Read Online A House Called Askival by Merryn Glover - Free Book Online
Authors: Merryn Glover
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socks.
Snorting, she started to undress, but felt suddenly exposed. She was an impostor in this manâs den, humming with his presence and the spirits of all he had gathered here. It made her skin shrivel, the missionaries, the actresses and the man with the leprous mitts all watching as she tugged her t-shirt off and unclipped her bra, craning to see her pull down her jeans. Hannah and Derek, of all people! She turned her back on the faces, only to see herself in the mirror on the wardrobe door, naked now but for her underpants and her jewellery. She allowed herself a long, cruel stare. It was a map of loss. Her breasts hung tired and uneven on a torso that was too scrawny for the swell of hips and thighs. The once-taut stomach was slackened, having not pulled itself together after grief. She hadnât shaved for weeks and the growth on shins and armpits was a ragged black. Everywhere the slight coarsening of texture, the tide marks of age, the scars.
She leaned close to read a card that was sticky-taped onto one corner of the mirror. It was handwritten in a curly script:
Just as fragrance is in the flower,
and reflection is in the mirror,
in just the same way,
God is within you.
â Sikh saying â
Manveer had been Sikh. Though when his poor parents had come for his body, there would have been little sign of it. She shivered, her skin risen in bumps, feet like ice, and yanked on a fresh t-shirt. Dumping the bed cushions onto the floor â satin, frilly, embroidered â she was determined that all this would have to change tomorrow. There was something unbearably intimate about sleeping here surrounded by every expression of Iqbalâs taste and affections, as if she was curling up in his mind. Tossing aside a small, ancient teddy bear, she peeled back the razai and saw the one thing that was not his.
Pink polka-dot sheets.
Did he know their heritage? How theyâd gone with her into boarding, age six, and remained till she left. On that last day, her mother had ripped them off her bed, as if the sheets themselves had been the scene of desecration. They must have been left in India when their family stumbled back to America that bitter November of â84. Ellen had first bought those sheets from a Sears catalogue on furlough, persuading James that it wasnât luxury but frugality to buy things that would last.
They had outlasted Ellen.
Might outlast us all at this rate, thought Ruth, as she crawled in. Turning in the cool sheets, she suspected the sofa would have been more comfortable; the bed had a thin mattress on a hard base and a pillow that did not give under her head. And the sheets smelled of mothballs.
It was the smell of boarding school. The smell of everything she owned at the beginning of every semester, when she unpacked her things from the tin trunk that had been left in the attic at school. Crushed flannelette nighties, corduroys with patched knees, old sweaters and polka-dot sheets. In the early years, kneeling on the cold floor, sheâdtried to fold her clothes properly but ended up with messy bundles and a rising panic. What if she was scolded and made to do it again and not given any cake at Tea?
The trunk sheâd brought from Kanpur was always better. Things lifted from it still smelled of life, of home: clothes washed in Surf and dried in the sun, peanut butter cookies, Momâs soft scent, Dadâs coffee. Ruth would press her face into the Kanpur things and inhale, the ache in her chest tightening like a metal band. But the home smells soon died under the weight of the naphthalene that invaded her cupboard like a bad spirit and lingered over it for weeks. It was also the smell of the boysâ toilets if you were walking past when a door swung open, and the smell that sunk like a rock in your stomach as you pulled on your missionary barrel clothes and the other girls snickered, and the smell of the night when you lay in bed and felt cracks forming inside you
Snorting, she started to undress, but felt suddenly exposed. She was an impostor in this manâs den, humming with his presence and the spirits of all he had gathered here. It made her skin shrivel, the missionaries, the actresses and the man with the leprous mitts all watching as she tugged her t-shirt off and unclipped her bra, craning to see her pull down her jeans. Hannah and Derek, of all people! She turned her back on the faces, only to see herself in the mirror on the wardrobe door, naked now but for her underpants and her jewellery. She allowed herself a long, cruel stare. It was a map of loss. Her breasts hung tired and uneven on a torso that was too scrawny for the swell of hips and thighs. The once-taut stomach was slackened, having not pulled itself together after grief. She hadnât shaved for weeks and the growth on shins and armpits was a ragged black. Everywhere the slight coarsening of texture, the tide marks of age, the scars.
She leaned close to read a card that was sticky-taped onto one corner of the mirror. It was handwritten in a curly script:
Just as fragrance is in the flower,
and reflection is in the mirror,
in just the same way,
God is within you.
â Sikh saying â
Manveer had been Sikh. Though when his poor parents had come for his body, there would have been little sign of it. She shivered, her skin risen in bumps, feet like ice, and yanked on a fresh t-shirt. Dumping the bed cushions onto the floor â satin, frilly, embroidered â she was determined that all this would have to change tomorrow. There was something unbearably intimate about sleeping here surrounded by every expression of Iqbalâs taste and affections, as if she was curling up in his mind. Tossing aside a small, ancient teddy bear, she peeled back the razai and saw the one thing that was not his.
Pink polka-dot sheets.
Did he know their heritage? How theyâd gone with her into boarding, age six, and remained till she left. On that last day, her mother had ripped them off her bed, as if the sheets themselves had been the scene of desecration. They must have been left in India when their family stumbled back to America that bitter November of â84. Ellen had first bought those sheets from a Sears catalogue on furlough, persuading James that it wasnât luxury but frugality to buy things that would last.
They had outlasted Ellen.
Might outlast us all at this rate, thought Ruth, as she crawled in. Turning in the cool sheets, she suspected the sofa would have been more comfortable; the bed had a thin mattress on a hard base and a pillow that did not give under her head. And the sheets smelled of mothballs.
It was the smell of boarding school. The smell of everything she owned at the beginning of every semester, when she unpacked her things from the tin trunk that had been left in the attic at school. Crushed flannelette nighties, corduroys with patched knees, old sweaters and polka-dot sheets. In the early years, kneeling on the cold floor, sheâdtried to fold her clothes properly but ended up with messy bundles and a rising panic. What if she was scolded and made to do it again and not given any cake at Tea?
The trunk sheâd brought from Kanpur was always better. Things lifted from it still smelled of life, of home: clothes washed in Surf and dried in the sun, peanut butter cookies, Momâs soft scent, Dadâs coffee. Ruth would press her face into the Kanpur things and inhale, the ache in her chest tightening like a metal band. But the home smells soon died under the weight of the naphthalene that invaded her cupboard like a bad spirit and lingered over it for weeks. It was also the smell of the boysâ toilets if you were walking past when a door swung open, and the smell that sunk like a rock in your stomach as you pulled on your missionary barrel clothes and the other girls snickered, and the smell of the night when you lay in bed and felt cracks forming inside you
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