Alva and Irva - Edward Carey [18]
THERE WAS little then to differentiate us from each other. Our eyes were the same shade of blue, our hair the same length and colour, our skin was identically pale and thin and revealed the same streams of blue-green veins on our big foreheads and on our arms and legs. But sometimes Mother would see me pressing myself against the front door, peering cautiously through the keyhole. And at other times she might open the large cupboard in the kitchen where the saucepans were kept to find Irva inside, huddled up in the darkness.
IT WAS OF course Grandfather and not Mother who took us on our first remembered excursions out into the world. First in a pushchair, a double pushchair with twin seats, and later, taking each of us by a hand, he would take us out to see Veber Street and sometimes even some of what existed beyond (but never past Pilias Street). And people, women mostly, would often stop Grandfather, and together they would talk about us, and sometimes our heads would be patted (which we never liked), and often, from our pushchair or later standing either side of, and probably even clinging to, Grandfather’s legs, we would hear the word, ‘Lovely’, or the sentence ‘Aren’t they gorgeous?’ But always, always, ‘How can you tell them one from the other, postmaster?’ And of course he would have to reply, ‘Well, actually I can’t, but their mother can.’ And the other person would respond with the air of an expert, ‘Well, yes, you’d expect that, wouldn’t you, that’s the maternal bond, isn’t it?’
AMONG THE many gifts Grandfather bought us was a stamp album. How overjoyed he was while watching us peer through our (identical) magnifying glasses, examining so studiously all the little colourful squares of paper. But Grandfather was never once permitted to bring us foreign stamps. Mother was quite clear about that. And just to make sure, all the stamps were examined by her before being passed on (with what nostalgia did she one day inspect a set of stamps depicting beetles), for death was lurking in those foreign stamps. Our weak and dreamy father had been taken in by their bright and beautiful colours; it wouldn’t happen to us.
AND SO CAME the time of our first adventures in plasticine. Grandfather was the one who supplied us with our first packet of plasticine: multicoloured strips, clean and corrugated, neatly covered in transparent sheets of plastic to prevent them from becoming dirty and sheathed in a bright red cardboard box. The front of the box bore the legend ‘HERKIN’S PLASTICINE’, the reverse ‘HERKIN’S TOYS, 12-23 MIRCAN STREET, SECTOR 2, ENTRALLA 2006’. Grandfather had shown us some of his matchstick children, but had urged us not to come too close, never to touch. We had sat watching him, sitting holding hands on the sofa, rigid with attention, such informative hours contemplating Grandfather carefully building away. But when it had come to our turn to build with matchsticks, when grandfather had reluctantly sacrificed a few matchsticks and a blob of glue, our creations had been a great disappointment. We were unable to make matchsticks resemble anything other than … matchsticks. So Grandfather bought us plasticine, an easier building material. Suitable for novices; ages four and up.
At first we made nothing more miraculous than multicoloured spheres comprised of all the different strips of plasticine moulded into one marbled, curdling riot of colour. These spheres collected dust and dirt and frustrated us enormously because, once mixed, the colours were almost impossible to separate. In time, with greater patience we made other things: birds so ill-proportioned that they could never fly, mongrel dogs of indiscernible parentage, houses that would never stand up for long. But that was all it took; we had worked out how malleable plasticine was. We had worked out that, with care, structures that remained standing could perhaps be erected; from plasticine we could fashion the world in miniature.