A shrub, possibly the same shrub, as it had done in the past hid the dark brown front door with its one step. Nobody went in that way (very few left by it); its doorbell was only rung by the milkman, the postman and the newspaper boy, or as a game. Run away, run away. Friends and family went in by the high white side gate, walking up the drive and passing the kitchen window, to open its top grey latch [tricky for those small in height and for those with little fingers, though its bottom board could be stood on; if a bigger person was around, it could be opened and swung inwards with the smaller still hanging on.], and be met, two steps from it, by the painted blue kitchen door, mostly open, sometimes shut.
This, Lily, the skimpy old maid of forty, did now. She was in the inner sanctum! There was the garage, where not only was the white Mazda kept but the tins of the dog food which the Labrador fetched himself, carried in his smiling mouth; the red gummy mouth that also liked to play towel-tug. There was the garden, its long green strip and its wider bottom, with its silver-barked trees and bonfire pile. And there, of course, was the door, the wide open kitchen door.
There was movement inside. Mrs Ramsay! Mrs Ramsay! Lily cried. Expecting her to turn round. But Mrs Ramsay was preoccupied slicing bread and frying bacon and brewing tea. Fried or scrambled? she called through the serving hatch; fried, a deeper voice replied. She cracked an egg on the side of the frying pan that contained the bacon; it spat and sizzled. The bread, white and brown, was being grilled at the top of the cooker, at just the right eye-level height.
From the other side of the hatch came the sounds of spoon against bowl. Lily placed her face before it and looked though. There! There was Mr Ramsay! Same as ever, a hearty man (his wife a whippet compared to him; some might say a terrier, a small Jack Russell), with his thick white hair like a stiff brush eating cornflakes with condensed milk. His wife had had her branflakes, which she would in a moment follow with toast. Brown toast and marmalade. And tea, there was always tea, with sugar.
Mr Ramsay was reading The Telegraph; a folded Telegraph, next to the place-mat on which his bowl sat. Not at the table Pop! Mrs Ramsay reproved as she took his empty bowl and set down his breakfast plate (Mr Ramsay grumbled but said nothing). Lily had trailed in after her and squeezed in the seat against the wall, next to the sideboard. Mrs Ramsay reappeared bearing the toast, white and brown, and cut into triangles, in its holder, and took her seat opposite Mr Ramsay.
So there they were, he at the head of the table and she at the other. And Lily, as so many times had been the case, in-between. Mrs Ramsay buttering (with her butter) brown toast and then adding a blob of marmalade on the corner and biting into it, while Mr Ramsay tucked into his fuller plate, then went on to white toast with his butter. All swallowed down with tea.
Other mornings, breakfast might be Mr Ramsay's kedgeree, but mostly it was cereal, then eggs (any way), with bacon or without, and toast, and tea. Different tastes in this house, near the sea, on the mainland, were catered for.
Was nobody else joining them? There were no sounds from upstairs, and no signs of the dog. Sam dog. No signs of Lily herself. No, wait, there was classical music playing. How had she missed that? There it was in the background, the radio on. If anyone else had been there, Lily remembered, Mrs Ramsay would have ordered rather than asked, though phrased it as a question, Pop, can't we have that off? Instead, breakfast over, she had taken a section of the paper and was now leaning over it doing the crossword puzzle.
Picture credit: P R Francis.
See To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf.
Written in lock-down, May 2020.
