Sundays
by
Lucy Smith
Pete Blaggster
hated Sundays. His father had died on a Sunday. So had his wife.
It wasn’t his favourite day.
His favourite
day was Friday. People were happy on Fridays, looking forward to
the weekend and planning things with their families. Except Pete
hadn’t got a family anymore, well unless you counted Aunt Molly
who felt obliged to visit every Thursday after collecting her pension.
Pete got
up from his bed and stared forlornly out of the widow. It was raining.
“It always bloody rains on Sundays,” Pete mumbled to himself. He
swept his hands through his hair, once his pride and joy, now a
thinning grey mess.
He ought
to perk himself up. He was playing snooker with Jack this afternoon.
He’d liked Jack the moment they’d met five years previously. Jack
hated Sundays too. They had something in common.
Dressing
lazily, Pete looked over his drab clothes and thought how his wife
would have sneered at them. She had always criticised his taste
in clothes. Mind you, there wasn’t much that Anna hadn’t been critical
of.
Pete remembered
the time they had been invited to his new boss’s house-warming party.
Desperate to make a good impression, Pete had spent a months’ salary
on a new outfit and had even treated Anna to a new pair of shoes,
but of course, they were the wrong size.
“Why can’t
you ever get anything right?” she’d screeched. “It’s not like my
feet have grown since we met, they’re still the same size, you fool.
Now I’ll have to find time to change them in my lunch hour - and
I wanted to get my hair done.”
“I could
change them for you,” Pete said, desperately trying to make it up.
“No thanks,”
Anna had snapped. “You’ll only mess it up again, I’ll do it myself.”
Pete had
shown Anna his new outfit - a smart red blazer with a mint green
shirt and tie. Anna had turned up her nose and said that he’d look
like a Christmas tree. So that was that. He’d gone in his usual
frumpy gear and spent all night feeling old and unfashionable whist
Anna had flirted openly with every man over twenty-one and humiliated
him. As usual.
Pete tried
to drag his mind back to the present. He didn’t like thinking of
Anna - it made him edgy. He knew he should feel guilty about thinking
bad things of his dead wife, but the truth was he didn’t miss her.
In fact, he was quite glad she was dead. Not that he could ever
admit that to anyone of course.
After
the car accident he’d shed a few crocodile tears at the funeral,
looked suitably downcast and accepted condolences from Anna’s friends
and relatives with what he thought to be a modest amount of grief
and regret. But inside he was euphoric.
The same
couldn’t be said for his father though. The funeral was held on
the same day, of course. His father being the driver of the car
that had killed Anna.
“Such
a terrible tragedy,” the mourners had whispered, after the coffins
had been lowered. “Losing your wife and your father at the same
time.” Pete missed his father more than he could ever have imagined,
but it had been five years and time was a great healer.
Jack knocked
on his door at exactly four o' clock. “Ready for snooker, mate?”
he grinned. Walking out, Pete glanced at the picture of his father
and Anna hanging on the wall as they passed. Jack caught the look
and knew what Pete was thinking. “Try to forget it, mate, come
and get thrashed at snooker!”
Pete was
grateful to Jack for the distraction and he cheered up slightly
as they stopped to speak to a couple of friends on the way to the
snooker hall.
Jack beat
Pete 5-0. This was usual and Pete didn’t really mind. He’d never
been good at any sports. Anna had always mocked his sporting ability,
and just to rub it in, had enrolled herself at the most fashionably
expensive tennis club she could find. She had then proceeded to
become the club doubles champion, along with his father, three years
running. “It’s best that one of us is seen to be successful at
something,” she’d jibed.
Pete tried
to concentrate on a new joke that Jack was telling him, but he couldn’t
get Anna and his father out of his mind. Sundays seemed to have
that effect on him.
It had
been a Sunday that Pete had originally met Jack, the local mechanic,
down at the Red Lion. And it had been Jack who he had poured his
heart out to about discovering his wife in bed with his father.
It had
been the following Sunday when Jack had shown Pete how to cut the
brake cable on Anna’s car.
“Come
on, mate,” Jack said quietly, realising that Pete was not going
to be interested in his punch line. “Better get back, lights out
at seven.”
They walked
back together in silence. Out of the snooker hall, down the long
corridor. Back to their cells.
Pete hated
Sundays.