Sunstroke And Other Stories
“Hilary Culvert was wearing a new purple skirt, a drawstring crêpe blouse and navy school cardigan, and over them her school mac, because it was the only coat she had. The year was 1972. In the toilets at Oxford bus station where they were allowed to get out she had sprayed on some perfume and unplaited her hair. She worried that she smelled of home. She didn’t know quite what home smelled like, as she still lived there and was used to it; but when her sister Sheila had come back from university... for Christmas she had complained about it.
—You’d think with all these children, Sheila had said, —that at least the place would smell of something freshly nasty. Feet or sweat or babies or something. But it smells like old people. Mothballs and Germolene: who still uses mothballs apart from here?
Hilary had been putting Germolene on her spots; this was the family orthodoxy. She put the little tube aside in horror. Sheila had looked so different, even after only one term away. She had always been braver about putting on a public show than Hilary was: now she wore gypsy clothes, scrumpled silky skirts and patchwork tops with flashing pieces of mirror sewn in.MoreLess
—You’d think with all these children, Sheila had said, —that at least the place would smell of something freshly nasty. Feet or sweat or babies or something. But it smells like old people. Mothballs and Germolene: who still uses mothballs apart from here?
Hilary had been putting Germolene on her spots; this was the family orthodoxy. She put the little tube aside in horror. Sheila had looked so different, even after only one term away. She had always been braver about putting on a public show than Hilary was: now she wore gypsy clothes, scrumpled silky skirts and patchwork tops with flashing pieces of mirror sewn in.MoreLess
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