(no subject)
I named my dolls after you Peter. They were not fancy prom queen dolls done up their ludicrous lengths with ruffles and bows and velveteen ball gowns. Neither were they famished-looking plastic gamines riding around on pink motorbikes whilst they waited to go on dates with their muscular boyfriends. Rather, they were odd little patchwork creatures worked from scraps of satin and fluff heaped lovingly upon me by Marta the laundry maid. She was a wonderful girl of about nineteen who had answered an advertisement in the local paper intending to take on the job temporarily whilst she visited the country. Having left an altogether indifferent family and no true friends behind her she grew to rather like the comforts of our opulent home and the chatter and bustle that a child brings. Later, when you had left us, I think she felt bound to stay at least a short while as ballast and comfort to all that remained of our shattered family group - me.
As a child I had been used to absence - the long dining table set for forty people, the tinkle of glasses and the glitter of knives seemed not to mask but rather to frame the empty places where my parents should have been. I had no way to grasp their memory as you decided to remove and destroy all their photographs to dull the horror of our loss. I understand now that it was not a cruel trick you played on me Peter but rather to assuage your own pain that you took such drastic measures. Being denied access to the true images of my parents I naturally began to create my own and lovingly conjured a regal looking pair to accompany me throughout the loneliest times. Eventually I found it easier to condense them into a single entity, which much to the chagrin of pretty much everyone I christened Hitler. Marta tells me that this was not my only excursion into the world of the imagination; she says that for months after you left I babbled incessantly of seeing you, talking to you, playing with you. Worried that I might be taken away from the house despite my fabulous inherited wealth, Marta contrived to keep me close by her and so to my delight I was allowed to spend all day in the laundry.
There is a degree of treachery in a five-year-old girl that allows her to betray her loss and grief in the briefest of periods and I was not mourning for long. Though I am ashamed to admit it I think that had even Marta vanished I would have possessed the exquisite selfishness to carry on. For I was a solitary creature and though I loved Marta and her dolls I was at my happiest buried deep in the folds of clean sheets, barefoot and often naked in this soft white womb. The laundry had always been a magical place to me full of miracles and potions. I had been discouraged from venturing to the depths of the house before you left Peter; I was thought to be a bit of a nuisance I am sure. As a result I had imagined it as a sort of magical cavern far below full of secrets and magic. The laundry maids appeared as sorcerers in this enchanted kingdom bearing baskets piled high with linen to the surface, sprinkled with oils and herbs and steaming hot. These spiced offerings would be laid out in chests and on our beds and I knew each scent by heart. When I went down to the laundry and watched Marta and her helpers perform these alchemical transformations I had not been at all disappointed by the jars and bottles that lined the walls, at last I had seen their magic potions.
Perhaps it was because I had such an imagination and was used too seeing the world I created rather than the one I was living in. Perhaps it was because I was such a wilfully clumsy child always banging into things and begging to be allowed to career down the spiral staircase with no regard to how recently it had been polished. Yet again, perhaps it was the vagabond nature of my existence running wild around a huge house peopled only by myself, Marta and the other servants that allowed my deteriorating eyesight to go unnoticed for so long. One day I heard Marta call me and I thought she must have been very far away because I couldn’t see her. I was hungry and hoped she was calling me for my supper. Supper was a tragic affair with myself and the servants ranged along the vast dining table using the best silver and linen every day. I think that they were anxious to maintain the illusion of your imminent return Peter and their infinite readiness should you choose to entertain a party of one hundred guests. Otherwise what purpose was there in their being employed at all? At their head I would sit as mistress of the house in some uncomfortable starched dress and itchy woollen stockings. I must admit that I found it all a little confusing and inconvenient, much preferring to sit in a cotton smock eating with my fingers. I believe that it was fear that held us all prisoners to this disquieting ritual; no one wanted to face the reality of your loss. Marta’s voice sounded so near now that I could not understand why there was no sign of her. Suddenly, I felt the ground give way beneath me as Marta picked me up and smacked my bottom for hiding and ignoring her. Gabbling in terror I finally made her understand what was wrong.
By the age of six I had been struck totally blind. We could no longer continue to make-believe that things were okay. Marta let the others slip away quietly as she stayed loyally to deal with the aftermath of the terrible lie. She told me first so that I wouldn’t hear it from anyone else; that you had been so sad after mummy and daddy died that you wanted to go to them in heaven, you were never coming back. I don’t know what happened after that but I was taken to some dark place much like any other dark place and the house was sold, the money put into trust for me. Marta returned despondently to her family and all the sordid details came out one by one. When I met with Martha twelve years later I thought I would be so full of questions; why had she kept the fact of your suicide to herself and said you were merely extending your trip? Why had she and the others so wanted to preserve our fairytale existence that no one had thought of the effects on me? Why had they not taken me to a doctor earlier? Why had she patronised me when I was quite resilient enough to learn about the terrible finality of death? In the end it was obvious to me that there were no answers to these questions that I had not already discovered myself. The plain truth was that she had been frightened and acted rashly in a moment of weakness.
It is almost impossible to describe a sensation accurately, even a sensation that you feel more or less all the time. Try as I might I could not describe to you now the sensation of eating something very cold or the warm feeling of passing urine. I reach weakly for these loose and over worn epithets that are really far too vague to convey the most universal of feelings. How then can I explain to you the steady erosion of my store of images, having had noting to sharpen them on since I was six years old? Perhaps the paucity of these tired lexical sets to sketch sensations could be used as a comparison. I have very few true images stored any longer, and without help I find I can barely remember the crudest of visualisations. There is one image that I carry stronger than the others, and that is of the one time that you had the devil in you and played wildly with me all afternoon. It can only have been a few weeks before you died Peter. The spiral staircases had been polished to such a gloss that they seemed almost golden. Taking my hand you followed my lead and swooped gloriously to the bottom crashing on to the fawn rug. I don’t even know if this is a true memory or a wistful fabrication.
I spared Marta the pain and embarrassment of explaining herself to me when I saw her yesterday, but of her own accord she furnished me with a little extra information. A wealthy family took on the house, she thinks that they may have been Americans, and almost immediatly sold on to property developers for twice the price. I think that this must mean it has been demolished Peter, land is far more lucrative to developers that way. I wasn’t sad when Marta told me, far from it. Do you know what that means? It means that I never have to go back and try to glean the truth about you. Our secrets are preserved in those long vanished spirals.
As a child I had been used to absence - the long dining table set for forty people, the tinkle of glasses and the glitter of knives seemed not to mask but rather to frame the empty places where my parents should have been. I had no way to grasp their memory as you decided to remove and destroy all their photographs to dull the horror of our loss. I understand now that it was not a cruel trick you played on me Peter but rather to assuage your own pain that you took such drastic measures. Being denied access to the true images of my parents I naturally began to create my own and lovingly conjured a regal looking pair to accompany me throughout the loneliest times. Eventually I found it easier to condense them into a single entity, which much to the chagrin of pretty much everyone I christened Hitler. Marta tells me that this was not my only excursion into the world of the imagination; she says that for months after you left I babbled incessantly of seeing you, talking to you, playing with you. Worried that I might be taken away from the house despite my fabulous inherited wealth, Marta contrived to keep me close by her and so to my delight I was allowed to spend all day in the laundry.
There is a degree of treachery in a five-year-old girl that allows her to betray her loss and grief in the briefest of periods and I was not mourning for long. Though I am ashamed to admit it I think that had even Marta vanished I would have possessed the exquisite selfishness to carry on. For I was a solitary creature and though I loved Marta and her dolls I was at my happiest buried deep in the folds of clean sheets, barefoot and often naked in this soft white womb. The laundry had always been a magical place to me full of miracles and potions. I had been discouraged from venturing to the depths of the house before you left Peter; I was thought to be a bit of a nuisance I am sure. As a result I had imagined it as a sort of magical cavern far below full of secrets and magic. The laundry maids appeared as sorcerers in this enchanted kingdom bearing baskets piled high with linen to the surface, sprinkled with oils and herbs and steaming hot. These spiced offerings would be laid out in chests and on our beds and I knew each scent by heart. When I went down to the laundry and watched Marta and her helpers perform these alchemical transformations I had not been at all disappointed by the jars and bottles that lined the walls, at last I had seen their magic potions.
Perhaps it was because I had such an imagination and was used too seeing the world I created rather than the one I was living in. Perhaps it was because I was such a wilfully clumsy child always banging into things and begging to be allowed to career down the spiral staircase with no regard to how recently it had been polished. Yet again, perhaps it was the vagabond nature of my existence running wild around a huge house peopled only by myself, Marta and the other servants that allowed my deteriorating eyesight to go unnoticed for so long. One day I heard Marta call me and I thought she must have been very far away because I couldn’t see her. I was hungry and hoped she was calling me for my supper. Supper was a tragic affair with myself and the servants ranged along the vast dining table using the best silver and linen every day. I think that they were anxious to maintain the illusion of your imminent return Peter and their infinite readiness should you choose to entertain a party of one hundred guests. Otherwise what purpose was there in their being employed at all? At their head I would sit as mistress of the house in some uncomfortable starched dress and itchy woollen stockings. I must admit that I found it all a little confusing and inconvenient, much preferring to sit in a cotton smock eating with my fingers. I believe that it was fear that held us all prisoners to this disquieting ritual; no one wanted to face the reality of your loss. Marta’s voice sounded so near now that I could not understand why there was no sign of her. Suddenly, I felt the ground give way beneath me as Marta picked me up and smacked my bottom for hiding and ignoring her. Gabbling in terror I finally made her understand what was wrong.
By the age of six I had been struck totally blind. We could no longer continue to make-believe that things were okay. Marta let the others slip away quietly as she stayed loyally to deal with the aftermath of the terrible lie. She told me first so that I wouldn’t hear it from anyone else; that you had been so sad after mummy and daddy died that you wanted to go to them in heaven, you were never coming back. I don’t know what happened after that but I was taken to some dark place much like any other dark place and the house was sold, the money put into trust for me. Marta returned despondently to her family and all the sordid details came out one by one. When I met with Martha twelve years later I thought I would be so full of questions; why had she kept the fact of your suicide to herself and said you were merely extending your trip? Why had she and the others so wanted to preserve our fairytale existence that no one had thought of the effects on me? Why had they not taken me to a doctor earlier? Why had she patronised me when I was quite resilient enough to learn about the terrible finality of death? In the end it was obvious to me that there were no answers to these questions that I had not already discovered myself. The plain truth was that she had been frightened and acted rashly in a moment of weakness.
It is almost impossible to describe a sensation accurately, even a sensation that you feel more or less all the time. Try as I might I could not describe to you now the sensation of eating something very cold or the warm feeling of passing urine. I reach weakly for these loose and over worn epithets that are really far too vague to convey the most universal of feelings. How then can I explain to you the steady erosion of my store of images, having had noting to sharpen them on since I was six years old? Perhaps the paucity of these tired lexical sets to sketch sensations could be used as a comparison. I have very few true images stored any longer, and without help I find I can barely remember the crudest of visualisations. There is one image that I carry stronger than the others, and that is of the one time that you had the devil in you and played wildly with me all afternoon. It can only have been a few weeks before you died Peter. The spiral staircases had been polished to such a gloss that they seemed almost golden. Taking my hand you followed my lead and swooped gloriously to the bottom crashing on to the fawn rug. I don’t even know if this is a true memory or a wistful fabrication.
I spared Marta the pain and embarrassment of explaining herself to me when I saw her yesterday, but of her own accord she furnished me with a little extra information. A wealthy family took on the house, she thinks that they may have been Americans, and almost immediatly sold on to property developers for twice the price. I think that this must mean it has been demolished Peter, land is far more lucrative to developers that way. I wasn’t sad when Marta told me, far from it. Do you know what that means? It means that I never have to go back and try to glean the truth about you. Our secrets are preserved in those long vanished spirals.