Women Are Bloody Marvellous! And Other Stories

by Betty Burton

  I didn't see the melon-seed girl or her Porgy father for about two months, until one Saturday morning. There was an exhibition of tropical fish in a store in Rosebank, so while John took the children to see the fish, I went to have a look round the shops. It was a freezing morning and I was wrapped in a furry coat. I got right up to the door of the OK before I saw her, but there she was, just as when I had last seen her back in March when the days were still warm. She was still in her cotton shift, standing with one foot tucked up into her thigh. No, not just as she had been, only superficially so. Her brown skin had gone grey, and instead of eagerly looking about for customers, she stood with shoulders hunched. As soon as she saw me her face split into a grin. My warm coat shamed me into fatuity as I caught hold of her hand.

  'You are so cold,' I said.

  Instead of telling me of course anybody would be in that wind, with no shoes and a thin dress, she smiled straight into my eyes. In any B movie of the thirties, the woman would have draped her warm coat round the girl's bony shoulders and the problems of black Africa would have been solved.

  I pointed to the necklaces.

  'How many?'

  'Ten cent.'

  'How many to sell?'

  She shrugged.

  I took a necklace and held up a thumb.

  'One?'

  She nodded.

  I took another and held up a finger.

  'Two?'

  I continued taking necklaces and counting until I held her whole stock.

  'Twenty-five. Yes?'

  She nodded. 'Yes.'

  'Each for ten cents?'

  Another nod.

  'Two rand and fifty cents. Yes?'

  'Yes,' she agreed.

  I gave her the money and told her, 'Now go.'

  She went, giving me a waggling-finger wave as she disappeared into the warmth of the OK store.

  I thrust the necklaces under my shopping. Twenty-five. Most of the things in the bag I had got for Sara who would be waiting at the top of the stairs to take them from me when I got home. I might have dumped the necklaces, but couldn't bring myself to do it, all the effort that had gone into their making — the old working-class upbringing again. I put the problem aside and went into a coffee-bar where I had arranged to meet John and the children.

  When he came in John had his My God! expression on. It usually meant that he had had a brush with the system.

  'Dad bought hundreds...'

  'Drink your Coke!'

  The elder of our two knew when to shut up, but not the other one.

  'But you did, Dad. Lots of beads. Hundreds.'

  John plunged both hands into his overcoat pockets and pulled out a tangled mass of melon-seed necklaces.

  'Well, there was this little kid — blue with cold — out the back of the OK. Nothing on her feet...'

  I expect my expression halted him. I pulled out my bundle of necklaces.

  The children didn't know what to make of our laughter.

  On our way back to the car we told the children not to tell Sara about the necklaces which we would leave in the boot of the car.

  As we rounded the corner there she was.

  Her eyes swivelled from John to me and back again. Then she gave out with her grin.

  When I stopped and put down my bag she looked perplexed, but continued standing with her foot tucked up. I tipped out the tangle of necklaces on to the pavement. She looked mildly curious but, no doubt, she had seen it all from her place at the OK. Never surprised at anything people like me did. I had carte blanche. Hot water sprang from taps inside my house. My bathroom was quite likely as large as her family's living room. A policeman would take my word against hers. I used the 'Blanke toilette', she used the 'Swart'.

  Untangling the necklaces, I hung them separately about her neck. One or two people halted their stride momentarily, wondering what was going on. She watched carefully. When I had finished, I gave her the same sort of waggle of fingers that she had given me earlier and went off into the carpark.

  From that morning on the nature of our deals changed. I would give her ten cents — she would hand me a necklace — I would slip it over her head. The other beggars remained. The child was still exploited by her father. Her father was still a handsome man without legs. The frail hands still appeared from doorways. And the only one of them I could ever look in the eye was the child — but don't ask me why.

  COMMEMORATIVE STONES

  COMMEMORATIVE STONES

  'Sixth June, nineteen hundred and forty-four.'

  Anna reads aloud the date on the memorial stone. An open-shore breeze blows from Portsmouth Harbour, twirling the drapes of her sari about her legs. She has not worn such a dress for almost forty years. Not since 6 June 1944 — D-Day, and she has worn it today only to please her granddaughter, Shalina.

  Anna brought some fine silk from Delhi as a gift for her granddaughter, and Shalina, so pleased at the novelty of being dressed in it, insisted that they walk out together in the traditional dress of their ancestors.

  Sixth June, nineteen hundred and forty-four.

  The year I was eighteen. Still living with Father and Mother in Newtown. Newtown, Barkampur.

  There was a war going on. Evidence of it was everywhere. Young British soldiers and airmen thronged the bazaars in tropical uniform as stiff as beetle cases.

  'Why have they come here?' I asked Father.

  'Anna!' The mock despair and disappointment. 'Why?' The theatrical incredulity. 'You ask "Why?", when India is part of our empire. You, the grandchild of an Englishman from Portsmouth, a man from the same city as Lord Nelson? What have you been doing in school for all these years, haven't they taught you history?'

  'Is this all there is?' Anna asks, holding the silk in place.

  'Yes, Grandma,' says Shalina.

  'It is not very big. I thought it would have been a much grander thing altogether.'

  Shalina looks surprised. The litter-strewn, scruffy little garden with its lump of stone has always been there. A short-cut to the beach and the pier.

  'Grandpa wasn't anything to do with D-Day, was he?'

  'Goodness, no. I was not even then married.'

  'Why did you want to see it, then?'

  Anna gazes at the rough surface of the stone as if to find the answer there. Perhaps because the date was imprinted upon her memory as deeply as upon the stone.

  When the news of the D-Day landings had reached Barkampur, I was sitting on the veranda to get away from Father's continual expounding of battle strategy. I was quite unaware that daylight had gone. I remember stirring the air about my face with a straw fan. For half an hour I succeeded in switching off my mind. I tried to imagine what a night in England must be like. Was it ever like this?

  Father was for ever talking about England, but always about its history: kings and queens, great industries, laws and customs, always leading in the end to the forefathers, the Portsmouth Fletchers. He never talked about its streets or flowers, its markets, its customs. But then Father had never been to that country he claimed as his own. It was from Gordon I had learned what little I knew then about England.

  'Ah, you'd love it,' he said. 'Everything's green. Not like here, not dusty and hard-baked. Our rivers have got real water in them — not the stuff you've got.' In those days the river was a yellow slug at the end of the dry season. Perhaps it still is.

  How indignant I had felt.

  'It is not now at its best. There has been practically no rain for quite some time, in fact it is quite overdue. You must see our river after the rains, it then runs fast. Also it is much wider then.'

  'Ah, I love the funny way you speak,' he had said. Until then I had not known that anybody thought the way I spoke was funny. Of course, I was aware that my accent was different from the whites, the government officials and people like that, but not funny. They spoke with a 'yaw-yaw' jaw. It was different, too, from Indians who spoke English in a variety of rhythms and stresses.

  I asked Father, 'Ho
w did we come to get our accent?'

  'Accent? Accent? Who has said that we have any accent? It is the purest of English.' And when I had mentioned Gordon, he had become irritated.

  'It must be that your young man, because he comes from the north of England, does not recognize the Hampshire accent that our family has retained. It is our heritage, the legacy of my father, your grandfather Fletcher.'

  I started listening closely to the way the British servicemen spoke. Such a variety of pronunciation, but none at all like my own and the rest of the mixed-race population of Barkampur.

  Quarter-master sergeant Gordon Bradley. He had been one of many young airforce men that Mother and Father had invited into our home. They were hospitable people, but I remember how embarrassed I felt upon overhearing Father telling Mother, 'Anna will meet an altogether entirely superior type of young man.'

  Mother had agreed. 'Altogether superior.'

  Gordon was on a more permanent posting in India than most of the young men who visited our bungalow on Sunday afternoons, and gradually we drifted into the position where he was thought of as 'Anna's young airman'.

  'Grandma?' Shalina, holding down her fluttering skirts, stands patiently.

  'Goodness, child. I was miles away. You must be bored, but I should like to stop here just a few minutes longer. Why don't you go and fetch us some ice-cream or some sweets.'

  Shalina, pleased to experiment again with the novelty of wearing the sari, walks off to the pier.

  Anna seats herself on a wooden bench. A bit disturbed, but not able to put her finger on why. She has not much idea of the D-Day expedition, except vaguely as some good item of news on that evening almost forty years ago. She wonders why she does not want to break the mood, but to remember 6 June 1944 in this unattractive corner of the south coast of England, thousands of miles from home.

  She closes her eyes, and the sound of waves on the shingle beach becomes the sound of mortar and pestle, and she remembers an aroma of cumin and pepper and Grandmother Amina preparing food in her tiny kitchen.

  After Grandfather Fletcher had died, Father had paid to have an extension made to our bungalow and Grandmother Amina came to live there with quiet dignity. She dressed, cooked and lived as any Kumar, Chandhuri or Singh grandmother, but she was Mrs Fletcher who lived in the 'granny-annexe' of her pale-skinned son's home, my father's home, my home. A central figure in the Fletcher history, part of it, yet not really belonging.

  Father's attitude to Grandmother Amina was a mixture of pride, affection, and something else he was probably unaware of — he always felt that he had to explain her.

  'She is the woman my father gave up his own country to marry. He loved her more than England.'

  I grew up with a romantic image of Grandfather. Self-imposed exile because of his passion for Amina Battacharia.

  Sixth June, nineteen hundred and forty-four. Yes, that was the date that divided her life, the date on the lump of stone.

  'Why did you want to see it?' young Shalina had asked.

  Suddenly she knows why.

  It was the day I found out who I am.

  I had been lighting the hanging kerosene lamp on the veranda when Father had appeared at the door.

  'We have landed! It will not be very long now.'

  Father had an Indian mother, was brought up in Barkampur and, although an official on the Indian railway, he had never travelled further than the hundred or so miles to Gupkar, yet he always spoke of the British forces as 'we'.

  'It won't be long now, you just see.'

  He went back indoors, leaving me to think. No more putting it off, I had to make up my mind.

  Grandmother Amina was preparing her evening meal and, as she worked, there was a swish of silk and a jingle of bangles and earrings. I remember going to her end of the bungalow, and Grandmother looked up, pleased.

  'Have you come to eat with me?'

  'Not tonight. Perhaps tomorrow.'

  We sat together. Our silence was easy, relaxed. Then Grandmother asked, 'What will you tell the young man?'

  'What is for me to tell?'

  'Do you think because I am a thousand years old that I do not remember how a young man looks when he wants a certain woman?'

  The silver and fire-opal drops in Grandmother's ears tinkled and gleamed as she nodded and ground seeds and pods. I waited for her to continue but she said nothing.

  'What do you think I should do?'

  'It is clear that the British airman wants you. The question being, does he want in marriage? And if in marriage, then each must ask in which country is this marriage to become established?'

  I followed Grandmother's movements as she dripped oil into a pan, then replied, 'The question does not arise as to any choice of country. Gordon is not in the airforce just for the war, he will soon become an officer. There is no question of staying here.'

  'What does my son say?'

  'I have not told Father that Gordon has proposed marriage, but you know what he would say.'

  She gave me a wry smile.

  'He would say that it is impossible that you should not go to England. Home of Fletchers.'

  We were both quiet for a few minutes while onions sizzled, then I got up to leave.

  'I must go. Gordon will soon be coming to collect me. I must give him an answer tonight. He has been patient.'

  Grandmother nodded, the girasol stones gleamed. 'Come tomorrow. I will cook for you also.'

  In the sea-front rock-garden, Anna looks about for Shalina, and glimpses the flutter of the blue sari as she feeds coins into a fruit machine on the pier. 'I wasn't much older than her in 1944.' Suddenly Anna wants the visit to the D-Day memorial to finish, she wishes Shalina would come.

  The next evening I went to eat with Grandmother. A meal with her was always a little celebration, a ceremony. She placed the dish between us, and when we were eating said, 'Would you like to tell me?'

  'You know already. You cannot fail to have heard Father through the wall. He shouted. He was angry.'

  'Because voices come through walls, does not mean that I listen. If there is something to tell, I would like to hear it from the one who is telling.'

  'Gordon wishes that we should marry. To be married in England.'

  Grandmother nodded. 'My son has always wished for such a thing.'

  'Yes, it is what he wishes.'

  I realized that I had been stirring the rice about on my plate not speaking. Grandmother did not approve of such behaviour, but she was an understanding old lady.

  'Grandmother,' I asked, 'why did you not go to England with Grandfather? From the time when I was very little it seemed that he talked only of England. Why did he stay in India?'

  'He stayed here for me.'

  'Because you wanted to remain here?'

  'Not at all. I would have gone anywhere he asked.'

  'Then why choose India?'

  'Your grandfather said it was to protect me.'

  'From what?'

  'From people who think it a first-class thing to have white skin, and second-class to have brown skin, and very bad for first-class and second-class to come together.'

  I thought that Grandmother had very likely never before spoken in this open way except to Grandfather. For, apart from her natural reticence, to whom could she have spoken?

  'But there are people like that also in this country, would it be different in England?'

  'In England there are not so many such marriages, I believe. Here there are more. Here children of such unions have a place. Areas such as Newtown.'

  Suddenly I felt very mature, seeing what no one else seemed ever to have done. Poor Grandmother! Disowned by her own princely father, and cut off from her family and traditions, she had come to live in Newtown, the mixed-race area of Barkampur where my father would have a place. And yet it had always been Grandfather who was thought of as the romantic, the exile for love, the man who had given up his country, while in a way the greatest sacrifice had been hers, because nobo
dy had recognized it as such. She was as cut off from the Battacharis as Grandfather from the Fletchers. The remoteness of their respective families had nothing to do with distances.

  'All the years I can remember, Grandfather and Father have told of England, and Portsmouth and Admiral Nelson, and Mr Churchill, and the Fletcher family. Never have I heard one story of Battacharis, only always of Fletchers.'

  'Do not blame your father. England is far away and such places have magic, we do not see the reality. He only wanted to be like the ancestors of that place.'

  'But he is not like, is he? And I am not like also. Our skin does not whiten because my father does not talk of the Battacharis.'

  Grandmother did not respond. Eventually I said to her, 'Did you hear through the wall? I said things to him that he does not wish mentioned. Our colour, our race, our neighbours who pretend also that they do not belong in this country?'

  Still Grandmother did not respond.

  'My father is very angry that I have refused Gordon.'

  'Child, he is hurt that is all. He cannot understand why you do not leap for the opportunity to go to the land of the Nelsons, Churchills and Fletchers.'

  Sixth June, nineteen hundred and forty-four. We sat and talked quietly for a long time. Then I asked Grandmother to allow me to put on one of her saris. Later, draped and pleated in silk, I looked at my reflection. I said, 'This is the other half of me, the portion that I haven't known.' Grandmother removed the fire-opal earrings from her own ears and hooked them into mine.

  In the memorial garden, the wind has dropped and the afternoon sun is warm on Anna's face. She sees Shalina at the pedestrian crossing waiting for the lights to change, then watches as she comes with the striding walk of a girl more used to wearing jeans than the sari.

  'Phew!' She fans her face. 'I shan't be sorry to get this off. I know they're supposed to be floaty and cool and that ... I expect it's me.' She laughs. 'We Pompey Zulfikars aren't used to this ethnic clobber.'

  Anna laughs. Ah, what a grandchild to have.