You are my sunshine

You are my Sunshine

Monica drew level with the bus stop just as the bus was pulling in.
Shirley from the office was boarding the bus.

"Don't walk in this weather Mo, come and get on the bus, you'll catch
your death."

God it was tempting; the wind was almost sending her backwards and a
fat wet raindrop chose that moment to drip off the end of her nose. How
good it would feel to get out of this weather and board the bus. After
all, what's fifty-seven pence when all's said and done?

"No, it's alright Shirl, I like the walk in the mornings, wakes me up
and prepares me for the day ahead."

~*~

"She is such a tight cow. She'd rather get soaked to the skin than
spend fifty-seven pence on a bus ride almost door to door. I disagree
about her knowing Scrooge. Hell, I think she gave birth to him. In fact
she's so tight she?"

Monica walked into the canteen and put her sodden coat and bag away.
She pretended not to have heard what Shirley said. She also chose to
ignore the snide giggles that had been turned into thinly disguised
coughs as she turned to her locker.

At ten o'clock the trolley came round and most of the girls in the
machine room bought two slices of toast and a cup of coffee; it was
'tradition'. The smell of the hot toast and coffee permeated over to
Monica's machine and her stomach growled its displeasure loudly. She
picked up the bottle of tap water that she had brought from home and
took a couple of sips.

At eleven o'clock it was one of those regular occurrences that she
dreaded. One of the girls was walking down the aisle with a glass of
money and a card to sign. It was somebody's birthday. Monica looked up
at Julie Winters as she stood by her machine. They both knew how the
next ten seconds were going to play out. Julie's face was set like
stone. Monica's cheeks were burning.

"It's Lacey Beck's birthday on Saturday. Everybody in the factory has
chipped in for her present." Julie stood there rattling the glass in
front of her face defiantly.

"I'm sorry Julie but I have no spare money."

Julie made no attempt to lower her voice as she moved to the next
machine. "Tight cow."

Jane Dawes had a fiver ready and put it in the glass with a flourish.
"See Monica, it's not so hard really, you just put it in the glass and
wave it goodbye." She waved her hand at the disappearing fiver as it
moved down the aisle.

It was Friday. Oh thank God it was Friday. Monica felt that she
couldn't cope with much more of this, but she had to didn't she? Friday
was 'early bolt' day. Finish at lunchtime. The other girls all worked
through their appointed lunch hour to finish for the day at two and not
have to come back in after lunch. It was 'tradition' that they all made
for the White Lion for a pub lunch and a couple of 'hey it's the
weekend' drinks. It only cost three pounds apparently for a lovely
meal. The girls had long since stopped asking Monica to join
them.

As the machine shop emptied with light banter about boyfriends, and
life, and fun becoming more distant as the bodies it came from trooped
through the door, Monica sat alone at her machine. There was no point
going to the canteen, it was empty now anyway. She might as well eat
her sandwich here and then make her way home. She unwrapped the cling
film from the two sweaty slices of bread and the thin slice of
tasteless cheese. Sitting by herself, she chewed methodically. She
didn't really mind this time alone on a Friday before going back to the
nightmare that was waiting for her when she left work. After all, what
did she have in common with those laughing happy people?

~*~

Monica trudged back home; it seemed twice as long as the walk had been
that morning. If anything, the rain was heavier and the wind stronger.
This time she'd had the disadvantage of setting off in soaking wet
clothes to boot.

The first two hours after getting in were spent attending to Joey. Then
at last, she managed to shut herself away in her bedroom. Alone and
undisturbed. This was the highlight of her week.

She sat on her bed and took two raffia boxes from her bedside table.
Then she emptied her purse onto the bed. It was the end of the week and
she still had eleven pounds sixty-six pence in her purse. Taking the
tops off the two boxes, she emptied the copper into one and the silver,
and one pound coin, into the other.

For the first time that week she was truly happy. She was eighty-four
pence up on last week. She went to her wardrobe and took out a shoebox
from under a huge pile of blankets. Taking off the lid she put the
ten-pound note onto the thick wad of notes already in the box.

Monica smiled. The copper box was almost full. There must be nearly
twenty pounds in there. Soon she would be able to take it to the bank
to transfer into notes that would go in the half full shoebox. She
opened the notebook that had been on top of the box.

"Nine thousand, seven hundred and forty-three pounds and twenty-eight
pence. Plus eleven pounds sixty-six pence makes a grand total of nine
thousand, seven hundred and fifty-four pounds ninety-four pence." She
hugged the notebook to her breast and grinned a grin of pure
pleasure.

Suddenly she was jarred from this one time in her week that was purely
and simply her time. She heard Joey in the next room. He had woken up.
This was the way it was; she never got moments peace.

She ran from the room, flinging the door to Joey's room open so hard
that it nearly flew off its hinges. The child was lying face down on
the bed. She jumped on him and began beating his back with her hands.
Ten, twenty, thirty times she hit him until her face was red with the
exertion.

The child was becoming still. She stopped pounding on him. "There baby,
come on Joey, give it up for Mummy pet. Give me all you've got. You
know how much I love this stuff. My day is not complete without several
bowls of joey gunk" She felt the choking child manage a weak giggle
beneath her.

She passed the Stainless steel bowl under the child's head and held
fast to his forehead as he cleared himself into it.

"There sweetie, I bet that feels better, but I know you're holding out
on me Joey, what you doing baby? saving some for later? Oh no you don't
come on lets have it."

She sat up straight again, still straddling the four-year-old child.
Once more she paddled her hands and began to rhythmically aspirate his
congested lungs. She began to sing softly in her pretty voice, and she
felt Joey relax slightly as her melody soothed him.

"You are my Sunshine, my only sunshine.
You make me happy, when skies are grey.
You'll never know dear, how much I love you.
So don't take my sunshine away."

Cystic Fibrosis. How she hated those two benign sounding words; those
two words that were killing her precious Joey. Only nine thousand more
pounds and she would have the money to take him to the States, to see
if this Doctor Young could help him.

She thought of all the White Lion lunches she'd have to miss with the
girls, and smiled.

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine."