by Lydia Black

Created on: January 18, 2009

The Peg
You'd be mad if I told you what happened to me today. You'd give me that look that's half-pity, half-exasperation. The one you use when I forget to buy the milk. You'd shake your head in wonder at how some one could be that gullible, that nave.

I'd been at home, like we'd agreed, so that the plumber could come and sort out the drains. You're too busy at work at the moment to take a day off and, besides, I get two days more holiday a year than you, so it was only fair. The plumber had left an hour ago and I was wondering what to do with the afternoon.

Then the doorbell rang.

Whenever our doorbell rings we always know who it is. We've ordered take-away or invited some one round and usually we've been watching out for them from the lounge window. We've seen them park on the road and walk up the path to the front door, so we know it's them when they ring the bell. No one ever calls on us without warning.

But today I opened the door and there was a stranger standing there with a shy little smile and big brown eyes.

"Oh," I said. "Hello."

She looked at me, nodding slowly.

"You want peg?" she said, and made her eyes even larger.

"Peg?"

She waved a bag of clothes pegs at me.

"Oh, pegs," I said. I looked down and picked up a leaf from the doormat. "How much?"

"One pound," she said.

We don't need pegs. We don't have a washing line. You always say that we should put up a line in the garden. "We should go to the market on Saturday and buy a washing line," you say. But we never do. So we don't need pegs.

But, I thought, one pound is hardly anything and we could go and get a washing line from the market tomorrow, like you always say we will. You'd probably be really pleased if I suggested it. Maybe me buying pegs will be just the thing to spur us into action, I thought. Once we've got pegs there'll be no stopping us. A washing line this weekend. Perhaps we could decorate the spare room next week. We could paint it jade green. We could invite guests to stay.

So I said to the girl, "Yes. OK."

She nodded at me, still smiling.

"I'll just get my purse," I said.

When I got my purse, I remembered that I only had a twenty pound note in it. So I went to the spare change jar in the kitchen and counted out twenty 5p pieces.

"Sorry," I said, as I passed the coins to the girl.

She nodded at me again, put the money in her pocket and handed me a peg.

"One peg?" I said.

"Yes," she said. She shrugged her shoulders at me, as if to say that it was completely out of her hands. "You want peg."

"Oh, right," I said. And then she left.

Of course, you'd have seen that coming a mile off, wouldn't you?

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