by Sharon Maas
Mum, meanwhile, was in a delirium of joy, almost euphoric. Gran’s awakening plus the news of this fellow Rajan being alive – well, it was like thirty years of Christmas all rolled into one for Mum. In the following days, bit by bit, she told me the rest of the story, no longer reluctantly and hesitantly, but in her own true voice: about Rajan and her friendship with him and the first date with him. And then, just as she was about to fall in love, he fell, and died.
Or so she had thought.
‘Oh, Mum!’ I sighed. ‘What a waste of time! Of everything! If only you had read that letter when it first came! Why didn’t you?’
‘I couldn’t,’ she said sheepishly. ‘I was a coward.’
‘What a lot of will power, though, to keep it for so long! Eighteen years!’
‘Oh, that was nothing,’ said Mum. ‘No will power at all. I didn’t want to open it! I feared it! There was a huge thick scab over a deep aching wound and I knew very well that reading Mummy’s letter would crack open that scab and I’d be right back there in the wound and bleeding to death, like Rajan.’
‘But – how could you keep that pain so well out of sight, all those years? That must have been will power?’
But Mum only shook her head.
‘Because I had a different memory of Rajan, and I kept that one alive. I could conjure up his face, smiling and strong. I clung to that image. I could talk to him, and he would talk back. He became so real to me, Inky! So real, that he pushed the painful memories away.’
‘Then why didn’t you just throw it away?’
‘I couldn’t do that either. Because I knew, I just knew, that one day I had to find closure. That I couldn’t run away for ever. That the letter would be the key to facing the pain, forgiving Mum, finally confronting the Beast in me. I knew it, Inky, but I kept saying, one day. Not now. You know I’m a first class procrastinator!’
I nodded. Mum had that tendency – to delay unpleasant matters until they could no longer be avoided. She did it with her bills, and she’d done it with this letter. Typical! Me, I like to get things over with as soon as possible. Mum was still speaking.
‘Somewhere inside me, was a little voice. I thought it was Rajan’s voice; I used to talk to him, you know! A voice telling me that in the end, I had to return to love. Reconcile with Mummy, accept her plea for forgiveness. It had to come, one day, and the letter represented that day. I used to have whole conversations with Rajan: a sort of angel Rajan, advising me what to do. Open it, Rajan would say. Later, I’d reply. Later. I promise.
‘But I kept pushing that day into the future delaying it. Because I was so afraid. Afraid of the pain. Of dragging up the memory of Rajan’s death. Terrified. Mummy said she locked her pain away, turned hard and cold; well, I locked my pain away too, but in a different way. I banished it, refused to let it dominate my mind, my life. And yet it was always there, in the background. Even if I refused to look, it was there.’
She shuddered. ‘His face – with that – that rod sticking out of his head …’
She wiped away a tear.
‘And yet. The letter. It told me the story was not over. That one day there had to be closure, and reconciliation. But now, that’s easy too. Because Rajan is alive.’
She was still for a moment, her face one huge smile.
‘Inky! He’s alive! Alive! I can’t believe it! It’s like, like, a resurrection!’
And she fell into my arms, crying for joy. I wanted to caution her, tell her not to be too euphoric; after all, Rajan wasn’t the same Rajan she had known. Brain-damaged! That could very well be worse than death. In my eyes, at least, it was. I’d rather be dead than brain-damaged. But I couldn’t tell that to Mum. Not now. Of course not.
‘I wonder how he could possibly have survived,’ I said.
‘Well, I guess Gran will tell us the details, once she’s home.’
‘Mum,’ I said, ‘This is an amazing story. You should turn it into a novel!’
She burst out laughing. ‘Maybe I will, Inky, Maybe I will, one day!’
And she opened her arms and squeezed me so tightly I yelled for release.
‘Inky,’ she said then. ‘It’s time to go home. And you’re coming too.’
And she didn’t mean Streatham Hill.
* * *
Of course, it wasn’t all song and dance. As soon as he heard that Gran had spoken, Neville was down in a flash and doing his best to take charge. We wouldn’t let him. But Gran was nice to him, and I suppose that‘s what gave him the courage to ask.
‘Mummy, should I bring the Quint for you?’
Mum was in the loo. I don’t think he’d have dared to ask in her presence. Mum had turned quite cranky over the last few days, and belligerent; quite unlike herself. Lack of sleep, probably.
‘The Quint?’
‘Yes. You know, the stamp. The postage stamp.’
Gran’s forehead wrinkled. ‘Yeh … yeh … I remember now. The Quint, they call it. I been on TV with it. I hide it good an’ proper.’
‘You always liked looking at it. Shall I bring it for you?’
‘Yeh, bring it over. Go on. Is nice to look at. Bring back memories.’
‘Er … good. I’ll bring it. But, um, could you tell me where to find it?’
‘Find it? Yeh, of course, mus’ be in my handbag. Probably. Where me handbag?’
‘It’s at home, Gran. We took it home. You think it’s in there?’ I frowned. I knew it wasn’t. But I couldn’t tell her that without admitting I’d searched for it. But then Gran frowned too.
‘No, I remember now, is not in de handbag. I decide is too dangerous. I put it somewhere. Somewhere real, real safe, where nobody can get it.’
Neville’s eyes literally gleamed with excitement.
‘Good, good, you’re remembering. Now just tell me where, and I’ll get it.’
Gran’s frown deepened as she thought about it. She scratched her temple, just below the bandage, as if trying to release a secret buried in her brain.
“‘I can’t remember right now,”’ she said at last. “‘But it gon’ come to me soon. Don’t worry, I know is a safe place. A safe, safe place.”’
But Gran’s super safe place remained out of reach of her memory. Neville had to return home unfulfilled.
They sent Gran home after a week, and still she could not remember.
‘Once I is in me room, I gon’ remember,’ she said. But she didn’t. She sat on her bed giving me orders as to where to search, but each potential hiding place turned up a blank. After two weeks of ever more frantic searches Gran had to admit it: she had lost the Quint.
‘I always said you should put it in a bank safe,’ was all Mum had to say on the matter. She seemed almost relieved that the stamp was gone. She was just too happy to care.
I was pretty distressed, but tried not to show it. All that drama, all those hopes, and all for nothing. Life couldn’t get much bleaker. There had to be an upturn. Somewhere. I tried to think positive: at least Gran had survived, more or less intact.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
INKY
Gran eventually told us the whole story of how Uncle Matt saved Rajan, and about the touch-and-go night at the hospital, and how Gran had given blood – Mum was amazed at that and fell all over Gran in gratitude – and how this hotshot brain surgeon from America had sent a plane over from America for Rajan and all kinds of stuff.
‘Basmati flew over the next day,’ said Gran. I noticed how her speech pattern had changed dramatically; she had dropped her heavy Creole accent, just as she had during the Old Girls’ Reunion. I realised now how much of all that had gone before was play-acting on her part. I wondered why; I’d have to ask her some time. Later.
‘We hired someone else to look after my parents, so she could be with him. And then she came back and I went over. We wanted one of us to be always with him, so Basmati and I alternated all the time he was in treatment and rehab. Uncle Matt paid for everything, Rika! Everything! He was so generous! A
nd he got other doctors to work for free as well. Everyone was so wonderful, so generous with their time and their skills. They all did their best.’
‘But he’s brain-damaged,’ I interjected. ‘Was it worth the trouble? The expense? Wouldn’t it have been better to let him die?’
After all, one has to be reasonable, rational. Sometimes it’s better to let a person die, if the only alternative is a life not worth living. But obviously, I was alone with this opinion.
They both glared at me. The both exclaimed, in unison: ‘Inky!’
‘Life is precious,’ said Gran firmly. ‘And in his own way, he’s happy.’
Whatever, I said to myself. I had my doubts, but it wasn’t my place to speak out.
* * *
The next two weeks flew by. Of course, I had to see Sal before I left. We had not met for several weeks, and I feared the friendship was crumbling amid the stress of his studies and, in my case, the on-going drama of the Quint, and then Granny’s accident. Sal, who at first had been just as wrapped up in the mystery of the stamp, seemed to have withdrawn himself from my life completely. Looking back; that withdrawal had started just around the time of the Daily Mail article. And I missed him. Sal was the girlfriend I didn’t have, and I needed him so much as a sounding block.
But all this time – nothing. No more Sunday visits, no more meals at Wong’s. I hadn’t noticed his absence in my life at first, wrapped up as I was in caring for Gran and keeping up with the rollercoaster of events. We’d had a short chat after Gran’s recovery, but since then—nothing. Now I noticed his absence as a yawning hole in my life. I speed-dialled his number.
‘Sal … can you come down here? Or shall I come up to you? I’ve got to see you,’
‘Why? What’s happening? More drama with Gran?’ He sounded distant, cold even.
‘Yes, it never ends!’ I told him that we were going to Guyana for Christmas. It’s then that I had my brainwave. The words just spilled out.
‘Sal, why don’t you come too? It would be brilliant to have you there! We could discover Guyana together! I’m so excited about going but with you there too it would be so much better! Go on, say yes!’
And I knew he would. Sal loved travel and discovering new places, especially off-the-beaten-track places. This trip would be just the thing for him, for us both; it would be a hundred times more exciting with him at my side.
‘You’ll come, won’t you? You have to come!’ I finished off.
The silence held so long I thought he had hung up on me.
‘Sal?’
‘‘Inky, I’d love to come. But sorry, I can’t.’
‘Why? Why not? Is it the money? Don’t worry about that. We’ll get it together somehow. Maybe your dad could lend you some. It’s just the flight you have to pay for; we can live for free at our old family home. Go on, say yes!’
‘I said, I can’t, Inky. I really can’t. You see ….’
The pause was so long that again I thought he’d hung up. But finally, he broke it.
‘Cat’s coming back,’ he said. ‘The week before Christmas. She doesn’t like Australia, and she misses me. Didn’t she tell you she was coming?’
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
INKY
It was pouring with rain and the middle of the night when we arrived at Cheddi Jagan International Airport. It took ages to inch ourselves through Immigration and Baggage Claim, but at last we emerged into the hot wet night, all around us, the hustle and bustle of people pushing overladen trolleys into the arms of overexcited relatives. Among the waiting throng stood a sodden man under a sodden umbrella holding up a sodden sign saying ‘QINT’. Gran grumbled about a certain Evelyn who was ‘too lazy to drive to the airport she-self’ and continued to grumble the whole drive down, as was her wont. Mum, meanwhile, had grown progressively more silent through the entire trip, as was her wont. Now, sitting next to me in the back seat of the taxi staring out the window, half-turned away from me, she retreated into complete silence. I don’t know what she was staring at, since there was nothing to see but rain.
Rain! I’d never known a tropical rain, and this was the best of it. Water sluiced down in a virtual waterfall from above, gushing onto the taxi as if it were a rock it would sweep away in a mighty torrent. It was as if some giant in the sky had decided to open the heavenly floodgates. It hammered on the roof of the car and fell in sheets into the darkness outside, swallowing up the countryside. Through the window I could see not a thing but water, could hear not a thing but the roar on the rooftop and, drowned but unrestrained by the rainfall, the whine of Gran’s perma-gripe, directed at the taxi driver.
The car moved slowly, its headlamps cutting a vague white funnel through the rain. The road appeared more as a river, and I wondered at one point if the car would simply sink into a torrent of water, never to be seen again. After a while Gran’s nattering petered out; she had fallen asleep. And so had Mum, leaned against the far door of the back seat. Only I was wide awake, and, of course, hopefully, the driver. The driver turned up the radio; it was Bob Marley, ‘No Woman No Cry’. The car bounced through the rain to the rhythm.
After a while the rain diminished and finally stopped, and we picked up speed. A penetrating, sickly sweet, nauseating smell attacked my nostrils. I thought the driver had let out an enormous fart, and he must have read my mind because I saw his twinkling eyes meet mine in the rear-view mirror. Seeing that I was awake he half-turned to me and said, ‘Diamond Sugar Estate, ma’am. We very near Georgetown now.’
At those words Mum awoke with a jump and pressed her nose against her window, but of course there was nothing to be seen; outside the car it was all still black, though there now seemed a certain greyness to the night signifying that dawn was just over the horizon. Up to this point excitement had kept me wide awake, but now drowsiness crept through me, and I nodded off. Mum spoke her first words to me since we’d left the plane:
‘Inky, why not lie down, put your head on my lap. It’s not far now.’
I was tempted; but if Georgetown was ‘not far now’ and if the rain had stopped and it was going to be lighter there was no way I’d sleep away my arrival. I assumed there’d be a bed waiting for me at ‘home’; until then I wanted to stay awake.
Slowly the darkness began to lift and I could see the outlines of a village, a quaint gathering of frail wooden houses on stilts so thin they looked about to buckle at the knees under their burdens. The houses were completed with rickety staircases, rusty tin roofs, louvre windows with half the lathes missing, and they sat in yards and gardens teeming with growth, all bathed in the unearthly grey light of pre-dawn. The rain had left great expanses of water so that some of the houses seemed to be standing in shallow lakes, while others, built lower and close to the road, huddled in sodden clumps behind overflowing gutters.
A sense of complete alienation washed through me, chilling and somewhat frightening. What was I doing here? This was not my country, not my home. Homesickness flooded me, a deep longing for the familiar colours and smells and noises of Streatham High Street; a longing for Sal. Where was he, what was he doing? Was he back with that bitch Cat, happy at last, all memory of me erased? A deep, ugly, surge of jealousy gripped me. He’s mine! I yelled silently at Cat. You dumped him and I caught him! How dare you claim him back!
Ever since Sal told me about Cat’s return it had been there, coiling around my heart like a vine of thorns: jealousy. And behind that jealousy, deep down, something else. Something I didn’t want to admit. Not even to myself. But I had to.
Love. I loved Sal. Maybe, I always had. And the moment I realised it I wanted to tell him. I wanted to call him and shout it down the phone. So many times, in the days before our departure, I’d stared at his name in my mobile, thumb poised above the dial button. But I couldn’t. I was too proud, or, maybe, too scared. What if he rejected me? He was Cat’s. I’d had my chance and messed it up. Even on the drive to the airport I’d toyed with the temptation; sitting on the plane, waiting to
leave. And then I’d taken the plunge. Not called him – I was too much of a coward for that. I’d tapped a message into my phone. Three words. Three words that said it all. And pressed send. And switched off my phone.
I loved him and wanted him. I wanted him right here with me, holding my hand, gazing out the window with me as village and countryside gradually morphed into the wider streets and great white buildings of Georgetown.
* * *
I recognised Central Georgetown from photos I had seen; the Town Hall, the Parliament Building, the Bank of Guyana. I recognised the tree-lined avenue of Main Street, seen up to now only in photos on the Internet. But how familiar!
A few minutes later the taxi drew up outside the huge wooden house I’d seen in Gran’s photos. It was enormous; the photos had not conveyed the sheer bulk of the place, overpowering and commanding, nor the sense of eccentricity captured by its quirky architecture, bits sticking up and bits sticking out. It looked top-heavy, too weighty for the thick columns on which it rested; it perched like a giant bird between folded wings, ready to fly away. A dog barked, and lurched towards the closed gate where it leaped and snarled in welcome.
I fell in love with that house at first sight.
The taxi driver gave three short blasts of the horn as we drove up. Gran opened her car door and just sat there in the front seat waiting to be helped out, apparently still too tired to speak. Mum crawled out of the back seat and helped her out. I got out myself and looked up at the house again and saw a face at a top window. A few seconds later the front floor at the top of the outside staircase opened and a plump woman in a flimsy nightdress, her hair bobbing on her shoulders in two fat plaits, hurried down the stairs, huffing with excitement. She hauled the dog away (his name, I gathered, was Turtle) and tethered him to a leash under the house, and then bustled out of the gate.
