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THE WINNER OF THE JBWB AUTUMN SHORT STORY COMPETITION

Sundays

by

Lucy Smith

Email: luci.smith@virgin.net

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.

The End

©2000 Lucy Smith

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