by John Darley
Alone
THE dishwasher packing up was the final straw. Sally came into the kitchen to find water leaking out on to the floor.
She’d managed to switch off the appliance – that was the easy bit. Then began the long, tedious phone calls to the appliance-repair company with whom she had a contract.
This was Saturday so things were taking even longer than usual.
“Don’t put me on hold again!” she yelled at the recorded voice. The brain-numbing muzak started up.
Eventually she was connected to a repair company where she was able to hear a calm recorded voice say that they were now closed till Monday.
She had come out to the kitchen expecting the dishwasher to have finished its cycle. This mattered because she needed coffee – and every mug and cup that she possessed was in the machine.
Gingerly she reached into the machine and took out a mug, noting that it was one of Tom’s. She took some small measure of satisfaction to see that the ink of its Spurs logo was starting to come off in places.
“One day you’ll be gone, too,” she whispered.
Since Tom had left, more than four weeks ago, Sally had found herself often speaking in whispers. It was like a subconscious decision to be quiet after the noisy unpleasantness that had built up to his departure.
What was so cruel was that for some time he had made her feel as if she was to blame for the breakdown.
Ironic that, as her own relationship had ended, other things had packed up, the dishwasher being the latest calamity.
Sally decided she didn’t want to put her lips to the mug that Tom had used. Instead she dropped it into the bin, a small gesture that didn’t bring any real pleasure.
She made her coffee after rinsing one of her own mugs and then sat with it in her hands, taking stock of her life.
“Here I am,” she whispered, “the wrong side of twenty-five, living alone.
“I do a job I don’t like much, am reliant on technology, live in the flight path of Heathrow airport and feel utterly dissatisfied!”
It gave her some sort of cathartic satisfaction to list these things.
She took her mug to the sink and rinsed it under the mixer taps, standing it to drain on the granite worktop.
An image entered her head of Granny Paterson’s croft in Annisaire, with its bleached-wood draining-board pressed up against the big stoneware sink. Its one tap was centred and fixed to the wall.
She was still in this nostalgic reveri
