Pink

Pink

Rose had an ethereal beauty, not appreciated by everyone. She wore her white hair in gelled tufts, neatly arranged in a grid affect, all over her scalp. This gave her the appearance of a marble pineapple. She had long ago given up trying to wear make-up. Whatever she put on her translucent skin made her look like a clown. She had even stopped darkening her lashes and brows, preferring, instead, to rely on her startling complexion to cast its own spell.

Because her eyes were sensitive to light, she wore rose-tinted spectacles. The rimless, cerise lenses complimented her brilliance and gave her a modern, art-school image. She enjoyed using colour in her clothing. The lime-green and pink flowers on her favourite sleeveless dress reverberated and interfered with each other in a mesmerising way. Around her neck was a cerise silk scarf, tied loosely so that the long fronds of silk, floated around her as she moved. Her french-manicured nails, long and elegant, had a perfect, milky gloss. Shapely white legs shimmered in colourless silk stockings. She wore pink, nubuck pumps A narrow strap across each instep was fastened with a large pearlised-green button.

Rose was a teacher of mathematics. One day, on the way to school, her car began to make a strange, ticking noise. She continued to school but was relieved when she pulled into the car park at the same time as the technology and engineering teacher, Tom Williams.

"Tom, will you come and listen to this?" she called over the roof of her car to him. She had not switched off the engine and the clicking sound could still be heard. Tom waved acknowledgement and after carefully locking his car door, he sauntered over to the little solferino VW.

"What's the matter? Is it rattling?" He asked, indulgently. He listened. "Ah," he stood up straight, "It's pinking. A common disorder caused by bad timing. I'll sort it out at lunchtime. Nothing to worry about, my dear. Leave it to me." Rose smiled and thanked her knight in shining armour. She knew he would become insufferable after he had done her the great service of fixing her pinking. She decided that she would head him off by being super-super grateful which would embarrass him into silence over the matter.
"Oh, Tom, you are so clever. It took you just a moment to know exactly what to do. Thank you, so much. I'll leave it in your capable hands." She treated him to a look over her tinted glasses. He felt a strange shudder as his brown eyes met her pink ones, fringed, as they were, with white lashes. She snapped her heavy bag onto her shoulder and turned to walk to the main entrance. Tom found himself, trotting to keep up with her. She was almost as tall as he was. She had a professional, smart stride which contrasted starkly with his ungainly scramble. Most women made him feel awkward, but Rose made him feel more awkward that most. It was because he was repulsed and fascinated by her.

Rose had recently been promoted. She was no longer helping years seven and eight to tread water, while their bodies reorganised themselves. There was nothing more boring than teaching mathematics to pubescent children. They could not absorb anything more complex than measuring angles and they smelt so bad. The older children in years nine and ten were far more stimulating. She was teaching by turbo-charger. It was Rose's duty to have her students sprinting when they hit the ground for their GCSE examinations at the end of year eleven. The previous two years, having been entirely wasted, these students had to really cram it in. The pervading aroma in the classroom was now, designer colognes and cigarette smoke. She marched into her classroom and gently placed her pile of exercise books on the desk. The gang of shaven-headed boys lounging on on a few front desks, dispersed to individual stations along the right hand side of the room. Girls, gossiping at the back, dashed, dramaticaly to their seats. Floppy-haired cool dudes, who had been discussing their latest riffs and gigs, ambled, with hands in pockets, to their preferred positions and they all waited expectantly for Rose to speak.

Rose gazed out, through her pink glasses. In a moment of insecurity she wondered what they thought of her. The moment passed. She turned to the white board, and , in red marker, she wrote, "Rational Numbers" . She then began to hand out the exercise books.

At lunchtime, Rose slipped out of school. She took the footpath which skirted the playing fields and led through a narrow avenue of hawthorn bushes, past the rear of the health centre, to the small group of shops, clustered at the junction of two suburban roads. She nipped into the mini-market and selected an expensive bottle of sparkling rose wine, a gift for Tom Williams, for repairing her car. As she wandered back along the may-blossom scented track, she allowed herself to relax a little. The creamy flowers seemed like foam on the hedges. She inhaled the heady fragrance and smiled. Warm spring sun enhanced her glow. Sun! She suddenly panicked. It was the middle of the day, and she had spent far too long in the sun. She glanced down at her snow-white arms. They looked fine, but she would suffer later. She pulled her scarf from around her neck and stretching it as wide as it would go, she wrapped it around her shoulders and upper arms. Panting and damp, she arrived back at school five minutes later. She rushed to her locker and scrabbled inside it, looking for her sun-block cream. Her mother's voice echoed in her head, "There's no use locking the stable door after the horse has bolted." but it seemed the only thing she could do. She smeared the thick, greasy ointment all over her arms and neck. She could leave her face because she always wore a sunblock on her face. Putting sun block on her face was the finale to every morning's ablusions.

The genetic accident which had caused Rose's albinism was due to an error which caused her body to be incapable of processing an amino acid, called tyrosine. Most of us use tyrosine to make melanin. This is the pigment in our skin, the most important function of which, is to protect us from the ultra-violet rays of the sun. The gene is recessive, so both Rose's parents carried the gene without showing any signs of albinism themselves. Rose could have perfectly normal children unless, she had them, with an albino man or someone who was carrying the gene. One in seventeen thousand people had her form of albinism but she had never met one of them. She had, of course, seen photographs and someone in a crowd, but never had she actually spoken to or shaken the hand of another albino person.

In the staff room, Rose, made quite a show of thanking Tom for his attentions to her car, and handed him the bottle of delecately-hued wine. This had the desired effect of making Tom blush and bow his head.

"It was nothing, really. Thank you." he spluttered and he turned to go to the geyser to make himself a mug of coffee. "Would you like a drink, Rose?" he asked, after a few steps. She nodded and strode alongside him to the coffee-making bench, in the corner of the barn-like room. She would make coffee and then spend the rest of the lunch break, marking books.

She was tired when she got home, to her first floor flat in an old victorian house. The house was silent, as it often was. It was still quite bright, although it was past seven o'clock. Rose unwrapped a meal from the freezer and slammed it into the fan-assisted oven. The purr of the appliance was comforting and familiar. She rinsed a large crystal goblet with Angostura Bitters and then added ice and a generous shot of Gordon's gin. Taking her drink in one hand she picked up, an already-open book, (the Penguin edition of Grey Area by Will Self) with the other. She pushed open the terrace doors with her foot. The evening sun was gentle and warm. She placed the book, open pages downwards, on the small hardwood table next to her chair and, sipping her gin, she watched the scene. In this suburban enclave, she had the benefit of lusicous greenery. There was an oak, a sycamore and a row of conifers just behind her house. In the winter she could see into the rear windows of houses that backed onto hers, but now they were screened by the leaves of the oak. Above the trees and in the distance, she could see the purple mounds of the Pennines. Above them, was a blue sky streaked with two, intersecting contrails.

Her reverie was interrupted by the ring of the doorbell. It was Tom Williams.

"I just popped round to check that the car had got you home safely. " He offered her a small bunch of dianthus, wrapped in cellophane with serrated edges. They were the sort sold at petrol stations and had "Guaranteed for ten days!" emblazoned on the wrapper.

"Thank you, how kind." Rose replied as she took the flowers. "Come in. I had just poured myself a drink. Would you like one?" She led him down the hall, over the geometric tiles and up the carpeted stairs to her own front door, which was still open. The still evening air had not caused it to bang shut, as it would have done on a more windy night. Beyond the tidy, rustic-style kitchen, the terrace basked in the sunshine. "Come an sit outside with me." She invited.

Tom scampered after her, and noticing which chair had not been occupied, he settled himself gratefully. He had not expected such an open welcome. Was it possible that she liked him? The meal in the oven was ready and the light, behind the glass door went out. The gentle humming stopped,

"Would you like to share some salmon en croute? There's plenty." Rose offered. The nicer she was, the sooner he would forget the whole incident with the car. Her, required, obligation would be quenched.

"Well, I haven't eaten, and that sounds good. Thanks." He answered her. She handed him a glass, like her own, of pink gin on the rocks.

The salmon, with the addition of some tender-leaf salad, filled two small plates. Over the meal Tom raised the subject of her albinism.

"I've always wanted to ask, if your condition will stop you having children." He did not seem to find the question difficult to ask. Rose sat up straight and looked, steadily, at him. She felt rage rise up in her but valiently, she kept an impassive mask on her face. How ignorant people were. If he had always wanted to know, whay hadn't he looked it up on the web? She placed her hands flat on the table on either side of her plate, and answered him with icy sweetness,

"Only in the same way as your ungainly lumbering and unattractive facial features may prevent you from having them." she simpered. Tom was immediately mortified. He dropped his cutlery with a clatter. His face, always a healthy pink, became puce. Rose waited, coldly, for his reaction.

"Ha." he seemed to be laughing. "Ha ha." he forced out the sounds. "Very arch. Very good. I deserved that. Ha ha. Well done." he picked up his knife and fork, and cutting a piece of pink salmon wrapped in golden pastry, he popped it into his mouth. "Oh , my God! " thought Rose, "This is going to be more difficult than I had expected."