelled ‘Corgi Cars’ he reached in and grabbed one of the jars.  Standing again he turned and held the jar up to the light. It was empty.  Turning it in his hand he found a label selo-taped neatly to it.  It was the date ‘ Sunday 21 February 1969’, cut out from a newspaper.  He remembered doing this but could not figure out why.  Peering at the jar, turning it in his hand he put it down on the small box. Squatting in front of the drawers he set about removing the remainder of the jars to see what they might contain.  Placing the last one on the box he sat on the floor and gazed at them.  There were eleven jars, all of them labelled with the date from a Sunday paper. Probably ‘The Sunday Times’, his father had this delivered every week, till Brian cancelled the order that Monday.  Each date was different and every jar was empty.  They were well cleaned out, he had carefully prepared them for something.  What this might have been was beyond his recollection.  Picking one up he tried to open it.  The lid was tight so he braced the jar in his lap, straining to twist the lid off.

 

 

 

    The sound of Mum and Dads’ voices laughing brings back awareness of the world around him.  He can hear Dad pleading for mercy between guffaws of laughter and loud thumps as Mum beats him with a pillow.  Feeling his parent’s high spirits he breathes deeply, a warmth inside.  They are in the bedroom below and it is time for Dad to get up.  It is nearly dinnertime then.  Opening his eyes looking up, there is rain pouring down hard, outside the window.  Just another boring Sunday cooped up in the house.  He is sitting cross-legged with his back against the set of drawers.  The jam jar is in one hand and the lid in the other.  He will label it later when Dad has finished reading the paper.

    “ Brian!  Brian! ”

It is Grandma calling up the stairs.  The hairs on the back of his neck stand up and his body tenses but he does not reply.

    “ Elaine, will you tell your son to get ready for dinner and come down yourself to give me a hand. ”

The noise in the bedroom below continues.

   “Elaine! ”

He cringes at the sound of Grandma shrieking up the stairs.  The noise below stops. He waits.

    “ What’s the matter Rose? ”   He can sense the fear in Mums’ voice coming up through his bedroom door from the landing.

    “ When you’ve finished messing about there’s the dinner to get ready.  I’m supposed to be the guest here, I don’t see why I should run your house for you.”

    “ Sorry Rose I was just getting Jake up.”

    “ Jake is old enough to get himself up. If you don’t want dinner to ruin you had better get down here to sort it out.  And tell your son to get himself ready while you’re at it. ”

    “ Brian, its nearly dinner time, come on down and get yourself ready please. ”

    “ O.K. Mum, I’ll be down in a minute. ” He sighs, it was not going to be a fun meal with grandma there. Placing the lid on the jam jar he screws it tight shut.

.

    For a few seconds his thoughts were suspended and awareness of the room overwhelmed him. He stared stunned at the Jar and lid as they fell into his lap, a sensation of waking up too quickly disorientating him.  Closing his eyes he tried to reconnect with his mothers voice.  She was still there.  The memory only an echo, though less than a minute had past since she called to him, from all those years ago.  It was a woman he had forgotten, heard by the young boy who found warm security in her presence. The sound of her voice directly connected to, and strongly influencing his sensitive juvenile emotions.

 

 

    Reclining to lie on the dusty carpet he immersed his adult self in the freshness of those forgotten perceptions.  Tears fell freely from the outer corner of his closed eyelids, running across his temples into his ears.  There was no sign of distress on his face otherwise.   He was simply  swollen with the close proximity of his mother.  And father, there was no animosity, no feeling of mother being compromised. 

   Eyes springing open but not really seeing the rafters above, his mind started to race.  Grabbing the jar from his lap he lifted it to his face.  Saving time.  That was the intention and it seemed he had accomplished it.  The idea came from listening to his father talking about his haulage firm.  He was always talking about saving time in one way or another.  Brian guessed this was not what he had in mind.  Back then it seemed the perfect thing to do with wasted time, imprisoned in his room by bad weather and a predatory grandma.

    It only seemed to take a moment he remembered.  To stop the time he had to stop thinking.  As soon as a thought came back he put the lid on the jar.  Only when it was raining and everybody was stuck at home on a Sunday;  that was when he made the collection.  He stopped saving time when the weather warmed up.  Those eleven jam jars were just another one of his collections, a phase.  Many of the collections that once occupied the drawers were gone already. The perishables such as butterflies and beetles.  The dubious collection of birds eggs thrown out by direct order of his mother and comic books too bulky to fit in, thrown away after he left home.  But the jam jars, tucked away and forgotten had survived.

    Sitting up he surveyed the remaining ten jars, picking each up in turn, examining the dates.  The earliest was 14 January 1971 and the latest, 16 May 1971.  He had to try another one, to make sure.  Choosing an early one but not the first he pushed the bottom drawer shut and sat cross-legged with his back against them.  His hands were shaking as he held the jar, taking deep breaths to try and calm his racing heart.  He was about to hear his mothers voice again, these moments would be worth a million gold sovereigns.  Closing his eyes he twisted the lid.

 

 

   Opening his eyes he looks up to the window, it is dark out already and still raining.  He is about to stand up and draw the curtains when he hears someone coming up the stairs below.  Sitting holding the jar and lid he strains to hear who it is.  Rachel calls up from the landing.

     “ Brian, Grandma says you’ve to come down and listen to songs of praise with us.”

    “ No, I’m staying up here.” He is relieved it is Rachel but feels anger toward her for being Grandma’s messenger.

    “ What’s the matter with you,” Rachel climbs the steps to the loft as she talks, poking her head up through the floor to look at him, “sitting up here on your own sulking?”

    “ Why can’t we listen to the charts like we usually do?”

 

 

    “ C’mon, you know Grandma doesn’t like pop music.”

    “ But I don’t like hymns. We all like the charts, it’s not fair.”

    “ Look Bri, Grandma is an old lady. She’s missing Granddad.  Now she’s living with us we have to take special care, she’s still very sad.”

    “ She doesn’t seem sad to me, just bossy. She didn’t even like granddad.”

    “ What d’you mean, course she did.”

    “ So why was she always mean to him then?”

    “ Well... Er...Well, you know, that’s just how she is.  She still loved him.”

    “ I don’t think she did, I don’t think she likes anyone, she’s always horrible.”

    “ That’s not true, she’s just very unhappy.  Remember, she still buys you sweets and comics, so she must like you.”

    “ Well I don’t like her anymore, I’m not coming down.”

    “ That’s mean, you can’t expect poor Grandma to listen to pop music just cos it suits you.”

    “ It’s our house.”

    “ It’s grandma’s now as well, remember that while you sit up here with your bottom lip out.”

    Rachel’s head disappears and Brian tries to tuck his lip in.  He feels bad now, maybe Rachel is right.  He doesn’t like hymns but will sit down there and read his Beano. Taking a deep breath shrugging his shoulders, he huffs a sigh of resignation and screws the lid on the jam jar.

 

    The childhood sulk added to disappointment of not encountering his mother left him feeling dull as old lead.  Closing his eyes, shaking his head he tried to break free from the dense cloud. Heavy sobs through gritted teeth racked his body, the loss of his mother suddenly more acute than ever.

    So much that had been forgotten was coming back to him.  Rachel had always been an adult to him, she always knew what was right, he saw her as another mother more than a sister back then.  About Grandma though, she was mistaken.  For over six years, after Granddads death, Grandma lived with them bringing misery to the household.  Rachel was old enough to escape, able to visit friends with relative independence and father was always working.   It was Brian, and mother in particular, who took the brunt of Grandma’s belittling bitterness. Too young to help her, he could only watch while mothers’ personality was slowly torn to shreds.  Father did not understand why his wife became so weak; losing respect he also aided her decline.  Taking heed of scathing remarks from his mother over the pleading of his wife.  When Grandma finally left to die in a hospice the damage was permanently ingrained. Overworked, he dominated his wife with disrespect and impatience, she never recovered fully through all the remaining years of their marriage. 

 

 

    Wiping his face with the front of his shirt Brian gained control, focusing on the potential contained in the remaining jars.  Calmly considering each in turn he could not decide.  Did he want to go back again and if so which jar.  Studying them revealed nothing, the different dates had no apparent significance but holding them soothed him. The quiet stillness of the loft comforted him.

   Down in the hallway a harsh ringing from the old telephone grated suddenly through his reverie.  Keeping a jar in his hand he made his way quickly down the stairs.

    “ Hello.”

     “ Ah, Brian, I’m glad I’ve caught you. I was just wondering what time you’ll get home.”

     “ Why?”

   “ Well, if you’ve time I hoped you’d do a bit of shopping for me.  The greengrocers will be shut when I leave work and I don’t fancy having to drive out to Asda’s just for veg. Oh and we need milk.”

     “ I don’t know what time I’ll be home. I’ve got enough on my plate without doing your shopping.”

    “ It’s our shopping. Please Brian”

    “No I’m busy, I’ll see you later.”

    “But...”

    “Look Mage, I’m not your skivvy O.K., goodbye.”

    Banging the phone down he leaned with one hand against the doorframe to the living room.  Why she thought he would start doing her chores he did not know.  Whilst looking after his father he had also managed the contracts for his business, working early mornings and evenings, he was still running things this week. All she did was look after a few kids, teaching at the local infants school.  It was his income that paid the mortgage, gave them both new cars and invested for retirement, she did not need to work.  With the share of his fathers will they could retire in a few years, but he did not want to let go of the construction company he had put so much into.  Specialising in industrial refrigeration units he was among the top in that area.  Established and secure he enjoyed the position.  Brian had built up the business from a small investment given by his father after dropping out of university.

     Through the years his wife became a fly in the ointment, wanting him for herself she spoiled his glory with her moaning and depressions.  He stayed away more the worse she got.  The teaching job did seem to make her happy and they had settled into a comfortable routine over the last few years.  Still, she always wanted more of him and it made him boil.