The Eunuch's Ward (The String Quartet) (6 page)

We’d had two rounds each when Rosie called for another toast.

‘To being seventeen,’ she proposed. ‘Sonata, why don’t you tell your precious Mungo that he owes you a full year of legal bonking.’

‘Tell who?’ asked Asha.

‘Legal what?’ asked Ela.

I cast a sharp look at Rosie. ‘Ignore her, Asha. There was that lad, Ringo, who, well, you can imagine...’

‘Ah,’ Asha laughed. ‘The only Mungo that I’ve ever heard of was Mungo Steen... For a minute I thought that you were planning to make love to a lexicon.’

‘Mungo Steen?’ Ela made a face. ‘Sounds like a tropical fruit.’

‘I wasn’t talking love,’ Rosie started but my quick kick to her ankle made her switch to a different track. ‘Let’s see. Asha’s approaching eighteen. Ela and I were seventeen last month. Sonata, the baby, is seventeen today. My question to us all is, are all the four of us still virgins?’

‘I’ll always be a virgin,’ said Ela. ‘I saw my eldest brother’s and cousin’s willies when they went swimming last summer. I was hiding not five feet from them but they didn’t see me. They’re about twenty four. Oh my God,’ she hastily crossed herself, ‘you should see what those things look like. They are huge. Huge, I tell you...’

‘Can I have your brother’s email, Ela?’ Rosie laughed. ‘Or the cousin’s? I’m not fussy.’ That was typical of Rosie. She threw out lines because they sounded good, very much the way her parents did it regularly on stage.

‘Doesn’t it worry you, Rosie, that their cocks jumped to that size with just the two of them around?’ Asha raised her eyebrows comically.

‘I wouldn’t allow something like that inside me. It would tear me apart.’ Ela ignored Asha’s insinuations and shuddered at the memory.

‘Personally, I can’t wait. You’ll change your mind pretty soon, too, Ela.’ I said reassuringly. ‘Rosie and I felt the same as you for a long time, but it’s a different story now. Isn’t it, Rosie?’

She nodded curtly. ‘How about you, Asha? Have you ever had a man inside you?’

‘No,’ Asha said quietly, ‘no, I’ve never had a man inside me.’

I looked at Rosie but she was filling her gob with the cherry liqueurs. Ela pulled the box with Belgian truffles within her reach.

I topped up our glasses. ‘Who did you have inside you, Asha? A woman?’

Ela giggled. Rosie pricked her ears.

‘No, not exactly inside me, but...’

‘You and another girl were feeling each other?’ Ela’s jaw dropped disclosing melting remains of a half eaten truffle.

‘No, not quite,’ Asha smiled mysteriously. ‘I think that we’re all drunk and incapable of rational thinking. Maybe this isn’t the right time. We, all of us, may regret saying or doing too much...’

‘Doing?’ Ela blinked and sat up. ‘Like what?’

‘Now look who’s excited,’ Rosie pointed a finger at her. ‘A minute ago you were scared stiff of the very thought of sex. Now you’re hoping for the chance of actually having it.’

‘No, I’m not,’ Ela protested, sulkily. ‘I’m not.’

Asha uncoiled herself from the floor. That was the first time that I had a good, long look at her.

Ela and Rosie were pretty, with neat little bodies, nice legs and perky breasts. Their cheeks had retained some of the roundness of baby fat. Even though all the three of us had stopped growing a year or two ago, we still suffered from occasional lack of grace and full coordination.

Asha, on the other hand, was a woman. Very slim, almost wiry. Graceful. Self-contained. I couldn’t believe that I’d never noticed any of that before. Her face was what’s often called handsome. Defined. A forever face. I focused my attention on her eyes. For that was where she dwelled, in those dark tarns that could have harboured ships of souls in their depths. I was reminded of a haunting and passionate Russian song that Bakir often sung as he played his balalaika.

Dark and burning eyes, dark as midnight skies

Full of passion’s flames, full of danger’s games.

Oh, no, not for nothing you’re darker than the deep!

His unpolished translation added mystery to the lyrics.

Rosie was on her feet too, albeit not too steadily. ‘Bubbly doesn’t keep.’ She divided what little was left in the magnum between us. ‘When shall we four meet again?’

‘It’s not when, it’s if. I’ll never ever drink again. I may not survive this.’ Ela dived into the bathroom.

* * *

Asha was right. In the days that followed all the four of us felt awkward. Champagne had a curious effect on me. I felt that I could recall each moment and every word with perfect clarity, and yet, the memories floated back in the shape of icebergs with much too much out of sight.

‘Do you think she’s gay?’ Rosie sat next to me in the library.

Most people listened to their iPods. There was little chance of being overheard.

‘Asha?’

‘Yes, of course Asha. I’m not and you’re not. Little Ela wouldn’t have the guts. Or the imagination...’

‘I don’t think that’s what it takes...’

Rosie shrugged her shoulders impatiently. ‘Is she, though?’

‘I don’t know. Does it matter?’

She looked at me in disbelief. ‘Of course it matters. I’m not saying that she’s likely to jump me, but how can we talk about sex with her if she’s...’

‘Oh, c’mon, Rosie. The only difference is in the tools.’

She produced a chocking sound, coughed and burst out laughing.

Heads turned. We ran out.

In the end, Eleanor String herself came to the rescue. Her daughter, actually. She’d stayed over in her mother’s top floor flat and left the water on in the bathroom. Five bedrooms on the floor below had to be evacuated because the ceilings nearly fell in. As a result, Asha and Rosie had to bunk with me for a night.

‘There’s no way that I’m going to miss out on this,’ Ela cast her eye around to assess possibilities. ‘If them two are sharing the sofa bed, I’ll just have to hop in with you, Nat. It’s a double bed and I’m only little.’ She moved a couple of pillows to the bottom end of the bed to get us in a head-to-toe position. ‘Go on, Asha, tell us. We’re dying to know.’

Rosie and I giggled.

‘Better out than in,’ I declared in my position of a hostess.

‘I’ve always spent the best part of the summer holidays back home, out in the country. It’s a beautiful place, you must come to visit one day, you’ll love it...’

‘Cut to the chase, child,’ Rosie interrupted, deadly serious.

‘All right, all right,’ Asha laughed. She didn’t seem embarrassed or uncomfortable. ‘My siblings are much older than me. In such cases, it’s traditional for parents to hire a companion of appropriate age...’

‘I think I know what’s coming,’ said Rosie.

Asha nodded. ‘You probably do. My parents hired Havva, the daughter of a family of tenants on the estate. I was twelve, she was fourteen, in other words, she was putting her dowry together.’

‘She needed money for the dowry?’ I asked.

‘That too, I imagine, but mostly she was sewing and embroidering new bedding, towels, tablecloths, her own nightwear, that kind of thing. The idea was that she would teach me embroidery, sewing, lace making, all those skills that I hope I’ll never need, and that I would help her improve on her education. She was to be married to a primary school teacher and she wanted to get closer to his level. Anyway,’ Asha reached for an orange and started to peel it, ‘I’d only just started my periods and she was telling me about that, and how that meant that I’d become fertile, and about marriage, that side of marriage I mean. Frankly, she didn’t tell me much that I hadn’t already heard elsewhere, and a lot of what she was saying was mixed with religion and local folklore and superstitions. Until she moved to the subject of sexual desire...’

‘Lust,’ Rosie added.

We all giggled.

‘Precisely. Havva taught me how to feel myself and brought me a mirror so I that could see what’s in between my legs,’ Asha shuddered comically there, ‘and that gave me a great idea. There was only a limited range of websites that I could reach from my own computer, but my parents were away at the time so I powered up my Dad’s laptop and typed ‘penis’ into the browser. Have you ever done that?’

We all nodded.

‘Then you know what I found,’ she continued. ‘Some of those porn videos are really good quality and very detailed, you can see exactly what’s going on. The acted groans were repulsive but when people made authentic recordings of themselves and their partners you can tell just how excited they were and how much they were enjoying themselves. That was the bit that I was mostly interested in. After three days, watching people bonk each other in different positions can become repetitive, to be honest, but the urge itself, the power of the orgasm, that fascinated me.’

I can’t tell you how impressed I was by her. She was made to talk about what’s often a sordid subject, certainly among young adults torn between curiosity, guilt, and the fear of being found out, and she made it anything but sordid.

‘I didn’t like feeling myself. Made me shudder. Then one afternoon Havva was helping me shower in the garden after a swim. I knew something was going to happen by the way her movements became slower, more deliberate, less about spreading the lather over me than about her palms caressing my breasts, my buttocks and my stomach. I practically stopped breathing when her hand slid in between my legs. She just gently cupped my Venus mound in her palm and held it there...’

‘Was it good?’ Rosie asked quietly.

‘It was incredible. Absurdly, I was reminded of that myth that when a butterfly spreads its wings it causes a devastating storm. It was so gentle and soft, and yet so powerful.’

In the silence I looked at her, stretched out on the sofa bed, her legs casually crossed at the ankles, her arms folded under her head. If she was turned on by her own memories, there was no sign of it. And yet, I think that was the first time that I fully understood the meaning of a coiled spring.

Asha didn’t wait to be asked to continue. ‘The next time, the next day, her caresses were even more detailed, even more provocative. I was suddenly becoming aware of my inner anatomy and what the right touch can do to it. Then she knelt in front of me, parted my thighs, parted my vulva and licked me up and down a few times. Cold water from the shower was spraying all over us, but the space between my legs was literally burning. Even that was nothing compared to what happened next.’

‘She found your clitoris?’ I whispered with a dry mouth.

‘Yes. Expertly. Havva is gay. She had a girlfriend, a neighbour a bit older than her. Havva knew what she was doing. The tip of her tongue played with my clitoris until I had to stuff a towel in my mouth to stop myself from screaming. We couldn’t be seen in that corner, but if I screamed the entire household would have descended on us.’

* * *

It was a little while before we started talking again. Even Ela needed time to recover. I took refuge in making hot chocolate for us all. Its restorative powers brought about some conversation, disjointed and aimless. Eventually, it was Rosie, not Ela who returned to the subject.

Quite delicately.

‘Has Havva married her teacher, then?’

‘No. Her mother died and as the eldest daughter, she had to stay at home and look after her siblings.’

Rosie blinked. ‘She didn’t replace her mother altogether, did she? You hear of such cases...’

Asha shook her head. ‘No, nothing like that. Her father is a lovely man.’

‘So,’ Ela sat up, and I tried to hide a smile, ‘are you a lesbian, Asha?’

I couldn’t help it, I had to laugh. Rosie and Asha joined in. They must have expected the question as well.

‘No, I’m not.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Easy,’ Asha said comfortably. ‘At no point did I want to do to Havva any of the things that she did to me. We never kissed, not that way. I don’t fancy her or any other woman. How can I explain it? Having and enjoying a facial doesn’t make me a beautician.’

We laughed again.

‘I almost feel sorry for the poor girl,’ Ela mumbled into her mug. ‘You never doused her fire.’

‘Asha said that she had a girlfriend. Plenty of opportunity for dousing.’ Rosie looked at Asha, but Asha was busy observing her toes.

Ela answered, I couldn’t hear what.

‘What’s up, Asha? That wasn’t all, was it?’ I asked.

She shrugged.

‘Anything to do with dousing Havva’s fire, by any chance?’ I was teasing her, but not entirely.

‘What else did you do?’ Rosie prompted. ‘Don’t go all shy on us now.’

Asha shrugged, ‘It’s not me that I’m worried about. It’s you. You’ve got preconceptions that would make you think badly about yourselves. Feel bad about yourselves.’

‘Do you?’ Rosie asked. ‘Do you feel bad about yourself?’

‘Not at all,’ Asha cried. ‘Just the opposite. I learned more about sex and about myself from Havva that I would have done if she were a man with needs quite different from mine.’

‘Different how?’

Asha smiled at Ela. ‘I’m still to find that out.’

‘Just tell us what happened between you two. What’s the harm in that?’ I asked in my most ingratiating voice.

Asha got up. ‘Telling wouldn’t do. I’d have to show you. And if I do, if you go along with it, there will be no way back.’

Chapter 7

In mid May i.e. at the start of the study period, Eleanor String brought in the decorators. She positively encouraged us borders to move out and only attend the sessions with our tutors for a few hours twice a week. More if necessary and by arrangement. Rosie’s parents were back in London and only too pleased to have her with them. I asked Asha and Rafaela to share the flat on the Chelsea Embankment with me. They were both willing enough but their parents didn’t think that their daughters should live away from home without adult supervision. None of us felt that the mention of a eunuch and a gay Lebanese couple as guardians would add strength to our side of the argument.