Tales the Laundress Told: And Other Stories

By Winsome Smith

Winsome Smith loves a good story and loves sharing one even more. The author of eleven books and countless short stories and poems, she shares some of her favorites in Tales the Laundress Told. Her tales deal with the realities and fantasies of the imagination, human and otherwise.

With honesty and compassion, she writes of the strange experience of growing up.

She takes the reader back to ancient Athens, to tell the story of a well-to-do young girls rebellion.

We meet a garrulous ironing lady who shares her domestic wisdom.

An earnest (and bossy) daughter of a minister has a few ideas of her own to share.

She recounts the touching tale of a son who learns that he really does have the courage he needs.

In a freefall flight of fancy, she introduces her readers to a young man with ambitions to study a distant planet known as Earth.

Everyone who knows her wonders what on earth could have made a very serious mother get the giggles.

A young girl boasts that she is ready for anythingbut can she handle the challenge at hand?

These charactersand moreawait you in Tales the Laundress Told.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Apr 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781452509709

Winsome Smith

Winsome Smith is the author of twelve books, although short story is her favorite medium. She grew up in New South Wales, Australia, but her stories span the globe.

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Copyright © 2013 Winsome Smith

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

There’s a Good Girl was published in QANTAS In-Flight magazine.

The Challenge of ’44 was published in The Blindfold Horse in 1975 and in And Malice and Forethought in 1986.

The Help-All League was published in The True Life Story of… in 1981.

The Discovery of Sin was published in The True Life Story of… in 1981.

Tales the Laundress Told was published online in Narrator Magazine in 2013.

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ISBN: 978-1-4525-0969-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-0970-9 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Balboa Press rev. date: 05/21/2013

Contents

Preface

There’s a Good Girl

The Colour of Happiness

The Man Who Was a King

A Bunch of Grapes

The Help All League

A Fit of the Giggles

The Challenge of ’44

The First Boy Ever

The Discovery of Sin

Tales the Laundress Told

A Well-Kept Secret

Return to Eudora Lane

Earthlight Earthbright

The Babysitter

Lo, Here Is Fellowship

The Boy, the Mouse, and Me

Six Oranges

Glossary

For Joanne, Sharon, and Judilee,

and in memory of Lynette

Preface

I was fortunate in that I grew up with stories. There were always the ancient stories; the classical legends of Greece and Rome, the Old Testament and the New Testament. There were Norse legends and the stories of Hiawatha.

Later I consumed and enjoyed the work of Ray Bradbury, O. Henry, and New Zealanders Katherine Mansfield and Janet Frame. Olga Masters and Elizabeth Jolley inspired me. These and so very many others filled my life.

Wherever people gather—in a pub, around a campfire, or on the beach—they tell stories. Perhaps they are relating anecdotes or spinning yarns. Whatever it is, they are telling stories.

This book is my humble contribution to the ancient and noble art of storytelling.

—Winsome Smith, 2013

There’s a

Good Girl

Joycey sat primly on the dining room chair, as she had been taught to do, with the little wooden box in her hands. Over in the corner, near the window, the policeman and the doctor were talking quietly, while in the bedroom, the two ladies—the fat one from over the road and Mrs. Childs from next door—were sitting with Joycey’s aunty—her dead aunty.

Joycey sat very still—she was good at that. If she made no sound, the men might forget her presence and talk a little less cautiously. She clutched the box and did not move. She did not swing her legs or put her feet on the rung. Aunty had not allowed that.

. . . natural causes… Dr. Hardy was saying. . . . some heart trouble… could have had some kind of shock or upset… He fussed around with his bag for a moment, and then, his voice a little louder (Joycey was right; they were forgetting her presence), said, Did you know the woman?

The policeman looked up from his notebook. Through her eyelashes, Joycey saw the deep grooves, like wheel ruts, that ran down his earth-coloured cheeks. I only knew her by sight. A couple of years ago, a neighbour put in a complaint to the Child Welfare Department, but nothing could be proved. There was no evidence of neglect.

The doctor said, Hmm, and Joycey continued to sit perfectly still; she had learned how not to disturb adults.

After a while, Mrs. Childs and the fat lady came out of the bedroom, and Mrs. Childs said to Joycey, You all right, love?

Joycey nodded.

Mrs. Childs turned towards the fat lady. This little girl was very brave and sensible. She was the one who rang the doctor and then ran in and got me. She didn’t panic or anything. She’s been terribly brave.

The fat lady gave Joycey a syrupy smile and said, What’s in the box, pet?

White mice, Joycey said without hesitation. If you hesitated, you were gone. She looked straight at the fat lady and opened her eyes wide. She then arranged her mouth into a brave little smile.

There’s a good girl, Mrs. Childs said. I’ll make everyone a nice cup of tea.

The two ladies walked towards the kitchen, and as they went, Joycey heard the fat one say in a murmuring voice, Was Mrs. Watts afraid of mice?

Not that I know of, Mrs. Childs said.

I just thought, the fat one said, that if she felt the way I do about mice, and if she’d had a sudden shock, as the doctor said—

Shh! Mrs. Childs warned. We don’t want that poor little mite to get the idea that she might have scared her aunty to death with her mice. Shh!

So they were noticing the box. Joycey decided it would be a good idea to walk casually towards the back veranda. She stood up and walked through the back door with the box carefully tucked under her arm. The two men had gone back into the bedroom, and in the kitchen, Mrs. Childs was filling the electric jug.

She sat on the back step and cautiously lifted the lid off the box. In the dark, she saw something silvery and then some bright little eyes. She gazed down at the two small tree snakes. They were perfectly harmless and so pretty. She put out a finger and touched one on the head. It didn’t move but lay gracefully coiled against its companion, slim and shiny and mysterious.

They had not been easy to get. Joycey had paid dearly for them, doing a boy’s homework for three weeks in exchange for the snakes, box and all.

She wondered why she was so fascinated with snakes. Aunty would never have approved—not that there was much she did approve of anyway. The shape of them reminded Joycey of the long, thin leather belt that hung on a nail behind the kitchen door, which had bitten into her legs so often, leaving snakelike welts of a finger’s width on her skin.

Perhaps it was just the having of them that was so thrilling. To know there was a box of snakes under your bed in that neat, respectable house, and to have a secret, just one secret, was so thrilling that for the four days she had owned them, she often had to clutch her hands together to stop them from clapping with joy.

Yes, it was probably not the snakes themselves; it was just the having of them.

Hearing movements inside the house, she quickly replaced the lid and put the box on the veranda beside her, with her hand on the top.

The policeman came out onto the veranda and sat on the step beside her.

You feeling okay, Joycey? he asked.

She arranged her mouth into that brave little smile again and said, Yes.

You must have got a fright when your aunty collapsed, he said.

Yes, she fell out of the chair. Mrs. Childs had to ring you to help pick her up.

Have you seen your aunty have a heart attack before?

No.

Did you know she had a bad heart?

I think so. She had heard it so often. My heart . . . bringing up a child at my age is too much . . . the worry of it all. Yes, Joycey had heard about it, but there was nothing remarkable about that. It was just one of the many things that troubled Aunty. Every day it was something: money, the younger generation, dishonest tradesmen, the weather, her health. Which was the biggest worry was hard to tell.

The policeman looked at her kindly. Tell me, have you got any other relatives? Got anyone to live with?

Yes, my brother. He’s twenty-one. He’s married, and he’s with a road show. I know I can live with them. Yes, she knew; she had stacks of letters from them. I couldn’t live with them because Aunty had custody. It was a funny word. When Joycey was small, it had reminded her of banana custard.

Well, you were a good girl for getting help, said the policeman. Tell me, what were you doing when your aunty had the attack? Were you in the room with her?

Yes, I was in the dining room.

What were you doing?

Nothing.

"Were you playing