Grazia and Orange fiction prize The Deadline

The first paragraph was begun by author Kate Mosse, and entrants were invited to complete the chapter in max. 1000 words.

I really enjoyed writing it, spurred on by the May 10th entry date.

The Deadline

She stood looking up at the house. At the blank grey walls, the shuttered windows with empty boxes on the concrete sills, the stern front door. The house said nothing about what it was or what took place inside, it was unassuming and nondescript and uninviting. She'd come here several times before, but never got the courage to go in. Now, there was no choice. The deadline was today, no last chance of a reprieve or change of heart. If she was going to do it, it had to be now. She shivered, chill from the sudden drop in temperature now the light was fading, or from excitement or from fear, she didn't know. Also, the sense of possibility that, by pressing this suburban doorbell, her life could - would - alter for good. But still she lingered on the unwashed step, picking at a thread of wool come loose from her glove, caught between the girl she was and the woman she might be. A deadline she never thought she would face.

She was unable to push the bell. Her finger hovered over it with almost magnetic repulsion. Before she had the chance to change her mind and head back to the conference, no harm done, a shadow appeared behind the yellow-tinted glass of the door.
“Who’s there?” a voice hollered, and the shadow loomed larger.
“We don’t want nothin’ from you.” A face, distorted by the frosting, leered through the window. Angela stood silently on the doorstep, outwardly composed but inwardly repeating OhGodOhGodOhGod over and over like white noise. Finally the door opened with a reluctant groan to reveal a humungous woman clad only in a nightgown. It would have been impossible to place the woman’s age, had Angela not already known, as this was a great beast of a woman. The worn cotton of the nightgown stretched out over rolls of stomach and back and ass, sagging over each other in lumps like a burst armchair. Dried spittle and the remains of meals covered her front, and large crescent moons of old sweat darkened her underarms. Peering with black pebble eyes she swayed backwards and forwards with the effort of standing and watching. Their meeting seemed to be happening in slow motion. Angela was unsure if this was a trick of time, leaving her in nervous suspense, or if the woman moved at half speed with thoughts and words fighting their way to the surface like swimming through treacle. Looking Angela up and down there was definite recognition.
“What you doin’ here?” The woman reached for the doorframe to steady herself. Her large uncradled breasts undulated as she wheezed and coughed with the effort.
“I came to see you…to see how you are.”
“I can’t stand here all day.” The woman turned to walk away, leaving the door wide open. After a moment’s pause Angela took this as an invitation to follow and entered the house.

The first thing to hit Angela was the smell and the heat. It was an early autumn evening but the windows had clearly stayed shut all summer. In the lounge a two bar gas-heater burned orange and released an odour of melted plastic. The house was a time warp. Nothing had changed since the seventies and the furniture was faded in green and beige; a life lived in sepia. Unless she checked the dates on the front of the mail and freesheet newspapers piled up in the hall there would be no way of guessing the year, or even the decade. She selected a seat as far from the heater as possible and leaned forward to avoid the halo of grease that clung to the headrest. The woman heaved her gargantuan frame onto the sofa, settling into the pronounced grooves where buttocks had ploughed ridges into the fabric. They sat, not speaking, while the woman gulped for breath. Angela gazed at the old statue of Jesus on the cross that was silhouetted on the mantelpiece. It sat, as it always had, lit from behind with a candle. Puddles of melted wax sat in rivulets, almost as tall as the figurine itself. Angela folded her hands and fiddled with the beads on her bracelet in mock penance. After huffing and puffing the woman was settled, ass firmly planted in the sofa’s indent. She looked at Angela, with either a single solitary tear or an oozing bead of perspiration snaking down the side of her cheek.
“Where you been, baby?”
“Illinois. I’ve been in Illinois.” Angela was unsure what else to add. It was hard to sum up seventeen years in a simple ‘where’ or ‘what.’
The woman hauled herself forward on the sofa and fixed those black eyes on her guest.
“Your daddy been missin’ you.” She hissed breathlessly.
“Momma.” Angela started, then hesitated, “He hasn’t missed me.”
“Sure he has. I visit him in that hospital and all he does is ask for you. He barely notice I’m there.” She paused for breath. “He’s so skinny now. They don’t feed him right, I swear. But nobody listens to me. Could you go talk to them?”
“Talk to the hospital?” Angela asked.
“Sure. And tell them your daddy need feedin’ up.”
“Maybe, Momma, maybe.”
“Please, Angel. That place is worse than the last, and the one before.”
Angela found it uncomfortable to think of her father passed round the system the same way she had been. It was four years for her, before the trial and before they could find a proper home. Even that was hazy, the interviews and questions. They gave her dolls. ‘He touched you here?’ they would say, and she agreed. Memory is a strange thing.

Seeing Angela’s reluctance her mother pushed on. “It’s the least you could do.” Her mother said, sadly. And there it was: the thing Angela came to speak about, and yet was hoping would never come up. How can you tell the truth when you don’t know what that is?
“I’ll do it.” She replied. There was no admission of guilt, but no protestations of innocence either.
“Why’d you come? Why’d you come if you don’t wanna help?” Her mother asked.
“I do want to help.” Angela replied. And the real question came.
“Why’d you come now then? Your daddy needed your help ten years ago.” Her mother was angry underneath.
Resisting the urge to say and I needed your help, momma Angela just sat, sweltering.
“Why did I come now?” She repeated the question to buy herself time as she removed her jacket in the heat.
“I came now…” Leaning backwards awkwardly on the sticky chair Angela shrugged off her coat to reveal a loose blouse, and under that a perfectly rounded bump, five months grown.
“I came now.” The question needed no further explanation.