D317 Brunette
A Sylko Story - D317 Brunette
They were gone for the day and she was left to her own little routine. The men had eaten their fatty bacon too quickly and she had forced down the slice of burnt toast spread with marg. Time to clear the table, wash the first batch of pots for the day and shake the crumbs from the tablecloth into the back yard. But that first bit of calm was irresistible, she must just sit and listen to it. A night full of snores giving way to non stop gossip about the mill and the footy and that bloody radio always on...it was enough to drive you to drink. But for now, there was just the clatter of cyclists tackling the corner and the restful brood of the pigeons on the outhouse roof. She decided to allow herself a cigarette. Yesterday's paper still lay underneath the teapot, the horse racing page uppermost. An unfathomable set of numbers were pencilled along the bottom. She moved the teapot and opened the newspaper out, taking care so that when she had finished reading it, the pencilled in page would remain on the top. She glanced through the serious news and the gossipy, lingering on the murders. Eventually, she arrived at the woman's fashion page in the wilderness of the middle section. When his nibs won the pools, so he kept on telling her, he was going to buy her a whole new set of clothes. That was how he kept her sweet when she complained about his gambling spending - when the seam in the arm of her blouse had come apart again. He dreamed of giving up work and buying a car as he placed the crosses in the boxes. She dreamed of new frocks in the latest colours.
Cigarette ash dropped onto Jeanne De Maury's column. There was that word again - chic. She wouldn't know how to even begin to be chic. On the column went, talking to her as if she were Lady Hallamshire.
"Browns are becoming a positive craze. Many of the new shades for day wear have a tinge of red in them, which is especially becoming to the Brunette."
But will they become the Brunette with grey bits? At the back of her cynicism though an idea was forming. Her son had asked her to make some shorts for his hiking expeditions. It was his craze of the moment. On sundays, when the weather held, he caught the train to Derbyshire with a gang of friends. They went uphill, down dale and into the police station if they weren't careful. She'd heard them talking in low voices about trespassing when they thought she was out of earshot. Well, if he was going to get himself arrested, he would be wearing a decent pair. He'd asked her to make him some in an outdoors type colour. Brown would do for that. He had got legs like a pair of tree trunks. She would do it now, today, once the table was cleared and the washing up done. After folding the newspaper back up and stubbing her cigarette out on the saucer, she stood and methodically began to clear the table, silently working it all out. Her boy would pay for the brown fabric, no doubt. And did he know how much material was required to make a pair of shorts? Baggy, knee length, pockets...it all took up fabric. Surely it wouldn't be too difficult to find herself with a decent amount left over? What could she make for herself with leftover cotton? A little short sleeved summer blouse perhaps, with those decorative buttons that she had been saving in the old tea caddy. She already had the thread, no need to splash out on that.
Abandoning a pile of plates and cups, she moved over to her sewing box. Removing the basket work lid, her eyes immediately picked out the reel of Sylko in Brunette, barely touched. She'd got it last year to patch up the front room curtains and had found no further use for it. Until now. The plan was formed and the housekeeping tin was raided. It was a gamble, this plan for funding a treat. But there was a lot of it about.
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