Sitting Pretty

“Sit up straight and don't slouch” said Auntie Annie. She was the old lady that Mum used to dump my sister and I onto when she had to go off somewhere and didn't want to take us. “You'll never stand tall as you get older, slopping around like that” she continued. She wasn't a real Auntie but that was what we had to call her. I hated staying with her. I often wondered about her bent over backbone and wizened face. Did she sit up straight when she was young? I think not. As I stared at her face I noticed a small lump on the side of her cheek. Out of it grew a long hair and I wondered if Granddad would like it for his radio. He was always talking about the cats whisker in it. It would not work without one but that was all beyond the comprehension of a seven year old. If I closed my eyes to a slit I could see her hair screwed back in a bun and wondered how she got her old arms so far up behind her back. Perhaps she was a witch and could twist her arms like rubber. There was a thing in the garden shed that looked like a broomstick, a besom was what she called it, but I still think it was her broomstick. A huge black cat lived with her. What a spiteful thing it was. Perhaps it didn't like me because every time it came near me I would trip it up with the point of my shoe and it would hiss and snarl and lash out with its long shiny claws. Auntie Annie shouted at me quite often but I pretended not to hear. Sometimes we were allowed out in the garden and I would creep up to the old shed where there was a beautiful picture on the wall. It was comprised of a group of ladies taking tea in a garden far far away. Auntie Annie said they were Japanese. I loved that picture and at every chance I would sit in the shed and gaze at the elegant ladies. There was one in particular that I longed to be like. She had a blue flowing dress with a large sash around her waist and she was seated on a bench. Her hair was piled up on her head and caught with a long spike. She looked so pretty sitting there. I thought that if I was like her then Auntie wouldn't shout at me so much, but I could never be like that. I was too much of a rebel.

One night as I searched the sky out of my bedroom window something dark drifted across in front of the moon. Perhaps it was Auntie Annie on her broomstick and maybe she had the cat sat on the end of it. I told Mum and got a smack for saying things like that. “One day she will come back and haunt you and then you will be sorry” she said, but I could see her laughing behind her hand.

The years went by and I finally grew up into quite a smart young woman. I had a well paid job and a young man who thought I was beautiful, maybe like the Japanese lady.

Then one day the phone rang. Mums voice on the other end said “I thought I would let you know that Auntie Annie has died and her solicitor has been trying to get in touch with you but you are never home. Please can you ring him” and she gave me his number. I contacted him the next day, curious to know what was so important that he had to speak to me. I arrived at his office that afternoon and was ushered in by his secretary. “Do sit down” he said showing me to a large leather armchair. “I gather that you know Mrs Annie Chilcott has died. But what you don't know is that she has left you a large picture which used to hang in her shed. You should take good care of it as it is worth quite a lot of money”. He gave me the picture, which was rolled in tissue and in a cardboard tube so that it would travel well. I thanked him and left the office, got into my car and drove off straight to the auction house. The valuer took out the picture, scrutinised it for about half an hour and then announced that it would probably fetch, at auction, somewhere in the region of eight hundred thousand pounds or even more on a good day. I agreed to put it up for auction in about a weeks time then put it back in its covering and went home. The auctioneer would have liked me to leave it with him but I wanted to enjoy it for just a little longer.

I arrived back at my little flat, went inside and laid the picture out on the table. There she was, still pretty sitting there in her blue dress. The thought of all that money floated through my brain. Yes I thought, you may be pretty sitting there but when I get that cheque I shall be sitting pretty. I left her on the table and went to bed.

I awoke with a start about three am with the sound of the smoke alarm ringing in my ears. I raced into the lounge and found it full of smoke. “No” I shouted “Not my picture”. I had forgotten to turn off the electric fire and somehow the picture had slid from the table and on to the fire and was now a mass of charred and smouldering paper. I should have been grateful that I was still alive but all I could think of was what I had just lost. With tears in my eyes I looked out of the window and a shadow of something long forgotten passed across the moon. Well Auntie I'm not sitting pretty any more I sighed. Mum was right, you did come back to haunt me.