Another Life| Joel Pimentel

Nine.

Once they arrived home Elizabeth got the evening meal ready, Joel placed the laundry down in the corner of the room for Elizabeth the following morning. He looked down at himself, he was dirty and he didn’t like it one bit.

“Look at the state of me.”

Joel held his hands out to the side as he looked down at himself. Elizabeth smiled as she shook her head.

“You’re a working man now Joel .”

Joel smelt his shirt where he had been sweating.

“I stink.” He hated it so much.

Elizabeth moved the pots away from the heat on the stove.

“Do you want a bath before dinner?”

Joel smiled as he thought about a nice warm bath to relax back in.

“Oh yeah, wonderful, I’ve missed a good bath.”

Elizabeth went outside and Joel heard metal scraping across the cobbles of the yard, finally Elizabeth came back bent over walking backwards dragging a tin bath with her. Joel closed his eyes; he had stupidly imagined a nice warm bath in a bathroom, how silly. 

“Here let me.”

He took it from Elizabeth and picked it up.

“Do I take it up to my bedroom?”
Elizabeth erupted into fits of laughter.

“Unless you want to carry hot water up there to fill the bath and back down here to empty it I think in front of the fire is best don’t you?”

Feeling silly Joel set the bath down and watched as Elizabeth got pots and pans out of the cupboard and set about filling them with water and placing them on the stove. Joel helped until the bath was half full with water.

“Right you jump in, I’ll go upstairs and get you a towel and some clean clothes.”

Joel stood for a time looking at the tin bath on front of the fire. This was his bath? He could hardly believe what was going on, but at least Elizabeth had gone out of the way to spare his blushes. Joel took off his clothes and dumped them unceremoniously on the floor, the climbed into the tin bath and shook as he sat down the cold metal touching his skin. He sat looking into the fire with his knees bent up towards his chin; he wondered how on earth people managed like this. Every day he spent in this place made him appreciate what he had more and more. He couldn’t help but think how wonderful it would be to go home and take Elizabeth too, show her how her life could be, all the nice things that would make things easier for her. She deserved that, she worked so hard and she had looked after him so well but then he wondered if she would want to leave Sam, but why didn’t she tell him about Sam before?
Joel reached out and took the bar or soap off the table, he smelt it then screwed his face up at the smell, it was coal tar, the same sort of smell as the bars of soap his grandmother used to wash her clothes with. He knew this wasn’t going to do his skin any good what so ever. Rubbing the bar between his hands, he worked up a good lather and started to rub it all over his chest.

Elizabeth in the meantime had got clean clothes out for Joel and the towel from her bedroom as it was cleaner than the one in his room. She came down the stairs and saw Joel step into the bath, his naked flesh given a golden glow by the fire. Elizabeth held her breath afraid she would get caught watching him but she couldn’t rip her eyes away from the hot guy in front of her. He seemed to have lit a fire all around her and she couldn’t escape from it, not that she really wanted to.

She watched Joel struggle to reach his back and knew she couldn’t hide in the shadows forever, he was a boy who had been out to work all day and it was her duty to help him bathe. She walked in the room making Joel jump; he squeezed the soap tightly sending it flying out of his hands and across the tiles floor. Elizabeth placed his clothes and the towel down on the table then picked up the soap and handed it back. Joel moved one of his hands to cover his crotch.