The Doll by Alessia Galatini

The Doll

BY ALESSIA GALATINI ILLUSTRATED BY HANNAH PHILLIPS

It started like a joke, a gateway thought. A human-sized doll of myself. I could build it from scratch. I used to be a glass artist after all, with a degree in engineering.

Sure, it would take effort and skills and a lot of hiding and lying, but it could work. It’s funny, really. Maybe if they stopped shaming men for playing with dolls when they’re children, they wouldn’t feel the need to treat women as dolls when they’re adults. But since they do, I would only be fulfilling that need: why stay and play the doll, when I could leave him an actual doll to play with? I’d be doing both of us a favour. When I started picturing her, she was carved out of boiling glass, with magenta-stained lips and cutting cheekbones. Smooth. Smoother than skin. Flawless. A new woman, woman-made. If I stared long enough into her eyes, she was almost back to being just a mirror. She’d have my name of course. Nina. She wouldn’t be me, however. There would be no need for me to leave, if that was the case. More like Nina 2.0.

How can I force them, you say, how can I force anyone to be stuck in this place I so desperately want to leave? Well, this Nina is colder. She isn’t born, she is built to fit, and if she cracks, she won’t feel it. I’d still let her bleed once a month. God forbid he doesn’t have anything to blame when she does something wrong. As if Nina could be emotional. God forbid I don’t give her a break from the fucking.

Nina never hurts when she walks in heels. Nina smells like lavender all day. When

the children call, Nina will smile and ask, “Children, what do you need? Tell me everything.” Nina won’t think that the whistling of the kettle sounds like a train rushing in front of her, disappearing before she has a chance to jump in front of it. Nina won’t think about spilling the scalding hot water on her children’s heads until the skin boils off their bones and they drop dead, finally quiet. Nina, Nina, Nina. Sing them to sleep, Nina. Really, it was just an idea. Unfathomable mostly. But then loneliness pushed me towards a new corner of desperation. The afternoons are long spaces to fill, when one quits ironing.

Now that she’s here, solid and seated in front of me, I am no longer sure what I should tell her. She is beautiful, more than any version of myself I have ever seen in the glass of mirrors. I sculpted her out of my flaws.

“You’re Nina,” I state then, unsure whether that’s an order or a realisation. “I’m Nina,” she repeats. Her voice sounds almost like mine, except it’s deeper. More sensual. I can barely contain myself from hugging her. “You are going to save my life.” “I am going to save your life,” she says dutifully. It’s been almost two months, and on the good days I tell myself I’ll do it. I’ve taught Nina 2.0 everything there is to know. She can fool them. My husband, the children. She’s programmed to do everything I do, but better. Even the way she folds the bread over the slice of ham. And I think the key is that the thousands pieces of bread I folded before that one will never weight on her the way they did on me.

I painted every corner of hers to resemble me, slowly realising I had forgotten how to take care Of myself properly. I have thick purple veins scarring my legs, an ass butchered by fat skin and saggy tits. I couldn’t bring myself to ruin her. It’s not like anyone really looks at the me under these clothes. At the very worst, my husband will appreciate the improvements and fuck her more often. Maybe without shoving her face into the carpet. Yeah, maybe. I wonder what my parents would think of this doll. She does walk with her back straight, she smiles when you tell her to smile. She’s the me that could have had it all. I hate her. On the worst days, I want to tear her to pieces and use the shattered glass to – One time, when my husband spent the night out, I brought her into bed with me. I know now I shouldn’t have. I wanted to kiss her, when I saw the way her body shifted smoothly under the covers, like it belonged there. Like a mermaid in foam of sheets. I almost did. She was staring at me, wrinkles

shining and eyes wide. I could never love myself. But her, I loved her so much I began to love myself for allowing her to exist.

“What are you going to do once I take your place?” I programmed her to ask me that once in a while, just so I don’t forget what my purpose is. “I don’t know,” I say. Isn’t that amazing? “I can drive, so I was thinking about renting a car and going somewhere where people won’t know who I am. I want to see a fountain. It’s ridiculous that there’s not even a fountain nearby.” She doesn’t reply anymore and goes back to folding socks. I want to see a fountain. I want to leave this place behind. She’s ready. I don’t have anymore excuses. I am making the two of them meet today. I slither out of bed just before sunrise and open the closet. I’ve hidden her in there. It’s just a small signal, a nod. She gets it and in an instant I become the hidden one, observing my life unfolding in front of me, from the little space between the closet doors. Nina goes over to the bed and bows to give him a kiss on the cheek.

“Good morning love,” she greets him. He mumbles as he wakes up and smiles, pleasantly surprised.

“I’m gonna get you some breakfast,” she adds. He even strokes her face. Does he really think I could ever love him like that? She comes back a few minutes later, perfect in her backlit nightgown. She’s carrying a tray with… Oh wow. Toast, jam, even fresh orange juice. That’s what I call effort. He grabs it and dips his face in it. No thank you, no

“Would you like some, dear?”. What else is new. But Nina stays there: upright, untouched. Even when he grabs her leg at the end, with his hands still sticky and dirty, she leans in. She puts both her hands around his face and dives into the kiss like it’s the best she ever had. And no later than a couple minutes, he’s shoving himself inside her. It’s uncomfortable to watch. She’s hurting. She must be hurting. And yet she lies there because unlike me she never wanted something more than an average fuck from an average man. When he’s done, he gets up, Panting.

“Time for work,” he says and grabs the clothes carefully folded on the chair. When I hear the door shut behind him, I shiver. It’s done. It’s done. It’s done. “Breakfast. I have to make the children breakfast.” But Nina knows. She gets up and

moves into the kitchen. I follow her. She takes the bread, cuts the crust, puts it in the toaster. She’s already cleaning the counter from the crumbs. I hear scampering down the stairs. They’re coming. I hide. They scatter around the table like hoppers, their squealing voices bothering me even if I don’t have to deal with them. “What’s for breakfast mummy?” “Eggs on toast, darling. Your favourite,” Nina replies. “Why aren’t they ready yet?” he insists. “I don’t like eggs mum,” the second child jumps in. “I don’t like toast,” the third one nails it. Nina hands the first plate. “I never said I made eggs on toast for everyone,” she sings, as if she might burst into song were she any happier.

“Toast and fig jam for you.” She hands the second plate, and I notice the jam is spread to form a smiley face.

“And chocolate cookies for you.” Well, at least she has made them shut up.

She even gets a thank you. That’s a record. This is what they want then. Someone to bribe them, to give without complaining. Isn’t that what all mums should be like? A life devoted to make someone else’s favourite food. Nine times a day, in this case. After breakfast, Nina carefully tends to their dressing up, tying their shoelaces and zipping up their jackets, pulling the hats jokingly over their little faces. It’s such a perfect picture. Then, once they’re gone, I’m left to stare at her. To the way she goes to pick up the broom to clean after them. And after the cleaning comes the ironing, and the white shirt, the blue shirt, the purple jacket, the green socks, the white socks, the other white socks, the work trousers, the pj trousers, the towels, the silver sheets, the pink sheets, the blue sheets, the school uniform, the panties, the bras, the boxers, the slips. I tell her to take a break after that. She sits on the couch, as the washing machine rumbles in the background.

“What should I do now?” she asks. “I don’t know. Read a book maybe? Whatever you like.” “I don’t know what I like.”

I used to like reading but I don’t anymore. It’s too painful to get lost in stories that are so much more wonderful than my own. Stories that will never belong to me. What I can do is create them. Make them mine. Just the way I created Nina. Nina who will

stay while I leave. Nina who will watch me fill a bag with all the things I care about enough not to leave behind. Nina who will smile as I walk out, thanking me for giving birth to her in hell and deserting her. Nina who will learn to know this house like the back of her hand just like I did, to the point where she could walk around blindfolded and not bump into anything, but that doesn’t mean this house wouldn’t hurt her. It doesn’t mean that.

And I’ll stop thinking about her at some point, while I’m driving down country roads with long dirty hair, screaming “screw the children” as loud as I can. I’ll see a fountain, I’ll see a hundred fountains, and I’ll cook my favourite food and it will be as if these years of darkness never even touched me.

I just have to leave her in charge. I just have to go so far back inside myself that I can fool myself I have a life while she lives out mine. So when I go back to putting clothes on the line, and I cook three different dinners, and I fight with screaming children until they collapse, exhausted, I am gone. When I crawl back to bed tonight, and his sweaty hands close around me, I am gone. It’s all Nina.

I’m watching a fountain as they fall asleep. I have made myself into what they wanted, re-built myself to fit. Now I won’t feel it when the doll cracks.

COMMENTARY

“I was trying my damnedest to lead a conventional life, for that was how I was brought up, and It was what my husband wanted of me. But one can’t build little white picket fences to keep the nightmares out.” This quote from Anne Sexton provided a real starting point for the development of my story. She, as well as Sylvia Plath, contributed to the Confessional movement by providing a new point of view and new settings: poetry is no longer a journey just inside their heads, but inside their bodies, female bodies, and their house as well – a place that they, as wives, mothers and women, experienced in a profoundly different manner than any of their contemporary male writers. And these three elements blend together to form a peculiar new narrative about the effect this life had on their mental health.

However, as Waters points out in her essay (2015), Sexton struggled with the definition of “confessional poet”, as that seemed to imply that she was writing about herself. Although she did write about women, and housewives, and used a narrative voice with struggles that could appear her own, she often wrote about things that never happened to her, such as the death of a brother. I was then drawn to this gap between the writer and the narrative voice, which Colburn (1998) described as, “Miss Sexton’s continuing and largely unsuccessful struggle to escape the image of herself which dominates and in a sense pollutes her projections of future possibility. (…) She is dissatisfied with her performance as mother and wife, though the demands she lays on herself are hardly conventional.”

And here is where the conflict is born. A conflict that I tried to convey in my story by using those symbols that recur in many of her poems: the doll, the double self, the mirror, the idea of beauty. Some lines from her poems especially stuck out, such as: “To the me / who stepped on the noses of dolls / she couldn’t break” and “Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself”, which convey the resentment towards certain expectations, while still placing the blame mostly on herself. Another interesting aspect is the potential universality of her works: although she is talking of the consequences of her own mental health and situation, she is tapping into a greater discourse about gender roles and women’s place in society. For example, she implies in her poem “To John, who begs me not to enquire any further” that the readers’ discomfort at her struggles might be very well a sign that they recognise something of themselves in those words. Hence my choice to not have any names, locations or dates in the story. Only the narrative voice is named, everything else is for the reader to place according to their bias.

In terms of style, I worked with repetition to convey the dullness and monotony of a depressed housewife’s day, both through the language and through the focus on small tasks that seem insignificant but become much heavier when one has to perform them all the time. I also wanted to render the house uncanny and make common objects a source for very dark thoughts.

About The Book

This project is the second volume of a collaboration in writing, design, illustration and publishing between staff and students from two creative disciplines in The Cass – the writers of the English Literature and Creative Writing department, and the illustrators and graphic designers of the Visual Communication department.

Staff leading the project were Angharad Lewis (Lecturer in Visual Communication and Course Leader Design for Publishing), Alistair Hall (Lecturer in Visual Communication), and Trevor Norris (Course Leader English Literature and Creative Writing). The design of the book and its illustrations were developed by students in 2017/18 Visual Communication studio, Ellipsis. The students worked in teams to research, develop and pitch the typographic design and layout of the book, with successful ideas being developed to create the final design. Each student was paired with a piece of writing from the book, to design and print an individual visual response to it. These sets of visual work were then refined into illustrations for the book. All the visual response artworks were exhibited during the Summer Show at The Cass in June 2018, alongside readings by the writing students of the poetry, prose and critical writing featured in Anthology II.

About The Cass

The Cass (The Sir John Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design; London Metropolitan University) provides high quality Foundation, Degree and Postgraduate education at purpose built workshops and studios in Aldgate. There is a strong emphasis on socially engaged Architecture, Art and Design applied to both local and global contexts, a school wide interest in making and many projects focus on aspects of London.

Students at The Cass are encouraged to learn through practice, experiment with process and gain real-world experience in both individual and collaborative projects, engaging with professionals, communities and companies.

Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the dedication and creative energy of the many staff and students of the English Literature & Creative Writing and Visual Communication departments who have contributed.

Grateful thanks goes to Andy Stone, Christopher Emmett and Susanna Edwards at The Cass for their ongoing support the Anthology project.

And special thanks goes to Alyson Hurst of GF Smith for her invaluable advice about paper, and to the staff at The Print Centre, London Metropolitan University.