The Jewel’s Eye (2)
She stretches. Yawns.It’s a little after half past five. The house is quiet, still. Upon the mantelpiece, her mother‘s clock ticks against the hour. She’s fallen asleep in the arm chair again. Although the curtains are open, it’s dark in the living room. The massive furniture from her mother’s past haunts the room in shadows and drawers, memories stuffed in all possible corners, crannies and shelves. But not hers. She’s standing now, stretching again, a little cold, a little stiff, her body aching more as the years race by. Her dreams still clinging to her memories, so real again, she thinks to herself, so full with feelings and yet, and yet…She reaches for her glasses, on the nest of tables, next to her phone, her book, the thimble of glass, her nightcap from the evening before, still smelling of the brandy she sipped just before she dozed off. The radiator is on she noted, and although it is July, she appreciates the dull, weak warmth of the mellow heat beneath her prematurely arthritic hands.
Her mother sleeps in late these days, her carers come at nine, she knows, and so smiles with a mixture of relief and glee, as she shuffles in bare feet, across the threadbare carpet towards the curtains and nets of gauze that filter the outside light from coming too strongly inside- and allow her to see over the front garden, beyond the red brick wall, to the crouching cars, parked, in huddles of glistening metal, chrome and color, half on the sidewalks, half on the street that steeply climbs to the parish church at the top of the hill.
There he is. She sees him every morning, pulling his newspaper cart, rain, cloud, sun or shine, delivering newspapers, magazines, a few specials, carefully wrapped parcels that he knows he shouldn’t know what’s inside, but she suspects he does, slowly almost cautiously up the hill.
She detests his dog. Sitting like a canine king upon the canvas bags stuffed with the irreverent news and inevitable gossip of the day.
She pulls back the curtains, pushes her glasses further back up her crooked nose and looks again as her neighbours cat trots across his path, pauses to stare as the two continue their climb over towards her mothers garden gate, and then continues to George’s across the road. She remembers in a rush of recollection the night that was two years ago, before.
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