Chapter 1: Ava.
The lane was rain-washed. The stone compound walls were moss-green in patches. Ferns peeked out of crevices, curling their way carefully upwards. Crotons and flowering shrubs spilt out from compounds, over the walls, unable to contain their exuberance. Ava's cheek brushed against a shoe-flower as she passed by, damp pollen leaving a hurried trail through her hair. She was nearing the bend. Just after it, there would be the Jambakka tree, dropping its baby pink fruit heavily onto the tar. Further up, there'd be the pot-hole, which someone would have laid stepping stones across when the rains had started. She'd cross it on tip-toe. She could run home then, straight to the little house at the end of the lane - Treselda Cottage. Taking a quick, sharp breath, Ava picked up speed.
Nothing had changed. She'd run down this lane countless times in her childhood and it still held the same feel. She had told herself that the lane was too narrow to negotiate in a car, so she'd left hers on the main road and lugged her small bag with her. It just didn't feel right to drive in.
The small, tiled house was still holding together. The Luv-luv tree in front was studded with fruit. Red ants were busy at work, hurrying up its branches, stitching its leaves together. The dampness didn't seem to be a deterent. Some of the branches of the tree rested on the tiled roof, allowing the ants to form a trail on the roof. The blue half-door was open at the top. The cemented steps leading to it had taken on a high polish at the middle. Ava's grandmother wasn't at the door looking out, her short frame just about reaching over the closed bottom half. Ava lent in and unbolted the door, calling "Mama", the impatience of her childhood creeping into her voice as soon as she crossed the threshold.
Mama would hardly be seen sitting in those days, but Ava couldn't be sure now. The hall was dark, shutters closed against the rain. The easy chair was empty. Ava could cross the small space in a few long strides. The dining room was a little brighter. The windows were open onto the crotons lining the compound wall and to the neighbouring house beyond. A spring, pulled tight, ran across the middle of each window from frame to frame, holding cream linen half-curtains. A long table stood in the middle of the room, a meat-safe at the far end, and a wash basin at the other end. A noisy fan was creaking away at speed 2, Mama's preferred speed, that Ava thought was more for the noise than the breeze. The meat safe, a large wooden pantry cupboard with meshed doors, stood sentinel, its legs dipped in water wells, to keep the ants from crawling up. There she was, fiddling at its door.
Margaret turned from the meat safe to greet her grand-daughter. Age had taken its toll on the once fiercely beautiful lady, shrinking her into a slower, more graceful version of herself. Eyes bigger behind the black-rimmed glasses, dimples deepened into long slits, silver curls held into a bun with U-pins. The familiar smell of cooking, of Cuticura powder and Eau de Cologne and the faint hint of naphthalene balls from the folds of her fresh white cotton sari carried Ava back in time.
She sat at the table, tugging Mama with her. Margaret settled down. She toyed with her keys, her light blue stone ring flashing on her finger. An old pen-knife keychain held her keys together. Eddie, her grandson, Ava's cousin, had given it to her, all those years ago when he had come home from the army, strapping in his uniform. She had in turn given him a medal of Our Lady, blessed by the Archbishop. When Eddie died, the medal came back to her and it hung on the keychain, tap-tapping against the pen-knife and the keys it now protected.
Margaret's house was once full of children - her grand-children left in her care during their growing years as their parents went aboard in search of their fortunes. Between boarding schools and Treselda Cottage, the children's lives were safe and secure. Those were good times to grow up in, in Trivandrum, and life to them, was simple and for the most part, happy.
Life, being life, had soon enough lost the carefree charm that had spun itself around Treselda Cottage for Ava. Whenever she returned, however briefly, the charm spun itself back, strand by strand, drops of expectation clinging to it like raindrops hanging off the cobweb on the window shade. Waiting to drip down, and spring a surprise. The same anticipation of her teenage years returned, when she had always found herself waiting for the next "thing" to happen.
(To be continued...)
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