The hot weather made it worse. The stench oozed through the old sheets which swaddled the bulky, oddly shaped packages, soaking into every corner of the laundry room. She would need to wash it all down, afterwards, with gallons of vinegar and water. Bleach perhaps. Or even carbolic, like they used in the olden days for such situations.
She couldn’t open the window, in case the neighbours caught a whiff and wondered … But she did keep the door to the kitchen tightly closed and wished she owned a sturdy shed. One set well back in a long garden, which she didn’t have either.
Three more days. She sighed. Why her? A cuppa would help. She filled the kettle from the cold tap, set it on the gas ring and lit the flame. Whumpf. Shame the flames weren’t bigger. Much much bigger. She could have tried burning the packages instead of this endless delay, this waiting, while the stench grew more toxic.
She hoped no one came to the house. Certainly no one with more requests like this.
‘Keep them for me, Gran, please?’ His dark eyes wide with pleading. ‘I’ll be back to get rid of it all once the heat dies down.’
‘And when will that be?’ She’d do anything for him, even this. Poor boy, the parents he had, even though one was her own daughter.
‘Soon.’
But soon had turned into seven days and the smell was sending its oily fingers beneath the laundry door to invade the kitchen. Anyone coming in would know something was very, very off.
Then came her distraught daughter, gabbling on the phone about police and arrests and questionings … Did her mother know anything, had he said anything to her?
She humphed, said she had no idea, and glanced towards the reeking door.
Her decision was made. Early in the morning of the tenth day of waiting, she hauled the sheet-wrapped bundles with their awkward angles outside, and hefted them, one at a time, into the garbage bin. Slamming down the lid, clicking the catches into place, she waited until the last moment to drag the old bin to the kerb.
And at last the dustbin man arrived. She peered through the curtains, pulse racing, breath held as he hefted the bin to his shoulder. Praying it wouldn’t tip, praying the catches held, praying the man couldn’t distinguish this smell from those already simmering in his truck …
He tipped the contents in, banged the side for the driver to move on, and ran to replace bin and lid on the footpath. She saw him frown, wrinkle his nose, shrug, and race to the next bin.
She breathed again. Turning her back to the window, she marched with purpose into the laundry room, opened a cupboard and brought out bleach and brushes. And scrubbed and scrubbed until the stench of that rotting weed, that drug, had been banished.
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Ooh. A drug dealer for a grandson, how exciting. Though no doubt Grandma is heartily sick of her family by now, I would imagine.
I bet she is!
I loved it Cheryl…. at first I thought it was a body 🙂
That was the idea, Daisy … glad it worked!