Clean Hands

The Old Place is nearly gone.  Sold to pay the fees of the nursing home.  Not the parental gift as intended.  Grandad would be unspeakably sad if he knew.  Even though he’d understand that there’s no alternative.  The garage is the last redoubt.  My Old Car has languished there ever since I moved South.  Age took their car from them so they let mine sleep at the end of the garden in the simple concrete prefab.  Like a cork, it has plugged the door leaving the place largely intact from the time Grandad died.  Nana never came here: it was always His space.  Of course it was, he was the Man of the House.  His workbench and cherished tools.  He built my toy lorry here.  Paintpots and brushes.  Spare tins still full from the last time he painted the house.  Kept for touching up the sills.  The cobbling implements he’d inherited from his father.  He fixed Nana’s shoes with them.  Everything still there.  All meticulously cared for. 

My Old Car is a sad looking affair.  It’s sunflower yellow paintwork heavily disguised by dust and dirt.  Mice have made a plush home from the upholstery.  The tyres are quite deflated.  Of course, it won’t start after all this time so we push it, unceremoniously, to the main road and a waiting trailer. 

I wanted to rinse my hands before making the journey home.  I’d bypassed the house to retrieve the car.  I went in through the back door.  Through the bright plastic curtain of streamers that hung over the opening.  The ribbons that would flutter gently when they had the door ajar and always threatened to ensnare a running grandchild like a cobweb.  Of course, there was never a single cobweb in the house. 

There’s not much left inside.  Mostly stripped for local charities; museums even.  But the water’s still on.  And next to kitchen sink, a bar of soap.  Imperial Leather.  Always stuck me as the height of sophistication.  Luxurious.  It has such a perfume.  When I stayed over, I’d go to bed smelling of it.  It was my last waking scent.

New people are coming.  This will all be theirs soon.  Our finger tips are slipping.  At least we have clean hands.

Comments

[Vannessa Gabbett]

Is this fictional or real? If this is just a story, then I applaud you for your writing skills! This made me feel like I was reading a poem. Where did all of your ideas come from? I like the parts where you mentioned your old car!

[Carlton]

Thanks for the comment, Vannessa. It's a record of real things that I've experienced, although obviously with some I've taken some liberal artistic license!

I'm sorry I don't have time/energy to write like this any more. I enjoyed sharing my thoughts.

Thanks again.