A woman stood at the top of the classroom. She was fat with curly hair, like Mrs O’Brien. She was just like all the other pink ladies, except that she gave us lessons. I told her Matthew was my teacher, but she said she was my teacher while I was here.
There were seven other girls in the classroom. We sat at a big brown table made out of little tables that were pushed together. It was covered in pieces of paper, like the table in Matthew’s study. Some of the pieces of paper were covered in bumps. The teacher said that the bumps were for the girls who couldn’t see; to help them read words with their fingers. The bumps were made with machines which sat beside the girls on the table and made strange crunching sounds. We sat so close together that the chairs bumped into each other. The blue paint on the legs of the chairs was full of ridges and holes. I dug my fingers into them and the paint flaked off. The teacher told me to stop doing it because it made paint go all over the floor. But I still did it when she was busy with the others. It felt good.
The lessons lasted a long time. There were no trips to Africa, no samples to sort, no bones to examine. There were just letters and numbers, all day, letters and numbers. The teacher wrote them out on a blackboard with a stick of chalk. She made the writing big, so we could see it. I didn’t read the paper with bumps on it. Instead, I read books with big black letters, like the ones I read to Matthew. Some of the other girls read those books too. They were books without stories, only words. Ann is in the garden. Barry is in the garden. The teacher spent a long time teaching us to say the words. But I already knew them, even the bigger ones.
Afterwards, we wrote the words that we read in the books. We didn’t have to write for as long as I did with Matthew, but my head still kept landing on my pencil. My letters always wobbled, but the teacher said it didn’t matter if they wobbled and that I was a good girl. When she said it, I tasted orange drink in my mouth. I wanted to show Matthew that I could do neat letters. So I kept going until the bad taste was gone and my eyes started to close from tiredness.
Sometimes I finished before the others and asked the teacher questions, but she told me I was disturbing the others and had to be quiet until they were finished. I didn’t know why my questions annoyed her so much. Matthew was always telling me to ask questions. He said they were a sign of an enquiring mind. I didn’t know what that meant, but at least he always answered my questions.
After a while, I stopped asking the teacher questions. Instead, I examined the objects on the shelves. The other girls threw them at each other, or pretended they were something else. I picked them up one by one, looked at them, felt them, then put them down, like Matthew did when he was examining samples on the beach. They were all the colours of the rainbow: green, orange, yellow, blue. And pink, lots of pink. I liked touching the objects, squashing them into a ball, or bouncing them up and down. Sometimes my fingers left holes on the surface of the objects, like the holes in a piece of cheese. Some of the objects made noises, rattles, squeaks, even musical sounds. At first, the sounds startled me, but then I began to enjoy them and kept making noises until the teacher told me to stop. While I examined the objects, I recited everything I knew from Matthew’s lessons. My lips moved, but I didn’t make any noise. I named rocks, plants and animals, spelt words, added and subtracted numbers, told myself stories. And I stored up all my questions. I didn’t want to forget.
The globe stood in a corner of the room. It was my favourite thing in the classroom and I always saved it till last. It was big, too big for me to hold in my hand. A ring of plastic surrounded it. The countries were painted in glowing colours. Their names were printed in wide, bold letters. They floated on dark blue seas. The globe was covered in little bumps, like the ones on the pieces of paper. Thick black lines divided the countries from each other and from the sea. The globe was easier to see than the atlas; I didn’t have to use a magnifying glass to look at it. Sometimes I spun it fast so it looked like it was flying and I pretended I was flying with it. Other times, I traced the outline of the countries and mouthed their names, pronouncing them as best I could. The names of the African countries in Matthew’s stories were warm and familiar. I travelled to them. Hot dust blew onto my face and strange words were spoken. The people wore colourful clothes and had dark skin. I travelled to other countries where there was ice and snow and people lived in houses made of ice. They wore the skins of bears and cooked their food on big fires. I set off on my travels with a cloth bag on my back, escaping from the classroom, from the school itself.
Johno was enjoying an exalted position at the head of the long wooden table. The lurid yellow colour of his shirt made me grateful for the protection offered by my shades, but his god-like appearance was undiminished. There were spaces on either side of him. Mia began the laborious process of arranging herself on the green couch. I considered the chair to be a better vantage point, giving me opportunities for my leg to brush against his. Mia’s guide Kevin came over with a glass of beer and placed it in front of her, guiding her hand to the glass. Johno reached for his beer at the same time and his fingers made contact with the sleeve of her blouse.
“Oh look, you’ve all these little frills on yer shirt,” he said to her. “Like me granny’s lampshade.”
“Well, it’s my frilly shirt,” she said, her voice breathy.
“God, you’re such a girl.”
The admiration in his voice was a little alarming.
“If you like the feel of that, wait till you try mine,” I said.
“Is that an invite?”
“Could be.”
I reached over and placed his hand on my sleeve.
“Is that real silk?”
I knew then that he was a no-frills man.
“You’re a lucky yoke, sitting between the girls,” shouted one of the Greek Chorus from the other end of the table.
They wore identikit brown jumpers and shiny trousers that rode upwards to reveal white socks. Their outfits indicated a high level of maternal interference.
“Ah yeah. Blessed am I among women. Gettin hungry now though. Where’s the grub?”
I picked up the menu. Realised with a jolt that my monocle was upstairs.
“There are many delectations on offer,” I said.
“What? Speak English,” Johno said.
“At least you’re in good time to enjoy your food tonight, Astrid,” said Cliona.
A well-timed Exocet. I pictured her sitting on a black horse at the Circus Maximus, her stolid frame encased in armour, fighting to the death.
The words on the menu were crammed together. I inched it closer.
“You all right with that, Astrid,” Martin yelled from the next table.
“Yeah, I’m good.”
Reading without my visual aid always invited well-meaning scrutiny.
“Let’s see,” I said. “Sausages, sausages and more sausages.”
“You’ll have to give a little more feedback than that, Astrid,” said Cliona.
Beside her, Kim was providing a laborious description of every dish on the menu, for the benefit of the Greek Chorus.
“And a few chips,” I continued.
Johno gurgled.
“Any steak?”
“I have no doubt there is.”
A suitable dish for a red-blooded male.
“Mint.”
Johno rubbed his hands together.
“Excellent choice. I’ll have the same.”
“Girl after me own heart.”
The waitress came around and we ordered.
“Is there anything vegetarian?” Mia said, her words directed at the table.
The waitress frowned. Mia didn’t bother to qualify her statement.
“Vegetarier,” Kevin said.
“Ah, vegetarier. Yes. We have garden salad, potato salad.”
Mia selected
a garden salad.
“Not a meat muncher then, Mia?” Kevin asked.
“I just think it’s cruel. They force pigs into pens and kill them for meat.”
Johno let out a squeal, a rather authentic rendering of a pig’s last gasp. Laughter ran around the table like an electric current. I smirked. Strike one for me. Our steaks arrived. I bent over it and made a careful incision, to avoid staining my clothes with juice. Following the grains of the meat required dexterity. Johno jabbed at his steak with gusto, handling the knife with remarkable skill for someone who couldn’t see what he was doing.
“Ah, that’s the stuff,” he said.
His shirt was now decorated with gravy, but I sensed he was unlikely to be troubled by that.
I was in a cage with pink bars. A lot of people were squashed into the cage, talking all at once. They wore pink clothes. There was nowhere for their voices to escape to, so they bounced off the roof of the cage and pressed against my ears. I shoved through the crowd until I was at the edge of the cage and pushed against the bars, but even though they were soft, they didn’t yield.
There were wide spaces between the bars, but when I tried to squeeze through, the space narrowed. The bars pressed into me, smothering me in a soft embrace. My mouth formed a soundless oh and I kicked against the bars with my legs and arms, but their hold grew tighter.
The darkness was total. My blanket was twisted around my limbs. I reached down to straighten it. The only sound was Mia’s heavy breathing. The dreams were an infrequent occurrence these days, but I could never sleep after they came. I risked switching on the lamp and attempted to banish the lingering traces of the dream with my Sherlock Holmes book. At least Mia couldn’t see the light.
The darkness in the dormitory was orange. It never went all black; there was a glow all the time. The air was always warm and sticky, not like at home where the wind was cold and tasted of salt. When I went to sleep, instead of listening to the sounds of the sea, or the wind rattling my window, I listened to the sounds of breathing. Noisy breathing, sucking sounds, sighs, mumbled words, giggles and cries. The sounds rose upwards, through cracks in the wooden partitions that divided the dormitory into little pieces. Whenever someone moved, their bed squeaked. The floorboards made creaking sounds when someone stepped on them. The pink ladies walked up and down, their steps heavy. Sometimes they came over and tightened our blankets. When they did that, I couldn’t move my legs and arms. Because of the orange glow, my eyes refused to close all the way. Sometimes the glow became very bright, when the door creaked open and footsteps went through it. The sudden piercing of light sent me under my blanket, where I curled up in a ball and listened to the squeak of my bed. There was a place where the mattress sank in the middle and the springs poked through. I buried myself in it. Sometimes the pink ladies found me there in the morning.
The Good, the Bad, & the Not-So-Ugly
My boots were being less cooperative this morning. The Velcro strap refused to align itself, despite a lot of patient tweaking. The sound of the others slurping drinks reminded me of my dire need for a caffeine hit. As I straightened up, Martin appeared in front of me.
“Ready to conquer the slopes?” he said, rubbing his hands.
“Suppose you won’t give me a chance to have some coffee?”
I wasn’t about to enter the battlefield without reinforcements.
“I can go one better,” he said.
Two cups of coffee appeared in front of us. He pulled out a tiny silver flask and poured a thin brown stream of liquid into his cup, then mine.
“Little Austrian trick, add a bit of rocket fuel to your coffee. I know you’re a vodka girl, but brandy’s just the thing to keep you going on the slopes.”
“Why do I need that?”
“Well, you did so good yesterday, I’m going to let you join the big boys on the main slope.”
I tasted the coffee. The brandy warmed my throat. Now I knew why Matthew drank brandy on cold evenings. A knot loosened in my stomach; I never realised it was there.
“We’ll start off at the baby slope, see if you can remember what I taught you, then we’ll crack the main slope. Sound good?”
I nodded.
“All right. How d’you want to be guided?”
There were options?
“I can order you about the place, tell you when to turn left and right. You might’ve noticed; I can yell pretty loud.”
I squirmed.
“Not keen? Well, Cliona’s got a good routine going, following Kim down. You could do that. That suit you?”
This conversation was becoming tedious. I gathered my gloves and shades.
“Take it that’s a yes then. All right. Let’s get to it.”
Walking in the boots was still a precarious business; layers of polish turned the floor of the cafe into an ice rink. Martin turned around and held out his elbow.
“Want to hook on?” he said.
I just stepped around him and made my way out the door, a satisfied smirk on my face. No point in him guiding me before he had to.
For a while, I strutted my stuff on the small slope outside the cafe.
“This is getting too easy, isn’t it,” Martin said. “Time for a real challenge.”
He came over and took off my skis in two quick moves. Then he made to put them on his shoulders. I snatched them back.
“Don’t need a butler service,” I said, balancing them on my left shoulder.
“Should have known. Bit of a warrior, aren’t you?”
He turned away, towards the vast expanse of the main slope. I followed him, keeping a firm grip on my skis to prevent them from separating. His body began to shrink, as he descended a grey column of steps. The steps blended into each other, landmines waiting to explode. I edged forward, testing the water. Ice crunched under my feet. My legs wobbled.
“Steady on there,” said Martin, who was at the bottom of the steps by now. “We don’t want you to start breakdancing again, do we?”
His use of the first person plural was somewhat redundant. He placed his skis on the slope and vaulted up the steps. Again, he proffered his elbow. This time I succumbed, though I still kept my skis on my left shoulder.
As we set off, I noticed a familiar looking wire overhead. My stomach lurched. I lowered my eyes and concentrated on negotiating this uncharted territory, Martin’s vest was a reassuring beacon. It was only after we stopped that I saw the ropes hanging from the wire, with horizontal bars attached to them. Skiers balanced on the bars and allowed themselves to be hauled upwards by the ropes. This was indeed an alarming development. The bars were ghosts, taunting me. Remember us? We’re going to get you. I tried to shove the memories downwards, into the ice fortress, but it was no use. My breath came out in ragged gasps.
“These are the T-bars,” Martin said, from far away. “That’s how we’ll be getting to the top. I’ll show you what to do.”
“I hate those things,” I muttered.
“Thought you never skied before.”
Bang on target. Right in the solar plexus. He was an excellent marksman.
“Not so you’d notice.”
“Then how come you’re doing those antenatal exercises?”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Huffin’ and puffin’ like a woman in labour, you are. Never mind, we’ll make this as painless as possible.”
The trip was to Livigno. Some of Jazz’s friends were organising it and there was a last-minute cancellation. I jumped at the opportunity, anticipating a week of thrills and spills. But I didn’t bargain on the light, which cut through even the strongest shades, robbing the world of definition and dimensions.
We blew off ski school after the first day. While the others scaled the heights, I floundered. The lifts danced away from me; lumps of sno
w caught me unawares. I kept grinding to a halt in the middle of the slope, as figures swooped in front of me without warning.
The incident occurred as the day was drawing to a close. As I trundled down the centre of the slope, a red figure flashed before my eyes, too near for me to swerve. Bone crunched against bone as our bodies fell in a tangle onto the snow. A stream of Italian curses assailed my ears as I shook myself off. When I tried to apologise, he declared in perfect English that I was a menace to the slopes and wasn’t fit to wear skis. I was inclined to agree with him.
For the rest of the week, I retreated into darkness, into shuttered bedrooms and cavernous clubs with a selection of Carlos. I came up with various plausible excuses for my absence from the slopes and mooched around coffee shops, drinking endless cups of coffee laced with vodka from a small bottle I kept in my pocket.
When I went down to Wexford a week after my return, I regaled Matthew and Ora with tales of derring-do. Matthew made clear his views about the pointlessness of hurling oneself down a mountainside on two sticks, but I knew he approved.
The next day, after our morning walk, I told Matthew I wanted to walk for a little longer. I pounded the beach for a second time, trying to drive the sour taste from my mouth. Before going back to the house, I decided to rest on the flat rock at the bottom of the cliff path, in order to brace myself for the next onslaught. My legs were bent; my head rested on my knees. A hand brushed my back. I looked up. Ora was standing there. Her pumps were covered in sand. She never wore the right shoes for the beach. I made a slight feint to the right. Her knees creaked as she lowered herself down.
“Goodness, I must be getting old,” she said, with a little laugh. “I’ll be lucky if I get up again.”
She twirled a strand of hair around her finger.
“Come on Astrid. How was it really?”
My midnight-black Ray-Bans obscured the bright sheen on my eyes.
The Pink Cage Page 10