Sally Was Sally

Sally stole moments searching for meaning in the sickness that invaded her beneath her skin. She couldn't face the outside world; suburbia and its charmless social normalities held nothing but abject disgust for her. As she sat behind the slats of the bamboo blinds her mother had bought her before she died, she was unhappy enough to while away the hours or days watching.

Her sofa welcomed the shapely cushion of her ass cheeks against its red leather surface. Gripping as it did to the naked parts not quite covered by her underwear.

Underachiever though she never was. She just lacked passion for anything beyond the four walls that held her close. Her palace of practised-to-perfection solitude. Sally's mother had worried, had cried, had even prayed. But Sally was Sally. Her red hair matched her red sofa. Was it her favourite colour or had she just decided she should have such a sensuous colour as her favourite? Is her possibility dictated by her redness?

When she did venture outside her fort of frightened frustration, did people see her as that red girl, who suited her red hair, nail polish and red-lipped dragonette tattoo, or did they perhaps consider her some kind of fraud? She had once met a man at the post office who commented on her tattoo. She was pretty sure he wanted to touch it, maybe even kiss it. But Sally was Sally.

The last time a bloke kissed her was two Christmases ago, when she was arm-tugged into attending a party with Polly, who lived two doors down from her, back when they had a May-to-December-style friendship. Polly tried, she really tried. All bushy brown eyebrows and thick auburn hair that touched her nips. That was how she described herself. Sally thought that was peculiar. But Sally couldn't maintain the friendship beyond the occasional wine-and-cheese night without the cheese and minus anything approaching the sparkling gregariousness such an arrangement would suggest.

Barry was a poet who, rather than not knowing it, wouldn't shut the fuck up about it. For the entire night. In fact, Sally was sure she only let the bloke near her red lips and cheeks as an attempt to shut him up. He may as well provide her with some entertainment beyond discussing why Wordsmith was a Wordsmith.

He tasted of cheap cologne and pickled onion crisps, but she did orgasm. So that's something.

Something dirty and sordid. But she owned it. That's how people excuse their behaviour, she figured.

She wasn't that kind of girl normally. But catch her on the right night of the week.

Mrs Davison was out fiddling with her plants again. Mrs Davison, Eveline, was a widow whose husband had died of natural causes. Sally wondered if natural causes was polite speak for "boredom of existence".

She wondered quite a lot more than she might have told anyone, excluding Polly, about death. Not the usual things. Though she was interested in the eulogy someone might be forced to recite to the dusty, lacklustre attendees. Polly was a likely candidate, or her ex Alfred. Who is called Alfred these days anyway?

Alfred and Sally occasionally spent time together. Largely because Alfred was a good heart and could cope reasonably well with Sally's contrarian persona.

"I'm not sure what I'd say. You're not dead yet!" he had told her as they got dressed, after swapping bodily fluids for a few hours that became a few days.

Polly had made suggestions. Sally told her to shut the fuck up.

Alfred always had an innate ability, with his green eyes and receding blonde hairline, to get under Sally's skin, as well as inside Sally.

"You're not really a red girl, are you?"

"What do you mean? I am the most red girl."

"You're performative red, at best. Don't get me wrong, those red lips draw me in, but the Sally in the head is not the Sally in the heart."

"Are you going to finish me off or not?"

That is how conversations often ended between Alfred and Sally.

Mrs Davison stopped pruning her plants and, as always, looked towards Sally's and peered over the top of her glasses at the slight gap in the red of the blinds and waved.

Sally had two choices, she reckoned. Wave back or try to ignore her, but Mrs Davison was the right—or wrong, depending on how you see it—kind of widow, having been brought up in times when neighbours were everything. She was almost certainly going to cross the road and knock on the door.

Sally wondered if her lack of sensible clothes at the front door might shock Mrs Davison away.

She didn't want to test the theory, so begrudgingly pulled on the cleanest jeans she had to hand and her dusty red tee. Because Mrs Davison had already made a beeline for Sally's drive and was walking up it.

Sally waited for the knock.

Rat a tat tat tatat.

That tatat made her cringe.

Can't she knock on a door properly?

And what was the point?

"Hello, Mrs Davison. Why didn't you use the doorbell?"

She knew why.

"Dear, I never know if they work. I prefer a rat a tat tatat. Has never failed me once."

Sally felt the satisfaction of being proved right.

"Anyway, dear. I wondered if you wanted to have a cup of tea at my place. It would get you out of your hovel. I know your dear mother prayed a lot about you and your... You know."

"I have tea. I am feeling... under the weather."

Sally already knew she was losing this battle. Life was imposing itself on her. Though the comment about her mother.

"My mother prayed for a lot of people." She sighed and walked out the door.

"Okay. Just one pot and then I need to get back to important work."

Sally didn't believe that. Ma Davison didn't either.

Eveline's home was, as anyone would imagine, different from Sally's fortress of fortitude.

Lots of photographs adorned the light and homely, flowery-patterned wallpaper, while an ornate fireplace showcased some of Eveline's expertise behind a pottery wheel with some clay. A figure stood to the left, moulded with a brown finish. A gentleman with a flat cap and pipe. Mr Davison. Whose presence could be felt in the home even after he was no longer there.

Sally had thought he was okay in small measures. Was sure he didn't approve of all the red.

"'Tis the devil's colour," she imagined he would proclaim.

That image lived rent-free in Sally's mind.

Eveline's furniture was comfortable and upholstered with soft, plush material. Sally imagined her naked ass would feel caressed rather than impressed and arrested against it.

Sally sat as Eveline pottered around, placing two of a nest of tables beside the sofa, and disappeared beyond the adjoining dining room into the kitchen, only to appear moments later with a tray with teapot and the expected accoutrements.

Eveline was respectable like it was a shield. Pressed blouse, flowery dress. Nude-toned tights that Sally noted did not have ladders in.

Short grey hair. Functional but elegant.

That was what Polly said, not Sally.

Eveline poured tea.

"Milk... sugar?"

"Milk and two sugars," she responded.

The tea was already weak before she poured the skimmed milk in. The matching sugar pot and milk jug had a red rose on them that caught Sally's eye.

"Frank would complain about my tea. I'm sorry, dear."

She popped two sugar cubes into the cup and handed it to Sally.

"It's fine. It's wet and hot and sweet, as my mother used to say."

"Wise woman she was. God-fearing. We used to talk often about this and that."

"I know she was fond of you and Mr Davison."

Sally felt a slight urge to rip her clothes off and pour the tea down her skin and watch it flake off until her flesh was exposed.

But she sipped the tea instead. Already feeling her social battery running low.

"She prayed a lot about you, dear. Do you want a biscuit, dear?" she asked, standing up and heading to the kitchen before Sally could respond.

"Uhm. Okay."

The decision was made for her. But perhaps Eveline had those Hobnobs Sally liked on occasion.

Sally's face was the picture of sullen frustration as she read the word "Garibaldi" from the cylindrical wrapper.

Flyswatters. Great.

Sally took two and placed the packet on the table closest to her.

"I don't care for biscuits these days. Only bought them out of habit. Frank loved the dried fruit especially."

Sally imagined Frank, pipe in hand, Garibaldi in the other, cracking through the thin biscuit with his teeth as crumbs fell onto his beard and he nibbled at the dead-fly currants. "Nowt better than a Garibaldi, Eveline love," he said, Sally imagined.

"Very nice, thank you." Sally almost lied. Almost because it was nice tea once it was filtered through the sugar and biscuits.

"Are you working at the moment?" asked Eveline, with a slight suggestion behind her neighbourliness that she already knew the answer.

"I'm between contracts right now. Selling my clothes." Sally defended herself. Not because she was proud of her employment situation but because Eveline looked down at her.

"I'm thinking about selling my socks too."

"That's good, dear. Make some money. Young girl like you."

"Worn socks."

"Oh, dear. You should wash them. I used to wash Frank's socks when he played golf."

"People buy worn socks," Sally replied as her lips curled into a wicked smile.

"How peculiar," was unfortunately how Eveline replied, not giving her the full satisfaction of outrage.

"So, do you still play the clarinet?" Eveline asked.

"Your mother used to tell me how proud she was of your musical abilities."

Sally, for once, didn't know what to say.

For once, Sally couldn't quip or perform scandal to avoid this question.

She sat silently looking at the red mug, then around the room of memories.

"Don't worry, dear. I didn't mean to pry," sympathised Eveline, breaking the silence.

"What? No. I'm not worried. I stopped playing the clarinet... Never mind that. Would you like some more tea, Ms Davison?"

Eveline smiled.

"It's just Eveline, dear. Yes, please."

Sally carefully poured some tea for herself and Eveline and sat back, clutching her cup like a shield.

Both women sat sipping tea and enjoying the quiet that was punctuated by the clink of teacups and slurps.

"I just. Miss her."

Sally whispered as a sigh escaped her and her shoulders loosened.

"I know, dear. I know."

Eveline's faint smile emanated warmth.

"I should get going now, Ms... Eveline. Thank you for the tea and biscuits."

Sally stood, gesturing to Eveline that she didn't need to get up, and walked to the door.

"That's okay, dear. Anytime. And just wash socks. You don't need to sell them."

Sally smirked a little as she walked across the road to her own hovel.

She thought about the clarinet, but instead called Alfred.

"Alfred, are you busy?"

*

Thanks for reading

Well this started as a little thing I was writing just to flex the muscles but then Sally was born.