Daniel didn’t have to think for himself. It had all been done for him. Right down to the colour of his socks. They were grey. Like his suits.
Daniel Bearing knew one thing though. He didn’t want to end up on a puffin-infested island wearing a hat like his father.
Dear Matilda
Just a quick note to say that washing machine No.76 has settled in nicely and is behaving itself – so far. Bailey Southerton did an excellent job of installing it. He turned up as arranged and was not what I expected at all. He has mended some other things around the house, too. And he found the lawnmower. He has taken it away as it requires new parts and a full service. He says he might even have some wooden spindles to replace the ones on the staircase that are broken or missing. Bailey Southerton really is a very nice young man. I think you will like him. Mr Southerton (Snr) sends his best regards.
Sidney is recovering from a bad cold. He is asleep under the apple tree in the garden as I write this. He does so love the garden. Despite his illness, he could not be persuaded to stay in bed this one time. He was overjoyed to hear that Bailey might be able to fix the lawnmower. He remembers the garden how it was when your grandfather was alive.
Your brother is back from his trip to South America but has now flown to Italy, where he is working with a cosmetics company who are looking for a new blue. I didn’t think there was a such a thing as a ‘new blue,’ but Jack feels confident that he will be able to come up with something that they haven’t seen before. He started talking about wavelengths and nanometres and the optical spectrum of visible light again. That’s when I stopped listening.
Katherine is buying handbags again. Oh dear.
Your father will be at the 3rd Annual Sand-athon at Cabthorne beach all weekend. He has high hopes this time. I’m fairly certain he will be disappointed. Bloody dolphins! Washing machine No.76 will have its first real test on his return. We would all love to see you.
Love
Mum x
5 things about washing machines
Washing machines usually lasted about six months in our house. The abrasive nature of sand saw to that. My father’s clothes were always full of it. There was a well-established pre-wash ritual of pocket emptying and shaking and leaving things out to dry and more shaking and rinsing, but it didn’t seem to make a lot of difference. After six months, something would always snap or disintegrate or crack, and we would have to buy another washing machine to take the place of the one in the kitchen that was in pieces.
Whenever we needed a new washing machine, everyone always blamed Jack. It was tradition. His pen- and paint- and crayon-covered trousers were bad at times, but it wasn’t his fault. We blamed Jack because it made him happy. He was intensely proud of destroying so many innocent washing machines. It was the highlight of his childhood.
We started giving the washing machines names, but that just made it harder when they inevitably broke and had to get taken to the tip. I cried for a week when Marjorie was carted away. Everyone was glad to see the back of Graham.
The record for the longest lasting washing machine was held by Desmond at eight months and two days. On the third day of the eighth month, Desmond burst into flames in the middle of a cotton cycle. Something to do with the heating element getting covered in fluff. We blamed Jack, as usual.
All our washing machines were supplied and installed by Mr Bill Southerton of ‘Southerton’s Electrical Appliances’ in the village. He was glad of the regular trade. He paid off his mortgage, went on two holidays a year and paid for his own hip replacement. We got a 15% discount.
Jack did not look like a world authority on the colour blue. Everyone said that. At first. They doubted him. They kept him waiting in the lobby. They asked him if he wanted tea or coffee or chilled water, and then they left him sitting there for half an hour while they checked his credentials rigorously. They secretly called other companies he had worked for in the past and asked for a detailed description. They all said the same thing.
‘He’s about six-foot-tall with long hair and he wears jeans and faded T-shirts and he looks nothing like a world authority on the colour blue. He looks like he just left his skateboard outside and came in for free coffee.’
That set alarm bells ringing. Sometimes they got security to check for skateboards.
‘Is he really a world authority on the colour blue?’ Would be the next question.
‘Yes,’ would be the answer.
‘Okay. Thanks for your time. Sorry to bother you,’ they would say and put the phone down.
Then they would apologise for keeping him waiting in the lobby for so long, and Jack would joke with them that he was used to it and it happened all the time.
On the way to the meeting they would always ask him why it was that he favoured blue over any other colour.
And Jack would smile.
‘It was the colour of my grandmother’s typewriter,’ he would say.
Katherine thought that she might be able to sneak the top handle handbag into the house without her husband seeing. She was wrong. Clive was home early. His 5.15 had cancelled. Clive was a dentist who had scrupulously clean hands and very small eyes that were worryingly close together. He was a good man who enjoyed drilling holes in people’s faces. He was a contradiction.
Katherine and Clive lived in a modern and minimalist house where visitors were welcome as long as they took their shoes off in the hall and washed their hands before touching anything. It was painted throughout in shades of white. It all looked the same white, but all the whites were actually infinitesimally different. It was a subtle effect. Some of the walls looked slightly dirtier than others, but you had to look really closely.
Clive was sitting on the white stairs when Katherine walked through the white door and took her shoes off in the white hallway. There was really no way she could hide the patent leather handbag that was wrapped in tissue paper inside the carrier bag that had ‘Exclusive Handbags’ written on the side in big letters. Clive pinched the skin between his eyebrows. There wasn’t much to pinch. Katherine knew what it meant.
‘I thought we had an agreement,’ he said.
‘I know,’ she said.
‘You were doing so well,’ he said.
‘I know,’ she said.
‘Then why?’ he said.
‘Because it’s perfect.’
Clive laughed. Not a cruel laugh or an amused laugh but a laugh that was full of inevitability and surrender.
‘No handbag is perfect,’ he said.
‘Don’t say that,’ she said, suddenly close to tears.
‘I love you,’ he said, softly.
‘I know,’ she said. Then she left him sitting on the stairs while she went to find a place on a glass shelf for her new handbag.