Three Jugs  

By Claire Marshall

Just like Goldilocks’ three bears, the jugs were big, middle and baby-sized. And like the three bears, they were as much a part of my childhood as any fairy tale.

The terracotta jugs were glazed within to hold water, but plain, rough and unglazed on the outside. A thick band of cream slipware ran around the rims. Fat-bellied and thick handled, they sat – one, two, three – on a windowsill in the first house I remember. They were older than me, though. My Mother bought them at Woolworth’s for threepence when my parents set up house together in 1938 on Hopton Road, Streatham Common in England. My sister was born the following year.

The jugs were usually empty, but sometimes one would hold spring flowers or a bouquet of royal purple, blood red and white anemones with dark green fuzzy stems. Colours came alive against the cream and burnt-orange of the jugs.

Our houses were never our own, but the things in them were. It was the things that made home: books, pictures, dishes and the jugs. In Montreal, they sat on a teak wall unit alongside Swedish glass and contemporary ceramics. In Calcutta, the jugs found themselves between a dancing Shiva and an ivory Krishna. In Sydney, they lived in the family room; in Cleveland, on a bookshelf above the TV.

When my parents retired, my mother asked whether Gabrielle or I would like to have the jugs. We both said yes but didn’t want to split the set. So ensued a very rare argument between us. Gabrielle claimed she had known them longest. I dismissed that. It wasn’t my fault I was the second child. On my part, I wanted them to decorate my apartment though wasn’t sure how long I would stay there. Gabrielle argued she could give them a stable home in her house. She almost won with that point.

Instead, we cut a deal. We would share them: a few years with her in Toronto, then back to me in Ottawa. She went first, and I thought I’d never see them again but was surprised when she moved out west and gave them to me before she left. So a few years later, I tucked them into my suitcase and schlepped them out to Victoria. Her turn, and she was thrilled.

They are with me again now. They came back in 2004 in a parcel her husband shipped to me after Gabrielle died.

When my Mother died just two years later, I filled the jugs with spring flowers and took them to the gathering at the funeral home.

Big, middle and baby-sized they sit – one, two, three – on a kitchen shelf, filled with flowers sometimes, memories always. They won’t go down in the family. Threepence jugs from Woolies aren’t legacy material. But I hope they will be with me my whole life and maybe a day or two after.

Claire Marshall enjoys her class in memoir writing with Anna Rumin.