The Wheel

The Wheel

The fire's dull light flickers. A gentle humming wavers then begins
anew. There is a spinning wheel softly creaking. Fingers, brown and
creased and soft with lanolin, pluck gently at the fleece. The bobbin
grows fat with the yarn just as it had done for close on seventy years.
Mary had really lost count of the number of years but it didn't
matter.

For many years now the spinning had become part of a solitary ritual.
After Alf had gone, the evenings seemed to rattle and echo with
memories. Mary would spin and remember and hum and smile. The wintry
evenings before the fire were her favourite.

Her son would visit often, and like today, it was always the same. He
and his wife, Eve, would stay a couple of days and tidy the overgrown
garden, clipping here, chipping there and clean the house, always
muttering about the inconveniences? the antiquity of the stove and the
hot water plumbing. Always the same conversations. George would say,
"Ma, you're too old to keep the place going. You're nearly ninety. What
would happen if you fell? Come and live with us."
Eve would always pass a small sigh of relief when Mary shook her head.
" No. No. This is my home."

That night as Mary sat spinning she remembered George's first
Christmas, the teddy bear and the fresh-painted truck Alf had made him.
She smiled and hummed, then said, "George, do you remember the teddy
you had? I'm sure you took him to bed every night for years and
years."

Eve stopped stirring the sugar into the tea to shoot George that 'here
we go again' look, but George was smiling, "Yeah, you know Ma, I don't
think that poor old bear had an ounce of fur left on him."
George sat beside his mother and stared into the fire, sipping at the
tea. "Ma, I don't know how many times we've sat like this - the fire,
the tea, you spinning, me thinking you'd ruin your eyes or that you
were getting too old to sit on and on for hours. In all these years
I've never asked you what you do with it, all your wool."

Mary stopped pedalling and looked at George. "Come and give us a hand."
She got up, brushed the bits of wool and dust off her apron and
disappeared into one of the disused bedrooms.

George returned with her, carrying a carved box. "It's me glory box.
Alf gave it to me. Made it himself, even cut the tree. It's some sort
of oak I think." As she spoke her hands caressed the box, brushing away
a little bit of fluff stuck to the bottom. "Alf always said he loved to
work the wood. Said it relaxed him and made him feel peaceful. Well,
spinning does the same for me. I don't call it me glory box anymore.
Now it's me memory box."

Mary opened the box. "That's what I do with the wool. I make things
with it." George and Eve stared at an exquisite shawl that Mary lifted
out of the box. Mary pulled out everything - cardigans, hats, scarves,
baby things even children's puppets - all from the yarn she spun. "You
see, while I spin I remember and I'm not lonely. Everything here is
full of memories and love."

George hugged his mother and the three of them sat for hours talking?.
Remember this, remember that?Grandma's hair so long she could sit on
it, the jelly put out to set in the early morning frost, the work, the
neighbour's funny ways, the snake in the kitchen dresser, so and so's
wedding, somebody's baby, the schoolteacher, the horse George rode, the
love and the laughter.

The next night the house was quiet again and the fire flickered as Mary
sat before it spinning and humming and smiling.

Judith Morgan