hagiography

The Correct Way to Iron a Shirt

Orange cupboard doors stared blankly at
us. Wall tiles, stippled cream and decorated with brown flowers,
didn't say a word. There was a carpet, flatly stain resistant. And
a twin tub washing machine. And a folding, blue, plastic dish-rack.

The ironing board clattered as mother
assembled it, from vertical to horizontal. It wore two layers, like
an old lady in a twin-set. Things in our house were repaired, only
ever thrown away when deemed completely and utterly useless. Things,
not people. People were disposable. Some people were more
disposable than others.

She half-spat and half-licked her
fingers, lightly touched the iron plate and nodded in satisfaction as
her saliva buzzed against metal. “Don't ever do this,” she said,
“You might burn your hand”.

“But …”

“My skin's like asbestos.”

“How will I know when it's ready?”

“Leave it on for five minutes.”

“Oh, ok.”

My father had lots of shirts, folded
nearly in his drawers. He never wore them. Some years back he'd
left home, and his shirts. We waited in our neat piles, but he
didn't return. Every once in a while mother emptied his drawers and
laundered the contents. Maybe she thought he'd be disappointed if
everything wasn't fresh and clean. In retrospect I think that was
the problem in the first place.

She grabbed a shirt and laid it on on
the ironing board, collar dead central, body hanging limply over the
side. “Always inside out and from the outside in,” she said,
slamming the iron down on the collar's right tip. A sudden hiss of
steam escaped. The board creaked. “See,” she said, as the
fabric submitted, each crinkle forced out of existence. I nodded at
the perfect, crease free, flat horizon.

Once I'd been trained, her job became
my job. I waited for the man who never came home. I ironed his
shirts religiously, begging forgiveness …

And so it came to pass that she died.
I inherited her ironing board, vacuum cleaner, sewing machine, yogurt
maker and pressure cooker. I'd left home many years ago, in a flurry
of of tears and recriminations, each rebellion a step further away
from the threshold. She cried when I cut all my hair off, “Your
crowning glory,” she wailed. And the day I had my nose pierced/got
a tattoo/dropped out of university/discovered I was pregnant. “You
could always get rid of it,” she said, “You don't want to make
the same mistakes I did”.

Every time I press on the board it
creaks. Slam, hiss, creak. Slam, hiss, creak. I find its little
noises comforting, like when I hear my husband's tread on the stairs
as he comes to bed, or the sound of him breathing in his sleep.
Familiarity doesn't breed contempt. Frustration and unhappiness are
the chief culprits.

He doesn't wear shirts that often. No
need. Mother turned her nose up at his job. “Profession,” she
said, and the word sounded clammy. “Trade,” I replied, but it
made no odds. I saw a statue of a peacock once, its tail fashioned
from saw blades and its long neck from coiled bicycle chains. “It's
rusty,” mother said. She couldn't understand it was meant to be.

He's a good father. There's always
food on the table and clothes on the children's backs. His collar's
blue, so what? At least he comes home each night, usually. I don't
think mother missed this inescapable fact, but she seemed determined
to ignore it. No point in provoking her. With some people their
mind's literally made up and you can't get inside that fiction.

I touch the collar. It's warm. I'm
accustomed to washing his grubby stains, dirty underwear. This time
though, this time 'Vanish' didn't really do the trick. I can't see
the lipstick mark anymore, not in reality, but it's burnt into my
memory. Did she curl her fingers around the back of his neck? Rest
her head against his shoulder? Hear his words rattling through his
chest, all deep and musical behind those ribs?

Slam, hiss, creak. Slam, hiss, creak.

Mother said “All men are dogs,” but
I didn't believe her, because she also said “All men are tomcats”.
Jane, who'd lived at Greenham Common in the 80s, said “All men are
rapists”. I didn't believe her either. She smoked cigars and I'm
pretty sure she was a lesbian. My sister said “The secret to a
happy marriage is good sex”. That seemed obvious enough, until she
found a business card for a strip club in her husband's trouser
pocket. She held onto the washing machine to stop her legs buckling.

Slam, hiss, creak. Slam, hiss, creak.

The cuffs should be ironed the same way
as the collar, inside out and outside in. He has this style about
him, my husband, wears those gangster chrome elastic garters to keep
his shirt sleeves up. They've probably got a name. She's certainly
got a name. He doesn't like anything flapping. Perhaps it's my
gums, lips, the result of two children, a slightly neurotic
personality. I flap a lot. I bet she's cool and collected, uses
lip-liner and understands the function of various hair products.
Maybe she has her legs waxed at a salon. I shave mine in the bath
and then spend ten minutes cleaning the scummy tide mark. I haven't
been to the hairdressers in years.

Slam, hiss, creak. Slam, hiss, creak.

And I wonder what he does with his
hands. Does he guide her through a crowd, his fingers resting
lightly on the small of her back? When he touches her does she let
him know it's welcome? With a smile? A gentle relaxation? And
where else does he put his hands? On her neck? Her breasts? Her
hips?

Slam, hiss, creak. Slam, hiss, creak.
Slam, hiss, creak.

I fold each sleeve at the seam.
There's a stray thread. I want to bite it off with my teeth, but I
could pull the stitching by accident. Along with everything else,
mother left me her needlework box. It's red plastic, the type lots
of men using for storing their fishing tackle. An ugly thing.
Various reels of cotton sit snugly in a compartmentalised black tray.
She chose these, meticulously. Her hands worked with the crochet
needles too. I've forgotten how. The darning wool is of no use
either. Where are the scissors? I can't find them. I imagine my
eldest daughter has taken them. She steals everything, borrows and
doesn't return. “Where's the hairbrush? … my moisturiser? ….
that box of chocolates? … your father's affection?

Before she was born he was mine. By
the time she was one it dawned on me I had to share. The way he
treats her, as if the sun rises and sets with her smile. And she has
his eyes, his sense of humour, his manual dexterity. She has
everything.

“Apple of his bloody eye,” mother
said, her mouth twisting, “Daddy's little chicken wing. Daddy's
little flowerpot”. I couldn't deny it. On those rare Saturday
afternoons, after the final scores, when we sat on the sofa, with me
tucked up against him. “Well where is he now?” she said, an edge
of triumph in her voice.

Slam, hiss, creak. Slam, hiss, creak.

The shirt is lying face up on the
board, its arms spread in mute apology. The stray thread curls at me
like a pubic hair on a fresh made made bed. Our bed? He wouldn't.
Would he? Slam, hiss, creak, slam, hiss, creak. He couldn't. Slam,
hiss, creak, slam, hiss, creak. Not in a million years. Slam, hiss
creak. Something turns in my stomach. It's a baby at night, trying
to find its thumb with its soft, clean mouth. I can hear it snuffle,
the sound of baby-gro toweling against against fluffy cotton. That's
how an idea starts; small, almost imperceptible, but then two things
connect, or don't connect, and it coughs into life. At first it's
just a couple of splutters. It could go either way. A moment of
silence. You listen with bated breath. There it is again, more
throaty this time, a forceful blast propelling the cry into your
consciousness. And it's not just your ears that respond. Your whole
body's alive to the interruption. The baby's woken up. It's
demanding your attention.

Slam, hiss, creak. Slam, hiss, creak.

The sides of a shirt, so mother
advised, are ironed different ways up. The buttons have to be
facing, so as not to crimple the fabric. It's important to skirt the
edge of each one, each issue, each problem.

“Even at your sister's wedding.”

I knew what was coming next.

“In the garden.”

Why this persistence with truth?

“Against the silver birch.”

Where my childish swing had swung. “I
don't want to know mother. I just don't want to know.” I put my
hands over my ears but I could still hear her.

“Do you know how it was for me?”
she screamed.

“I

DON'T

WANT

TO

KNOW.”

“I had over a hundred guests …”

She wasn't going to stop.

“And my husband, your father …”

She spat the words out like olive pips,
like snake venom, like …

“Was fucking one of them up against a
tree.”

Silence.

Slam, hiss, creak, slam, hiss, creak,
slam, hiss, creak, slamhisscreak.

She said the 'F' word.

Slam, hiss, creak.

The other side, where the button holes
are, is ironed inside out to preserve the seam. A straight edge is
everything as far as appearance goes.

I expect he seems straight to her, with
his start over again strategy. No mention of Peter, or Jonathan. I
forgave those indiscretions, mainly because, once he'd explained, I
didn't see them as competition. He explains things so well. I can
understand once he tells me how. It's just a question of looking at
things from a new perspective.

Slam, hiss, creak, squirt, to soften
the dried-in creases and dampen their reticence. He admitted it. At
the time I flinched, sickened by a spinning sensation. It was like
being locked in a waltzer with an evil carnie at my back. “Alright,”
I said, but the word got swallowed down and vomited up. It sounded
strangled. Half dead. We don't talk about it.

I lit a cigarette. My hands were
shaking. “Your father was a pig. A pig and a liar.” I
remembered the visit to Brookes' farm when I was eleven. The
herdsman told us that pigs, anatomically, are the closest creatures
to humans. I'd been sickened by their penis length and width and
violence. I preferred the dog. His was less threatening. We called
it his 'lipstick'. Mother's teeth were stained with harshly applied
lipstick. “Please,” I begged, “I don't need to know”.

Slam, hiss, creak. Slam, hiss, creak.

Peter had been a minor diversion,
perversion, but Jonathan was a full-blown affair. I laughed when he
said that. 'Full-blown,' good God, there's no answer is there? He
thought I was hysterical. It was something he had to get out of his
system, like air in a radiator or steam in an iron.

Slam, hiss, creak.

The back of a shirt comes in two parts,
a lined shoulder piece and the main panel. Starting at the
shoulders. Always inside out and outside in.

I thought I knew him. That first
Christmas – I was already pregnant by then. We spent the day in
bed watching old videos and eating Turkish delight. He said I had to
keep my strength up. I don't think he cares now. “Capable,” I
heard him say last Christmas at the works party. I wonder whether
[i]she's[/i] capable and [i]what[/i] she's capable of.

Slam, hiss, creak.

I feel hot.

Slam, hiss, creak.

I'm tired.

Slam, hiss, creak.

I won't mention it, when he comes home.
No point. We'd have to acknowledge it. I'd get all frayed.
There'd probably be shouting. The neighbours might hear. The
children would definitely hear. I know what it's like, for a woman
to need a man and for that man to be absent. I don't want him to
leave, with a hurriedly packed holdall and not so much as even a
backward glance. I'm not having my daughters crying every time his
favourite TV programme comes on, or when they spot some irrelevant
item he's forgotten, just like them.

I push the shoulders of a coat-hanger
through the sleeves of his shirt and hang it on the doorknob. If his
body was inside it now he'd be kneeling. I imagine him begging
forgiveness, promising never to do it again. I'm glad he doesn't.
That I don't demand it. Some things are best left unsaid. Chances
are [i]she[/i] doesn't know this. It will be her mistake and
undoing. That, and the fact she doesn't know the correct way to iron
a shirt.

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