The Entirety of Our Illumination

Tuesday morning meant setting off for the supermarket at ten o’ clock, Colin dropping off Brenda outside the main entrance in the car park, then popping to the bookkeepers to make a handful of bets, never totalling more than ten pounds worth, talking to some fellow betting pals there, then driving back, texting Brenda to tell her whereabouts he was parked, or to tell her to text him back when she was coming out, and pulling round to the same entrance or exit and pick her up to load the weekly shop, then driving back home to have the second cup of tea of the day, with buttered crumpets or toast with jam, and sit and wait for the results of his betting slips to come in, whilst Brenda put away the shopping, and then do her daily newspaper crossword at the dining table.

Every Tuesday morning was the same routine, and the only thing that changed each week were the names of the horses, the clues in the crossword, the spot Colin parked in, and the weather. One morning, in January, it was not as cold as it had been recently, but at ten in the morning the sky was still dark. A faint hint of early sun, its murky halo far behind the full cloud cover, filtered a few streaks of light through the monotone sheet of heavy grey. Colin already had his puffa jacket, beanie hat, and his slip-on shoes on. Brenda was sitting on the bottom step of the stairs, fully dressed for the winter’s day, tying her boots.

‘Can you put on the light, love? I can’t see my laces properly.’

‘They’re all on.’

‘They can’t be, I can’t see my laces even.’

‘Sorry, petal, but that is the entirety of our illumination.’

‘The what?’

‘That’s the lot. All the lights are on.’

‘But what did you say?’

‘I just said there’s no more lights to go on.’

‘You didn’t. You said something about illuminating or something weird.’

‘I was just being daft. All I meant was all the lights are on. It’s a dark morning.’

Colin then switched on the torch of his phone and pointed it towards Brenda’s feet. This made the area at the base of the stairs the brightest part of the hallway and she finished tying her boots. He turned off the torch, clicked off the switch for the hallway lights, showing them that the morning still very much belonged to the night, and they went out into the cold. In the car, Colin put on the heater as soon as the engine started, then the radio, and they proceeded to the supermarket. He dropped her off at the usual entrance and set off to the bookies. It wasn’t until he parked, got out, entered the betting shop, and chose his horses for the day, that he realised that there’d been no conversation on the way to the supermarket. It didn’t bother him, or at least not much, but Brenda would usually ask him whether he wanted crumpets or was happy with toast and jam, and she hadn’t.

Brenda walked around the aisles in the order she always did, picking their weekly staples from shelves, stopping only to check if the price hadn’t changed in case she needed to try a different brand, which happened seldom. The fruit and vegetables came first as she entered, which meant a bag of potatoes, Maris Piper or King Edward, better for mash at this time of year, some apples, bananas, a handful of oranges, and spring onions. The next aisle was the bread. Brenda always got two loaves of sliced white bread, one for opening that day, and the other for the freezer until Friday, and if Colin had said ‘yes, please’ a packet of six crumpets. The thing was she hadn’t asked him if he wanted any. Since his comment that morning, about the lights in the hallway, they hadn’t spoken. It was nice of him to put on his phone light so she could tie her boots, and yet the odd language he’d used had stayed on her mind.

Colin just didn’t use words like that, they didn’t, people they knew didn’t and it had prevented her from asking about the crumpets. She picked up the pack of six famous-brand crumpets they always bought, thirty-five pence more expensive than the supermarket’s shop-brand, but that little bit plumper and fluffier after being in the toaster, so their preferred purchase. Brenda hadn’t asked Colin if he wanted any on this day. Most weeks his answer was, ‘go on, love, yes please’, but she hadn’t asked, they hadn’t spoken. She looked at the packet in her hand, knew his answer would be the same as always, but his comment about light in the hallway had put her off asking that standard weekly question. She kept holding the crumpets in her hand, trying to remember exactly what he’d said, ‘all of their light’, but not ‘light’, ‘all of their illuminating’, no, ‘illumination’, but not the word ‘all’, she couldn’t remember the word he’d used with it, something the same as ‘all’, but a longer word, but it wouldn’t come to her. It was a longer word, like ‘extent’, or ‘total’, but longer, a lot of syllables in the thing he’d said, an unnecessary number of syllables. She shook her head, annoyed at herself for attempting to remember his exact phrase, put the crumpets back on the shelf, and continued shopping. If he wanted crumpets, he needed to simply tell her that, he knew how to ask, so no need for them this week. Toast and jam it was.

Colin made four bets on afternoon races, compared them with some of his betting mates, agreeing they’d see who came out best next time he saw them, and then left as he needed to go and pick up Brenda. He took his scrunched-up beanie hat out of his pocket and put it on his head, zipped up his puffa jacket and exited the bookies. Back in the car, he switched on the engine, then the heater, turned on the radio, and drove back to the supermarket. The car park was half full, and he chose a spot two rows back and just to the left of the entrance Brenda would come out of, a two-minute walk for her. He took out his phone, went to his messages, and tapped in on the left, two rows back, a text more or less identical to each week’s text, but with the words or text me when you’re ready and I will come to the entrance left out. As he waited, he scrolled through their previous messages, this day of the week being the only time they needed to message one another, and he read the previous two weeks pattern of texts and the one he’d just sent.

It’s busy. I’m over on the right,
just where the ATMs are. Or
text me when you’re ready and
I will come to the entrance.

I’m coming out now, come
to the entrance please love.

I’m way back at the far end, straight
ahead, but probably 5 mins. Or text
me when you’re ready and I will come
to the entrance.

I’m coming out now, come
to the entrance, thank you love.

on the left, two rows back.

Brenda was getting the last bits from the frozen vegetables aisle when Colin’s message buzzed. She looked at the screen and saw the truncated lines, two instead of four, a thin rectangle of words, rather than the usual square of four lines, the offer to come to the entrance removed, halving the length of the usual message she received when he came from the bookies to meet her. She had considered going back for the crumpets as she’d continued shopping, but the single sentence text sealed it. No crumpets. Definitely jam on toast this week. She put the phone back in her bag, went to the checkout, put the heavier, firmer items on the conveyer first, to be placed at the bottom of her three bags for life and then the lighter items, the more fragile being the last to go on, with the weekly dozen eggs being the final item to leave her trolley. After being beeped through, she packed the items into the bags, placed them inside the same trolley, and went out to find their car.

The drive back home was the same as the drive there, but with more light in the sky. The need for headlights had passed, but the sky remained a single shade of grey. Colin backed into the drive, they both got out, he flipped open the boot of the car, Brenda took one bag for life, and Colin took the other two. Inside the house, with the bags on the hallway floor, they were in the same area they’d exchanged spoken words on that day, Colin kicked off his slip-on shoes, and tucked them into the corner on the mat they had for shoes, whilst Brenda undid her laces on the bottom stair. She was still doing this by the time he’d removed his beanie, stuck it in his puffa jacket pocket, and hung it up in the under stairs cupboard. He left Brenda to continue removing her outer winter clothes as he took his two bags for life into the kitchen and left them on the side for Brenda to unpack and put all the items in their designated places. By the time she came through with the remaining bag for life, Colin was already in his armchair with his newspaper open, and the horse racing commentary on the TV.

Brenda went about her usual routine of putting away the weekly shop, freezer items first, then fridge, then tins, packets, and finally cleaning items under the sink. Once done, she folded the bags for life into flat squares, wrapped their own handles around them to keep them from unfolding, and put them in their plastic holder until the following Tuesday. Then she filled the kettle from the tap, placed it on its base, flicked down the switch and the red light came on, telling her it was set to boil. She took mugs off the mug tree, popped a teabag in each one, retrieved the sugar bowl from the cupboard above the kettle, took a milk carton from the fridge, and then the next step was to make their toast or crumpets. In any other week this meant calling through to the living room and asking ‘toast or crumpets, love?’ but she didn’t, there was no point to the question anyway, as there were no crumpets. Instead, she took two slices of white bread, slotted them into the toaster and pressed down the lever, took the butter dish, strawberry jam, and waited for the kettle and toaster to finish their work. When the kettle clicked, she poured the boiled water into both mugs, and left it to stew as she attended to the popped out, browned toast, which she buttered, then with the same knife spread the jam across it, then sliced both pieces into triangles, and plated them. By this time, the tea was strong enough, so she removed the teabag, added milk and sugar, and stirred it in. She then took through the toast and tea to Colin.

‘Here’s your toast and tea.’

‘Thanks. Just leave it there please.’

Colin didn’t look at the plate, or the mug, but saw from the corner of his eye the square shape of the toast slices. Normally he would put down his paper, stop focusing on the television, and take a circular bite out of his first crumpet, wipe the melted butter off his lips with a tissue, and pick up the tea for his first slurp. On this day he took his time eating the toast, and drinking the tea, waiting until they were both lukewarm, and then leaving most of the crust, and an inch of cold tea in the mug for Brenda to retrieve for the washing up. When she did come through to collect his discarded food and drink, she took it back to the kitchen without saying anything.

The week went on like this, small exchanges of language with the terms of endearment removed, and through to their next visit to the supermarket the following Tuesday. Within the seven days since Colin had referred to the full wattage available in their hallway, on the previous dark Tuesday morning, as ‘the entirety of our illumination’ the total number of words they’d exchanged with one another had more than halved. The words ‘love’, ‘pet’, ‘petal’, ‘hen’, and other endearing appendages they normally used, had close to vanished from almost every sentence they uttered, and the usual conversations about family, what was on TV, local news, any gossip picked up, had not occurred.

Neither of them admitted that anything was different. They carried on as normal, but words were only used when words had to be used, and so when the Tuesday supermarket trip came around again, and even though it seemed as dark and poorly lit as the previous Tuesday, and Brenda again struggled with seeing her laces, the available light went unmentioned. They drove to the supermarket in silence, Colin dropped Brenda off at the usual spot, mumbled something about coming back to pick her up, and set off to the bookies. Just a few minutes later Brenda’s phone buzzed, and she fished out her phone to see a text from Colin.

Can you get me some crumpets
this week?

Brenda read the message, no ‘please’, no ‘pet’, almost an instruction, an order, rather than a request, and clicked the screen closed and put it back in her bag. In the bread aisle she stopped to look at the crumpets and picked up the packet of six famous-brand crumpets and then at the price tag of ninety pence. On the shelf below she saw the shop-brand crumpets and looked at the price tag of fifty-five pence. She put the famous-brand packet back, took the shop-brand packet and placed it in her trolley and carried on. When she was at the checkout, her items being beeped through, her phone buzzed again.

I’m straight ahead, just two mins
walk ahead out of the exit. Or
text me when you’re ready and
I will come to the entrance.

Brenda looked at the message, and a sense of release came to her on seeing the square shape of Colin’s text and the reinstated second line, and then she remembered the replacement crumpets she’d already bought. She tapped in her reply.

I’m coming out now, come
to the entrance, thank you love.

Colin was at the entrance, and when he saw Brenda come out, he got out, opened the boot and helped her get the three bags for life inside it. They got in the front, buckled up, and drove home, the radio on, and Colin hummed along to a song that came on, and whilst this made Brenda happy, optimistic they were turning a corner, she worried about the shop-brand crumpets.

Back at the house, Colin helped with the bags into the kitchen and went to sit in the living room as she put everything away. When she’d put the last item in the cupboard, and filled the kettle, with two teabags waiting in their mugs, she called through to Colin.

‘Would you like crumpets or toast and jam with your tea?’

‘Crumpets please, love.’

Brenda took the shop-brand crumpets from the cupboard above the toaster, split open one side and removed two of them, slotted them into the toaster, and pressed down the lever. She could see they looked slighter thinner than the famous-brand ones and felt a little firmer to the touch. After the usual two minutes they popped up and she could see the base was a darker shade than usual and she picked them out quickly, dropped them on the plate, and buttered them. The butter seemed to melt straight through, and a little of the yellow liquid from it puddled under the first crumpet. She waited for them to cool and then buttered more, putting on an approximate fifty percent more than usual to make them softer than they were to the touch. She took them through to the living room.

‘Here you go.’

‘Thank you, pet.’

Colin closed and folded his newspaper, put it under his side table, and picked up the plate to take a semi-circle bite of his first crumpet. He bit into the crust, crisper than normal, and tore into it, needing to pull the crumpet from his mouth to tear out a piece. Butter dribbled down his chin and he had to catch a couple of drops with the back of his hand. The taste was mildly acrid, and the texture too hard, like it might scratch his gums. He put down the crumpet, took a swig of tea, and swilled it around his mouth to clear the crumbs of crumpet. He picked up the second crumpet, inspected its depth and firmness, took a nibble from the side, and realised Brenda had bought the cheaper, shop-brand ones. He didn’t eat anymore and left them, saying nothing, nor looking at Brenda, when she came to take his plate.

The following week reverted to the same abridged conversations as before, verbal exchanges around the home, words needed only for the purpose of sharing the building they lived in. The drive to the supermarket the next Tuesday was the same, in silence, with Colin dropping Brenda off at the entrance and no mention of crumpets from either of them. For the duration of their drive there had been no anger shown, no harumphing or sighs, car doors opened and closed politely, no words either, the radio, the car engine, and the wipers moving the drizzle off the windscreen being the only sounds.

Once inside, Brenda collected the usual fruit and vegetables, went straight down the bread aisle and deposited two white, sliced loaves in the trolley, then to the dairy aisle for their usual items, working her way down each of the aisles in sequence, ready-made meals, meat, pickles and preserves, tinned goods, world foods, juices and concentrates, alcohol, and then after that household goods, cleaning products, toiletries, and so on. By the time she’d put her bottle of sherry and Colin’s ciders in the trolley she realised that the weekly shop was already completed, but in much quicker time than usual with about twenty minutes to spare before Colin would return from the bookies.

She decided to spend some time meandering around the furthest aisles she seldom needed to bother with, and found herself looking at stationery, the small selection of books, some gardening items, and the greetings card section. She stopped to pick out a few of the cards and noticed that most of them were Valentine’s cards, it now being late January. She picked out a few, surprised at the bawdiness of some of them, and then saw that there were cards for specific people, ‘girlfriend’, ‘boyfriend’, ‘fiancé’, ‘fiancée’, ‘wife’, and ‘husband’. There were around half a dozen cards for ‘husband’ and she started going through them and found one covered with blue cartoon stars, and a childish pink and yellow comet in the middle, with the writing ‘To My Brilliant Husband. You Light Up My World’. She had never called Colin ‘brilliant’, it wasn’t a word they used, and they never said words like ‘you light up my world’, their love for each other was shown in little words, ‘pet’, ‘love’, ‘hen’, and short phrases, ‘come here and give us a cuddle’, ‘let’s have my goodnight kiss then’, but none of these had been used much, if at all for weeks. They weren’t talking like they usually did, not since Colin had said those strange words about not enough light in everything. Brenda looked at the card again, read the words once more, ‘brilliant’ and ‘light’ and ‘world’. She looked on the back to check the price, two pounds, and put it in the trolley, sliding it between the two sliced loaves. She saw she still had five minutes left until Colin usually came, so she returned to the bread aisle, added the famous-brand crumpets, and then straight to the checkout.

When everything was checked through and in the bags for life, it was five minutes later than when Colin normally texted. Brenda took her phone out of her bag in case she hadn’t felt it buzz, but no messages were on the screen. She put it back in her bag, and wheeled her trolley to the usual exit, checked her phone again, and still nothing. She didn’t want to message him, but it was almost ten minutes over, and Colin was almost never late. She looked at the time and decided when it ticked to another minute, she’d send him a text asking if everything was alright. The screen said 11:09, when it said 11:10, she’d text him. The time the phone took to move from 11:09 to 11:10 seemed much longer than sixty seconds, she had to press the screen a couple of times to stop it going dark, to keep the time in view, but it stayed on 11:09. Brenda was about to unlock the homepage screen, thinking there was something not working with the clock, when her phone buzzed, and a message from Colin appeared.

Running late, got talking to the
lads at the bookies. Come to the
car park exit. Will be five mins.
No time to come in.

The exit to the supermarket meant an almost ten-minute walk for Brenda including a section with no path for pedestrians where she would have to manoeuvre the trolley down to the main road, and it was still drizzling with rain. She couldn’t bring herself to reply though, and started walking, knowing that she wouldn’t be there within five minutes. She looked down at the three bags in the trolley and thought about rummaging in to retrieve the crumpets and card to throw them in one of the litter bins on the way out, but she couldn’t see them near the top and couldn’t bear the idea of throwing out something she’d paid for.

Colin was parked outside where he said he would be when she emerged onto the road with her trolley. He got out, opened the boot, lifted two the heavier bags for life in, and Brenda the lighter one. He didn’t apologise and she said nothing in return to his silence. In the car they put on their seat belts, the radio playing the usual station, the wipers on their lowest setting for the drizzle, and proceeded back to the house. Colin took two bags in, and Brenda the remaining one, and they deposited them on the kitchen table, with Colin leaving Brenda in the kitchen to do her unpacking whilst he went to the living room with his newspaper and betting slips, and switched on the TV.

Brenda put everything where it always went but left the famous-brand crumpets and Valentine’s card in the bags, feeling barely able to touch them, and still unsure what to do with them, knowing she couldn’t waste food, but wondering what to do with the two-pound card. She still had the receipt, but the embarrassment of returning it was too much. With everything away in cupboards, the fridge and freezer, under the sink, she readied the teabags in mugs, put on the kettle, and put two slices of toast in the toaster, taking the butter and jam out for when the bread popped up. The kettle boiled and she poured in the water, letting is stew for a minute before adding milk and sugar, placed the browned toast on a plate, scraped a film of butter on each slice, then dolloped two blobs of strawberry jam and spread it to the edges, cut across the middle of each, to make four triangles, put the milk and sugar in the mugs, and took it through to Colin.

As she placed the plate and mug on the side table next to her husband, he looked askance at it, and then said nothing, and continued looking between the racing pages in the paper and the commentary on the TV. Brenda returned to the kitchen and started to make her own toast and drink her tea. As she did all she could hear was the low speaking on the TV and the rustle of newspaper pages in the living room. When her two slices ejected from the toaster, she took them, repeated the same butter and jam process, but before taking a bite, went into the living room to check. Colin had not touched his food or drink, and she knew the toast would be cold by now and that was something he didn’t like.

‘Are you not going to eat your toast?’

‘I don’t want toast.’

‘Well, you need to tell me if you don’t want toast. What do you want?’

‘You know what I want. I want crumpets.’

‘You didn’t say you wanted crumpets.’

‘You didn’t ask.’

‘Why is it my job to ask?’

‘Why is it my job to tell?’

‘Tell what? That doesn’t even make sense, Colin!’

‘It does make sense, Brenda.’

‘Sense! Don’t talk to me about sense! Since your daft words about ‘illumination’ and there not being enough of it, nothing has made sense!’

‘Brenda. I didn’t mean…’

Brenda didn’t stay in the living room to hear more. She returned to the kitchen, to her own toast and tea, to the three bags for life still sitting open on the kitchen table, the famous-brand crumpets in the middle one, and the Valentine’s card sitting in another. She took the card out, tore off the cellophane cover, put the envelope down and looked inside the card, which was completely blank. She checked the back, saw the price code, the name of design, and then turned to look at the stars and comet on the front again, ‘To My Brilliant Husband. You Light Up My World’. She didn’t know what to do with it, she couldn’t return it, she could ask if one of her friends wanted it, but that would be embarrassing too, or she could rip it up and throw it out. She stared at it, thinking, and then decided to write something in it, she took a biro from the drawer, removed the black plastic lid, sat down, and poised the nib over the blank white page, thinking what to write, but nothing came to her. The grey cloud outside, and the film of rain on the kitchen window made it a bit dark to see, so she stood up, and switched on the light. The illumination from the light brightened the whole room, and Brenda laughed to herself at how vivid everything seemed. She looked at the card, its lively, cartoon colours, and the loud, jolly letters it was written in. She shook her head, laughed again at herself, at the card, at all the light in the room. She decided what to write, she knew what words to put in the card, what words exactly, but first she’d pop a couple of crumpets in the toaster.