Conversations With a Stranger

Sally Ward | She/Her

The sunlight floated across the floor like yellow dishwashing liquid. Brittany had been sitting in the same chair for two hours. It was that kind of chair. She had been given it when her grandparents were downsizing. It was the fanciest bit of furniture in her room. A ‘mid-century’ piece with a wooden frame and olive green upholstery. She had sat down to let her nail polish dry. Recently she had been painting them black to get in touch with her edgy side.

Sally appeared at the door. 

Do you want tea?

Yes please, Brittany said.

Gumboot?

Brittany heard the kettle tick in the kitchen. She hadn’t realised how thirsty she was. And she liked the way Sally made tea. Not too much milk, although it was always too hot to drink.

Brittany’s perception of time had changed. Instead of the days being measured by bus timetables, days were measured in cups of tea. Memories of childhood kept playing in a supercut of youth. She remembered time stretched out like playdough, how long the hours had seemed between marmite toast and naptime. Older people who know things are always telling you what to do and what you’re supposed to eat. When she was 16, it had come out at the dinner table that her mum used to lie about the time to trick her into bed at 7pm. That was before she learned to read analogue clocks. 

Yesterday they had all sat on the couch speculating that this was actually a drug trip because that would explain why Brittany could sit on the floor watching her basil plants grow and had started saying goodnight to them before bed. And why Niccola had dressed up as David Bowie on Tuesday. Hannah had been drawing pictures of pineapples robbing banks of all the $5 notes. 

Sally came back with the tea, splashing it on the carpet but pretending not to notice. It was only endearing because the carpet didn’t show stains. Brittany burned her tongue.

Sally had put shoes on. Should we go for a walk soon?

Brittany thought about it for a second. She wasn’t ready to leave the chair but Sally had put her shoes on so it wasn’t really a question. They went out of the house for the first and only time that day, turning left up Levy St.

How are you?

I can’t believe I got tricked into going to bed at 7pm. Maybe it’s time to tell mum that I used to wet my toothbrush and put it back in the jar without brushing my teeth. I hated that toothpaste. Do you think she knew?

Sally looked relieved. It was comforting to talk about something other than the news. They were noticing the teddy bears in the window and the barely legible works of art on the concrete. Someone, presumably a small person, had drawn a hopscotch outline in multi-coloured chalk. They took turns hopping around until Sally lost her balance from giggling.

We need to put a teddy bear in our window.

They had both left their teddy bears in boxes at their parent’s houses. The ones that had survived the teddy bear exodus of their teens. Suddenly those teddy bears seemed more important than their wallets.

Do you think we had more freedom as children?

Sally laughed. 

I mean I like having sex and you can’t do that as a child. And I didn’t like broccoli and I like broccoli now but only because I chose to.

We can’t have sex.  

Dark, self-deprecating laughter fell onto the concrete. They stopped talking altogether to listen to the birds. Sally couldn’t work out if the birds had always been there, or if there were usually too many cars to notice them.

They walked back inside and Brittany started making tea. Sally was trying to fix the paper jam in the printer so they could stick up a picture of Paddington Bear. She was muttering about the stupidity of it; it had always been a piece of shit. Once she calmed down, she eased the crunched up mess out, but then the wifi didn’t connect so she gave up. 

Sally remembered collecting a pile of ballerina costumes and attacking them with a plastic iron in the front room of her kindergarten. It had been sunny there, too. She wished she could shake her little self and tell her not to give into the patriarchy, even if it was make believe.

That’s how it starts, kid. 

You play a make-believe woman until you can’t remember the game and you’ve become so good at ironing that your brother asks you to iron his shirt because you’re better at it anyway. 

Sally went into the laundry and turned on the iron, checking the water and licking her finger to make sure it sizzled when she pressed it against the element. She started on a bunch of tea towels, they smelt of fresh air and sunlight and eucalyptus. Normally, she would not iron tea towels. She had read that ironed tea towels were more absorbent. They were starchy colours, with irremovable cocoa and coffee and red wine stains. 

It did not matter how long she stood there, barefoot on the tiles, blowing loose bits of hair out of her face because time did not matter. The less she thought about it, the faster it went. She started folding the tea towels into clean rectangles and admiring their individuality. She moved too quickly and burned the outside of her hand on the iron, realising she should have turned it off before. That was the trouble with real irons. 

Are you ok? Britt said. 

Yeah, I’m ok.