Winning entry 2009
Last time round our short story competition attracted over 1,500 entries, all on the theme of Conflict, and ranging from such subjects as immigration, war-torn countries and religious divides, to quirkier topics such as sex with aliens, weight, serial killers, teeth, vampires, werewolves, witches and zombies!
We’re reprinting the 2009 winning story with permission of the author, so read on for more inspiration, especially if you’re intending to enter our 2010 competition.
The judges felt this story, ‘In the Wendy House’ by Rosey Darbishire, was a thought-provoking and evocative tale of a mother’s struggle, excellently written and with a real emotional kick.
‘In the Wendy House’ by Rosey Darbishire
Inside the Wendy house she could hear the quietness, the rise and fall of her own breath. From downstairs, and satisfactorily muffled, came the sound of her children.
“Mummy? Mummy,” and “Mummy. Mummy!”
They were calling her. If she did not reply they might become distracted and forget.
They were absorbed in their favourite game: The Baddie and The Bad Baddie, played more noisily now their youngest brother had gone to have his rest. When she had seen how absorbed they were she had taken off her shoes and crept up the stairs and gone straight to the Wendy house, knelt down, and crawled inside. Her sense of relief was palpable; she had escaped!
She had bought the Wendy house in a charity shop, hoping that it might help her sons explore the more feminine side of their natures. She spent an enjoyable time furnishing it with miniature household objects: a wooden cooker with blue painted hobs and yellow plastic saucepans of varying sizes, a tea-set, a small plastic washing machine, a wooden ironing board and tiny iron. When it was finished she had sat in it and remembered that once she had thought that life could be as simple as a Wendy house. She had presented it to her sons, and they looked at it, pleased but uncertain. She could tell that they were not quite sure what to do with it but they examined everything carefully. At last they had carried the tea set out into the garden and she felt quite optimistic. Foolishly, she had chosen to disregard what had happened there already.
She had had such hopes that the garden would have a calming influence on her sons. She had given them each a plot of earth to tend and nurture, and she imagined sunny scenes in which she and her little boys sowed seeds, watered plants, picked nasturtiums and measured giant sunflowers. Instead, they selected the small trowels and began to dig, moving buckets of soil backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. They used the flowerpots to add water and mixed it to make great piles of mud. Then they took their shoes and socks off and paddled in it.
She had wanted to show them birds and flowers, to teach them their names, inculcate a love of nature, and she had had some success. Birds and flowers, however, were disregarded and other creatures proved more popular: slugs, snails, worms and beetles were discovered and embraced. The youngest became interested in wood lice. She saw him holding some tenderly, stroking and talking quietly to them. He had looked up at her and smiled benevolently, and her heart had squeezed with love. He told her they were his friends, and then put them into his mouth. One remained, half in and half out. She reached towards him.
“No!” he said sternly, and tucked the wriggling legs safely behind his teeth.
After that she was more wary and watched them when they carried the tea set from the Wendy house into the garden. She saw how busily occupied they were, how well they interacted, how carefully they picked up the tiny cups and saucers, how totally absorbed they were, and she breathed out in relief.
She sat down; picked up a magazine, put it down. She put the radio on, turned it off. She preferred to listen to the sound of her children, at a distance. Later she discovered how they had used the tea set. They had used the tiny cups to trap slugs, tipped them into the teapot, sprinkled them with salt, stirred them up and then watched as they shrivelled. She was an unwilling admirer of such creativity, and when she thought of how long they had been occupied, and how quiet her sitting room had been, she had gone into the kitchen and given them an extra large bag of salt.
Her children remained puzzled by the contents of the Wendy house, and when they found that the blue and orange cooker did not produce real food they lost interest, and it was left to stand in the corner topped with its matching yellow, graded in size, saucepans. When they realised that pretend ironing was boring, and the imitation iron could not release jets of steam, they turned the ironing board upside down to make a monster, firing at each other with the wooden clothes pegs and growling. Then they inverted the miniature mixing bowls and drummed on them with the little wooden spoons. After that the Wendy house was ignored. It was then that she had sought it out as a place of safety.
“Mummy, Mummy? Mummy, Mummeeee!”
She ignored the cries. The solitude of the Wendy house covered her like a blessing, a small gift given to her in the middle of the day, and she wanted to collapse into it, savour and relish every second. The only time she was alone was when she went into the bathroom and shut the door. Even then the smallest of her children would sit outside, and cry noisily, sloppily and persistently until she capitulated, came out and picked him up.
She sat now, knees drawn up to her chest and hugged her own body, breathing slowly and deliberately. It was almost a physical relief not to have a child with her, not to have a small, warm hand holding hers, a little body hugging her so tightly that he might have been trying merge with her once again. One day the child embracing her had held her so tightly that she was pushed down and down, closer and closer to the floor. She had subsided onto the carpet and he had clambered on top of her, emitting little satisfied grunts. She had begun to realise that her children did not want to achieve a perfect physical reunion with her, but her subjection. Of course, she had known that she was in their thrall the moment each of them was born and lay with her, as bloody and battered as she. Their wrinkled, knowing faces had told her that she was in their power.
Inside the Wendy house the plastic walls were pinkly uterine and exuded a soft scent of Play Dough and pee, and she felt comforted and peaceful. Peace was something she craved, something she looked for, longed for; it was something she desired more than the body of her husband. She searched for places in her house where her children might not find her. Once she had pulled the sofa out and climbed behind it and remained undiscovered for fifteen minutes. She had hoped for longer, but the youngest had bitten the eldest and not let go, and their shrieks and cries had made her reappear, try and be grown-up, and negotiate a treaty. Quarrels and strife were the usual constituents of her day.
“Mummy. Mummy. Mummy!”
She put her hands over her ears, hoping to deaden the sound of their voices, make them seem less real, less imperative. As long as there were no screams she could remain in hiding. She could keep perfectly still and quiet for a long time, but knew that detection was something that would happen soon; she could sense it in the way the calls had changed: there was now a note of impatience and annoyance, and she knew the oldest would soon lead a search party for her. When she was found she would try and pretend it was a game, but she knew she would not fool them; she would be punished.
“Mummy? Mummy. Mummy! MUMMMMEEEE!”
She did not answer their calls, hoping to avoid captivity for longer. The yellow plastic saucepans demanded nothing of her; she would have liked to sit there all day, looking at them. She thought that if she lived in the Wendy house she would not cook; she might not eat. Often, she picked at the leftovers on her children’s plates and later pretended she had already eaten. She did not need food; she needed peace, tranquillity, silence and calm. She needed to nourish and restore her spirit, and did not think to find such refreshment in a lamb chop or chicken curry. She wanted peace. She wanted quiet. She wanted solitude. Most of all she wanted to be no one’s mother.
She had daydreamed about it, and now she had begun to make plans. In the broom cupboard and safely hidden behind the mops and bucket, was a bag. In it were a few clothes and some money. One night, very soon, she would leave her bed and her husband, she would listen at the doors of her sleeping children, then she would take off her shoes and creep down the stairs. She would take the bag from the cupboard, open the door, and go out, into the dark night.
Copyright Rosey Darbishire 2009
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