The Perfect House Husband

Flash Fiction

The mud was the catalyst, but the resentment had been brewing for months. By Mother’s Day weekend, it reached a breaking point.

“You’re not trailing half of the Etihad across my carpet again,” Sarah snapped that Friday. She stood with arms folded, eyeing the brown mud patches stippled across the cream pile. Sarah was vibrating with stress; she’d spent three days prepping for Dan’s mother, Joyce, wanting to prove that she was good enough for her son, but in reality it was just Dan putting undue pressure on her to clean while he did nothing.

“I’m sorry, Joyce,” Sarah said, her voice trembling. “I feel like a doormat lately just something for Dan to stomp on when he comes back in from football coaching.”

Joyce, spooning sugar into her tea , gave a thin laugh. “Don’t worry, Sarah. I know what he's like. He’s always expected the world to tidy itself up after him.”

“I’ll get a mat then!” Dan snapped, his pride stinging. “And just you wait. I’ll be the perfect house husband. I’ll have the Marigolds on every night. This place will be a showroom. You won't have to lift a finger.”

Joyce’s smile was knowing. “I remember old John who used to live next door. You used to kick your muddy ball against his wall and yell that his wife was a witch.”

Dan snorted. ‘ I was only 11 and it was that old fashioned broom she used to sweep the mud up with! ’’“I remember what he said back, too. He told me, ‘No, Daniel, she wasn't a witch. But I’m a magician... and one day, you’ll see.’ Old John was mad as a box of frogs, wasn't he?”

They all laughed then a warm, bright sound that felt like a closing bracket on the argument.

On the way home from training, Dan saw a folding table outside a pebble-dashed semi. Three children stood behind it, solemn as Victorian shopkeepers. “House clearance garage sale!” the tallest girl called. Among the trinkets was an old wooden crate filled with toy frogs and a green cloth-bound book titled - Sanity and Sanitisation - The Magician’s Guide To Household Management. A box of frogs and a mad book he chuckled as he bought it along with a coir mat that had WELCOME in aggressive black script.

At home, Joyce flipped through the book. A Polaroid fell out. Her face went ashen. It showed John in his garden, a football blurred mid-air. He wasn't angry; he was smiling with a hungry, cold anticipation.

“No,” she whispered. “No way.”

Dan ignored her, opening the book to a random page. “ He never listens does he said Joyce, well tell you what, Sarah let's give Dan a taste of his own medicine and we'll ignore him starting from tomorrow, whatever he says we'll close our ears ha ha “Listen to this says Dan as he read from the book ‘How to scrub bone-dust from floorboards and polish the eyes of the silent.’”

Sarah burst out laughing. “Bit macabre, isn't it? Maybe that’s the secret to a showroom finish.”

But that night, the laughter died. The first knock brought Mrs. Kershaw. She stepped over the mat, soil rimming her nails, Dan was always climbing her apple back in the day. Then came Mr. Patel from the corner shop where Dan regularly stole sweets. Then John- The Mat said welcome he smirked.

Sarah and Joyce saw nothing of the spirits; they only saw Dan becoming the "perfect husband, he’s doing well isn't he but he doesn't half complain as he cleans, What's he going on about? Ha Ha". Meanwhile manic and raw-handed Dan scrubbed at spectral footprints and clumps of mud they couldn't see.

“Look at him,” Sarah remarked Sunday morning, watching Dan frantically polish a spot where John was currently dripping grey, stagnant water. “The house is spotless.”

“He’s finally learning,” Joyce said, though she watched her son with hollow pity. “You can give yourself a rest now son”.

Driven to madness, Dan grabbed the mat one evening and ran back to Alder Grove, where the garage sale had taken place but the house was gone; only a glossy, impenetrable hedge remained.

Shocked in total disbelief Dan stumbled back to his own driveway, chest heaving. There, standing on the curb, was the tall girl with the plaits who sold him the mat. She held an old-fashioned broom bound with twine, Dan realised she looked just like a younger version of john’s wife.

“It gets so muddy,” she said pleasantly, sweeping the tarmac in slow, rhythmic arcs, “when you don’t use a mat.” “glad you've brought it back”.

The End