Anthony nodded his response, then opened his carry bag and took out the book his mother had given him to read on the plane – Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. He’d ignore the old fool. Let him think it was colonial arrogance.
‘So you also are going to take over and be the Superintendent in Watakälé one day, sir? Just like your brother will in Udatänná? You will be called the Periadorai – did you know that?’
It was probably another word for white god. ‘Yes,’ Anthony mumbled into the book.
‘Then it is a good thing that we have this time together, no?’ Hemachandra Mudalali continued, ignoring Anthony’s aloofness. ‘After all, my lorries are going to take your tea to Colombo to get sold.’
Anthony looked at him over the page of his book.
‘Come, young sir. Let me tell you something about our country. It is very pretty, no? See, already we are leaving the city behind.’
Anthony sighed again. He put the book away in his bag.
As the train chugged out of Colombo, the grey smoke and soot-stained buildings fell away. Lush, green fields and a myriad of multi-coloured flowers Anthony did not recognise took their place. Hemachandra pointed out of the window. ‘Paddy fields,’ he said. ‘The ground is dug by buffalo and the rice planted in steps. See, sir.’ He pointed. Anthony gazed at the immense grey animals with graceful curved horns yoked in pairs at the ploughshares.
Hemachandra Mudalali pointed out rivers and mountains, villages of mud-walled cottages and coconut plantations. Listening to him, Anthony found himself drawn into the beauties and mysteries of the country.
When the train drew into a station called Māwanella, Hemachandra bought a young coconut from one of the itinerant vendors, who lopped its top off and stuck a straw into it. Hemachandra passed it to Anthony. ‘Very refreshing drink, thambili. You will miss it when you leave Sri Lanka. But then you will come back, no? To take charge of Watakälé?’
Hemachandra pointed out a mountain he called Utuwankandé. ‘The Robin Hood of Sri Lanka lived there. His name was Saradiel. Apparently, he enjoyed taking from the white man and giving the villagers the money.’ He chortled, his moustache and stomach wobbling with mirth. ‘Fortunately he was arrested and executed, so you are safe.’
At a station called Nawalapitiya, a muscular Garrett locomotive added power to the front of the train. Anthony soon understood why. The track became steep, climbing higher and higher. The two locomotives laboured in unison. The air became progressively cooler and clearer, even sweeter.
Anthony saw a station sign for Hatton flash past the window. A wide valley stretched before them, backed by a broad-shouldered mountain range. The lower regions of the mountain were swathed with brilliant green bushes. From its upper flanks, dark, ominous rock faces clawed upwards towards the sky. Distant waterfalls cascaded down the rocks. Hardy trees and bushes clung like mountain goats to the almost vertical slopes.
‘The Great Western Range.’ Hemachandra waved his hand out of the window. ‘This is the area for high-country tea – the best kind. Not bitter but full of flavour.’ He raised his hand to his mouth in a gesture to mimic holding a tea cup. ‘They are saying it is like a good wine. Your plantations are high country too.’
The train passed a wide waterfall, which Hemachandra Mudalali identified as St Clair’s Fall. Anthony leaned out the window to get a better look. The thunder of plunging water filled his ears. The water billowed out, fanned by a brisk breeze. Anthony felt the sting of icy cold drops on his face.
Soon the train laboured its way up the face of the Great Western Range. Anthony gazed back across the valley from which they had come. Range after range of mountains, like a petrified blue-green ocean, faded into a purple haze in the distance. This was a primitive, rugged and yet strongly seductive country. He began to understand why his father had grown to love it.
Hemachandra Mudalali pointed out a sharp-pointed triangle, jutting up out of the mountain range to the south. ‘You would call it Adam’s Peak,’ he said, ‘but we Sri Lankans call it Sri-Pāda. It’s an important pilgrimage site for all the religions. You should climb it some time. Buddhists take the imprint at the summit of the mountain to be the hallowed footprint of the Buddha, hence the name Sri Pāda – holy footprint. To the Hindus, the footprint is that of God Shiva. Christians took it to be from St Thomas, who was thought to have brought Christianity to India and Sri Lanka. And to Muslims, it is an impression of Adam’s foot, hence the name “Adam’s Peak”. Another name for the mountain by the Sinhalese is Samanala Kanda, meaning Butterfly Mountain. Flocks of butterflies wing their way to the mountain every year. They die when they get to the top – a sort of divine sacrifice.’
Cool mountain air now filled the carriage. Anthony closed his eyes and filled his lungs. Yes, it would be good to breathe this every day.
Hemachandra Mudalali chuckled. ‘Nothing like this in England, no?’ He pointed to the hills. ‘It is nice here, young sir. No dirt and pollution like Colombo. You will be happy here -’ He stopped and looked at Anthony. ‘If you let yourself.’
The sun had dipped behind the towering green mountains when the train drew to a shuddering halt at Diyatalāwa Station. Dark-skinned men dressed in faded shirts and sarongs leapt like agile monkeys onto the train.
Hemachandra Mudalali pointed to the platform. ‘Your uncle is waiting.’ He raised his hand in a half salute. ‘Young sir, we will meet again.’
Anthony had already seen his uncle, Phillip Irvine, standing on the platform, hands on his hips, feet splayed, a scowl of concentration on his tanned face. He was dressed in a white open-necked shirt, cream trousers and brown shoes. His brown hair was receding and there were more lines on his forehead than Anthony remembered from a year ago when they had met in England.
Mr Irvine’s face creased into a smile when Anthony stepped down out of the carriage and onto the platform. ‘Welcome to the tea plantations, son.’ He shook Anthony’s hand. ‘You must be tired. Your Aunt and the girls are waiting for you at the bungalow.’ He led Anthony out of the tiny station and into a mud yard where Anthony’s bags were being packed into the boot of a black Wolseley.
Mr Irvine drove the car through the town of Diyatalāwa. The going was slow. They shared the narrow road with large lumbering lorries carrying crates of tea and small trucks and bull carts full of fresh vegetables. There were also dogs, cats, goats, cattle and even a sundry buffalo.
Leaving the town behind, the road climbed into the tea plantation. It was as if an emerald green carpet had been thrown over the undulating hills to welcome him. Mud roads curled through the hills like dusky brown ribbons. Anthony felt a frisson of excitement. So this was it. Tea – his father’s legacy, soon to be his.
Anthony looked around, trying not to gawk. He wound down the window and sniffed.
‘The aroma of fresh tea leaves,’ explained his uncle. He pointed to the smooth-topped tea bushes that reached right up to the edge of the road. ‘Don’t look like individual plants, do they? Decades of pruning to keep then waist high and regular plucking of the bloom makes the tops grow together.’ He pointed to one hill of a brighter green, which seemed to be alive with multi-coloured dots. ‘Coolie women, Indian labour. They don’t usually pluck so late. They’re the backbone of the industry. Efficiency depends on them working fast. But quality depends on their ability to pick just the flush of two leaves and the bud.’ He chuckled. ‘We’re always trying to improve both, of course.’
The car stopped at a boom gate. Bold black letters on a white wooden board read ‘Watakälé Estate, Oriental Produce Tea Company’. A man ran from a small wooden hut at the side of the road and swung the gate up. He was dressed in a tattered black sweater and what Anthony now recognised as a sarong. He shuffled back into the ditch at the side and stood with his head bowed as the car swept by.
The road dipped and wound into a valley. They rounded a corner and a foul odour invaded Anthony’s sense
s. ‘What a stench.’ He gagged and covered his mouth and nose with his hanky. A row of rooms, looking like filthy stables, came into view. Half-naked children played in the mud in front of them. Girls in loose, faded dresses squatted by the stream that separated the road from the buildings. They seemed to be washing clothes in the polluted water.
His uncle reached over Anthony to wind up the window. ‘I’m sorry to have to subject you to this, son. These are what we call the line rooms. The indentured Indian labourers – coolies – live here. We have given each family a room. There are common toilets and taps. They are sturdily built rooms. Well ventilated. But the coolies have no sense of hygiene and the place is filthy. I’ll explain this all to you later. I’ve applied to your father for money to re-route the main road so that it doesn’t go past this area.’
One young girl with a baby perched on her hip, stood by the stream looking at the car. Her eyes met and held Anthony’s. They bore an expression of patient forbearance, not unlike the look in the eyes of the elephant he had seen on the road from the airport.
The smell and sight of the line rooms fell away behind them as they drove up a hill. In a few minutes they passed a little cottage with trimmed jasmine and rose bushes lining the front garden.
‘The Tea-maker’s quarters,’ explained his uncle. Just then a girl ran across the road. His uncle braked and swore under his breath. ‘The Tea-maker’s daughter,’ he explained with a frown.
The girl stood by the road, smiling and waving to the car. The sun glinted on a purple stone pendant hanging round her neck and shimmered off her black hair. A single curl hung at the centre of her forehead.
‘Please don’t acknowledge her greeting, son,’ his uncle said, with a restraining hand on his arm. ‘We don’t associate with the natives in public.’
Anthony turned to look back at the girl just as she stuck her tongue out to the receding car.
No patient forbearance there.
Chapter 4
May 1957 Watakälé
Shiro shot up in bed. What had woken her? The old grandfather clock whirred and chimed the hour. Shiro counted, one - two - it was two o’clock in the morning. She slid down in bed and pulled the purple blanket over her head, wiping her tears with the edge of the blanket. Nicky, her little cat, was gone, his head crushed by a falling Jak fruit. Her mother had said he was dead. What happened when cats died? Did they go to cat heaven? What was dead, anyway?
Suddenly she was afraid. Flinging off her blanket, she ran barefoot across the hall to her parents’ bedroom. She flung herself into their bed. Her father yelped as she landed on top of him.
‘Promise me you won’t die,’ she cried, burrowing in between him and her mother.
Her father cradled her in his arms. ‘Of course not, princess. I’ll never leave you.’
She cuddled in between them. ‘Can we have a cat funeral in the morning?’
***
Later that morning, Rajan and Lilly Rasiah stood with their daughter and Lakshmi around a little hole at the bottom of the vegetable garden. Tears streamed down Shiro’s face. Lakshmi stood quietly, shuffling her feet, looking at Lilly Rasiah and then down the path leading away to her home.
‘Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,’ Lilly read from a tattered old prayer book. Rajan shovelled dirt into the shallow grave, covering the motionless little bundle that was Nicky, wrapped in his favourite blanket.
‘I’ll always love you, Nicky.’ Shiro placed a twig from the rose bush on the fresh soil. ‘I’m going to plant a rose bush over you and I’ll pick a rose from it every day, wear it for you and tell everyone what a nice kitty you were.’
Rajan patted down the dirt, smoothing it over the grave. Lilly held her hand out to Shiro. ‘Come, darling, we must finish class early so we can get ready for the tea party this afternoon.’
‘Shiro Chinnamma, I am going home now,’ Lakshmi said to Shiro. ‘I have to cook and wash and do other work.’
‘Mummy, I want Lakshmi to stay for the tea party,’ Shiro swung around to face her mother. She stamped her foot.
Her parents exchanged glances. ‘No darling, the superintendent’s children are not allowed to play with coolies and Lakshmi has things to do in the line room,’ Lilly replied.
‘But Lakshmi will like playing with Janet and Sarah,’ Shiro said, her eyes filling with tears again. ‘Lakshmi is my best friend. I want Janet and Sarah to meet her. I want us all to play together.’ Shiro crossed her arms across her chest, planted her feet firmly on the ground, and stared at her mother, ready to defy the world.
‘Mahal, control yourself,’ Lilly sighed. How was she to explain to precocious young Shiro that this afternoon tea party broke all conventions of tea plantation life? Shiro wasn’t to know that British children weren’t meant to talk to native Sri Lankan children, let alone Indian coolies. Poor little Janet and Sarah, the two daughters of superintendent Irvine, were stuck with only each other for company, just because they were white. Appu, who cooked for and supervised the superintendent’s household, had said that the girls spent most days getting on each other’s nerves and driving their mother and their English nanny to distraction.
Lilly didn’t want to entertain them, but in the estate hierarchy it would have been unheard of for the Tea-maker to refuse a request from the superintendent, however unusual it was. And a request from the British superintendent that his family visit the native Tea-maker’s house for afternoon tea was probably a first in the tea plantation’s history.
Lilly squatted down so her eyes were level with Shiro. ‘Lakshmi will not stay for tea. She will come and play with you tomorrow. Isn’t that right, Lakshmi?’
Lakshmi nodded.
Shiro folded her arms and glared at first her mother and then Lakshmi. With a toss of her curly head and a disgruntled snort, she stormed off to a corner of the garden.
Lilly nodded to Lakshmi, who turned and darted down the dirt track that led to the line rooms.
Lilly looked at the path where her daughter had disappeared. Someday, my darling, you will learn that you can’t always get what you want from life, she thought. I pray it won’t be too painful a lesson for you.
***
Lilly Rasiah stood in the sitting room of the Tea-maker’s house. She glanced at the clock. Three o’clock in the afternoon. They should be here soon. She looked out of the window. She was anxious but determined to not show it when her guests arrived. She repeated her husband’s words to herself like a mantra: ‘you can match it with the best.’
‘Can I show Janet and Sarah the new dolls house Daddy made for me? Please? Please?’ Shiro pranced around the sitting room, almost knocking over the tea table. She was dressed in her favourite purple dress. Lilly had brushed Shiro’s hair and it hung loose to her shoulders, curling around her face. Tiny gold earrings peeked through the bouncing black tresses. Her favourite single stone amethyst pendent shimmered around her neck. She certainly was a cute little thing. She deserved much more than the tea plantation atmosphere and a coolie girl as a friend.
A plan began to form in her head, one that would give her precious, only daughter the education and refinement that Lilly herself had craved.
Lilly steadied the tea table. On it she had laid out the Wedgwood china tea set she had received as a wedding present from her grandfather. ‘Yes, you can take them to the playroom. And please be careful, darling.’ She steered Shiro away from the table. ‘Why don’t you stand on the veranda and let me know when the car draws up? Don’t do anything to dirty your dress.’
Shiro skipped out to the veranda.
Lilly stepped back and surveyed the room. She had covered the chipped tea table with a hand embroidered white linen cloth. Roses from the garden nestled in the little crystal vase, and linen napkins with handmade lace edgings sat neatly folded on the rose-edged tea plates. The egg sandwiches and frosted cupcakes she had made that morning we
re both elegant and appetising.
She looked around at the worn lounge suite. Not for the first time, she noticed the frayed edges of the chintz covers and the scratches on the wooden armrests. She had covered the headrests of the lounge and chairs with chintz overlays and polished the wood as best she could. She would never think of complaining to her husband about something as trivial as new furniture. His salary barely met the school fees for their two sons and upkeep of his widowed mother and brothers.
This would be far inferior to what Mrs Irvine and the girls would be used to in the superintendent’s bungalow. They would have to make the best of it.
Shiro’s excited squeal preceded the rumble of the approaching car. Lilly glanced quickly into the old, ornate mirror that hung on the wall over the gramophone. She adjusted the fall of her light green cotton sari, slipped her feet into a pair of brown slippers, and went out to join Shiro on the veranda.
The black Wolseley, driven by a white uniformed Indian chauffeur, slowed and drew to a precise stop at the stone steps that led up to the front veranda. The chauffeur leapt out of the car and opened the back door. He stood holding the door with his head bowed.
Lilly watched a pair of cream leather high-heeled shoes emerge from the back seat.
Mrs Irvine glided rather than stepped out of the car. Her pale yellow silk dress clung to her slim body and fell in graceful pleats that reached just below her knees. Its Chantilly lace collar framed her pale oval face. A wide brimmed, cream hat with what looked like a peacock feather sat on brown hair drawn back in a tight chignon. Matching pale amber jewellery completed her ensemble.
‘How very kind of you to invite us to tea.’ Mrs Irvine removed her white linen gloves and extended slender manicured fingers with rose coloured nail polish to Lilly. The voice was soft, accented and genteel.
Empire's Children Page 4
