Some time after the trials and tribulations of the divorce had finally left her she became so obsessed with the idea of a long and uninterrupted sleep that it became a goal in itself. Sleep without the persistent nagging worry or the selfish demands of a man. Sleep! The thought of it filled her with a shivering anticipation, a stomach softening longing, a distraction so powerful and persuasive that it ate away at her every waking moment like an addictive drug.

Sighing she put aside the rose patterned blouse she’d been repairing, seam unsewn, mother of pearl button not replaced. Sleep! It was like that grey fog which crept up from the river in the autumn and seeped seductively into every crevice, an insidious snake which sneaked and slithered, stealing her strength and will to do anything other than wait for the winter which would inevitably come. She grimaced. It certainly felt like winter was coming now, at least in her own particular life.

Sleep!

That a good long sleep would cure everything she was in no doubt. A deep and dreamless sleep without any interruptions from a bad tempered, fidgeting, hung over man. Why she’d rather tend to an injured horse than see to a man who was nothing more than simply drunk and feeling sorry for himself. At least a horse was grateful, the fear and anger in its eyes which disguised the pain it really felt, softening and slipping when she soothed the hurt. No grumbling or complaining from a horse, unlike a bloodyminded, self centred man who only wanted one thing and gave little or nothing save heartache in return.

She gazed into the fire for a moment but the salamanders did not come out to greet her, the quivering heat containing them in their caves of incandescent embers was too hot for smoke. She thought about tea and the bother it would be making it. Not just the fetching of the doings to produce it but the actual fiddling about with it all. Besides, no tea now meant she might not need to get up later, in the middle of the night, which meant she might be able to sleep right through the night. Right through! That would be marvellous!

Turning her back on the idea of tea with a sigh she wondered for a moment if she might be hungry.

Pausing to think when she last ate she found to her chagrin that she could not remember. Nevertheless, the feeling of hunger did not seem any more or any less noticeable than it always was. The empty feeling she had was not so very different from the lethargy which weighed upon her heavily as a consequence of eating too much. No, her moods and demeanour were tempered entirely by her need for sleep. The mistakes she made, the things she forgot to do, or did twice over and both times badly, the times she became frustrated or angry with herself, were all to do with her lack of sleep.

Even as she considered this she felt her eyelids drooping, sensed the weight of the eiderdown and the dark plum coloured blanket lying upon her, knew the tickle of familiar silks and old wool on her cheek, the Her shaped depression in the mattress which would not, after all these years, go away.

Sleep! And yes……perhaps now, before she fell asleep in front of the fire, she ought to make the effort and go properly to bed. There might be just enough energy left in her old muscles to get her up the stairs and into………bed. And then……… sleep! Sleep forever! So that time stood still, now wouldn’t that be something worth wishing for?

No! Wishes were not for things like that. Besides……

Her knees creaked when she straightened them, joints stiffened by inactivity, age and the effects of the fire. The left one, she thought, was being particularly troublesome.

The little mother of pearl button fell onto the dusty hearth with hardly a sound, the needle, still stuck through the cuff of the blouse followed it a short heartbeat later. Cuff and collar and most of the arm. Thread trailed and twisted until finally, in less time than it takes to tell it, the whole blouse tumbled to the floor, rose patterns and all.

She grunted with irritation. Something else to pick up, something else to be washed again. Washed and dried and put away. Another heap of clutter for a cat to lie in if she left it there, to gather dust and ash, become burnt by sparks from the fire and become generally in the way.

Slowly she bent to pick the blouse up and was amazed to find the original hexagonal button lying alongside the new one in the miniature drift of grey ash in the gap between the stones. Wasn’t that just typical of everything she always said? The intrinsic malevolence of inanimate objects.

But how, you may ask, can something as simple as a button be malevolent? How can it be anything other than a fingernail sized bit of shell or horn or finely shaped slice of a hardwood knot? And if you had asked you’d have seen the old woman grin knowingly and hear her tell you, quite plainly and simply that it was exactly the way of things. Anything closely associated with human, whether it be animal vegetable or mineral, sooner or later adopts and absorbs some of that humans’ foibles. In much the same way that a right handed man could not use a left handed axe, or a left handed man comfortably read a right handed book, even though both objects in themselves may not exhibit any right or left handed tendencies, so something as fundamental as a button would take on the frustration it felt from fumbling fingers, the annoying tendency to slip any way but through a slot in material as intended, the aggravation of loosening threads, of a torn buttonhole and the general, debilitating drudgery of everyday grind. As for getting that dark scarlet thread through the eye of a needle again, well that was more than she could endure for one night.

Anyway there was always tomorrow.

She picked the garment up awkwardly, shook the dust from it, threaded both buttons carefully on a loop of cotton and stuck the needle back into the seam for another time. Perhaps, she considered wryly, the girl would wear a blouse which was already ripped next time.

Next time. If there was a next time!

She found her way to the foot of the stairs automatically, tired toes touching foot worn boards, fingers finding time worn edges, corners smoothed and mellowed by a multitude of toing and froing, while her knees creaked and her heart yearned and her whole being cried out for sleep.

The bedroom welcomed her, the curtained bed head shadowy, the carved foot gleaming and glowing with time’s proud polishes.

She pushed open the window to its furthest extent, allowing silver grey moonlight into the room. Night air and night sounds. Night scents and quietness. Cool darkness, warm blankets……sleep?

Breathing deeply she filled her lungs with the scents of her garden, of stocks and lavender and the late, almost faded old roses clinging to rusty wires on the wall.

Slipping easily out of her clothes she let loose her hair and the moonlight lit her, smoothing its hands over her belly and thighs. Cool air and warm blankets and now….. just so much of that….sleep!

She noticed the empty crater at the foot of the bed where a cat had been and was, for once, thankful that it had gone. Calico, she mused, it must have been. She always likes to come up here and make herself a nest in the quilt, treading and pressing until it was made, licking and scratching until exactly enough of her fur was left behind to make the shape unmistakable. Cats! They could be so much trouble sometimes.

Abstractedly she stood at the window, disjointed thoughts and fragmented memories, hopes and fears and suppressed wishes. Yearnings and longings and the fatalistic acceptance that once learned some lessons are so hard to forget. Thoughts troubled her, tiredness exhausted her, knowledge weighed her down with a dreadful, leaden inevitability……

“I thought you’d never come up!” the girl murmured from within the bed.

“Sorry……” she began “I wanted to finish sewing but……”

“Theres always tomorrow!”

“Y……yes!”

The bed was cool and scented with meadowsweet when she got in. Enticing and accepting on one side, on the side where she, the old woman always slept while on the other, as she reached and stretched and heaved herself bodily, a warmer, differently scented body moved itself eagerly towards her.

“I don’t care about the blouse” the girl whispered sliding her arms around the old woman. “Don’t care at all now you are here!”

“Should have come up hours ago” the old woman said apologetically.

“Maybe, but……never mind……”

Already familiar they found each other again and in their lips and fingers a soft, quietly thrilling, acceptance.

And that familiarity left nothing else to say that hadn’t already been said a million times, nothing to do that hadn’t already been done when murmurs and gasps were more than enough.

One had waited, the other tarried, each for their own reasons which were reason enough. Familiarity, and as they moved the woven willow sticks beneath the mattress groaned and squeaked encouragement as they’d done so many times before.

“I’ve wanted you for so long” the girl murmured, buried breathless for the moment while the pace slowed and desires drifted. There was something……more.

Something……

“So long!” she repeated, searching for sympathy, seeking solace in the press of the old woman’s fingers.

The eiderdown swished and a pillow tumbled when they turned and slipped together again, recalling the rhythm and allowing it to carry them, mutually, steadily in an unstoppable stream.

One day, the old woman said to herself, I might find energy enough to do this properly, as properly as both of us would like. And perhaps, before that, she might find the energy to turn the mattress over, turn it so that she wouldn’t have to sleep on the lumpy bits. She’d need somebody to help her to do it, somebody strong and willing. Someone to shake out the feathers and broken bits of meadowsweet which had curled up and dried scentless since before last winter. Somebody who wouldn’t mind the dust and the cobwebs or think her to be a filthy old woman who smells because she sleeps in the same sheets all the time and rarely washes herself.

This girl perhaps! She didn’t seem to mind.

Didn’t seem to mind, so long as she got what she wanted.

She felt the girls teeth and lay back with a sigh of contentment. There was nothing quite like a good bed, a welcoming bed, a bed that was both roomy and comfortable. A bed to be shared and enjoyed or slept in selfishly alone. A bed which would reflect the enthusiasm and excitement of lovers or keep the darkest secrets of a single person’s troubled sleeping alone. It mattered not if the mattress was lumpy or the sticks under it squeaked. That was how it had been and would be again, just as soon as…….. just as soon……

She felt the girl’s fingers while she worked her own steadily, savouring all the subtleties of sounds and scents.

“Go on! Go on!” she heard the girl saying and go on was exactly what she did. Neither of them really needed any more after that but they teased each other anyway until they did, until all their desires and demands mixed and melted into the inevitable urgency which would eventually carry them both into the wondrous realms of sleep.

………………

She yawned expansively, tasted the girl on her lips and thought briefly about chocolate. She smelled the dust and the stale fluff where the cat had been, felt the impressed shape of herself moulded into the mattress and the miniscule weight of the girl beside her.

“Don’t worry about the blouse!” the girl said dreamily.

“I wasn’t……”

It is time to turn it over, for sure, she thought idly, while the girl breathed lightly against her shoulder. Turn it before I sink right through the thing. Time to clean those poor old curtains as well, before they crumble away into nothingness from the weight of the dust and cobwebs on them.

She kissed the top of the girl’s head awkwardly, not wanting to move any more than was necessary.

“Love you……” faraway the girl murmured.

“Love you too” she answered.

It was a good life, her thoughts drifted lazily. Good so long as ……as……yes good……



The same cobwebs were still there under the canopy when for reasons unknown she gazed up at them later. The same grey, lazily trailing streamers of gossamer adorned with dull particles of drifting dust.

One day she……

The girl was still there too, curved comfortably against her, asleep. Really there! Scented and……breathing slowly and steadily.

Really there, just like a dream!

Now you can really sleep, a contented little voice in her head said.



© Aahlu. 2001 – 2011.