avevale_intelligencer

"Mrs Curbinand is one of our most accomplished sufferers," says the speaker, his mellow voice somehow echoing even in that confined space: and again the patter of light applause, of hands like November leaves patted together almost too lightly to touch, flutters around the glass-walled, glass-ceilinged room like a flock of invisible birds trying not too hard to escape, and Mrs Curbinand, apple-cheeked and twin-setted, sits there in her cane chair fluttering and simpering and being ever so politely overwhelmed.

"I wonder," says the plump man in the waistcoat, "whether you would care to offer us a small demonstration, Mrs Curbinand?" Several hands around the circle shoot into the air, and the ladies begin to call out.

"Do me, do me!"

"Please, me, please!"

"Over here!"

Mrs Curbinand, looking around the circle, lights on a wispy little woman in thick glasses and a faded pink cardigan. She nods encouragingly, and the woman, scarcely believing her good fortune, gets up and totters across the room to the vacant chair next to Mrs Curbinand, sits down very carefully.

Mrs Curbinand takes both her calloused, arthritic hands between her own. "Tell me," she says.

And the woman takes a deep breath. "He wasn't a bad man," she begins, and Mrs Curbinand nods, and all the other women nod. They never are. The woman--Laura, her name--continues her story, teasing out all the little incidents that added up over the years to he wasn't a bad man but, and the women listen, and Mrs Curbinand takes it all in.

And Mrs Curbinand suffers. You can see it in every curve of her plump little body, in every line of her face. She feels it as keenly as if he had been hers. She lives each casual slight, each small failure, each trivial violation. And somehow as she tells it, Laura finds herself able to rise above it, to put it behind her. As each incident in the chronicle is told, it passes from her in a way that mere time could never bring about.

At last Mrs Curbinand, eyes closed and face waxen, raises a trembling hand, and the flow of words falters to a stop. Laura thanks her, gets up and moves back to her own seat, feeling somehow younger, freer, cleansed. Mrs Curbinand opens her eyes, smiles hopefully at the man in the waistcoat, trying not to see the hands raised again in hope.

"Me, me, me!"

"Please, Mrs Curbinand!"

"That's enough for now, ladies," says the man in the waistcoat. "Mrs Curbinand has to conserve her strength, you know. There will be full sessions starting tomorrow morning, so please put your names down on the sheet pinned up by the door. Thank you."

The ladies get up, murmuring thanks and (all except the lucky Laura) trying to disguise their disappointment, and file towards the French windows that lead back into the cool dimness of the main building. Mrs Curbinand watches them leave, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, each one of them weighted down by a lifetime of misery and disappointment and frustration, and wonders which of them will be the one that will finally break her.

I had the beginning of this as a sort of waking dream just now. I've been reading Stephen King's "On Writing" which may have influenced the voice, and the root idea's fairly obvious, but other than that I have no idea where it came from. Just popped out.

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pbristow.livejournal.com

Useful (maybe) tip: Mark the end of the story before making comment on it. I was (briefly) confused. =:o}

Otherwise: Ooohhhh... [SHIVER]

callylevy.livejournal.com

Oh, this is a *wonderful* concept. Thanks for this and for the link to Paul Cornell's blog, which I really enjoyed. Wishing you and the Countess a lovely day tomorrow.