I was apprehensive about the 25 minute cycle but that clean smell greets me when I open the washing machine door. I breathe in deeply, closing my eyes, savouring it.
The next bit requires more thought.
Tumble dryers make me nervous but I do my best to be in control, slowly putting things in, taking them out, running my finger along a pillow seam and returning it. I err on the side of caution and dry the load on warm, a mid point between waiting for Godot and ruining a set of sheets that have kept me safe and warm.
Fifteen minutes for £1. Open, check, remove, return. Another £1. I chat with the staff, waiting to hear the ringing noise and the slow of the drum, balancing on the edge of a wooden bench, the sound of other people’s laundry soaking into the distance as I listen to them speak.
Adil works here on a Sunday, he relaxes in an office chair, cheerfully giving me change for a tenner when I first go in. Toseef is also sat down behind the counter. They chatter in Urdu, seamlessly slipping back into English when I come to the counter and back again when I go to check on my washing. Toseef lives above the shop next door and was delighted to meet Adil and to be able to speak freely about life each Sunday. They have known each other for a little over a` month but talk like old friends.
They don’t seem to mind my presence. We talk about how chatting your way through life makes everyone’s day just a little bit nicer, about working seven days a week and how exhausting it is, about covid of course and about the clammy way that a mask steams up your glasses.
I hear a ringing.
I pull my sheets out and leave the towel in. 50p, high heat, I watch it go round for a minute, lost in a memory of waifs and strays who have come to my house - I bought it for a friend when she was homeless and needed a sofa to stay on. It pulled out into a sofa bed but she told me it was fine to leave it as it was and she slept curled up in a pile of cushions for a couple of months. It was nice having her around, the gentle hum of Midsummer Murders as I drifted off to sleep, coffee in the morning, toast with a thick layer of butter.
I inspect a pillow case. The piping on the seam is slightly cold to the touch. A present from my mum, it’s exactly the kind of thing mums buy you, bedding that is. She lives a long way away and I think she likes me having a piece of her close to hand, to cradle me in my sleep, to soak up stray tears. I nervously put it back in, high heat.
I swap some more change with Adil. Twenty pence, three more minutes on high heat. I hold the money in my hand, it feels alien now to actually touch the metal, to feel its weight, its value rather than a distant swipe of a card.
I clumsily fold my sheets, it really should be a two person job but I’m stubborn and used to living on my own. The colours clash, haphazard but beautiful.
The towel last of all, I hold it between my fingers as I put it in the top of my rucksack, trying to figure out whether it still feels cold. Either way I need to go now, my friend moved back to London several months ago and I have yet to see her so I don’t want to be late making it back north of the river.
I say goodbye to Abil and Toseef, leaving them to slip back into their mother tongue as I wish them well. A piece of home in a brave new world, something we all need right now.
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