The Plot Thickens 2 - Current Stories No.10

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Baker's Daughter

Agnes was born, sticky and screaming, doused with her mother's sweat and insides. Clean and warm in her blanket she smelled of milk and snow. Schooldays were cinnamon and iced buns that sat warm in the village bakery. By her teens she was scented with imported musk under nylon stockings, the music hall smoke lying unwashed in her hair. At her daughter's wedding she wore roses, their thin, heavy aroma crushing against the ivory bodice as she hugged her goodbye. Now she slips under the teastained duvet with the powdery echo of lavender and lilies on her thin wrinkled skin.

Days are not what they used to be, they are long and quiet with the low rumble of passing trains. I remember bustle and busyness. I remember the lazy afternoons baking carrot cake with my mother, picking fallen damsons from the tree to stew with sugar into preserves for coffee mornings and summer fetes. I long for evenings smoking illicit cigarettes behind my father's shed before tiptoeing off to dance under the gaze of delectable heroes. I wish for kisses with my lover under the ash tree, coming home to find inky buds in my hair. I wake, I wake to hear the silence and hope for doorbells, knocks and tap-tap-taps on the kitchen window.

By Sharlene Matharu

 

BACK