Fragile Monsters

by Catherine Menon

  Tom springs upright, pushing himself off the wall to wrench the door open. Light spills in from outside.

  ‘She’s gone,’ he says. ‘It was Karthika. Durga – come on. We need to get back.’

  He holds the collar of his shirt between his teeth while he buttons it. I’m still struggling into my clothes, pulling my blouse around me and feeling the itch of dirt working its way under my breasts.

  ‘Durga …’ he says, one foot already out of the door. He’s dressed now, and his hair isn’t even ruffled. No half-naked indignity for Tom, nothing he’ll regret tomorrow morning. Nothing he’ll regret tonight, come to that. Clever Tom.

  ‘Wait!’ I stumble after him into the compound. The electricity must have come back on because I can see yellow light spilling onto the path. Tom pulls the door open and steps into the warm hallway with its lemon smell of overheated lightbulbs. I stop on the threshold.

  ‘You were imagining Peony, weren’t you? Not me.’

  Karthika’s voice comes through from the verandah, whispering frantically. Carrying tales to Ammuma and wallowing in self-righteousness.

  ‘Durga …’ He swallows, and his eyes dart sideways to the verandah.

  ‘You didn’t want me, did you? For God’s sake, Tom, you had to pretend I was her?’

  I fold my arms. There’s a rash above my wrist, where Tom pressed me against the annexe wall.

  ‘At least most men obsess about models, or – or girls from Playboy. Not fifteen-year-olds, Tom; not dead fifteen-year-olds.’

  He looks stricken. ‘Durga, don’t, don’t be so angry. Peony was your friend, too, remember, Peony –’

  ‘I’m not interested in Peony!’

  The words hang there. Tom looks shocked, as though he can’t quite believe I’ve said them.

  ‘What’s all happening?’ Ammuma comes stamping through from the front room. Her mouthpiece hangs down from her chin and she’s dragging the oxygen cylinder on one strap. Karthika lurks behind, her head downcast. She sneaks a glance up at me and then drops her eyes again. A little bit triumphant – hands off, Durga-Miss, what’s mine is mine – and a little bit scared at what she’s done.

  ‘I heard you all. Like some fishwives, upsetting everything.’ Ammuma looks irritable, but that’s all. Perhaps Karthika’s said less than I thought.

  ‘Everything’s OK, Mary-Auntie.’ Tom gives her a practised smile, a 100%-and-then-some smile, but it doesn’t soften her one bit.

  ‘Ar, then time to go. It’s late, no need to be all here like this, keeping us up in the middle of the night.’ She puts her hands on her hips and sends Tom a sharp look. ‘Too late for staying.’

  Tom looks stricken. He holds out his hand, gives me a polite handshake while mumbling something about it having been nice to see me. We walk back through the front room. Karthika’s scuttled away to her fire again, now she’s done all the damage she can. With any luck she’ll trip on her own wagging tongue, end up in the cinders or down one of the wells.

  Tom slips his shoes on and turns to give me an awkward smile.

  ‘Good luck,’ he says, and then, ‘Keep in touch.’

  His voice sounds artificial and flat. The way goodbyes do in airports and on train stations, when everybody wants the next few minutes over and done with.

  I stand on the verandah with Ammuma on my left, watching him walk away. I can’t think straight; I don’t know whether I’m glad to see the back of him or I’d be glad to see him back. There’s a pad of bare feet and Karthika comes to stand on my right. Three Graces, three Muses, three monkeys. Take your pick, Tom. Ammuma with her watchful eyes, Karthika guilty as sin and twice as unreliable, me still in a swamp from fifteen years ago. And behind us: laughing, tangled hair, ballpoint tattoos on her fragile wrists, always and for ever, Peony.

  14. 1970

  ‘Truth or dare? Go on, Durga.’

  We’re fifteen years old, in Tom’s father’s car. Cars aren’t exactly new in Lipis – Mother Agnes has an old shabby one – but most of them are just tin Milo things, as Ammuma says. Flimsy, lightweight. Tom’s father, on the other hand, has a brand-new Nissan Sunny in the brightest, most luscious red. Tom persuaded his father to let him and Peony come for a ride in it today. Me too, but only after Peony asked.

  Catching Peony’s bright glance in the rear-view mirror, I look behind. She’s got ink on her collar and her mouth is red and clownish where she’s been chewing her cedarwood pencils.

  ‘Truth or dare?’

  ‘Truth,’ I say.

  Tom, sitting on the front seat next to me, grins. ‘Right – truth, then. Durga, who would you rather kiss, Fat Ali or me?’

  He’s laughing. I wish lightning would come and strike me dead right now.

  ‘Shut up, Tom.’ Peony reaches round from the back seat and gives my hand a quick squeeze. ‘That’s a stupid one,’ she says. ‘Durga … how about – did you copy Noor’s maths test?’

  We’re an hour away from Lipis, waiting in the car just outside Kampung Ulu. Dr Harcourt – Tom’s father – parked next to the swamp and told us to stay put while he made a quick visit to the leper colony down the road. A leper colony sounds scary, but this one isn’t. Not really. It’s just sad. There are TB patients in it, too, and some poor people who were born wrong and can’t talk or move. Mad Ahmad lives there too, and he was in the San before it burnt down fifteen years ago. The remains of the San are just across the swamp – I can see one of the burnt-out buildings from here – and that is scary, just a little bit.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I copied Noor’s answers.’

  I didn’t, in fact – she’d got half of them wrong – but I want to join in. Make it exciting. Make me exciting.

  ‘Liar,’ Tom says. ‘You’re such a goody-goody, Durga. You’d never.’

  ‘I’m not lying! I’m not!’

  ‘Leave her alone, Tom.’ Peony rolls her eyes, and that’s that. Tom always listens to her. ‘Your turn, and don’t come up with anything strange. Durga and I won’t play if you do.’

  Playing Truth or Dare was Peony’s idea. All the best ideas are. Tom keeps going too far with it, though. Teasing me about Ali, who’s chubby with a stupid little fuzz-moustache. As if I’d want to kiss him.

  ‘Truth or dare?’

  ‘Dare.’ Peony always picks dare. Tom grins.

  ‘Cross the swamp to the San,’ he says, and we all look up, out of the windscreen. The swamp’s thick and black. Overhead is the biggest banyan tree in Pahang. The roots curve and swoop overhead to make a cave where Dr Harcourt’s parked, and the water hums with dragonflies and mosquitoes. The colony’s on the other side.

  ‘And then sing “Locks on the Gates” three times,’ he adds.

  ‘No way!’ Peony’s eyes go round and wide. ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘That’s dangerous,’ I say, although nobody’s listening. ‘Mad Ahmad might hear. It isn’t funny, Tom.’

  Mad Ahmad was the only person they rescued from the San when it burnt down. Even though that was fifteen years ago, but he still isn’t normal. Some afternoons they say he walks right out of the leper colony and goes back to the tumbledown San, where he thinks he belongs.

  ‘Locks on the gates,’ Tom sing-songs, ‘and bars on the doors.’

  ‘Don’t!’ I push him.

  Locks on the Gates is a chasing game. One person’s the lunatic from the San and the others are the guards. Locks on the gates, we sing, and bars on the doors. Coming to get you, ready or not! I’m not supposed to play it, though. Ammuma heard me once and lost her temper. She hates that game, she told me, but then she hugged me and didn’t let go for ages.

  ‘You know they never found some of the bodies, don’t you?’ Tom says. ‘After the San burnt down? Some of the loonies escaped and set fire to the place. And they’ve never caught them.’

  I stare across at the burnt-out San. I don’t believe Tom, but I’m not going to say anything. One time he waited after school and hid behind the surau to jump out and scare Peony. He never tries to
scare me.

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ I sound prim and stupid. Tom rolls his eyes.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Peony says suddenly. ‘I’ll cross on the banyan roots.’

  The roots stick up from the water like witch’s teeth, and I shudder. She gives us both a wink, aimed exactly between us, and bounces out of the car. She makes it look easy, jumping from one root to another with her pleated skirt flying and her socks slipping down. She’s wearing a friendship bracelet on her wrist made from red wool, and I’m wearing the other. Friends for ever, that means.

  Tom gives me a sideways glance as we watch her. A smirk sneaks in around the side of his mouth.

  ‘She’s showing off, isn’t she?’ he says.

  I giggle. Peony is showing off, sleek hair glinting in the sun as she stands on one leg and sucks at a mosquito bite.

  ‘Locks on the gates!’ she calls, cupping her hands around her mouth. Nothing moves.

  ‘I don’t know why girls always show off,’ Tom says, looking at me hard. ‘I suppose they think boys will like them more.’

  I chew at one of my nails – I bite my right forefinger, just like Peony; we’re always the same – and giggle again. I’m not sure what to say.

  ‘Perhaps – I mean, I don’t know. I’m sure you’re right.’

  ‘I’m sorry I called you a goody-goody. You’re not, Durga. You’re …’

  He reaches out and twines his fingers around mine, pulling my hand down from my mouth. His other hand creeps up onto my knee, then inches higher. My legs are bare and brown in the hot sun, and Tom seems suddenly very close. I can smell his sweat, his disinfected insect bites, the cologne he buys from the sundry store.

  ‘Hey!’

  Peony bangs on the windscreen and we jump. Her face is screwed up into a scowl and she looks cross; really cross. Tom whips his hand off my leg and edges away from me along the seat.

  ‘When you’ve quite finished.’ Peony climbs back into the car, banging the door shut.

  She’s in a temper, tugging on the seatbelt that Mr Harcourt rigged up for the backseat. She snaps it around her waist with a vicious click and drums her fingers on the window glass.

  Tom and I look down at our laps, awkward and quiet. I can feel sweat springing from my armpits and trickling down my stomach. Peony, with her skirt rolled high and her milky legs swung up on the seat, looks daggers at us in the mirror. I pluck at my friendship bracelet.

  ‘It’s your turn, Peony,’ I say in a small voice. ‘For Truth or Dare?’

  She takes a deep breath and pushes her hair back. The seatbelt pulls her shirt tight against her chest and her skirt falls back down her thighs. Tom’s eyes meet hers in the rear-view mirror and neither of them moves.

  ‘All right … Tom. Truth or dare?’ she says.

  ‘Dare.’ Tom’s voice breaks. He coughs, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and Peony smiles.

  ‘Kiss whichever one of us you like the best,’ she says. ‘Me or Durga.’

  ‘Peony!’ She doesn’t look at me, just lies back with a lazy stretch of her legs.

  ‘Go on, Tom,’ she says. ‘Choose.’

  I sneak a glance at Tom. His jaw’s clenched and his eyes are bright. I force a big smile onto my face.

  ‘Brilliant, Peony! Go on, Tom, you have to choose.’

  He wipes his mouth again and locks eyes with Peony in the mirror. Without breaking his stare he reaches over to me. He wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me next to him. My bare legs rip off the hot leather seat. I yelp, and then giggle but neither of them looks up. Tom lifts me half onto his lap, with the brake lever digging into my legs. He lifts my head, his eyes still fixed on the mirror, and touches his lips to mine. His mouth is soft and sticky with Vaseline. He tastes of the pandan cake we ate on the drive here.

  It’s me! I want to shout. I want to break away from Tom and laugh at Peony’s stunned face – See, Peony, it isn’t you, it isn’t always you – but Tom’s not even looking. He’s staring over my shoulder into the rear-view mirror. Even as his tongue flickers to mine, he never once looks away from Peony.

  I wriggle loose and my leg pushes against the brake lever. It creaks and grates down a notch. Tom shifts too, and then the car begins to roll forward.

  ‘Tom!’

  He snatches at the steering wheel. The car turns, lurches again and starts to tilt. Two side wheels sink down over the bank as he pulls at the steering wheel.

  ‘The brake! The brake!’

  We both grab for it together, pulling upwards, but it’s too late.

  ‘Pull it harder!’ Peony screams, but we’re already teetering on the edge and sliding sideways. A banyan root thuds against my window, smashing it, and the car topples over. We smack into the muddy water with a giant slap. Tom and I cannon against each other and I can hear Peony screaming still. Tom’s shouting too, and I’m pressed against the upside-down roof. I can’t see anything but mud, slopping halfway up the windows. I kick my legs out and grip the edge of the shattered window. We’re completely underwater now, my face is hurting and my lungs cramp and spasm. It’s cold, I think irrelevantly; who would have thought this swamp could get so cold? And then another kick and I’ve pulled myself out through the window opening. From here, it’s almost beautiful. It doesn’t look real, all that silt suspended in the greenish water and the San casting a huge black shadow over it. There are shafts of sunlight tangled up with the ribbons of water-weed and one pale hand pressed against the closed rear window of the car. Peony.

  I break through the surface, sobbing. I must have been screaming for a long time, because my chest feels flattened and dry inside. I can’t even take a breath at first. Tom’s come up, too, further out in the swamp. He’s clinging to one of the banyan roots.

  ‘Get my father,’ he gasps, and dives down again.

  He’s going down to Peony, of course. He’ll dive and dive again as I clamber up the bank and stagger towards the path. ‘Dr Harcourt,’ I’ll whisper, while my breath gives out and I tumble to my knees over and over. The leper colony’s half a mile down the road, and by the time I reach it Tom will have dived a hundred times, a thousand times, and Peony’s hand will have peeled away from the window to lie limp in the brackish water. And though I don’t know it yet, I’ll always – even fifteen years later – be able to taste that pandan cake and a slick of Vaseline on my tongue.

  15. Monday, 11 p.m.

  I don’t sleep that night. Perhaps nobody does. Karthika stays overnight, folded in on herself in a corner with Rajneesh swaddled tight as a steamed bun. She won’t meet my eyes. Don’t worry, Karthika, I want to tell her. From now on you’re welcome to Tom, to top-doctor-lawyer Tom with his handsome suits and pale skin. It’s fifteen-year-old Tom I was after all along, it’s jackstones and first kisses, and love before other people got in the way.

  At some point the rains get heavier. The drains are overflowing, Ammuma calls, and Karthika needs to clear them. So out Karthika goes into the blackness, wiping her nose on the back of her hand and with Rajneesh tied under her soaking blouse. I can see her bent double, slapping at the puddles with a palm-frond broom. She stops eventually; there’s no way anyone can clear those drains fast enough tonight. She leaves wet footprints as she squats in the dirtiest, dustiest corner of the verandah. Rajneesh babbles once or twice, then falls asleep neatly and quickly. Like his mother, he knows better than to take up much space.

  Ammuma copes best out of all of us. She doesn’t even mention Tom; Karthika must have been too mealy mouthed to get her point across. Instead, she finds me a spare carrier bag to hold snacks for the drive to KL tomorrow. She reminds me how bad the traffic gets on the Gua Musang road, and she even finds a map and plots out different routes.

  Around midnight she asks me to put some sleeping mats for her in the prayer room. It’s peaceful in there, amongst the flowers and coins and smell of incense that’s soaked into the walls. A little bit of glitter, a few old friends. Not much to ask for, when you look at it that way. I wonder who she
sees at night when she first closes her eyes. Francesca? Me? Nobody, she’d say if I asked. Nothing, an empty space like the middle of a wedding ring or a life-preserver or a whirlpool. All these things are the same, according to mathematics.

  I go upstairs and gather the sleeping mats together from where Rajneesh was sitting yesterday in the middle of Ammuma’s bedroom. The door to the box room’s firmly closed and the key’s gone, for the first time I can remember.

  And then I slump in Ammuma’s rattan chair. I’m not ready to sleep and I’m secretly glad to hear Karthika’s smothered snores. Ammuma’s snoring too, but much less decorously. Like me, she’s used to sleeping by herself.

  After an hour or so Ammuma’s snores start to turn to words. At first it sounds like she’s telling a bedtime story again – I hear tiger-princes in her snorts, and princesses in the silvery, delicate intakes of breath. But no. It’s not a bedtime story; it’s a warning. For me, for Karthika, for Peony; if it weren’t thirty years too late it’d be for my mother, too. Take care, you unwed girls, she warns. Take care, you streetwalkers and kampong brats and university lecturers: you’ll come to the stickiest of ends.

  16. And One Princess Remains: 1934

  It’s a shame nobody ever gave Cecelia that advice. Stay away from boys, stay away from temptation and danger and the lure of missed chances. But Cecelia wouldn’t have listened. She’s nineteen years old – plump and beaming, head of the matriculating class – when she turns up at the convent one evening in 1934. Mary’s sitting inside with Sister Gerta, their hair stirred by the fan. It’s that luminous and untrustworthy hour just before the rains, when the light’s in the air and not in the sky. The convent lies dim and quiet, with only a few hushed footfalls and the trembling glimmer of a hurricane lamp to show anyone’s there at all.

  Mary’s been spending a lot of her time at the convent lately. She likes the clean, white orderliness of it all and she likes being wanted. She hasn’t converted to Christianity yet, and that means she still has an unsaved soul to offer. Sister Gerta licks her lips over that soul. More than once Mary’s woken from her narrow mosquito-netted convent bed to see Gerta sprinkling her with a basin of holy water, in case Mary’s dreaming of baptism. Mary wakes each morning at the convent in a damp and blessed bed but happier than she’s ever been before.