“Right, we better start transferring these to the wardrobe.”
I picked up one of the squares and turned to face her. But she didn’t move.
“I don’t want to put them in there,” she said.
“Why not? Room for a small child in there.”
“I want them to be where I know where they are.”
I put the pile back into the suitcase, thinking of the limpets on the beach at home. Limpets were genetically programmed to cling to rocks. It was all they were able to do, but they did it with remarkable tenacity. Once they clamped themselves onto a rock, it was impossible to remove them. On the rare occasions when they did move, they left a scar, so that they could return to the same spot. I looked at my watch.
“Whatever. We have to get going. Commander’s orders.”
Matthew goes away
Matthew and I lived in a house by the sea, in a place called Wexford. It perched on top of a cliff; the garden sloped towards the sea. It was long and low and bits of it stuck out. When gales came, the house moaned. The floorboards rattled and leaves fell off the creeper on the grey walls. The creeper was supposed to protect the house, but the wind was too strong.
The rooms were stuck together in clumps along a corridor which stretched from one end of the house to the other. There were the rooms we lived in, the rooms we slept in, and the rooms that echoed. We never went into the rooms that echoed. All of the rooms smelt of dusty books and seawater. Most of the floors were made with wooden floorboards, but the floors in the bedrooms were covered in brown carpet with splodges of orange on it. The bedrooms Matthew and I slept in were beside each other, so he could come to me in an instant if I woke in the night. Most of the time I didn’t wake; the waves made a lullaby which sent me to sleep.
The house was full of treasures. There were folders filled with old brown photographs and gleaming statues from Africa. My favourite statues were the ones on the chess set in the corner of the living room. They were black and white. I liked to pretend that they were warriors fighting a battle. Matthew told me the names of each of the pieces and said that I could learn to play when I was a little older. There were colourful pictures on the walls. They felt soft, because they were made with wool instead of paint. Matthew said they were called tapestries. The skeletons of plants and animals were everywhere; they lived in little glass cases. There were so many books that there wasn’t room for all of them on the shelves, so some of them were stacked into piles that leaned against the walls. The books were thick and heavy, with hard covers. The covers were cracked and stained greyish-brown. There were words on them; I liked following the pattern they made with my fingers. When I opened them, clouds of dust flew into the air and made me sneeze. Matthew told me to be careful when I turned the pages; they were as thin as the wings of birds. The words on the pages were so close together that they became blurred. Sometimes there were drawings in the books. The ones of the skeletons were my favourite. Most of them were animal skeletons, but some of them were people. Each book had a piece of ribbon that stuck out when the book was closed. Matthew explained that the ribbon was used to mark your place in the book.
Every morning, Matthew and I made our way along the cliff path that ran from the bottom of our garden down to the sea. It wound its way around the cliff like a piece of string. The path was very steep, but Matthew didn’t hold my hand when we went down it. Instead, he showed me the places where it was safe to put my feet. He walked a few steps ahead and waited until I found them, always making sure I could see him. At first, I fumbled and groped my way along, while Matthew grunted and told me to hurry up. But it wasn’t long before I learned where all the places were and I was able to fly down to the beach. The cliff was so high that when I reached the bottom, I couldn’t see the top.
As soon as we landed on the beach, we ran straight into the sea. Every time we swam in the sea, it was a different colour. Sometimes it was grey and sometimes it was blue with green spots. Matthew said the green spots were the places where the sun was able to shine through. The sea was always cold, but when we started to swim, we forgot the cold. When we first started swimming, Matthew lowered me into the water, keeping his hands on my belly so I didn’t sink and showed me how to move my legs and arms. After a while, they moved together and I didn’t need him anymore.
Afterwards, Matthew wrapped me in a rough towel and rubbed me until my skin tingled. Then we walked the length of the beach, to the sound of the howling wind, until the feeling came back into our legs. The beach lasted forever. Matthew walked fast and I galloped alongside him, determined to keep up.
There were big rocks in a corner of the beach, near the cliff, and smaller stones and shells scattered along the top of it. Nearer the sea, the beach was covered in red and brown seaweed. The seaweed was my favourite part of the beach; it smelt of salt and metal. I liked its crisp surface and the little pods that burst when I pressed on them. Matthew didn’t like it when I pressed the pods, so I tried not to do it too often. I didn’t like the wet seaweed so much, but Matthew said that was the kind with the most nutrients. During our walks, Matthew collected his samples. He put on rubber gloves and searched the beach for fish bones and pieces of seaweed, which he put into a silver bucket. He looked for tiny creatures in the seaweed, in rockpools and under stones. When he found creatures that he thought were interesting, he took pictures of them with a brown camera in the shape of a box. Sometimes he just looked at them for a long time with his magnifying glass.
Matthew taught me to identify shells, rocks and fish by their feel and birds by their song. He placed the shells and stones in my hands and told me their names. I held them close to my face and examined them. He told me to be careful of the crabs which buried themselves in the stones, because of the pincers they used to stop their enemies from hurting them. He knew how to touch them without hurting himself. There were a lot of animals on the beach. Matthew said it was because the cliff gave them shelter. He knew where they all lived; he said they lived wherever they could find food. We waited by the rockpools where the fish lived. He said we had to stay still, so we didn’t frighten them. Sometimes the sun made a reflection on the rockpool which hurt my eyes, but when I wore sunglasses, they stopped hurting. The fish moved too fast for me to see them, but Matthew let me look at other creatures through his magnifying glass. Most of them were grey blobs, but Matthew said they were fascinating.
On the days he had a lot of work to do, he gave me the task of collecting my own samples. When I found samples that pleased him, he said,
“You’re turning into quite a scientist, aren’t you?”
Sometimes he forgot to come back and look at my samples. When that happened, I wrote my name on the damp, greyish-brown sand with a pointed stick, over and over. I liked the way it looked.
We went to other places too. Matthew liked to go on what he called ‘field trips.’ Sometimes we went to other beaches where Matthew collected samples and other times we visited places full of old buildings and stories. Matthew knew all the stories. He described the places to me, showed me things I didn’t know were there. But the beach was my favourite. It was my playground.
When we finished our walk, we returned to the house and ate porridge for our breakfast. Then Matthew went to work in his study. He wrote about his samples and he looked at shells and seaweeds through his microscope, because the creatures that lived in them were so small. Sometimes, he let me look into the microscope, but I couldn’t see any of the little creatures.
While Matthew did his work, Mrs O’Brien looked after me. She came every day from her house in the village. I liked to twirl her hair around my fingers; it bounced when I let it go. Her hair was dark with bits of silver in it; it wasn’t all silver like Matthew’s. She wore an apron and always smelled of flour. When I touched her face, my fingers sank into the folds on her cheeks. Sometimes her sons Michael and Joseph came with her. They were older than
me, but they played with me. We rolled down the garden until we came to the hedge at the end. They showed me how to play football; they told me to keep my eye on the ball, but I didn’t know how to do it. Their favourite game was to make me guess how many fingers they were holding up. They tried to trick me by bending their fingers, but I was never fooled—until they stood further away and I wasn’t able to see their fingers any more.
When Mrs O’Brien left, Matthew cooked meat and vegetables in a big pot. They were soft and slid down my throat. After we ate our lunch, Matthew gave me my lessons. The lessons were full of sandpaper letters, expeditions to Africa, and bones. We worked in Matthew’s study, at a table that was so big, it filled almost the whole room. A cloth was spread over the table. It was full of holes, but there was so much paper on the table that you couldn’t see them. When I asked Matthew why he had so much paper, he said he needed it for the stories he wrote about animals. Some of the animals lived in Africa and the others lived on beaches in Wexford. He wrote about them because he was a zoologist, which meant that he studied animals.
Matthew’s typewriter and coffee cup stood at one end of the table. I worked at the other end, at one of the few clear spaces. I sat on a green chair that sank in the middle and used a stack of cushions to bring myself up to the level of the table. Matthew wrote letters at the top of a sheet of paper and told me to copy them. I liked the way they looked, with their thick black strokes, but I couldn’t make my letters look the same. So Matthew made new letters out of sandpaper. He pasted them onto sheets of white paper, which he spread across the table. Then he placed his hand over mine and we traced the shapes the letters made. His hand was so big that it swallowed mine up. His fingers were hard and rough like the sandpaper, but they were also gentle. When he guided my hand over the letters, I was able to see them.
After that, it was easier to copy the letters, but it took a long time. I wrote until my head became heavy and fell on top of my hand. Even though I was careful, the letters still wobbled. I saw the shapes they made in my mind, but my hand couldn’t do what I asked. Matthew never became impatient, he just told me to keep trying.
I read stories to Matthew from books with big black letters and pictures drawn with bright colours. The stories were boring, about animals that talked or women in towers who waited for men to climb up and rescue them. I preferred stories about battles. But Matthew said I had to read these stories so I could learn the words. Soon I knew all the words in the books.
When the reading and writing were finished, it was time for the abacus frame, which helped me learn about numbers. I clacked coloured balls from one side of the frame to the other, adding them, then taking them away. I liked the sound they made.
After that, we traced the map of Africa. The map was in an atlas with thick pages that stuck together. The map was drawn with thick black lines that wriggled across the page. Matthew showed me where the lines went.
“It’s important to be able to make your own way in the world, Astrid,” he said.
There were many places in the world, but Africa was the one we visited most often. Matthew put his hand over mine and we followed the trails that he once followed, through countries with strange names. Matthew knew how to say them all. As our hands moved along the lines, he told me stories about animals that rolled around in swamps and drank from watering holes. There were giant hippos and elephants, warthogs with ugly faces and flies that lived in the animals’ skin.
A full-size human skeleton watched us while we worked. It had once belonged to my grandfather, who was a doctor. Matthew used it to show me all the parts of the body. I loved the smooth, cool feel of the bones under my hand, the way they fit together.
During my lessons, I repeated everything I learned until Matthew was satisfied. If I made mistakes, I had to do the work again. When he was pleased with my work, he said, ‘That’ll do.’ Whenever he said it, balloons burst in my stomach, spreading waves of warmth through me. But he didn’t say it very often.
“The world won’t give you a second chance,” he told me. “It works on the principles of survival of the fittest. I don’t want to give people the opportunity to perceive you as weak.”
I loved it when Matthew talked to me like a grown-up. I repeated his words over and over in my head, trying to figure out what they meant. His voice was deep and sounded as if bits of gravel were stuck to it.
After lessons, we ate bread and cheese, followed by small apples with wrinkles all over their skins, which tasted sweet and sour at the same time. Then he gave me a bath, soaping me and rubbing my skin until it turned pink. Afterwards, he carried me into my bedroom and tucked me into bed, where he told me tales of gods and warriors. My favourite stories were from the Viking book. The Viking book was different from the books downstairs; it wasn’t as thick and the pages were wider. It had a hard, bright-blue cover, with a picture of a big ship on it. Red letters flowed across the top of the ship’s sails. They said Norse Myths and Legends. Matthew told me that Norse was another word for Viking.
I always opened the book to the first page, even though there was nothing written on it, except for the strange, curly letters on the top corners. I held the book close to me and tried to read them, but they weren’t like the sandpaper letters. When I asked Matthew what they said, he didn’t know. I wondered why. He knew the answers to all the other questions I asked him.
On the next page, there was a map of all the places where the Vikings lived. I mouthed all the names as Matthew said them; our fingers voyaged along narrow fjords. I was fascinated by the gulping sounds Matthew made when he said the names.
On the left-hand side, the pages were filled with black, spiky letters. The first letter on each page was bigger than all the others. There were decorations all around them, so they were hard to read. But I could read some of the words. On the right-hand side, there were drawings covered with thin pieces of white cloth. There were more ships, big men fighting with swords and stones covered in curly writing, just like the writing on the first page. The pictures were full of colours: red for blood, blue and green for the sea and yellow for the warriors’ hair, which was almost the same colour as mine. There were raised lines around the edges which made a frame for the picture. I liked to run my fingers over them.
Matthew described each picture for me, filling in the gaps my eyes missed. I leaned close to him and turned the pages while he read tales of battles and banquets. When my eyes grew heavy, Matthew closed the book and said, “Good night, little Viking.”
He leaned over me and I reached out to touch the blurred outlines of his face, to check that it was there. The rough hairs on his cheeks tickled my fingers, making me giggle. He laughed too; his laugh rumbled and made his body shake.
One night, he didn’t laugh. Instead, he held me tight and said, “You can be whatever you want, little one. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
I didn’t know where my mother was. Mrs O’Brien was Michael and Joseph’s mother. They called her Mammy. I knew I must have a mother too, but she didn’t live with us. One night, after he closed the Viking book, I asked Matthew if he knew where she lived. He always answered my questions.
“Far away,” he said.
“Does she live in Valhalla with the Vikings?”
“It’s possible. Now go to sleep.”
He kissed me on the forehead. I reached out to touch his face, but my fingers touched the air.
Sometimes we went to Dublin, because Matthew had to work. It took a long time to drive there. The roads were narrow, with bumps that made the car jump up and down. I liked that. While we drove, we listened to radio programmes that came from across the sea and told us stories about faraway places and people. I didn’t understand all the stories, but Matthew explained them to me.
There was a library in Dublin, where Matthew went to get books. Sometimes he just collected them and brought them home; but other times, he
wasn’t allowed to take them out, so he read them at a big table. When he did that, I sat across from him, reading my own books. After we were finished with the library, we went to an office, where Matthew showed his samples to men who wore suits. He said he didn’t like doing it, but he had to, because the men gave him money for his samples and the notes he wrote in his book. While Matthew talked to the men, I stayed in a corner and completed tasks which Matthew gave me. If I finished early, I came over to sit beside him. He said if I was good, we could go to the Zoo, the Museum of Natural History, or the Botanic Gardens, my favourite. So I didn’t make a sound.
When we went to Dublin, we stayed in Matthew’s other house, which was made of red bricks and stood at the bottom of a garden belonging to a bigger house. Matthew used to live in the bigger one when he was young. There was too much furniture in the house and all the furniture was green or brown. But the furniture was comfortable; the chairs sank with a soft sigh when you sat in them. There were a lot of books in the Dublin house too, but they were the colour of bird feathers: green, yellow, brown, red and blue. They felt softer too, like velvet.
From time to time, a lady with a clipboard came to visit. She always wore brown clothes and used big words like ‘needs assessment’ and ‘developmental goals.’ I asked Matthew what they meant and he said they were nonsense words. The lady’s visits made Matthew cross. He always shouted at her.
Sometimes letters came, saying that I had to go to the clinic. Matthew didn’t like the clinic. He muttered under his breath when the letters came. When I went there, I played games. I piled bricks on top of each other, matched shapes, recited words. The games were fun, but it was strange to play them with people watching. After the games, I sat on Matthew’s lap while a man in a white coat shone lights into my eyes. I didn’t like that part. The lights made me yelp and wriggle in Matthew’s arms. He said they had to use the lights to find out how my eyes worked. He told me to be as still as a Viking warrior and rubbed my arms until I stopped wriggling. Matthew asked the people questions all the time. He shouted at them too and told them they were treating me like a lab rat. When we came home from the clinic, Matthew always said, “They seemed surprised you weren’t mentally defective.”
The Pink Cage Page 4
