I was ironing. Ironing gets a very bad rep as far as household chores go. But why?
Ironing is sedate and sweet-smelling and, as long as you don’t let it pile up, has a beginning, a middle and an end.
The full basket, the half-empty basket, the empty basket. Neatly stacked garments all set for their journey to their owners’ rooms.
I know some people that brag about not having an iron and how their wrinkled trousers and shirts are no different than mine. As if.
They don’t know what they are missing: the little puffs and wheezes of the steam; the way time passes differently; the intimate, profound contemplation over your children’s pyjamas.
I noticed a sponge in the sink and mused over its life cycle. Out of the packet it’s at the kitchen sink, then, a bit tattered, it heads to the utility room to clean shoes and rub muck off coats; finally, it’s in the bathroom for the shower plughole, before its closing performance – deep cleaning the bog.
Then the thought of shoes brought back a stinging memory that paused the ironing momentarily.
I was on the sofa, with a paper (probably an Irish News) spread out at my feet, and my dad’s couple of pairs of good shoes.
It was my chore of the week to polish them, but it wasn’t a chore. I loved doing it, especially as it got me out of washing floors or doing dishes after Sunday dinner.
I had all the accoutrements in the shoe box, and I wiped the brogues clean, lathered on the Cherry Blossom, then waited… and waited … to give them their final, gentle rub. I watched to see his contented face when he saw them side by side.
I was nine, or 10, in Belfast on a Saturday night. Any Saturday night, because this was our routine. The fire would be lit and my brother and sisters were running about like wild cats; we were so happy.
Saturday night was chippy night and also treat night. Friday was official treat night but Saturday was as well; the sheer vivacity of the evening meant our parents succumbed to our pleading for Mars bars and Creme Eggs, and we stopped in the shop for before going into Manny’s on the Antrim Road.
The rest of the week was spuds and butter and Crispy Pancakes and cornflakes and toast with lemon curd. All lovely, happy food. But Manny’s was divine: the salt and vinegar lashed over the gorgeous chips, and the battered sausages, and the huge, pink pasties.
The squabble was always about the swapping. “You don’t get half a cheeseburger for ten gravy chips!”
Dad got a fish, never a supper, and he would butter white bread at the table and make four beautiful sandwiches and relish every bite.
Mum never got anything and warbled on about how she wasn’t hungry, yet scoffed any scraps we left (there weren’t many).
It was only years later, as a parent myself, that I copped on they were sacrificing. They were making sure we had a little evening where the world was infinite in its love. Where the only worry was whether to watch Play Your Cards Right or Blankety Blank, forgetting all that was going on outside in north Belfast.
We were warm, safe and stuffed, lying in our living room, our sweets and bars still to come.
Then about six years later my father dropped like a stone and, like a stone, never got up.
I thought about the Irish poet, Tom French, in his masterly Touching the Bones, saying that we grieve because the dead forget us.
Then my phone suddenly went berserk and brought me back to Tyrone. Government Emergency Alert. Red Weather Warning. Stay Indoors!