the black sock incident

We were preparing the house for Auntie Sheila’s annual visitation. 

First two weeks of September, my Mam’s sister Sheila heads for Ballina from her home in Fermoy and we know its time to get out the Vim and the rubber gloves.

Sheila is not fussy, as she keeps telling us – and on no account are we to scrub and clean in her honour. However, The Black Sock Incident is still fresh in my mind. A number of years ago, Sheila was staying in my home. Sheets were washed and ironed and the room aired. The night before she was due my friend Dee landed on my doorstep and bagged the guest bedroom. Dee is the cleanest person I know. A compulsive bather she is comprised more of rose-scented cosmetics than she is of human flesh. She sleeps cocooned in a pair of freshly laundered cotton pyjamas - surely we could risk one night? The next morning the bed looked barely slept in, so I patted it back into shape and said nothing. When Sheila arrived I showed her to her room and introduced her ‘freshly made’ bed. A keen Agatha Christie fan, my small assertion alerted her to the possibility she might be entering a crime scene. On the auspice of admiring the faux brass details at the end of the bed my suspicious aunt drew back the duvet and with an ‘I thought as much’ look that Poirot would have been proud of revealed, a lone black sock. 

She drew herself short of saying ‘freshly made eh?’ and while I explained it was only Dee and only one night we both knew that I had lied about a matter of cleanliness and so it might as well have been a dead rat. 

The fallout from this is that my sister and I go onto Red Alert a few days before Sheila comes to stay with our mother - and rush over to do some deep cleaning and high dusting.

The semi-detached cottage looks out on the River Moy and is the home my mother grew up in. It sat empty for some years after my grandmother came to live with us in London, and now my own mother lives there.  It is a museum to three generations of our family and we all think of it as our real home, so giving it a good skinning once a year is no bother to us.

 My sister and I both have a different ethos about house cleaning.. I like to live in a reasonably clean home but I don’t think it’s important. As a writer, I try to avoid developing a bourgeois relationship with tidiness. Claire, a businesswoman, is committed to the mop. She openly says things like, ‘I hate crumbs’ and ‘we don’t like mess’  and ‘just look at the state of my kitchen.’

The dreamy writer and the practical, perfectionist businesswoman - we are polar opposites. However, when my sister and I get into the rhythm of each other we effectively become the same woman. 

‘Did you bring rubber gloves?’

‘Always -no point in having a shellac otherwise.’

‘Makes sense.’

We love each other wildly. 

‘They need a polish’ – I said when she had mopped the tiles in the hall.

‘What do you mean?’ 

‘Remember Granny and the tiles?’ I asked.

‘No,’ she said, ‘ remember I’m ten years younger than you?’

I reminded her about the years when our grandmother had lived with us in London. With both our parents working, Granny Nolan babysat Claire and oversaw us older children in our chores. Mine included polishing the brasses on the front door and the red floor tiles in our hall. 

‘The tiles in London were the same as these’ I said looking down at the mopped floor. 

 ‘People don’t polish any more,’ I said, ‘it was kind of therapeutic.’

Claire’s face darkened at the thought there might be another level of perfection to reach for that she hadn’t thought of. 

‘Polish the floor?” Mum interjected ‘don’t be ridiculous!’ 

But my fire was up. 

‘Have you got any Duraglit,’ the other two looked at each other, ‘for the door knocker? I’ll give it a quick lick.’

‘Hoover the upstairs,’ Claire said, ‘downstairs is done.’ 

I bowed to her greater judgement but as I was putting the Dyson back I caught her rubbing the letter-trap with an ancient rag and a rusting tin of silver polish. 

Granny would have loved that,  I thought. It’s in the blood.