Interior Design
Photo Credit: Jo Minhinnett
Alison knew there were things in the house that she could touch. There was an ivory teacup with yellow flowers on the sides and the ledge of a window that became less bright as the day wore on. Now in the late evening she could only see the window’s strong rectangular outline, and she wondered if the pane was there at all or if it was simply her memory holding the image upon the curving surface of her eyes.
She was allowed to touch a wooden metronome that sat on the mantel. Although she was small, she was able to pull a stool alongside the fireplace and release the pendulum. Back—forth—back—forth it went. Slow at first. Then, she reset the metal bar so that the pendulum swung faster, catching the tempo in her body, but moving too fast for her sight. She saw it move left and then swing to the right, and she wondered how it had arrived there without any moments in between. She wondered what song she had been singing in her head in the time that it had swung from one side to the other, or if she had in fact been humming the tune aloud.
She could also touch the objects in her purse—a sliver of nice-smelling soap, a handkerchief with the letters K.P. neatly embroidered on the corner, and a ceramic figurine of a boy holding a rolling pin.
Then there were things she couldn’t touch: the dog bowl, a box of mothballs in the front closet, Mother’s collection of perfume bottles, Father's slippers, a bronze horse on the mantel, and the list went on. She didn’t remember who had told her these things, and she wondered if she always knew them. She remembered the list as patches of colour and distinct smells from which she kept a measured distance. She was the keeper of these rules, and when a playmate would come over, she would say something like, “Caroline, we’re not allowed to touch that,” and Caroline would nod her head gravely.
Then there was a list of things she had never touched but no one said if it was okay or not:
the umbrella stand
a water lilies picture
a piece of candy cane under the sofa
the blinds (they were too high to reach)
a stack of mail that sat neatly beside the fruit bowl
She had often touched a reflection of herself in the hallway mirror. Sometimes when she ran by it, it wasn’t there. But if she stopped, she could see the whole clear outline of herself. Although, she was never sure that it was exactly her. The mirror her was the same size, shape, and colour. She had the same shadows under her eyes. Her sweater was a rectangle of blue, and her lips were a thinner rectangle of red. Her face had small flecks from the sun. Yet, no matter how hard she pressed her hands on the surface, the breathing shape in front of her seemed distant, and she would run away feeling a little frightened.
As Alison grew older, her lists grew too. She was tall enough to adjust the window blinds so that she could lie in a smooth ream of dark, make repeating lines across her desk, or let lines fall diagonally across the floorboards. On Sunday afternoons, when she stood up after long hours of studying, she suddenly found that the lines had moved to the other side of the room and though she had grown, these things continued to shift themselves out of plain sight.
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