Page 36 - WTP Vol. X #7

Everyday magic is happening in the garden and Elinor goes out to pick it up. The chickens are laying eggs now. Sometimes the eggs are still warm when Elinor picks them up and little feathers stick to them.
Her father tells her to go show them to her mother. She takes them to her mother’s bedroom on the first floor. The bedroom faces the garden and when Elinor is in the garden, which she often is, she wishes her mother would watch her from her window and Elinor turns to look again and again, but her mother is never there.
Elinor draws back the curtains, making just a little chink to let some sun in, but today is a grey day. Elinor puts an egg next to her mother in bed. The bed is full of eggs. Eggs don’t smell when they get old, only if they break and even though the eggs are so small and their shells so very thin, it doesn’t happen very often because her mother lies so very still. But the room nevertheless has a strange smell, like the smell of your pee when you have eaten asparagus.
“Ohh, an egg,” her mother whispers, she pulls her hand out from under the duvet and Elinor puts a little egg in her hand. “Mmnnn yes. Yes, yes,” her mother whispers and sighs. She puts the egg on top of the others and sometimes the eggs start rolling and Elinor holds her breath, but the eggs soon find their place of rest. Elinor can’t lie really close to her mother because of the eggs, they lie on each side of the egg hill. Sometimes Elinor reaches over and runs a finger along her mother’s hand. The skin on her
hand seems so loose. Elinor thinks it’s dehydration, she’s up to date with all the medical wonders of the world. She reads books and when she’s at the doctor with a bad flu or an inflamed finger, she has written questions down to ask the doctor.
~
Her mother doesn’t get out much, they say, but she doesn’t get out at all.
Her father often takes Elinor to a country park and they always ask if her mother wants to come too, but she never does. They must have been to all the coun- try parks several times by now. They drive in the car, sometimes they listen to a programme with political jokes and her father laughs, or they listen to music, Elvis, ‘Always on my mind,’ and her father starts crooning. To more rhythmical music, he taps the rhythm on the steering wheel, looks over at Elinor, and gives a little giggle. But sometimes they are quiet and when her father turns his head to see if there’s room on the road to change lanes, she always hopes he is looking at her and she turns her head to catch his eyes, but he’s concentrating on the driving.
They walk around lakes, across the open countryside or through woods. Little birds fly low from tree to tree. The beech forest is bright, the pine forest is dark and there are endless species of trees in the birch family.
~
Elinor’s grandmother comes to visit at least twice a week. She always brings a fish for the kitten. The
fish is wrapped in brown paper. She unwraps the fish on the kitchen table and puts it on a plate with
a drawing of a fish, and gives it to the kitten on the floor. Elinor asks if the kitten won’t choke on the fish bones and her grandmother says, she has to stop being so anxious, and that it’s a cat’s nature to eat fish. Then she takes a bottle of perfume from her bag and sprays the perfume all around the kitchen and the kitchen smells of fish and old lady.
Then her grandmother goes upstairs and Elinor follows her. She goes to her mother’s bedroom door, opens it and goes in. Elinor wants to come too but her grandmother stops in the doorway and says she can’t, “No Elinor, you go play,” she says and closes the
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Eggs of Ill Omen
ea anderson