HOW TO SHOW JOY by Gloria Moress

She hovered outside the toilet door. “Your mother offered to come down and help me cobweb,” she began.

“Mmmm.”

“Well, I don’t think the cobwebs are that bad.”

“They add character to the place.”

“So you think the place is dirty?”

“No!” His eyes flicked to her briefly over the Country Life. “Don’t worry about Mum, she’s just trying to help.”

“I know…but it always feels like criticism. I think I’m managing okay. Aren’t I?” Her voice rose and cracked in a bid for approval.

“You’re doing fine,” he soothed, eyes scanning the machinery for sale.

Sighing, she returned to the kitchen. Brett still opened the end drawer looking for cutlery. She had it under the sink’s draining board. He laughed about looking for a teaspoon where his mother had stored them years before, and said, “I just can’t get used to this,” but it irked her every time.

It seemed no one could get used to her “city” ways. Her mother-in-law heaved an exaggerated sigh whenever she cast her eyes at the ochre coloured kitchen walls and terracotta tiles. The old man grumbled about the water she must waste on her flowerbeds, “one rose bed out the front was good enough for mother” as he eyed the riotous perennial borders she’d planted around the house. Together they tut-tutted the disorderly and forthright manner of “kids today.” Her kids.My downfall is that I want to please everyone, she thought grimly, I want approval. Approval from her in laws meant acceptance in this tight knit, aging community where everyone you knew today had known you since you’d been born. All except her.

It was ten years since they’d moved into the house Brett’s parents had built in the fifties. The older couple had moved into town to be closer to their two daughters and other sources of support as they aged. Despite this, they often called in unannounced, walking in the back door without so much as a cursory knock.

Those ten years had been hard work, long hours for Brett on the tractor, long hours for her on her own with the boys. Now her baby, Daniel, was in grade one, and missed them terribly all day, until the bus returned them, hungry, pink-cheeked and disheveled to her kitchen table. It was the empty hours during the day that had started her thinking about entering the local show. Brett and the kids raved over her baking, and she thought she might enter a sponge. Maybe even submit a couple of roses from her David Austin collection. I’ll check the categories, then decide, she thought, excitement building at the thought of a little project of her own.

Show day simmered, hot and still, as February held its breath. As they toured the cattle, Debbie marveled again at their placid stolidity. Cattle always seemed a contented animal to her. Anything that let you lead it around by a ring through the nose would have to have a fairly peaceable nature. She envied them. Her striving to be a better something had no end: mother, wife, daughter, P & C member, cook, lover, friend, sister.

At least she had tackled this last bastion of country womanhood and entered her work into the show. As they entered the pavilion and her eyes adjusted, she saw her mother in law standing at the flower display. Tom, Will and Dan raced over, a whirlwind of gangly arms and legs, “Grandma! Did you see the dodgems?” “Will you go on the ferris wheel with me?” “Where’s Grandad?”

Joy turned, shushing them automatically, then beamed at Debbie, “First prize in the old-fashioned category! Looks like my old bushes are performing as well as ever. Well, roses are a tough plant, really.” Debbie’s return smile froze, but even as she began to turn away, she felt Brett reach for her hand. His rough palm pressed against hers, and he squeezed her fingers. “Actually, I planted that,” she said quietly.

“Oh, did you, dear? Yes, roses just about grow themselves in our climate, don’t they?”

Her eyes met Brett’s, who crossed his in vexation. They moved on to the baking display, the boys darting around them in an impromptu game of tag. Joy heaved an exaggerated sigh of disapproval, but was distracted by the cakes in the low glass cabinet. “Oh, look, dear,” she exclaimed. “You’ve come second in the sponge roll category. My old recipe is fool proof, isn’t it?”This time, Brett pinched her very hard on the bottom.

“Actually Joy, yours is a bit on the crumbly side, this is my grandmother’s recipe.” Her tongue seemed to have developed a will of its own, and with Brett’s arm around her shoulders, she felt steady, solid and sure of herself.

“You have been busy, haven’t you?” Joy said meanly. “I don’t know where you find the time with those three children of yours. They’re so demanding.”

Shrugging, Debbie moved to the patchwork. She had entered a colourwash quilt in a heart design. It had been a real labour of love that had taken almost two years to finish, and she had hand quilted it in every precious spare moment. It was a beautiful design in purples, blues and greens, and she had finished it and presented it to Brett for their tenth anniversary.

She stopped in front of the handcraft display, where her quilt, winner of the grand prize, was prominently displayed. Brett dropped a kiss on her head, “Congratulations, sweetheart.”

Beside her, Joy stared at the quilt. “I didn’t know you could sew!” she exclaimed. “That’s why I’ve been mending Brett’s work clothes all these years.”

A slow smile spread across Debbie’s face. “Yes,” she said. “That gave me time to do more interesting things.”

“Shall we tell her darling?” Brett asked sweetly.

“Yes, lets,” Debbie replied.

“We’re having another baby, Mum, due in July.”

The older woman’s raised eyebrows signaled her surprise and disapproval, “Really?”

“Yes,” Debbie added, as their beloved, boisterous sons ran over and jostled for prime position between her and Brett, “another beautiful boy.”


Gloria Moress ©Writers’ Group, Clifton