Friday Flash

Friday Flash – Sunday Lunch

They arrived at the same time and he parked his car behind hers. They embraced outside the garden gate.

“You okay sis?”

She shrugged. “Better. Do you know what this is about?”

Josh shook his head. “She didn’t say, but she sounded better.”
 
“I haven’t spoken to her since last week. Work’s been mental.”

“You need a new job,” he put an arm around her, knowing this was as hard for her as it was for him. “Come on, let’s see how she is.”

They walked up the garden path together to the bright blue door. As he rang the doorbell, he found himself smiling at the memory of the day it was painted. Dad had showed him how to remove the letter box so it wouldn’t get painted, then dropped it in the paint pot.

He could feel Carrie tense when the bell rang inside. “What if she’s like last time?” she asked.

“She won’t be. She sounded better.”

They stayed quiet as they listened to the footsteps come up the hallway. Josh tightened his arm around Carrie’s shoulder as the door opened.

“Hello darlings!”

They didn’t move for a beat. It had been so long since they’d seen her smile, they didn’t know how to react. Not only that, she was wearing lipstick. And her hair looked neat. Josh noted the ironed dress, the apron covered in flour.

“Well don’t just stand there, come in! The kettle’s on.”

Carrie stepped forwards and embraced her mother, Josh hung back waiting for his turn. When it came, he felt his mother’s bones too easily through the dress. She seemed older. But then again, they all did.

They drifted after her to the kitchen, the smell of Sunday lunch wafting over them. A good smell that made his stomach grumble impatiently. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d had Sunday lunch here.

“Go into the sitting room and I’ll bring you a cup of tea,” his Mum smiled at them both and they left her in the kitchen, chinking china.

“She looks better,” Carrie whispered. “I haven’t seen her look so good since the funeral.”

“Yeah,” Josh agreed. “I think the worst of it’s over.”

They drank tea to the sound of the carriage clock ticking on the mantel piece and their mother’s roasting pans clattering in the kitchen. He thought of a childhood of gnawing hunger as he waited for Sunday lunch to be served, with only the weekly repeat of Lost in Space to entertain him, whilst Carrie drew pictures and his Dad cut the grass. Middle class banality that bored him to tears back then, and yet he yearned for it now. The smell of the roast dinner, the ticking of the clock, the sound of the pans, all conspired to make the hole inside him ache for a different reason.

“I miss him,” he said quietly.

“We all do,” Carrie replied.

He wanted to shout at her; “You didn’t even like him!” But he didn’t. He just sat there, sipping the tea that was still too hot. He watched his sister and felt guilty. She had found it harder after the funeral; she had taken the brunt of it here whilst he had dealt with all the paperwork and the inquest. He reached across and squeezed her hand, wanting to apologise silently for thinking so badly of her. She smiled at him, oblivious, caught up in her own thoughts.

“Go through to the dining room darlings, lunch will only be a minute.”

He followed Carrie into the dining room, bumping into her when she stopped a couple of steps in.

“What’s wrong?” He moved past her to see the dining table laid for four. His mouth went dry.

“Sit down then,” his mother said cheerily, passing them with a plate laden with a roast chicken. They watched her put it at the head of the table, just like she had every Sunday for all those years. The sight of it made him expect his father to come in, rubbing his hands together, saying “lovely chicken mother” with a happy chuckle before picking up the carving knife.

Josh wondered if he had to sit there now. He approached the chair slowly, as if treading on his father’s body to get there.

“What are you doing?” his mother asked sharply and he froze. “That’s your father’s chair.” She pointed at the one he had always sat at. “That’s yours.”

Before he could answer, she hurried out. Carrie flopped into her chair and buried her face in her hands. “I knew it, I knew she wasn’t better. She’s lost it. She still thinks he’s in the bloody garden.”

Josh could only stand there, staring at the steaming chicken waiting to be carved. Before long his mother bustled back in with a huge bowl of vegetables, plonking them down in the centre of the table. “Sit down Josh, there’s a good boy.”

He sat, looking at his sister across the table, who was doing all she could not to cry. He didn’t know what to say or do, he just sat there, dumb.

His mother took her apron off, draping it over the back of her chair. She frowned at Carrie. “What’s wrong?”

Josh watched his sister burst into tears and his mother frown at her, bemused. “Mum,” he started, but didn’t know how to finish. He swallowed. “Mum, Dad’s not going to carve the chicken.” It sounded ridiculous.

“Of course he isn’t,” his mother sighed, bustling to the opposite side of the table to take up the carving knife and fork in her hands. “But it doesn’t mean we don’t lay a place, out of respect. Now Carrie, stop snivelling like that. Josh, elbows off the table. Honestly, just because I’m old, it doesn’t mean I’m losing my mind.”

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If you liked this, you might like my other Friday Flash stories: Burnt, The Perfect Escape and The Straw. I might even go as far to say that you would also like my short story club, but who am I to say that? x