Listen to the author reading this story:
The little blue laundrette sat sandwiched between a six-storey block of flats and the ghost of an old games arcade, the latter slowly consuming the corrugated plastic ‘For Sale’ signs clinging to its web-fractured windows. The sound of clattering coins from metal mouths, electronic shrieks, and the dull clunk of jammed buttons had long since faded from Starcadian Nights, along with any remorse for its absence.
Ah. But this isn’t about the arcade.
The little blue laundrette beside it was nameless — or not. The handful of people who still used it certainly had no interest in knowing its name, even if it had one. Most of them came from Sunnyrise Court next door, knuckles clenched white around plastic bags containing all manner of soiled, threadbare skins. They simply called it the little blue laundrette because it was exactly that. It contained only four washers — one of which was always out of order and showed no signs of resurrection — and four clunky dryers that users had collectively named Squealer, Rattler, Slowpoke, and The Hairy One. It was also generally agreed the walls once were blue, but decades of steam and cigarette smoke had done their best to prove otherwise.
The laundrette was thought to be owned by the old woman whose stooped, raggedy form was ever-present. And since no one else was ever sat in the flaking vinyl chair behind the counter, it could be assumed she was the only employee also.
Bradley Quinn watched her from the dryer closest to the exit. She was barely visible over the countertop, and a beam of a streetlight cut through the window beside her, bouncing off her mottled scalp beneath thin strands of fried grey hair. An antique radio sat on a shelf behind her, frosted thick with dust. Still, it could not have outdated her. She must be pushing ninety, he thought, but immediately took it back, because accusing someone of old age sounded more like an insult than a compliment these days. And Bradley was a kind man, a good man.
The dryer shuddered to a stop at last, about twelve minutes after the one beside it, even though he’d started it sooner. But he’d made the mistake of using that one last week, and he was still finding wiry white dog hairs on his work trousers. God, he hoped the owners of Sunnyrise Court would make good on their promise to install a laundry facility this year.
As he tossed the last sock into his hamper and moved toward the exit, he paused, glancing around the now empty laundrette. He’d never been there at closing before. The orchestra of hums and rumbles had flatlined to a piercing silence, and even the clinging, damp warmth that smelled faintly of sweat and morning breath had dispersed, leaving in its wake an odourless chill.
He wasn’t sure why it locked him in place for just a moment. Perhaps it had something to do with the old woman and her little rounded shoulders, the way her shawl draped around them with more solidity than her time-worn bones. Or the skin of her hands stretched so thin he could practically see through to the wooden counter beneath them. Or it could have been her colourless eyes (Grey? Blue? White? Neither?) peering up at him, accompanied by a withered smile, the corners of her lips shaking as though the muscles surrounding them were long overdue an oil change.
She, like the laundrette, emanated the last echoes of an era scrubbed clean from memory. Why was she still working at her age? Didn’t she have family? Kids? A husband? Did she live nearby?
He reached for any one of these questions, the same way his hand occasionally reached for loose change in his coat pocket to toss to the homeless man on Station Road. Only this time, his hands came up empty, and he found himself nodding politely before stepping out into the night air. Next time, he told himself. Next time he would make small talk with her, maybe even ask for her name. With a heady surge of accomplishment, as though next time had already come, he pushed back his shoulders and headed home, his mind already skipping ahead to lasagne leftovers and reruns of Frasier.
At Bradley Quinn’s retreating back, the fluorescent lights of the little blue laundrette flickered off, leaving a stain of shadow splayed across the sidewalk.
The old woman rose, and ambled over to the windows to draw the blinds, though the streetlights beat through their flimsy folds, spilling a milky glow from one side of the room to the other. She followed its path as if she were walking a tightrope, and stopped before the second washer from the back corner.
The Out of Order sign was curling at the edges. The ink of the letters had bloomed out in sections, little clouds limned in bluish-black. She patted it, like she would the crown of a dog’s head, and then slow-danced her fingers down to the dials.
Tonight she chose: Delicates – Warm – Low speed.
In truth, the settings didn’t matter. The machine would whir to life regardless of the requested cycle, groaning with hunger, its empty belly waiting to be filled. And she would fill it. Just as she had every other night.
Before proceeding, she fetched her chair from behind the counter and dragged it to within a few feet away of the machine. Several faint grooves in the linoleum marked the chair’s previous journeys. When she was satisfied with her position, she leaned forward, jabbed the START button, and settled back again. Her hands embraced tightly in her lap, fingers woven to translucence. She waited.
A green light appeared, along with a short string of electronic chirps that fluttered through the silence. The door swung open on its own, and then—
“Hello, Emmeline.”
The voice came from deep within the drum of the washer, and even deeper still. It had a metallic twang, but was slightly garbled, like coins clinking at the bottom of the sea.
The old woman — Emmeline — did not flinch. Her fingers loosened a fraction, and a curious sense of comfort swelled within her chest.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. Her own voice sounded strange, distant. She realised it was the first time she’d spoken all day.
The washer hummed a little, as though considering. “If you have something to give, I will take it from you.”
Emmeline had given it a lot already.
The library book she’d forgotten to return on time when she was twelve, which she’d buried beneath the house, fearing punishment.
Telling her mother she hated her in a fiery moment when she was nineteen, though it couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Allowing silence to stretch between her and her brother, until the road to repair led only to his grave.
She’d filled it with every broken promise, every white lie, every wrong turn and step back. Missed parties, missed opportunities, shallow remarks, unpetted dogs, ignored calls, and grudges gripped too tight — she’d discovered there was nothing the washer couldn’t clean.
Nothing she hadn’t already given it.
But one.
The door closed gently, its lock clacking into place. A low hum resounded, followed by a steady surge of water. Emmeline watched with unblinking eyes. When the gushing ceased, the motor coughed once then settled into a slow, circular rhythm that tamed the pounding in her chest.
A light appeared within the washer. It was small at first, like the pulsing glow of a firefly, then gradually it grew to fill the entire window of the door. It looked as though the machine had swallowed the moon — cool and soft to the eyes, not blinding like the sun. It bobbed in place, streaked with suds and water. And within that light, a sequence of scenes appeared, one after the other, materialising and fading in gentle waves.
A room, freshly painted walls — vibrant, summer’s day blue. Four gleaming white washing machines stood in a row, mirroring four dryers on the opposite wall. If they rattled or groaned, it couldn’t be heard over the sound of two girls sliding across the floor with mop-handle microphones, singing through snorts of laughter about perpetually crying hound dogs, and a love so fine, it merited great balls of fire. The owners of the Dream Clean laundrette had just moved their Marconiphone downstairs — they couldn’t afford one of those newfangled transistor radios yet. But their daughter didn’t mind one bit. She was just thrilled to have her best friend, Emmeline, working with her, two hours after school, four days a week. Emmeline had never had a job before, so it was all gloriously amusing. They were dancing like they’d seen on the tube, doubled over now, falling to bits. A bucket flipped on its side. Its contents emptied like a wave breaking against the shore, all foam and grit and surrender.
The girl was crouched before the second washer from the back corner, her quick, practiced fingers exploring the coin drawer. What treasures she found she buried in the back pocket of her Blue Bell Wranglers, flashing a grin at her watchful friend that outshone the fluorescents.
Don’t tell Dad, she said.
Don’t go, said Emmeline.
But she went anyway, her auburn hair blazing brighter than the setting sun as she slipped out onto the street, bopping like a struck match until she turned down Station Road.
The laundrette owners’ daughter had always wanted to be famous, if only for a day. And now her face graced the cover of The Quartz Gazette. It was moved to page three the following day, then seven, then fourteen, until, after two humdrum weeks, it was removed altogether, replaced by stories of ribbon cuttings and rising rent. The flyers stayed up longer. They showed her bathed in shades of grey, eyes pinned to passersby, following them like the Mona Lisa she’d never see. Days would pass, then months. The owners would leave town, in search of a place where no noticeboard or streetlight had ever worn their daughter’s face. And Emmeline would stay. Just in case.
She was a woman, sweeping the sidewalk of crisp autumn leaves. A games arcade had just opened next door. Kids and their parents formed a line that vibrated with excitement all the way down to Station Road. On the other side of the laundrette was the memory of a park, where white oaks and silver birches had been stamped flat by the monstrous fist of urban development. A large square of cement covered the space now, steadily growing the bones of a new apartment complex. The city was morphing, writhing, like a snake desperately trying to break free of its own skin. And the laundrette was a snag that refused to budge. Its new owner wouldn’t leave. She was waiting for someone, according to those who were old enough to remember.
Her hair was grey now, her skin rippled. She sat upon a flaking vinyl chair drawn close to the second-last washer from the back corner. Her eyes grasped at blue, but they had run through many, many cycles.
Emmeline blinked. Her reflection blinked back. The washer gave a dramatic shudder and its soapy contents stilled mid-cycle. The silence that followed was gentle, patient.
“Her name was Bonnie.”
No one knew that anymore. No one who trailed through the entrance of the little blue laundrette, who pried open the doors of washers and dryers, mounds of clothes piled higher than their heads. No one who leaned against the machines, tapped their shoes, and hummed without soul, fingers click-clacking against the screens of their phones.
“Yes,” said the garbled voice, and it came from all around her now, humming through the veins of the laundrette, one low, trembling note.
“I told her not to go, not to meet him…” Emmeline trailed off. Did it truly matter what she’d told her? She could have flung herself against the door, arms and legs spread like a starfish, and still she’d have gone. That had been an ounce of her charm, really. Emmeline could still feel the cool touch of her hand against one cheek, hear her laughing promise of return.
And all these years, Emmeline had waited for her to keep that promise.
The city had evolved beyond recognition — even her failing eyes could see that much. Buildings had sprung up like black weeds throughout the decades, strangling those remnants of the past that couldn’t keep up, only to be mowed down themselves in favour of taller, sleeker structures with darker shadows to sow.
The little blue laundrette — nameless even to those who used it on the regular — remained stubbornly untouched.
Emmeline had made sure of that. Even spirits needed a fixed light to guide them home.
“Are you ready for me to take it off your shoulders? You’ve worn it so long, it’s thin as cobweb.”
Emmeline clutched at her shawl, though she knew it wasn’t what the machine meant. Her bottom lip juddered as she nodded. “Yes.”
It wasn’t completion she feared. It wasn’t the closing of a cycle she’d kept spinning for decades, the idea of its end finally merging with its beginning, until neither existed at all.
It was simply the ebbing thought that one more day might still matter. That Bonnie’s return existed only in tomorrows. And if Emmeline waited just long enough, her todays might finally overlap with those tomorrows, and a familiar face would walk through the laundrette doors, flushed and smiling, lined with adventures — a face that had lived, and lived well.
When the washer lurched back into motion, its internal light vanished, and to any curious eyes peeping through the tattered blinds from the street outside, they would have seen only an elderly woman waiting patiently for her laundry to run its cycle. Sitting alone, wearing shadows, slowly softening to the contours of an old vinyl chair.
If one could lipread, they would know she planned to rock, rock, rock ‘til broad daylight, even though her eyes were growing heavy, and her breathing had dropped out of rhythm with the washing machine’s steady pulse.
And if they lingered just a moment longer, right before a gossamer veil of steam settled upon the windows, they might have seen her smile widely, cheeks glistening, like she was seeing someone for the first time in what felt like forever.
When Bradley Quinn arrived at the little blue laundrette the next morning, he was surprised to see its doors firmly closed, its insides draped in darkness. He checked his watch, tapped the glass, then sighed — she never opened late. Through the window he could just make out the row of washers along the closest wall, one with its door ajar, an empty chair before it. He stepped away, cursing himself for not changing out of his one decent work shirt while he ate dinner last night. A flicker of concern for the old woman surfaced, but the day ahead pressed it back — meetings, phone calls, presentations.
He recalled another laundrette, about two blocks from his office. He’d go there instead.
Bianca Locklee was born and raised in Australia, moved to England in her early twenties, then to Canada in her late twenties, and has recently made her home (at least for now) along Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way. She is nearing the completion of her creative writing degree, and is currently editing her first full-length novel. Bianca looks for — and often finds — magic in the mundane. She is fascinated by the stories lurking in quiet corners and overlooked spaces, and she loves nothing more than coaxing them into the light.