A new beginning
Mr Pugh woke up the next morning to a strange and eerie silence. He climbed out of bed, pulled down his flannel nightshirt that had somehow ridden up to his waist, and eased open the ragged curtains. The street was coated with a pristine carpet of snow. He shivered, availed himself of the chamber pot, and dressed hastily. Suited and booted he stumbled downstairs with sleep encrusted eyes. Of Mrs Pugh, there was no sign. He made a cup of tea, using the teabag that had so far lasted three days, and decided to make one for his wife. He considered adding poison but settled for milk. Wondering at her tardiness in rising he tiptoed up the uncarpeted staircase and knocked gently on Mrs Pugh’s bedroom door. There was no answer so he tentatively opened the door. “Tea my dear.” he whispered in case she was asleep, and stepped over the threshold for the first time in years. The brightness of the morning peeped through holes in the moth eaten curtains. He placed the cracked cup and saucer on her bedside table and opened the curtains without making a sound.
She was sitting up in bed, her half moon glasses sat astride her thin nose, and an ancient bible that belonged to her long dead family was clutched in her bony, blue veined and liver spotted hands. Her eyes were open and glazed and and her thin blue lips were formed into an unfamiliar and discomforting smile
“Time to get up Mrs Pugh.” he softly said in fear of being scolded or worse. There was no reply and no movement. Mr Pugh crept silently towards the bed. Her face looked very grey and there was no movement of her chest to suggest breathing. He touched her icy cold face and withdrew his hand. Mrs Pugh was dead and clearly happy to be so.
For a moment Mr Pugh was startled and confused, but it was only a moment before he too began to smile, and then the smile grew into laughter as he clumped around the bare boards of the bedroom in some semblance of a dance, his steps echoing off the unadorned walls of the bedroom. For the first time since before he was married he felt joy, and wallowed in that feeling. He stopped his little jig and moved to the bedside. He removed her spectacles and closed her eyes. He covered her face with the bedclothes and skipped down the staircase and into the kitchen where his tea sat waiting and cooling. He sat at the ancient table, slurped down the tea, which is not easy when you are smiling, and realised that this was not the end of anything but the beginning of something new and exiting. He had escaped, he was free, he could do as he wished whenever he wanted. Now he had this liberty, he had no idea what to do with it. Nothing this exciting had ever happened to him before and he didn’t know what to do. Who should he tell? What should he tell them? He decided that for now he would tell no-one anything. He wanted to enjoy the moment.
He went back upstairs and into Mrs Pugh’s bedroom and pulled back the sheet, exposing only her face, afraid of what he might see if he exposed more of her. He stood back, looked her in the face and stuck out his tongue, half expecting her gimlet eyes to open. They didn’t, so suitably emboldened, he stuck out his tongue again and blew a raspberry in her direction. He moved around the bed blowing raspberry after raspberry until he got bored. He covered her face once more, picked up the now cold cup of tea and left the room closing the door behind him.
He whistled as he made his morning porridge and, in celebration, added a large spoonful of sugar. As the porridge boiled in the blackened saucepan, he opened the front door onto the sweet day. A bottle of milk on the doorstep, cream frozen and the foil top pecked away by hungry tits. What lovely birds, he said aloud and closed the door. He whistled as he toured the house untidying things; he lit a fire and piled on lumps of coal regardless of expense, and made another cup of tea.
He sat contentedly in front of the fire, warming his feet, gazing into the flickering flames and decided that today he would give the church a miss. He smiled once more and dozed as he had never been allowed to before.
He awoke with a start from a deep sleep, he imagined for a moment that all of this had been a dream and that he would soon be feeling the wrath of Mrs Pugh descending upon him. The fire had died down and strangely, the clock that he had always hated had stopped its eternal tick tock. The house was silent.
This was the first day of his new found freedom and so, digging into the bowels of Mrs Pugh’s deep brown handbag, he found, among the used handherchiefs and religious bric a brac, her purse, which rarely saw the light of day. He opened it and took out the collection of coins that it held and put them into his waistcoat pocket.
“Time to go out.” he said bravely to no-one in particular, donned his heavy coat and his hat and stepped out of the front door, childishly slamming it shut behind him. There was a cold wind blowing from the sea and the snow squeaked under his tread as he wandered into the town. As he neared the cluster of cottages that was generally referred to as the town, the footprints in the snow increased with many leading to the door of the sailors arms.
Some of the hardier women were there on their glassy doorsteps, arms folded under their ample, floral house coated bosoms, their hair invisible under the standard headscarf, and their pursed lips in a permanent expression of disapproval. The less bold simply viewed the world through their lace curtained windows.
Mr Pugh walked through Main street with a spring in his step, if that were possible in several inches of snow. Curtains twitched and eyebrows raised at his passing, and there was a palpable communal gasp as he entered the Sailors Arms, where the clock on the wall was stuck fast at opening time.
When he entered the snug bar, there was a silence, the silence that is reserved for foreigners, and the eyes of all of the drinkers turned towards him. He had never been seen in the Sailors Arms before and had never been seen smiling. The silence faded slowly as the drinkers returned to drinking and the dominoes resumed their clacking on the worn wooden table. Mr Pugh walked to the bar.
“What will you have, Mr Pugh?’ said the landlord.
“ A pint of your best bitter.” said Mr Pugh, adding a “please” like an afterthought. He paid and took his, anything but best, cloudy ale, to an unoccupied in the corner of the bar, where he sat, still smiling and looking at his fellow drinkers. The first mouthful of beer tasted very bitter and not at all pleasant, but he knew that this would pass. The second was a little better and by the time he had finished half of the glass, it tasted good and was already passing on its effects to his unaccustomed constitution. He finished the first pint with a satisfied gasp and with a pleasurable belch, rose from his seat and paid for another. The second pint slipped down very easily as did the third, fourth and fifth. The drinkers, once they realised that Mr Pugh was now one of them, allowed him to lapse into the obscurity of the corner.
Having failed to melt the snow, the sun had long since slid away in shame, and darkness coated the town once more. The fishwives had gone back into their homes to nag their husbands and children, leaving the snow to itself. The lights in the bar and the thin light from the rows of houses were barely lighting main street as he tottered out of the bar and into the snow once more, remembering the direction of home but forgetting his hat and coat. He trudged back up the hill, not in a straight line and eventually came to an unsteady halt outside his front door. He turned the handle but the door was locked. In his hurry to leave, he had forgotten to take his keys. He giggled stupidly at this predicament, relieved himself noisily and carelessly against the wall and slumped down onto the doorstep, his happy but fuddled mind wondering what to do next. His eyes drooped and he fell into a deep and satisfied sleep, snoring into the night.
He was still there the next morning when, before the sun had struggled reluctantly over the horizon, the milkman found him, frozen stiff with a smile on his face and an icicle hanging from the tip of his nose.
