Empire's Children

by Patricia Weerakoon

  What a paragon of perfection. For a moment Lilly felt a clumsy oaf. Dismissing the thought, she stepped forward and took Mrs Irvine’s hand. The white soft palm lay limp in her brown, work-worn one. ‘It’s good to have you and the children visit,’ she said with what she hoped was a welcoming smile.

  Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that for once, Shiro stood speechless, watching Sarah and Janet follow their mother out of the car. The girls were dressed in rose pink pinafore dresses and matching shoes with long lace fringed socks, their plaited hair tied back with pink ribbons. They both smiled at Lilly and Shiro and stood side by side, holding hands with each other.

  ‘You must be Shiro.’ Mrs Irvine looked down at the girl. ‘Janet and Sarah have been looking forward to visiting with you today.’ She drew Janet and Sarah forward, ‘Haven’t you dears?’ She bent down with a little frown to pat down their hair and straighten their dresses. ‘You girls will have to behave today with no Nanny to watch over you.’

  She looked up at Lilly. ‘I am sorry, but we ran out of room in the car for Nanny.’

  ‘I don’t have a Nanny,’ Shiro broke in. ‘But I have Lakshmi who –’

  ‘Please come into the house,’ Lilly cut in, steering Mrs Irvine and the girls towards the front door. She looked back to see Shiro stand staring at the car.

  ‘Is that your brother?’ Shiro asked Janet, pointing to the person getting out of the front seat of the car.

  ‘No dear, that’s their cousin,’ Mrs Irvine’s smile was strained. ‘My husband’s nephew, Anthony, is spending some time with us.’ She turned to Lilly. ‘Anthony’s father, James Ashley-Cooper, owns the Oriental Produce Tea Company. Anthony and his brother William are heirs to the tea plantations. Anthony will one day be the superintendent here in Watakälé. My husband suggested that it would be useful for him to visit with a staff family.’ The pretty dimpling on the cheek didn’t hide the flush of embarrassment.

  ‘Who’s James Ashley-Cooper? And why would his son want to play with us?’ Shiro slanted her head and stared up at the tall figure dressed in a crisp white, open neck shirt and slim fitted, blue linen trousers. He in return, glared at Shiro as if she were a piece of flotsam on a beach. Shiro’s eyes narrowed. Lilly could sense that she was barely restraining the urge to stick her tongue out at him.

  Lilly felt a prickle of anxiety. James Ashley-Cooper’s son here – in their house. Was he checking out how they lived? She was glad she had sent Lakshmi back to the line rooms. It would have been terrible if he reported back to his father that the Tea-maker was consorting with the Indian labour.

  ‘Please do come in.’ She ushered the party into the drawing room. Mrs Irvine and the girls moved in. Lilly bundled her daughter towards the door of the playroom. ‘Darling, why don’t you take Janet and Sarah to the playroom? I will bring you some cake and orange juice in there.’

  She turned to Anthony. ‘You are most welcome to join us, Mr Ashley-Cooper. Please come in.’

  ‘What a lovely tea set.’ Mrs Irvine nodded permission to the girls to go with Shiro and sat down. ‘And cupcakes. How delightful! Did you make them yourself?’

  Where does she think they came from? Lilly nodded, forcing a polite smile.

  Anthony stood just inside the front door and looked around the room. Taking a white linen handkerchief from the pocket of his shirt, he dusted a chair and sat down. Lilly suppressed a twinge of annoyance and held the plate of cakes out to him.

  ‘Thank you.’ His tone of bored condescension hung thick in the air.

  Lounging back, Anthony bit into a cupcake. ‘Why, these are almost as good as those from the kitchen in the manor,’ he said. ‘You – folk certainly know how to entertain.’

  Mrs Irvine blushed. ‘Anthony, would you please check on your cousins? And please take them some cake?’ She held up a plate of cupcakes. ‘Sarah and Janet will love the frosting and sugar flowers.’

  With a shrug of his shoulder, Anthony took the plate and left the room. ‘I apologise, Mrs Rasiah.’ The flush of colour raced through her pale cheeks. ‘Anthony and his brother don’t understand the relationships here in the colony.’

  ‘It’s all right.’ Lilly smiled at the other woman’s obvious discomfort. ‘These class distinctions – British superintendent, native staff and Indian coolie labour – they used to upset me when I married Mr Rasiah and first moved to the tea plantation. But they don’t bother me anymore.’

  ***

  Anthony followed the sound of chatter and giggles to the playroom. Lifting the purple cotton curtain, he stood leaning on the doorpost, the plate of cupcakes held in his long fingers.

  Janet and Sarah sat on small stools, their dresses draped around their knees. They each held a doll in their hands. Shiro lay flat on the floor on her stomach, her dress riding up her thighs, her head and hands inside a wooden doll’s house. Her voice came muffled from inside, ‘Quick, Moses, come out of there! The superintendent’s daughters are about to kidnap your sisters!’

  ‘Your mother sent you some cake,’ Anthony said, holding out the plate.

  Shiro uncoiled herself from her inelegant position on the ground. She jumped up and pulled her skirt down over her thighs. ‘Thank you, but why did you not knock?’ She stood with her feet apart, her hands on her hips, her face tilted up. Her eyes locked with Anthony’s.

  ‘My apologies, I didn’t know I needed to.’ Anthony forced his voice to drip contempt, barely controlling his amusement at her rumpled clothes and tumbling locks.

  Shiro continued staring at him. ‘Can’t you read?’ Placing her right hand on her forehead, she pointed with her left to a sign on the door. Handwritten in purple ink, it read ‘PRIVATE PROPERTY: KNOCK’.

  No one had ever looked at Anthony with anything like the expression of amused scorn that he saw on Shiro’s face. He looked at her, speechless. Who the hell did she think she was?

  Shiro continued staring at him for a few seconds, then stepped closer to him. ‘Oh, never mind. You brought food. We’re famished.’ She took the plate from his hand. ‘Thank you. Do you want one?’ She picked up a cupcake in fingers dusty from poking around in the doll’s house and held it out to him – a peace offering. The brilliance of the smile that flashed across her face made Anthony step back.

  ‘No thank you, Miss Rasiah, I don’t eat with children.’ Anthony realised with increasing irritation that his tone and words had no effect on this little black-eyed minx.

  Shiro giggled. She was enjoying his discomfort. How dare she laugh at him?

  ‘Okay then, starve if you want.’ Shiro turned to the girls. ‘Oh by the way, my name is Shiro, but you can call me princess.’

  Princess? What an audacious brat. Anthony leaned on the doorpost and watched the girls eat. Janet and Sarah sat nibbling the cake, careful not to drop crumbs. Occasionally they glanced at Anthony with a shy smile. Shiro seemed to have forgotten his existence. Quickly stuffing a cake into her mouth, she dusted her hands on her skirt and went back to her play in the doll’s house.

  Anthony continued to watch her.

  After a while Shiro stood up and looked at Janet and Sarah. ‘Come on, let’s go visit the grave.’ Ignoring Anthony, Shiro took their hands. Together the girls ran out through the outer door and skipped down the garden.

  How dare she ignore me like this? Anthony fumed. Doesn’t she realise that I could have her father dismissed from his job? He followed the girls down a dirt path to the bottom of the garden, to a fresh mound of earth with a twig on it. He arrived just in time to hear Shiro say, ‘He was a beautiful cat and I will never ever forget him. The roses on this bush will remind me of him for the rest of my life.’

  ‘The poor thing.’ Janet brushed a tear from her eye. She placed a daisy on the mound of earth. All three girls knelt quietly around the grave.

  Anthony brushed past the girls and then turned to face them. His face twisted with sc
orn. ‘For goodness’ sake, all this rigmarole for a silly cat? Who cares?’ He fixed his eyes on Shiro, ‘Stupid. That’s what you natives are – stupid!’ He stamped on the little twig, snapping it in two.

  Janet and Sarah stared up at him, their eyes wide in amazement. They jumped to their feet and scampered back into the playroom.

  Shiro continued to kneel with her head bent. Two tears escaped from her tightly shut eyes and slid down her brown cheeks.

  Anthony stood looking at her. He felt uncomfortable. After all, she was only an uneducated native child. He didn’t need to bite her head off like that.

  After a few seconds, she scrambled to her feet. She threw back her head and stared into Anthony’s eyes. Her lips quivered, then formed into a pout. It was as if she carried the fire of her race in her dark gaze. It ignited a corresponding blaze in Anthony’s belly that spread through his body.

  A distant rumble of thunder was accompanied by a few heavy raindrops. They clung like diamonds on Shiro’s upturned face. A flash of lightning on the hill behind them made Anthony jump. Shiro didn’t flinch. Her lips curved in a hint of disdain.

  ‘Afraid of a little thunder storm?’ She leant forward. ‘Well, why don’t you go home then, you – you – British bastard?’

  Anthony’s jaw dropped. ‘I will have you know, Miss Rasiah, that we British are the only reason that your father has a job and you have bread and butter on the table.’

  Shiro burst into laughter. ‘And you should know that we never eat bread and butter. Maybe if you said rice and curry or string hoppers and hodhi. But you have no idea what those are, do you, sir?’ With that, she turned and skipped back into the house.

  Anthony watched Shiro’s curls bounce on the collar of her purple dress. Arrogant native kid. Why did he let her get under his skin like that?

  Shiro swung round as if she felt his eyes on her. She looked back at him and smiled. It made her look so angelic that Anthony stopped in his tracks. Then, as if changing her mind, she stuck her tongue out at him, twirled around and ran into the playroom.

  Anthony stood in the back garden of the Tea-maker’s house. This is crazy, he thought. I shouldn’t let her get to me. She’s a child – a stupid, illiterate native child. She is nothing.

  Anyway, he would be going home soon. When he came back, he would be the superintendent of Watakälé Tea Plantation.

  Chapter 5

  December 1957 Watakälé

  Lakshmi opened her eyes to the chirping of parakeets in the mango tree outside Shiro’s bedroom. The first rays of morning sunshine slanted through the curtains. It was Christmas Eve. And she was spending the holiday at the Tea-maker’s house, getting the house ready for the festivities.

  Shiro was huddled under the blanket, still asleep. Lakshmi rolled up the reed mat she slept on and placed it with the folded sheets in the corner of the room. She tiptoed out the back door to the servant’s toilet at the bottom of the garden. The water gushed out of the tap. It was bitterly cold. She shivered and then smiled. Early morning ablutions at an indoor tap and a squatting toilet were pure luxury for a coolie girl. Other days she, like all the other coolies, would relieve herself in the tea bushes and wash in the stream.

  Washed and dressed in her work clothes, Lakshmi picked up the bucket and mop and started scrubbing the floor in the sitting room. Raaken, the Indian coolie cook was busy in the kitchen making coffee, and Tea-maker Aiya and Periamma were talking in their bedroom. The daily sounds of the Tea-maker’s house – echoes of heaven to Lakshmi.

  ***

  All that day, Lakshmi swept and cleaned, washed and polished.

  When Tea-maker Aiya returned from the tea factory at noon, the house sparkled clean and neat. Shiro and Lakshmi sat amid a pile of paper streamers and silver stars – decorations for the Christmas tree. Seeing the Tea-maker enter the house, Lakshmi got up and started clearing up the inevitable mess Shiro had created.

  ‘I see all is calm with Shiro. I thought she would have been crazily excited with Victor and Edward due.’ Tea-maker Aiya touched his wife on her cheek.

  ‘Oh, we had our tantrum this morning when I would not let Lakshmi play with her. She is getting too stubborn and spoilt. She needs to learn proper manners. We have to send her away to school. I have the application forms to Bambalawatte Methodist Girls’ School in Colombo. We can send it in after Christmas.’

  A shadow crossed Tea-maker Aiya’s face. ‘I don’t know why you want to send her to boarding school in Colombo. What can they teach her that you can’t? It’s not like she has to go to university or anything like the boys.’

  Periamma lowered her voice. Lakshmi strained to listen. ‘You can’t protect her and keep her here all her life. It’s unhealthy. She lives in a fantasy world of imaginary people and events. She needs better company. Do you realise she considers Lakshmi her closest friend? A coolie girl. You know that isn’t right. She needs to meet children of her own social class, to behave like a lady.’

  At that moment, Shiro looked up from scrunching another tinsel star. She scrambled to her feet and flew into her father’s arms. ‘Daddy, I’ve been working so hard!’

  ‘So you have, my princess, so you have. Let’s go get ready for Victor and Edward and Uncles George and Paul, shall we?’ He turned to his wife. ‘You tried to give her better friends with the Irvine girls. A lot of good that did. She’s still sad that they don’t reply to her letters.’ He kissed Shiro on the cheek. ‘Let her be. Don’t try to make her into some parody of a British madam.’

  Periamma rolled her eyes and followed father and daughter from the room.

  Lakshmi cleared up the streamers and stars from the playroom floor, putting them in boxes. Her heart was heavy. Her mother had said just yesterday that Tea-maker Aiya only wanted her as a servant. Maybe she was right. They didn’t want their precious daughter to get any closer to her – a coolie girl. They were sending Shiro Chinnamma away to separate them. Her mother said that she was cursed from birth. Maybe she was.

  Lakshmi took a deep breath and blinked away her tears. She carried the decorations to the sitting room and placed them in the corner where the Christmas tree would be put up later that day, then went to the kitchen to join Raaken in the cooking.

  ***

  Dusk descended like a soft blanket on the hills. Shiro and Lakshmi stood on the back porch of the house. Lakshmi rubbed her hands on her jumper. Periamma had knitted it for her from leftover bits of wool. It was big for her and a mix of colours and textures, but Lakshmi loved it because Periamma had made it just for her.

  Soon the mountains lay shrouded, dark and quiet. The trees came to life, glowing with the twinkling of dozens upon dozens of fireflies. Cicadas began their night chorus. Shiro slipped her hand into Lakshmi’s. Hand in hand, they stepped off the porch and stood in the garden. Darkness surrounded them like a gentle coat and dew drops settled on their hair and eyebrows.

  Lights cut through the dark and could be seen meandering down the mountain across the valley. Excited, the girls ran to join Shiro’s parents at the front of the house. The blue Ford Consul wound its way up the gravel road, its headlights cutting through the thick mist. Large moths, drawn to the light, danced in their brightness before being squashed on the fender.

  The car stopped right by the steps. All four doors opened and the Rasiah family tumbled out. Tea-maker Aiya’s brother, George, got out of the driver’s side and shook his hand. Another brother, Paul, leapt out of the passenger-side front door. Shiro threw herself into his arms. Shiro’s two brothers, Victor and Edward, emerged from the back doors. Victor hurried up the steps to his mother, while Edward tickled Shiro, who was still clinging to Paul. She laughed and released her grip. Edward promptly scooped her up and hugged her. Tea-maker Aiya helped his mother, a frail old lady of seventy years, out of the car.

  Paul went around and opened the boot of the car. Lakshmi reached in and hauled a suitcase out
. She felt a hand brush her neck. She shivered and turned to find Paul’s face inches away from hers.

  ‘Why, hello, Lakshmi,’ he said, ‘I hardly recognised you. You look all grown up and pretty. Not like a coolie at all.’ The smirk on his face frightened her. She looked down and dragged the suitcase into the house.

  Lakshmi jerked her head up at Shiro’s shriek. Edward was chasing Shiro with a water pistol. Edward let fly a squirt of water, but he missed and hit Raaken on the backside. Raaken exclaimed and stepped back. The suitcase he was carrying into the house slipped out of his hands and bounced down the steps into the garden.

  Periamma smiled and shook her head. ‘Mahal,’ she called out to Shiro, ‘control yourself.’

  ***

  The boxes and suitcases had been stored and the car parked under the mango tree. Everyone was seated around the dinner table. Lakshmi brought in the pittu and beef curry. She and Raaken would eat later in the kitchen.

  ‘God bless our family, and bless this food to our bodies,’ Tea-maker Aiya said. ‘May we have many more Christmases together.’

  ‘Amen,’ the family chorused.

  Lakshmi looked around the table at the crazy, joyous chaos that constituted the Rasiah family dinner. Victor, George and Tea-maker Aiya were discussing the exams Victor had taken a few weeks ago and his prospects for university placement. Edward gestured as he narrated how he and his friends regularly stole out of boarding school in the middle of the night for a snack. ‘We go to the kade for a thosai feed,’ he boasted. ‘Nearly got caught once, when the headmaster had the same idea.’

  While still talking, Edward tickled Shiro, making her squeal, choke and spray pittu all over the table. Everyone erupted in laughter. Periamma shook her head, and gestured to Edward to settle down. Turning to Shiro she said, ‘Mahal, control yourself.’

  Paul gobbled his food, ignoring all conversation. He looked up at Lakshmi when she placed his glass of water on the table. The look in his eyes made her shiver.

  After dinner they all sat around the Christmas tree in the sitting room. The smell of fresh pine filled the air. The room glittered with coloured tinsel streamers and silver and gold balloons. Everyone ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ at the stars and baubles Shiro and Lakshmi had hung on the tree.