By Chris Cottom

It starts when my washing machine goes on the blink and Neville next door insists I use his. 

He looks my sad bundle. “Only half a load?”

“I struggle to fill it … nowadays.”

“Same here, mate.’”He touches his hand to my shoulder. “Aww, Helen will be looking down at you.”

“Yeah, telling me to sort my darks from my lights.”

“Talking of which, mind if I pop in some of mine?’”

“Sure. No skin complaints, then?”

“Well, I’d prefer buffed and bronzed to grey and saggy.”

“Ha ha. No social diseases?”

“It’s been a long time, mate. A very long time. Now, tea or coffee?”

Soon there are four of us, all widowers from the cul de sac, doing back-to-back loads while we put the world to rights. We don’t always have enough washing so we do a card for the village shop and next there are ten of us, starting early, making lunch together in one another’s houses.

Turns out Ken had been an electrician. We’ve nodded at each other for twenty years, never really spoken. 

He claps his hands. “Repair club on Saturdays? Toasters, dodgy bedside lamps?’”

“We could sharpen garden tools for people,’”Neville says. “Maybe do a bit of gardening.”

We get an A5 flyer printed, pop it through every letterbox, walking round in pairs. 

 

We get so busy we all chip in to fund a part-time administrator, an unemployed lad from the estate, teach him about workflow management. Being a whiz on computers, Isacc’s soon sorting out people’s apps and laptops, so we introduce a small charge, move him to full-time, hire his sister Chloe to do the admin. 

On a weekend in the Lake District, we build a raft which we paddle across Windermere, form our community interest company over dinner in The Lazy Trout. We take our muddy-streaked kit to our first board meeting at Neville’s, agree that laundry at every meeting will keep us rooted.

After a morning looking at KPIs for Quarter Two, we sit down for lunch while the washing machine shudders through its spin cycle. 

“Busy, busy,”I say.

“Too busy, really.”

“I miss the old days. Sitting around, jawing.”

“Me too.”

“Can’t stop now. People depend on us.”

We agree to ‘kick ourselves upstairs,’ call ourselves advisers, hand the business to Isacc and Chloe, help them recruit a string of apprentices. 

I follow Neville out to the kitchen, help him with the coffees. 

He laughs. “We’ll make sure we get priority washing machine repairs. Listen to the racket this one’s making.”

“Tell me about it, mate. Helen always used to say we could hear it from our house.”

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Chris Cottom is a recovering insurance copywriter with recent work in Banshee, Barrelhouse, Fictive Dream, matchbook, New Flash Fiction Review, New World Writing Quarterly, Orange Blossom Review, The Broadkill Review, The Good Life Review, and elsewhere. Catch him pedaling around Cheshire, UK, and at chriscottom.wixsite.com/chriscottom