Oh Magdalene! An Extract

In our family, we have a saying: 'Thank you, Maude!' Usually said after dinner. I asked my nana after its origins the other day... Maude had been her mother's sister, who came to care for them - my nana and her brother and sister - when their mother had died of organ failure. The children too young, and my great grandfather clearly oblivious to her efforts, she made a habit of thanking herself after each and every meal, 'in jest'. It got me thinking. On the invisibility of women in the work we are so often so often simply expected to do. So my latest novel - in the typing-out stages right now! - is dedicated to my great aunt, Maude. And don't worry. I'm gonna save Maggie! Jut you wait....

1

Kitchen curtains opened wide, morning light filtering in, Maggie, home alone now, held up each and every glass, each and every mug, each spoon and dish to the brightened light, checking for a missed spot, a thumb print, a coffee granule, any possible smudge.

When she found herself content after each passing inspection; it could all be neatly packed away. She even insisted on her own homemade detergent of rosemary and lavender fresh from the garden with only a drop or two of Sunlight liquid. The lavender and rosemary she steeped over night in hot water, lending a light but pleasant fragrance to the concoction.

She mimicked her mother’s tired complaint then, “Oh, Magdalene, what next?”

She had always mimicked her mother growing up and these days more than ever.

The drying dish cloth scrubbed clean only yesterday with her ever faithful Sunlight soap bar and a great deal of all the more elbow grease, filthy again. Covered in yellow mustard stains like unwelcome bile. Would he ever learn?

She boiled the kettle and brought out the bar of Sunlight soap from beneath the kitchen sink. Next, she dug out the plastic soaking bowl and gently laid the filthied dishcloth within its depths, placing the bar on top to soak, hot water boiled soon to cover it. Dishcloth soaking, she gathered the laundry for the machine to hang indoors, dreary and wet day though it was, the laundry cared not. The clothes horse and endless hangers would simply have to do.

She sighed a deep sigh of resignation. Her posture slackening slightly. He’d left the spare room door open again, probably for a pair of socks or his favourite jacket. But yet again, oh yet again where she hung laundry during these rainy spells and the cat had got in, yet again, and muddied with their paws the fresh linens of yesterday. The linens mercilessly dove grey and absolute white, there’d be no mistaking the trail of the cat and her invasion. Fickle Siamese. Back into the machine they’d just have to go.

She went through to their bathroom so long to check if she’d missed the last of the laundry. In the large wicker basket. One of their dark blue towels, nautical, lay crumpled on the floor. She hated herself for how it agitated her. The towels had to be immaculately aligned in their stainless steel bar and without their tags showing, those tags supposedly so helpful with washing instructions. Beyond the pools of water on the floor from his morning shower, mopped up after by Maggie as always. A rite of passage.

Her worst, the bathroom sink. Herself only using a pea-sized blob of toothpaste, a tube once lasting her nigh on a year. Not with him. She wondered at times if he got more on the black slate ledge and white enamel bowl than in his actual mouth. “Oh, Magdalene, what can you do?” Again her mother’s voice came to her. Her mother of the old school variety that simply accepted husbands for all their foibles with unwavering loyalty and fidelity an even gleeful indulgence. Floor mopped, towels hung in perfect, exacting alignment, and the slate ledge and white enamel sink scrubbed without a telltale spot, she took in the bathroom scene one last time.

The bathroom so telling she felt. His creams and pomades and expensive aftershaves, the exfoliating shower gels always blue and scented for men. Then beside, in a small obscure corner, her humble clay cup a dear friend had once made for her, and in it a solitary bamboo toothbrush – for she was desperately trying to become more eco-conscious – a small tube of minimizing pore treatment – a gift from her mother she used rarely – and finally, a cheap and blunt razor in egg yolk yellow. Again she sighed, and again her posture slackened. Best she check on the bedroom she resolved. For all she had pleaded he put his dirty laundry in the bathroom basket, it never was. Rather, strewn around the bedroom in flagrant disregard.

“Oh, my darling little Magdalene! You can’t change ’em, honeypot!” Again, her mother’s voice. Inescapable.

She was always up before him, making sure the espresso pot was put to bubble on the gas stove, and the ruby grapefruit halved and neatly segmented and the daily newspaper retrieved from the front stoep, unsheathed of its protective plastic layer and ready for his breakfast tray.

Her own morning routine was simple. She’d grab her old faithful denims – a pair of androgynous Calvin Kleins she’d picked up for a steal at a thrift shop – and one of her old Pixies fan tees from a bygone era. Boy, were those the days! Then she shuffled into a pair of flip flops and flung on an apron here nana had made for her last Christmas, and how she loved it and just the thing for the housework. Her greasy mop of tangled hair she brushed as if tackling a child with nits, then fluffed with a smattering of talc powder and into a bun atop her head it went.

Sometimes she felt like showering, lusting for one, to well and truly relish a piping hot shower on full blast, but it was a luxury she could not afford herself. At least not every day. Shower days for Maggie usually only coincided with days of long hours spent toiling and growing evermore sweaty trying to resurrect the unyielding Dry Bed – as she had named it. A patch of soil where little grew, so far only her lavender and rosemary successfully, a patch a stranger to rain from the pitched roof of the river-front cottage they’d recently moved into. Then and only then she usually showered.

Besides, he showered not once but sometimes twice a day. She suspected those second soakings after one of his oblivious dalliances. But the water she could not abide. And this left Maggie feeling almost resentfully responsible that the least she could to make up for such flagrant disregard during the drought – for all the days of light drizzle had made no difference - a drought with no end in sight, well, self-denial and heavy on the talc powder and now and again her neroli essential oil.

She hoped, gazing outside the bedroom window, that the rainy weather might help, might fill the tanks, but the rain fell lightly, gently to the ground, and she doubted it. Bed unmade. Those damn clothes on the floor. More clothes in a hamper in the bedroom. Truly when would he ever learn? Like some badly behaved schoolboy who never straightened the edges of his four corners.

But she dare not complain to her mother. She’d be of no help. Men behaving badly not her mother’s wheelhouse. No, she’d spare her mother the whines, the irritations, begging some – any – enlightenment! Sadly no. She was alone in this.

She bent for each sock, underwear, and in the small hamper in the corner, two pairs of chinos and a pair of jeans she’d only just washed the other day. Did he really conspire it necessary for perfectly clean clothes to be washed yet again? They were a shambles to dry in this inclement weather and a part of her loathed him all the more for it. Seething. Urgh. For all she supposed she did love him. But she who required so little. Her few items in the bathroom and a rosemary solution for her hair that again, she steeped and made all herself. The tin of Zambuk tin, cheap as chips, that she counted on when her face bore the brunt of the sun out gardening. And to ward off mosquitoes too and a salve for the bites, plenty as they were where they now lived. Again, the tin she counted on when the skin on her fingertips began to peel from scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing.

Truly and secretly, she longed for a bottle of Clarin’s Dynamisante but could never find it in her to ask, to justify the expense. Her simply the breadmaker, him the breadwinner. No, she could not dare ask. It just wasn’t in her. Never had been.

She called forth something Coco Chanel had once said, like a sudden mindburt: A woman who doesn’t wear perfume has no future. And suddenly she missed who she’d been what felt like many moon ago. The dreamer. The writer. The artist. The odd injection of prize money, or a book advance, to splurge on a sensual fragrance or a good bottle of red or a slab of the darkest chocolate with sea-salt.

“Oh, Magdalene! What are you going to do now? You’re hopeless!” Her mother’s voice chastising her whims. And the answer: absolutely nothing. She could’ve done worse. And he wasn’t all bad. Many women, well they had real troubles. Yes, she could’ve done a whole lot worse.

Occasionally he afforded her a nice glass or two of red, from the impressive and expansive and illuminated liquor cabinet to which he and only he was permitted the key. He occasionally lavished her with a bright bouquet or overpriced jewellery. Guilt? She often wondered in spite of herself. Or worse… A tight leash, she often thought. And still she dreamt of her life before. For all his showy gifts, she dreamt all the while, dreamer that she was.

But what was the use of ‘what if’s’ and ‘what could’ve been’.

Final load of laundry rhythmically rocking the machine, dishes packed away and double sink in the kitchen gleaming steel, she turned her attention next to the kitchen counters.

How he loved the cold and clinical!

All that blinding white marble and chrome and black leather – and him an architect and designed she felt helpless but to indulge him! - while secretly she pined for blush pinks and emerald greens and coppers and rich golds and Turkish handpainted handles and a jungle of indoor ferns unfurling of all shapes and sizes and all the more lilies of blossoming exuberance. And more. Trinkets from flea markets and any and all additions each with a secret story, these to make her home their home too. But no, never.

Inadvertently and caught between reality and yet another of her ‘dawdling fancies’ as he called them, she found herself momentarily recoiling, abject it was, an affront, yes, recoiling and stepping back from the blinding white marble.

But of course, head steadied, heart slowed, she had to return. There and there, red wine stains where he’d thoughtlessly put his glass down the night before, leaving the dinner table to answer his phone and talk in low and hushed tones.

There and there, and there, more mustard stains and there too a spill of Portuguese chilli sauce where’d he’d made his customary midnight snack, never once thinking to use the wooden breadboard right in front of him and at the ready for such a purpose. Nope. Fumbling as he did in the dark with only the light of the opened refrigerator door to guide hi. Crumbs. A forgotten slither of only the finest mature cheddar which he insisted would only be bad for her svelte figure – his trophy on the rare occasion he needed her for a prestigious function or some such.

Defiant, if only a little, she leaned against the counter needing cleaning and nibbled on the rich cheddar, a bit crusty around the edges from its overnight vacation. It was a rogue slice after all, she consoled herself, and him well in the night before with a whole bottle of red to boast to himself. No, she was sure, he’d never miss its absence, savouring it all the more. Then came the groping discomfort, a twisting in her guts, eased only a little by the cheese for her wickedness and cheered her a little.

But the counter.

Vim was summoned from under the kitchen sink . The only product she’d found that could vanquish the blinding white marble counter of perpetual stains. Oh and there. Never once thinking to put his espresso cup in the sink before he left for work, yet another half moon of a muddied mark. Part of her couldn’t help but admire it a moment, like the waning moon, only the colour of a moth. But clean it she had to. She almost laughed at the thought of leaving the white marble to its many stains over many a month and emerging months later with a glorious Cy Twombly imitation!

But again. Nope.

With a concentrated circular motion, eventually her waning moon was gone. All the stains with a little soaking and the tough side of the green and yellow sponge had slowly faded away, disappeared, until anon, just as the moon crescent when the sun rises and comes calling to take its place.

She regarded now the glistening metallic fridge complete with ice and water dispenser. Grubby marks where he’d opened and closed it and no doubt licked his fingers at midnight. Finally the chrome kettle, forever besmudged, and in need of a bit of good ol’ spit and polish, and the reflective mirror-like face of the microwave that attracted fingerprints like flies to dung.

Oh, but she’d forgotten the dish towel. That cursed dish towel covered in mustard stains.

Loathsome mustard marks. Almost as devious as turmeric.

But for all she scrubbed and soaked and scrubbed and soaked, it would simply never be the same and her heart sunk. More than. It irked her. Perfection evading her in this one simple task. What should have been a simple task. But no. Against her better judgement, a madness even, an insane demand that plagued her, to do a job and get it done right, she gave in and hung it up to dry all the same. The faded yellow marks, now almost a softened ochre, quieter and lovely in colour; still, her failure.

But Maggie had to admit, she was beginning to feel a little weak and resolved it was time for warm cup of coffee. She filled and boiled the kettle once more. For all the sterile white and the devoid chrome and the stifling black, he allowed her one mug, a special mug, in complete discord with the décor. And a couple of treasured hand-painted egg cups her nan and paps had returned from Spain with, for her, knowing how she adored egg cups! All hidden of course in one of those invisible and utterly seamless kitchen cupboards above the kettle, with all of his designer espresso cups.

Not too big and not too small, and strangely hexagonal in shape, she’d had her mug since her early varsity days, another bargain bin treasure. It was oriental in pattern and boldly coloured in deep intoxicating red and bright lemon yellow. She adored her mug. This little piece of herself granted access.

She reached up on high for her cheaper tin of coffee, mixed with chicory as it was, and the sugar pot. She craved it sweeter with the first few cups on the morning though it was well nigh noon. She opened the door for the milk. Another guilty pleasure she admonished herself for liking so.

“Such waste,” as her mother had always insisted. And for a moment she thought tenderly on all her husband kept them in the lap of luxury.

But when it came to coffee, simply had to be sweet and milky. Black in the afternoons. But again, thinking ruefully on all those mustard stains now softened ochre, that bitter failure she blamed herself for, but really his doing, again a wicked part of her relished filling the cup to the brim with milk, her wickedness soothed, laid for now to sweet slumber, as she languished in that first sip.

And yet no sooner had she placed the milk at the far recesses of the fridge where it kept coldest, than the contents of the fridge assaulted her sensibilities. Nothing in its proper place. Again and so very often these aftermaths of his late night foragings. Dutifully and barely without a thought to spare, a routine she knew by rote, she returned the lettuce and the tomatoes and the red onions to the bottom vegetable drawer. The bread with the natural vegetable fat spread to the top shelf. The cottage cheese and abominably wrapped cheddar– fixing that too – and the Bovril she returned to the top side of the enclosed ledge of fridge door. The mustards and jams and jar of chilli sauce all back to the top shelf to the left of the honey and oats bread and vegetable fat spread.

Neat and visible and order restored.

A final wipe of the messy spillages and yes, order restored.

Their home, restored, just as he liked it.

Finally she could enjoy her cup of coffee. But her morning – running so very late - had other plans as she entered the lounge for her favourite spot, to gaze out at the grey silken river beyond.

It caught her dead to rights. It caught her each and every bloody time. The bloody red beaded and wire fruit bowl atop the round entertaining table in the far corner of the lounge.

Sure, at least it was some colour with a splash of red. But every time he grabbed an avocado or an orange or a banana, chaos reigned. At least for Maggie. And her soul revolted. Nothing as it should be. It had to be, it just had to be, flawless in composition. And Maggie believed fervently that the trick of true artistry was a subtle art, that subtler art of a composition cleverly balanced but never – no, not ever! – appearing contrived. And in spells like this, even she feared for wavering sanity.

Coffee left on the shimmering mirror table near her sacred spot by the window ledge, she took in the contents of the fruit bowl. While she was at it, she might as well feel she supposed for the riper avocados to move to the vegetable drawer in the fridge. A couple of ripened culprits seen to, it was back to the bowl.

She played around with a variety of options, of compositions, stepping back and taking in each and every composition as though it were the ceiling of Sistine Chapel.

From varied corners of the room, she quietly observed and thought long and hard. In the end and by her fifth attempt, she sighed in contentment for it gladdened her heart to have it all so magnificently balanced and as it should be. And just right it was. Her attempts worth the trouble she felt. “And what do we say to that, Magdalene? Success!” Not that her mother would’ve have praised her. Her mother just wasn’t the sort.

Satisfied, for now, she collapsed into her sacred spot , tucking her left leg underneath the comfort and warmth of her bum. Coffee icy now, there was nothing for it but to get up and warm it in the microwave, careful not to leave any fingerprints on its reflective surface. Then she was back to the selfsame position. Chores mostly done for the day. She sighed in utter ecstasy, reclining, bare feet, under bum, with that second sip of coffee, warming her cold hands.

She looked out beyond the rain speckled window.

It was breathless and the waters calm and still, reflecting the murky mauve of the clouds. She counted the boats moored to the quays. In between sips of soothing coffee, she read their names aloud. She who was mostly always alone. So often she’d speak aloud with no one to hear her. But those boat names. A daily routine of hers. Some meant to be funny. Some tongue in cheek. She liked the nobler names and all the nobler if the boat itself was a little scrappy. Yes. She liked the grand names. Names like ‘Diana’. ‘Diana’ was a good name.

Wooden Boats by Jeanette Jobson