The Traitors
«And I taught your little Alfie to play cards!» Grandma Polly announced cheerfully.
«What for?» sighed tired Marianne, just back from workAlfie had only just turned six.
«Well, how else? Hell visit someone, and theyll sit down for a game!» the old woman explained. «Hell keep them company! For societys sake, as they say!»
You could understand hershed been raised in the heart of socialism, where card games and dominoes were considered fine entertainment.
And this wasnt happening now, but back in the middle of the last century, in the so-called «stagnant years.» So, bring on the card tricks and the sly moves!
Granny Polly was there to babysit her great-grandson, little Tommy, barely a year old. Alfie, who loathed nursery school, was always hovering nearby.
The boy was self-sufficienta key around his neck and lunch in a thermos. Back then, it was perfectly normal. These days, they cant even wean them off the breast by forty.
The courtyard wasnt bad eithercosy, enclosed on all sides by apartment blocks. There was even a ping-pong table and a decent little playground with a sandpit and swings.
And in one of those blocks stood the shop «Bright Light.» Where, alongside lamps and sconces, they somehow also sold furniture.
Furniture is heavy. Unloading it didnt exactly inspire joy.
So, the children often brought home new wordswords that started with all sorts of letters. «Mum, what does… mean?»
They called them «light-reflecting» words.
But these were just small downsides in a world of upsides. You could let your kids play outside without fearthe delivery men even kept an eye on them!
Marianne had married firstshed fallen for a classmate and got pregnant. Later, her mother-in-law, who worked at a nursery, took the boy during the week, so the girl could finish medical school.
After that, both she and her husband became GPsback when job placements were still a thing.
Pretty Lottie didnt marry until twenty-fivelate by the standards of the time.
The sisters couldnt have been more different. Quick, slender, dark-haired Marianne was the polar opposite of slow, plump, fair Lottie.
But both were strikingblack and white, not just a contrast, but two halves of a whole.
Looking at them, people couldnt help but ask: «Are you sure youve got the same father?»
«Not sure!» the sisters would snap, though they got on famously.
Their father had died long ago. Their mother had moved on, leaving the flat to her grown daughters while she started a new family elsewhere. Shed always dodged the question: «Why do you care? Of course, youve got the same father! The very same!»
Until twenty-four, Lottie had men wrapped around her fingerher heart still asleep, though not without the odd infatuation.
She met her future husband at a party a few years after leaving schoolhe was a friend and neighbour of her old classmate, Alex Sedgewick.
She even agreed to a date with Peter. But came back disappointed.
«Youll never guess what he asked me!» Lottie fumed.
«What?» Marianne held her breathit must have been something awful for Lottie to be this cross.
«Can you believe ithe asked if I was wearing warm knickers! The horror!» She wrinkled her nose at the memory. «Ugh, how mundane!»
Yes, the poor manthree years older and quite smittenhad simply shown concern. Everyone wore thermal knickers back then, and the temperature had dropped below freezing.
Nothing scandalousjust a care for silly Lotties health. But youth is often unforgiving. So, poor, well-meaning Peter was rejected, knickers and all.
He reappeared in her life seven long years later. By then, Lottie, having picked through admirers like a magpie, was still alonestill sharing the same two-bed flat with her sisters family.
Suddenly, the suitors had all vanished. It hit her after New Yearsshed had no invitations, so she stayed home with Mariannes lot.
Then, Marianne found a needle hidden in her blanket. Someone had put a hex on hera love charm, a curse, or worse!
Lottie had plenty of girlfriends who often stayed over. The flat was near the Tube, handy for uni, then work. Everyone took advantage.
The needle was removed, andlike fateLottie bumped into Peter again. A sign, surely! You couldnt refuse destiny!
And when he askedyes, againabout warm knickers, she saw it differently: «Isnt he thoughtful?» So, she married him. By then, he was a PhD in mathematics.
The groom moved in at once, marking his arrival with a new enamel kettle and a sofa.
«But weve already got a kettle!» Marianne frowned. «Why another?»
«That ones yours,» the mathematician explained. «This ones ours.»
And for the first time, a tiny rift openedPeters kettle was nicer, more expensive.
His parents were well-off, too, not like Mariannes husbands family»paupers,» as her mother called them behind his back.
The plan was to swap the two-bed for two one-beds, with a top-up. Peters parents promised to help.
Time passed, and Tommy was born. Lottie went back to work, and cunning Peter enlisted Granny Polly to babysit.
One day, Marianne came home earlyfeverish, probably caught from her patients. Her callsor «call-outs,» as one sour dispatcher called themwere handed to a colleague. «Get well soon, Dr. Marianne!»
The flat was dark. Probably asleep.
Inside, it was a sickbayLottie had taken leave to care for Tommy, and her husband John was down with a slight fever. Alfie, of course, was always home.
Quietly, so as not to wake anyone, Marianne unlocked the doorthen froze. Strange noises! Please, not the children!
Still in her coat, she peered into the room. In the fading light, six-year-old Alfie and drooling Tommy sat on the rug, cards in handAlfie was teaching his brother to play «for societys sake.»
«Wheres Dad?» Marianne asked.
«Dad and Aunt Lottie are washing clothes in the bathroom!» Alfie replied, then turned to his brother, who could barely hold his single card. «My turncover it!»
Granny Pollys lessons had borne fruit.
«How long have they been washing?» Mariannes heart clenched.
«The big hand was on six, now its on nine!» clever Alfie answered.
«Fifteen minutes!» Marianne thought. «He never washes that long with me.»
She felt sick. So this was why Lottie kept finding excuses not to movecheeky cow! Always some nonsensethe door wasnt right, too far from the Tube. Now she knew!
Did Peter know? Unlikely. If he did, his parents wouldve tanned her hide. Yet here they were, ready to pay extraclueless!
Still in her coat, Marianne stood outside the bathroom, waiting for the «washing» to end. Soon, flushed John and Lottie emerged, startled.
«Youre supposed to be on call! What are you doing here?»
«Came to help with the washingin case you struggled!» Marianne said. «Well? Judging by the speed, you wrung it out good and proper! Ready to hang?»
«Its not what you think!» John said. But what could he say?
«Fine!» Marianne nodded. «Show me the laundry, thenmaybe you can talk your way out!»
Go on, think of something! Say you had a fever, started raving, and Lottie cooled you with compresses!
No backup plan, Mr. Spy? No contingency? How short-sighted!
Husband and sister stood dumbno excuses. Until now, everything had been perfect.
«Get out, both of you!» Marianne said. Lottie scooped up Tommy, his single card still clutched tight, and fled.
John sent Alfie out to playstill lightthen tried to talk his way back in. «It was a moment of madness, darling! I love only you! She came onto me!»
Quotes from *The Diamond Arm* had long since entered common parlance.
But his wife, cold as ice, wasnt buying it. Shed been cuckolded. Probably not just once.
Later, it turned out «Dad and Aunt Lottie» often «washed clothes.» How tidy of them.
In the end, Johnfeverish at a whole 37.1°Cwas kicked out. Contact with Lottie was cut to a minimum.
Marianne never told Peter. If he knew, hed divorce Lottie, trapping them both in their parents two-bed indefinitely. Who knew when «better times» would come?
As it was, Lottie snapped up the first offertwo one-beds, with a top-up.
Divorced Marianne ended up in a tiny flatkitchen four square metres, and a «glory hole» (as they called the combined bathroom).
But it was hers. Better a bad nest of your own than a good one borrowed.
John, «evicted,» crawled back to his parents. He begged, pleaded, clawedbut the divorce went through.
One day, Mariannenow at a different surgerycame home to silence. Alfie was playing.
He was self-sufficient, her Alfie. Happy alone, though he missed his cousin.
Now he sat on the rug. Propped against a chair leg was a giant teddy bear. Before it, cards fanned outAlfie teaching his plush friend to play «for societys sake. The bear, worn at the seams and missing one button eye, sat solemnly, as if listening. Alfie dealt two hands with careful precision, talking under his breathrules, strategies, the importance of bluffing. Outside, the courtyard buzzed faintly: a distant ping-pong rally, childrens laughter, the clink of bottles from the shop. Marianne watched from the doorway, unseen, her coat still on. She felt a pangnot of sorrow, but recognition. The world turned on small rituals, quiet acts of keeping going. And in the dim light of the flat, with no one watching, her son played on, teaching the bear, teaching himself, teaching the silence how to hold its cards.
