LongForm2_Clumsy

Doris M Holden - Writings

Transcripts, manuscript and published versions

Clumsy Hands

by Doris M Holden


He listened to her breathless accusation. "Failure...failure..-" the word ran through it like a refrain. "Clumsy with your hands ... slow, unenterprising, left behind ….failure...failure,” 

Then the voice broke in a sob and the door slammed behind her. 

He had sat long, puzzling it out, looking at this new picture of himself that she had painted. Was that what she thought of him? Had that been at the back of her mind all the time? Could two people live together and understand each other so little? He was still "I wish I had never married you," sobbed the woman, and hid her face in the pillow. Beside her the man lay silent, gazing into the dark, and twisting his big hands beneath the sheet. Slowly he revolved in his mind the things she had said, bitter things, the words a woman throws at a man when her guard is down,when she searches her brain for the ones that will hurt the most. 

He could have thrown back retorts, had he wished, she had dared him to, but it was not his way. Aways he drew between them the barrier of silence, and behind it slowly sifted out the false from the true, making himself not only the accused but the judge. Back he went laboriously to the beginning of the argument. Such a little thing -- but he had been married long enough to know how big the little things could be. She had wanted him to put up a rack for hats and coats in their hall -- she had been planning a new arrangement and had come to him all excitement. 

"We can make the hall look twice as big," she said, “if we clear out that old*fashioned hall-stand. Just a little rack for clothes round the corner, out of sight of the door." 

Like a child she was, when she started to plan, everything to be done at once, and she had run for hammer and nails, as if there were not a moment to spare.

In the dark, the man drew his hands gently out and spread them on the sheet before him; they were the accused now, and he called up his witnesses for and against. 


“You might have tried," said the prosecution, “you knew she was like a child and you spoilt her pleasure." 

"Nay," said the witness for the defence, “she knew I was no good with my hands." He was awkward with tools, he always had been. The thin, delicate nails slipped between his clumsy fingers, and the hammer fell bruisingly on sensitive knuckles. 

"You don't frame," his North Country mother used to say, impatiently, and he had hunched his shoulders and slouched away untroubled. What did it matter that he could not hit a nail straight, nor do the simplest repair in the home? There was always someone to tackle the job he could not manage, his father, his brother, men with nimble hands into which hammer and chisel fitted confidingly, and neither father nor brother had his slowly-reasoning brain, that brain by which he had lifted himself above them, which had won him education and a place in the business world -- a humble enough place, put miraculous to him. 

"No good with my hands,” he repeated, then stopped. There was something familiar about the words. He had said them to her, laughingly refusing, and she had flung them back at him, turned strangely into an insult. 

"No good with your hands? And you a man!" 

He had tried to think of an answer but none would come, for always he had accepted his handicap. There had been times, he remembered, when she had done the job he refused -~ the memory shamed him -- but she was remembering them too. Face burning, voice shrill, she was hurling them et him, trying to sting him into replying. 

"She's trying to make me ashamed,” said the obstinate demon inside him. "She shan't have the satisfaction of doing that.” 


Stubbornly he hid in his silence and, thwarted of the relief of retaliation, she flung discretion to the winds and pared her thoughts. Outwardly unmoved, but inwardly quivering, worrying, puzzling, when he lay down silently at her side. 

Now the sobs had subsided, and she lay asleep, but the man still twisted his big hands while the pleading went on in his mind. "I've not failed in my work," maintained the defence. "I've got a steady job.” 

"You could have Thompson's job when he leaves if you asked for it, but you haven't the pluck.” 

"Nay," protested the defence. "I can't ask. They'll give it me if they think I'm fit.” 

The accuser laughed mockingly, and the laugh was like the voice of his wife. "Too slow...failure... Too slow... failure." 

Hasty words; he knew by now that the things she said in her haste could often be disregarded, but there was more in this than a hasty insult. He knew, now he looked back, that there had been words, looks of hers which had said it as clearly, had he but read them aright. 


  "She's right," said that innate justice of his. "I'm slow, and clumsy with my hands, but not a failure -- yet.” 

That was straight in his mind; he sighed and relaxed a little, then stretched a hand to the sleeping figure at his side. As he ran his clumsy fingers over her dark head, she gave a little sobbing breath and he paused. Letting his hand rest, he painfully took up the argument with himself. 

She meant a lot to him, this dark-haired woman at his side, too much to lose easily. If she was slipping from him because he accepted his limitations too casually, then he must face those limitations and conquer them. Those clumsy hands should not master him; he would master them. 

Dawn was filling the room with a grey light when he rose and dressed and, closing the door carefully behind him, went in search of hammer and nails. It was done. Straight and trim the rack hung, with never a scratch on the wood, never a scrape on the wall where the hammer had gone astray, and she was hanging over the bannisters behind him, puzzlement and pleasure fighting in her face. 

He stepped back and turned his radiant face to hers. 

"I've done it." 

Slowly she repeated: "You've done it!" and the smile began to conquer the bewilderment. "and made a good job of it too," he added, and she slipped to his side, whispering apologies, touched that he should have done it for her. How could she know that it was for more than her, that he had done it to justify his manhood, that it stood for victory over those clumsy hands? Smiling she watched him start for work, misreading the squaring of his shoulders and the glow on his face. 


As the day passed, there was a new alertness, a new confidence about his work, so that the girl at his side asked mischievously:  "Come into a fortune?" 

He smiled at her slowly, and she began to gossip, glad of the break in their monotonous work. 

‘Who'll they put in Mr. Thompson's place?" she asked. “Some say it will be that new young fellow, but it doesn't seem fair, really. You ought to get the job, I think." 

He shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands in a familiar gesture. "Me?" he began, with an amused tolerance. "Why, they wouldn't give it to me..." His eyes were on his hands, and his voice faltered and stopped. Gradually his face changed. Clumsy ... slow? Nay, but I put up that rack and made a good job of it. Slowly the hands came together and clenched till the knuckles grew white. Then, with only the faintest alteration in his voice, he continued: 

“But there wouldn't be any harm in asking." 

He got to his feet while the girl watched him, wide-eyed, and walked with steady tread to the manager's door.

 "Coo!" shrilled the girl. "He's gone to ask for Thompson's job." The others crowded round, gazing breathlessly at the closed door, to disperse suddenly as it opened. 

There was little clue in his face as he walked steadily back to his desk and took up his interrupted work, but beneath his calm exterior his heart was thumping.in incredulous bewilderment. They had given him the chance!

  "Thought I didn't want it," he repeated to himself, "because I didn't ask, and me waiting all this time to be offered it.” 


Then the mood of triumph changed to sickening realisation. Could he do it? Could he tackle the job? The work, yes, he knew it inside out, put the responsibility, the authority over those young fellows who had thought him slow? Mechanically he went on with his work, but as the full import of what he had done came over him, his brain whirled in panic. 

"But I can't .. but I can't ... they won't mind me." 

Blindly he gathered his papers and slammed them into his desk, then, regardless of the clock, took his clothes and went out. Hands deep in his pockets, he walked the street with his fear, caring little where he went, but habit brought him to the station for his regular train home. 

Sunk in a corner he argued with himself, judging himself as he always did, accusing and defending. "You did it in a hurry," said the defence. 

“But you know it's too big a job for you,” jeered the accuser. "Best see the manager tomorrow and say so, before you fail." 

"Too slow... failure..." beat the refrain of his feet as he stepped out of the station into the dark street. 

"I'll have to climb down," he said, as he put his key in his own lock, "Best not tell her about it at all." 

The hall was dark, but a light shone from the kitchen beyond, whence she called a cheerful greeting. He felt for ‘the familiar hall-stand and puzzled at its absence, then laid his hand on the switch. The light flashed, showing the empty space, but there, round the corner, hung the new rack - his rack. He took two steps and stood facing it and, as he did so, fear dropped from him and confidence returned. 

“And made a good job of it too," he whispered and, putting up a clumsy hand, he touched the smooth wood reverently. As one laying gifts on a shrine, he hung up his coat on the peg, then, head erect, passed through to the kitchen with his news. 



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This a stand alone short story. From the documents I have seen so far this does not appear to have been submitted for publication and it is not obviously linked with any of her other work.


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