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By Root 867 0

And Grandfather was unhappy too. When he had demanded we make friends, he had meant friends with our contemporaries, he was not happy to have us spend the rest of our days in the company of an introspective old crone (as he described our friend). Soon afterwards came the time when we were walked out from Veber Street every day, always in the company of Grandfather, beyond even Pilias Street, beyond the limits of our imagination, into previously undiscovered possibilities of existence. On that first day of our discovery of new territory, Irva, terrified, vomited on the pavement. But even so, Grandfather insisted we carried on going despite the sick and despite the tears I was shedding for Irva. We walked, on those outings, to a street called Littsen Street. There was a long wall on Littsen Street in the centre of which were some unpleasant-looking cast-iron gates. On those outings we always walked up to the gates, never beyond the gates, never through the gates. Only up to them, and then back home: preparation for a horror yet to come.

And then one day, incredibly, surprisingly, Grandfather ordered us to go and visit our friend Miss Stott. We did not understand then the deception behind Grandfather’s command. Miss Stott had made each of us a set of clothes, each identical to the other, but we thought nothing of this, we had always worn identical clothing. But we did notice that this set was smarter than the other sets, and had a blazer with it.

Other people wanted us now, and Mother would have to let those other people have us promptly at nine every morning. Mercifully though they would allow her to retrieve us at four o’clock every afternoon. If we did not change hands every day at those hours, which was, incidentally, the law, we would be taken away from Mother permanently. ‘It’s all for the good,’ Grandfather told Mother, ‘the law is correct. This law is the best thing that could happen to them. It may be a little hard to begin with, but they cannot stay at home all their lives.’

So every day, in sombre preparation, as the date came ever closer, we walked up to the gates with Grandfather, nervously, with terror on our faces. And then one morning Mother scrunched up her pudgy hands into little fists, rubbed her leaking eyes and bade goodbye to her twin loves, who arrived on Littsen Street to find the gates were open and to see that there were noisy and rough children everywhere. On that day a woman we had never seen before came up to Grandfather and said, ‘Alva and Irva Dapps?’ And Grandfather nodded, and the woman said, ‘Thank you, you may leave them now, goodbye postmaster.’ And Grandfather, looking somewhat anxious, on this terrible day when we learnt that even his great authority had limits, left Irva and me all alone with this woman we had never seen before.

A SET OF FEMALE TWINS

ONCE ATTENDED

THE SCHOOL ON LITTSEN STREET

The Littsen Street Educational Establishment

Nos. 75-125 Littsen Street made up the collection of buildings that were designed specifically to contain the difficult business of educating children. The buildings had a high wall around them to keep knowledge in and ignorance out, and, in the midpoint of the wall that gave onto the street, a formidable iron gate. The architect of this school either received a pitifully small budget in which to complete his brief, or else he lacked any imagination, or else he was one of those undeniably cunning individuals who realise that no matter how sincere a child’s intention to study may be, that child is, on occasion, liable to look out of the classroom window in the hope of distraction. Thus he ensured that the architecture on view from any of the school buildings onto any other of the school buildings contained very few distractional properties. Unfortunately, blocks of domestic dwellings today stand in the school’s place. However, the school on Pulvin Street (a short walk from the University or Market Square, see map), which was constructed at the same time, though at the other end of the city, is identical, and a visit there will give much the