Poles Apart

From washing-up to the way they closed the curtains, Cheryl and Madeline couldn’t agree on anything!

CHERYL let out a shriek as her feet got tangled in a discarded bath towel.

She grabbed the washing hamper to break her fall, and it was so full that the lid went flying and landed in the bath with a clatter.

“I’m too old to start falling over rubbish like this,” she muttered fiercely as she plonked the lid back on the laundry hamper.

It was balanced on top like the cap of a frozen old-fashioned milk bottle.

Still muttering, Cheryl shook out the soggy towel and draped it over the rail.

There had been many last straws over the past few months, but this one was really it.

She closed her eyes for a moment and all she could think about were milk bottles on her mother’s doorstep in the depths of winter, the cream poking out with the tops perched on top like little silver caps.

That winter of 1963 had been fierce, and she and Madeline had loved every minute of it until the end.

“Oh, Cheryl, what’s wrong?” Madeline appeared. “Have you hurt yourself? You didn’t fall, did you? I’m afraid I filled the washing hamper up a bit. That was going to be my next job. “Are you crying?”

“It’s not that.” Cheryl shook her head. “I was thinking about the winter of 1963.

“It was the laundry hamper that reminded me.”

Madeline looked at it and laughed.

“Milk bottle tops!” she cried. “Remember that makeshift sledge my dad made for us?

“We went down Foxes Hill on it and it fell apart before we reached the bottom.”

Cheryl started to laugh, but it stopped abruptly as another thought hit her.

“That was the last winter . . .” she began, but couldn’t finish.

“I know, love,” Madeline said, giving her hand an understanding squeeze. “I know.

“But it was a happy one, wasn’t it? We have a lot of happy memories.”

Cheryl thought that perhaps that straw hadn’t been the last one after all, because no-one was as kind and sweet as Madeline.

“Do you remember my mum used to call my dad Frank Spencer?” Madeline asked. “That time he put on Grandad’s mac and flat cap and bounced into the room going, ‘Ooh, Betty!’” Cheryl giggled.

“He even made us laugh, and we were snooty teenagers by then. He was lovely, your dad.”

“I was lucky to have my parents for so long,” Madeline said.

Cheryl hadn’t been so lucky.

Her parents were killed coming home from a party.

She was having a sleepover at Madeline’s and the next morning Madeline’s parents, Mags and Nick, had to break the news.

Cheryl didn’t remember much about what happened next.

She remembered a social worker coming to collect her and Mags packing a bag for her.

“Don’t pack too much,” the social worker said. “She won’t have room for everything. Just the essentials and a favourite toy.”

Cheryl had turned in the back seat and looked back at Madeline, Mags and Nick standing outside their house waving.

Madeline was in tears, but Cheryl couldn’t cry.

“Remember when you came to visit me at the children’s home?” Cheryl asked.

“I’ll never forget it,” Madeline said. “Mum cried all the way home.”

Cheryl had heard the story so many times, but it was one she liked hearing because of what came later.

“When we got home,” Madeline went on, “Mum said that we couldn’t leave you there any longer and Dad agreed.

“I don’t think they expected the fostering process to take so long, but we brought you home in the end.”

Cheryl nodded.

The day she’d come home had been wonderful, but at the same time she felt like a stranger.

The closeness they’d had before had gone and she couldn’t talk to Madeline like she used to.

She missed the girls she’d been sharing a room with.

They’d taken her under their wings and cared for

OK, and Cheryl looked at Madeline and rolled her eyes.

Madeline already had form.

Sure that everything was under control and with a sympathetic glance at Cheryl, the manager left them to it.

The bread bag was open on the side and bread spilled out of it.

The butter lid was off and the cheese still sat naked on the board.

“What have you done, Madeline?” Cheryl cried.

“It’s only a bit of smoke,” Madeline replied cheerfully. “I’ll soon have it cleared up.”

“You never put anything away,” Cheryl went on. “Look, you’ve left a dirty coffee mug on the clean side of the kitchen!”

Madeline had never got it about a clean side and a dirty side.

The shock on top of everything else opened the floodgates.

Not just opened them, but battered them down and carried them off on a tidal wave of emotion.

“You put a week’s worth of clothes in the wash at once,” Cheryl said. “You never make your bed or hang up a towel.

“You can’t open the curtains straight. The concept of closing packages and putting food away seems to have escaped you, and you’re just so untidy.” Madeline smiled at her. “Don’t worry. I’ll soon have it all tidied up. I only left it because I thought you’d hurt yourself.

“I was making cheese on toast for you, too.”

She held out the stillsmoking grill pan.

“When you close the curtains you always leave a gap!” Cheryl continued. “The vacuum cleaner might as well be an alien being.

“And you never replace the loo roll when you finish one!”

Cheryl didn’t know where all this was coming from or that she had buried so many grievances.

“You overbuy food which then goes out of date and you always have the radio on too loud!” Madeline’s smile wobbled. “You can’t close a door without slamming it,” Cheryl went on, “and you can’t stir a cup of coffee without splattering it everywhere.

“I can’t live like this, Madeline. I’m sorry, but I just can’t.”

“Oh,” Madeline said and put the grill pan down, her hand shaking.

“Is that all you can say? Oh?”

“I don’t know what else I can say,” Madeline replied. “I know I can be annoying. Goodness knows Joe told me so often enough.

“I just get distracted and forget I’m in the middle of doing something.

“I really meant to go back and sort the bathroom out when I was dressed, but then I thought it was nearly lunchtime so I’d do us both cheese on toast first.”

She looked round the kitchen.

“I can see why you’re annoyed.”

“I’m not annoyed,” Cheryl countered.

“Frustrated, then,” Madeline said. “I’ll go and sort the washing out.

“No, I’ll clear up in here first, then I’ll sort the washing out.

“And then I’ll start looking for somewhere else to live.”

Cheryl felt as if she’d been slapped, but what did she expect was going to happen?

Why would Madeline stay where she wasn’t wanted?

And she wasn’t going to change.

She’d been untidy since she was a child and now she was in her sixties.

“It’s just as well I never had children,” Madeline said as she ran the hot tap. “Can you imagine what sort of mother I’d have made?” Cheryl couldn’t speak. Madeline would have made a lovely mother.

She was like her dad when it came to being a walking calamity.

But she had a heart of gold and could always make you laugh.

Cheryl tried to think of something Madeline’s dad was good at.

But the only thing he was good at was being a dad and being kind, and really, wasn’t that just as important as being tidy?

“I’ll put some of your washing on,” Cheryl muttered.

“Did you want any cheese on toast?” Madeline asked.

“No, I’m not hungry.”

The laundry was a tangle of clothes.

Some sleeves were turned inside out and socks were rolled up.

Cheryl could hear Madeline humming along to the radio as she made a pile on the bathroom floor to take to the wash.

The radio was too loud. Madeline’s dad was like that.

His wife Mags would march in and turn the radio off, leaving him looking puzzled.

He never seemed to get that Mags liked her peace and quiet.

Mags used to tidy things away that he hadn’t finished with, and if he did any jobs round the house she’d follow behind and “do them properly”, as she tutted about the mess he left behind.

If he cooked dinner she complained about the state he left the kitchen in.

He’d load the dishwasher and she’d rearrange it, just as she did the washing on the line.

But they couldn’t have loved each other more.

They were just like Cheryl and Madeline, but they’d had a lifetime of living together to get used to each other’s ways.

Cheryl and Madeline had only had a few months.

They hadn’t lived together since they were teenagers.

Cheryl had been quite happy living on her own in her over-fifties flat.

She’d moved in after her husband died.

It was small and neat, but Madeline came to visit and she could see on her face she didn’t like it.

“It reminds me of that children’s home,” she’d said. “Doesn’t it to you?”

“No, of course not,” Cheryl had said.

“There are bars on the window, Cheryl!”

“They’re for security because I’m on the ground floor.”

But once Madeline had pointed it out, Cheryl noticed them more and more.

She started to feel not quite so much at home in her flat, and sometimes it felt as if the walls were closing in.

Then Madeline arrived one day with two hastily packed suitcases.

There were bits of clothing sticking out in true Madeline fashion.

“I’ve left Joe,” she said. About time, too, Cheryl thought.

“I’m so sorry. What happened?” she asked instead.

“Someone else,” Madeline said coldly. “Someone who isn’t untidy. Someone whose hair always looks neat and whose clothes don’t look as if they’ve spent several days under a bed.”

“He said that?” Cheryl asked.

“Not in so many words,” Madeline admitted. “Well, not in any words, but I saw her and she’s everything I’m not.”

“More fool him,” Cheryl said.

“Can I stay with you until I sort myself out?”

“Of course you can!” Cheryl cried.

After all, Madeline’s family had rescued her all those years ago.

“I’m a horrible person,” Cheryl said out loud.

Madeline appeared in the doorway, making her jump.

“I’ve made you cheese on toast anyway,” she said. “It’s ready when you are.”

“Thank you,” Cheryl said, thinking she didn’t deserve it.

“Well, it’s done now.” Madeline sniffed. “And you’re not a horrible person.”

Cheryl followed her back to the kitchen and filled the washing machine.

Madeline had cleaned it up beautifully, but the bread bag was open.

Cheryl picked it up and closed it with a clip and Madeline sighed.

“Did you have to?” she asked. “I was going to do that, but I wanted to get you before your lunch went cold.”

“Sorry,” Cheryl muttered. “It dries out if you don’t seal the bag.”

“Aren’t you going to wipe the sides down?”

Cheryl had never heard Madeline speak so coldly before.

“They don’t need it.” “Oh, so you checked.” Well, yes, she had. “No, of course not,” Cheryl lied.

Out of habit, she took a cleaning wipe from the pack and wiped over the bin lid.

“You can’t help yourself,” Madeline said. “You can’t just take your lunch and sit down with it.

“You’ve always got to be cleaning something.”

“There were crumbs,” Cheryl said, “and there’s nothing wrong with being clean.”

“Do you know how frustrating it is living with you, Cheryl?” Madeline burst out. “You’re just like my mother.

“Except that one time when she stopped hunting for my dirty washing and let me run out of uniform.

“Otherwise, she never gave me a chance.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Cheryl replied.

“Is it?” Madeline asked. “I got up the other morning, went to the bathroom, and when I came back you’d made my bed.

“I don’t need someone to make my bed.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Cheryl said. “I just thought I was being helpful.”

“Did you?” Madeline asked. “Or was it that the sight of my bed upset you?

“You straighten pictures up on the wall even when they’re not wonky, and you get cross if I dust round things instead of moving them.

“You police my washing, and when I cook dinner, you start cleaning up after me before we’ve even eaten.” “I do?” Cheryl asked. “’Can’t leave it to dry on,’” Madeline said in a fair impression of Cheryl. “’Much easier to clean now.’

“You throw my magazines away before I’ve finished reading them, and by the way, when you put my knitting away the other day, some of the stitches came off the needle.”

“I’m so sorry,” Cheryl apologised,

“You even went in my wardrobe and organised my clothes, didn’t you?”

“No, I didn’t,” Cheryl said. “I mean, I was putting some clean washing away for you.

“I thought it would be easier to find what you want if you had trousers at one end and your shirts the other.”

They stared at each other. “This place isn’t big enough for the both of us,” Cheryl said. “It’s like the children’s home all over again.

“You were right about that. We’re constantly tripping over each other. This place wasn’t designed for two people.

“Your tiny bedroom was meant for occasional overnight visitors at best.”

“Oh, Cheryl. I’m so sorry,” Madeline said. “I’ll leave.

“Now we’ve sold the house, I’ll look for a place of my own. I’ve imposed on you long enough.”

But Cheryl loved Madeline, and while it had been far from plain sailing, it had been fun, too.

So what if Madeline slept in late at weekends and sometimes put clean pyjamas on for the rest of the day?

“We can do this, Madeline, but not here,” Cheryl declared. “We need somewhere with more space, and we’ll manage, just like your parents did.

“I love living with you. I love watching films with you until late and eating popcorn from a bowl.

“I love our shopping trips and days out and reading the same books.

“My kids and grandkids love you. too. You’re their favourite auntie.”

The two held hands.

“I’ll try harder,” Madeline promised.

“And so will I,” Cheryl vowed. “It’ll be exciting looking for a new place.”

“What if we don’t agree on what we both want?

“Oh, I think we will,” Madeline said. “We’d both love a garden, and I got my green fingers from Dad.

“He might have fallen off the shed roof and knocked the fence down once or twice, but he used to grow lovely stuff!

“We’ll have Cheryl jobs and Madeline jobs and we won’t get in each other’s way.”

“I’ll give you time to tidy up,” Cheryl said. “And you’ll have to give it no mind if I straighten the curtains or clean up behind you.”

“We’ll work together and not resent each other for our shortcomings.”

“They’re not shortcomings,” Cheryl corrected her. “They’re what make us who we are.”

“We’re like salt and pepper,” Madeline said. “Very different, but go well together.”

“Well, I know I can be a bit salty,” Cheryl said with a laugh.

“And I tend to pepper things about all over the place,” Madeline agreed. They fell about laughing. It was what they did best together.

Cheryl had almost thrown it away over a discarded towel and an overflowing laundry hamper.

As they hugged, Cheryl knew that they would stay best friends forever

– no matter their differences.