Anita stole into her mother's bedroom. Despite the house being empty Anita heightened the secrecy by moving as stealthily as she could. She moved to close the door then changed her mind. It would be easier to hear if someone entered the house. It would also aid her escape. Despite being 18 years of age and a young woman, entering her parents bedroom particularly when they were out of the house made her still feel like a naughty child. She looked guiltily to the heavy draped white netting at the window with its embroidered edging. The house was not overlooked, but she still warily checked to see no one could see she was in the room. Her bare feet sank into the deep pile of the pink carpet, it felt warm tickling up between her toes the static crackling as she checked for unseen observers.
She looked about the room. The decoration was ornate, and fussy, overly fussy. The dressing table and bedside cabinets were each draped with embroidery, the bed itself was piled with cushions over a rich satin cover. She wondered how her parents were ever able to sleep in it, or if they only slept on it. The luxuriance of the cover beckoned, together with the comfort of the big soft cushions. Anita sank into the enveloping comfort. One day she would have a bedroom like this where she could luxuriate and wait in repose for her husband to come and attend to her. Pampering her body whilst she lay resting in a nest of cushions. Feeding on dates or tea, spoiling herself with rich sickly sticky sweets. He'd come and bathe her mouth with a warm cloth, taking the excess sugar away. Then he would attend her with gentle fluttering kisses and she would drift off into a soft sleep until the evening came around.
Laying back Anita looked at the subtle shadows on the ceiling, showing grey against the white. She arranged the cushions about her, getting comfortable on the bed. She peered down the length of her jeans to her silver ankle chain and the rings adorning her purple painted toes beyond. She waggled her feet arranging them like a rifle sight. Through the opening she aligned her eyes to her mother's wardrobe she could see the silk suits and sari lengths all hanging protected under polythene covers. The bright colours drew her eye, alongside the radiant silks her western clothes seemed drab and lifeless hanging like vacuous ghosts. Anita's own wardrobe looked similar to that, with western and eastern clothes combining. But hers were less segregated, favoured clothes hung together, dirty clothes lay on the floor, worn clothes were almost everywhere in total chaos or so her mother thought.
Anita hugged a cushion close to her resting it over her flat abdomen. From the dressing table her parents smiled out at her from their wedding photograph. The picture was taken outside a registry office. Dad wore a suit and tie, whilst mum wore a rich gold and red sari. She had long jet black hair then like Anita's, her father's hair was thick and wavy, reaching down and over his collar. It was hard to envisage the businessman with his neat short hair thinning chain grey, and chain of chemist shops to his name was the same awkward man in the picture. You could only tell from the warmth within his eyes. They looked very happy in the picture, they and their assorted friends. Anita knew of the pain behind the picture, the families who had not wanted them to marry, who would not share the joy of their wedding celebration.
Anita's mum Valerie had always been rebellious in her youth. She had dreamed of backpacking across India studying the culture and religion first hand. There she met Jumahl on holiday from Birmingham. The thrill of the romance and the hardships they endured were all detailed in Valerie's diaries. Each of them being abandoned by their families, who felt the children had betrayed their family traditions. The loneliness of prejudice and the strength of good friends and family allies were all recounted. The way they worked together strengthening their marriage, getting by and making do, until Anita their first child was born. The golden child who broke the family barriers. Jumahl or Jeff as he always introduced himself proudly showed his daughter to his eager cousins. They christened her the little princess, and she came to be treated that way.
Anita brushed her hair from off her face and turned reaching over the bed, she opened the drawer to her mother's bedside chest. Reaching into the drawer, Anita's slim hands burrowed under her mother's underwear and slid out the box containing the diaries. Even as a little girl Anita had been aware of her mother's diaries but it was only by accident she had discovered their hiding place. Her dad would never consider looking there. He was a great respecter of his wife's privacy, he would never enter into what he referred to her as her intimate things. Although the diaries revealed her dad was kept familiar with most of the contents of the drawer, and how they looked on her mother's body.
Anita lifted the lid to the box and spread out the cloth bound volumes onto the bed. She was looking for the early one, the older one. The pages were a little stiffer than the rest, the perfume on them smelt richer, deeper with age. The top notes had disappeared and all that remained was a solid scent of exotic flowers and a little ginger, slightly sweet, without an acid bite. She found the diary, red with small gold thread embroidery. Even the colour was exotic, before she opened the cover to release the trapped scents. She looked at the bedside clock. She had time. She could read the whole entry from beginning to end. She knew every word, everything that happened there in. She had memorised the whole event and dreamed of it in her bed at night. She still took pleasure, from the thrill of holding the pages in her hand. Following the excited sweeping swirls of her mother's hand as the words were impressed into the page. She could feel the giddying emotion, the passion as she wrote. Each flourish each swirl, each indent registered against her fingers sending little flurries of emotion into her body.
Collecting back all the unwanted diaries, Anita arranged them into order, ready to return to the box. She did not want to be surprised, caught, or later discovered to have been tampering with the diaries. She did not want to lose the source, the insight of her mother as a woman. A young woman just like Anita, on a journey of enlightenment which brought her love. Anita slipped the box and its contents off the bed placed them ready to slide back into their hiding place. Rolling onto her front she settled the cushions once more, placing one between her legs. She gripped it hard with her thighs releasing the tension in her body. Then finally wriggling into position she delicately opened the diary turning to her favourite page.
Now the time of Jeff's departure for England is approaching he has stopped asking me to return with him. I am both sad and relieved at the same time. Since he rescued me in the market surrounded in my naivety by beggars, we have explored India together. In a few short weeks we have grown as close as any two people can. I do not want to be without him but I cannot return to England yet. To return now would be to abandon a life long ambition in mid path.
