The heating engineer has not long left. He and Winnie have been tweaking the central heating system together. He installed the fire and the heating pipes originally so is comfortable having a his old apprentice back.
She sat with him for almost an hour, her head resting, wherever possible on his discarded work jacket.
As they finally came down the stairs he remarked on a mark on the corner of the landing
"
I thought at first I had caught the paintwork with my toolbox"
"No" I reassured him
"the mark's been there for a while"
Like most things that you have lived with for a long time, that mark, to me had become invisible.
It's like the plaster indentation I left after I repaired the water damaged hole in the ceiling caused by The Prof overfilling the bath before getting into it.
It's like the painting hung in the corner under the stairs no longer in the normal line of sight.
and it's like the old stove too heavy to move which has sat outside the kitchen door for the past two years.
Things there, but things no longer seen to be there.
The mark on the wall was William's,
it was his footprint on my life.
A corner where he itched his bottom...... a pleasurable pain for him and a minor irritation for me.
The stain left by a thousand bum rubs.
An I woz ere grease DNA signature
After the engineer had gone I gathered up some cleaning spray and a cloth and marched up the stairs with good intentions.
But the mark is still William.
his signiture on a small life, lived quietly
and so, for the time being,
I've left the mark well alone,
