“The days are repeating.”
The woman was hanging the damp, stringy washing on the whirligig, back turned to the dark clouds on the horizon.
“What’s that?” I had intended just to carry on past but I can’t ignore a greeting when I’m on my own.
“I did exactly this same day yesterday.”
“They say it often feels that way.”
She sighed. “No, I mean the days are actually repeating. Look at this…” She spun the whirligig half a turn to the right and held up a child’s once-white vest. “That was a raspberry stain this morning. I washed the same mark yesterday. And the day before.”
“Isn’t that just life with small children? All the days seem the same.”
“It looks like a bird every time.”
“The stain looks like a bird?” I cocked my head and squinted at the mark.
“Yes.” She spun the gig again and started on the next section. Still ignoring the clouds.
“If this day were repeating wouldn’t we have had this conversation before?”
“We have.” She sounded weary. “You’re about to tell me it’s going to rain.”
I swallowed down the warning. “And then what happens?”
“Tomorrow we’ll do this all again.”
“When did all this start?” I wondered if she knew.
“It started when we cleared the garden. You came by the day we felled the big oak to make this drying space.”
I nodded. I’d been travelling alone that day too and the sight of the old tree lying on its side had shocked me into stopping. I had known then there’d be consequences.
“I’ve regretted it ever since. We upset the balance of things; the children are afraid to come out here and the hens won’t lay”
She looked bone tired. Not surprising with three little ones but someone needed to keep an eye, prevent further mischief.
A chattering in the trees drew my attention.
“I should – “
“– You need to get going.”
“Yes, they’re waiting for me.”
“I know.” Her voice was flat.
She picked up the empty laundry basket and with her left hand gave the washing a last whirl. She frowned through the grey blur, her body sagging like a wrung-out cloth.
Something had to change. Our ways can be inflexible but this could yet be undone.
“Widdershins,” I called to her, savouring the sound of the old word.
She looked up, startled. “What?”
“You always spin it widdershins. The other way is sunweys.” A thought tickled me, “might even be better for the washing!”
For a moment she was still, staring at me as though she’d just understood something, then she reached forward and spun the dryer with her right hand. The damp clothes flared limply but the air around the whirligig flexed like the surface of a pond.
The shadows on the grass flickered and she looked up at the thin needles of watery sunlight now piercing the cloud.
A smile found her mouth and she turned to thank me but I had already flown.
Hilary Coyne 