The Flower Boy

by Karen Roberts

  “I suppose we could go—” she began, but he laid a finger on her lips.

  “No. It was a bad idea. Forget it.”

  He rubbed his cheek on her head and she laughed. “You remind me of a cat when you do that!”

  “A contented cat,” he murmured.

  A few days later, she was lying down on her mat in the middle of the afternoon, feeling guilty for resting although there was nothing that needed doing. John was at the factory and lunch had been cleared away long ago. Anne was reading somewhere and Rose-Lizzie and Chandi were rushing through the house playing some game or another. It was because of their loud voices that she had escaped, needing some peace and quiet.

  The previous night, she had snapped at Chandi over an errand she had asked him to run. She was mending his shirts and discovered she had run out of needles. When she asked him to run down to the shop at the workers’ compound, he had protested, asking if he might go in the morning instead. It wasn’t an unreasonable request, because it had been raining heavily and the path down the hillside was muddy and slippery. But she had lost her temper.

  “It’s for your shirts, you know,” she said sarcastically.

  “I know, Ammi, but it’s raining so hard. I’ll go first thing tomorrow morning. Leave them for now.”

  She flung the shirts away. “Where am I going to have time tomorrow?” she demanded angrily. “You talk as if I sit around all day doing nothing.”

  “No, Ammi, that’s not what I meant,” he protested, but he already knew there was no point. When she got into these moods, it was as if she didn’t hear anyone else.

  “I know what you meant. And that lazy devil Sunil has also slipped off!”

  “Ammi, he asked you if he could go early because he had finished his work and you said he could,” Chandi was compelled to say.

  But again, she didn’t hear. “There are two able-bodied men in this house and I do all the work!”

  Chandi had heard enough. He stood up, took the money from the table and grabbed the old umbrella from its place behind the kitchen door. He paused on the steps. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you sometimes. You can be so unfair,” he said levelly and left before she could think of a suitable retort.

  After he had gone, she stood there wondering if she was mad to send him out in the storm. It was pouring and there was a gale blowing. She rushed to the door, cupped her hands over her mouth and shouted his name. Either the wind whisked her voice away or he heard and ignored her.

  He was soaking when he came back, because the umbrella had blown away more than once. Without a word, he placed the needles on the table and went into his room to change, shutting the door behind him quietly but firmly.

  Ordinarily, that wouldn’t have stopped her from entering anyway, but she knew she had been unfair. So she waited for him to come out. He didn’t.

  When she sneaked in an hour later, he was asleep. He hadn’t eaten dinner.

  Now she wondered if she had been too hasty and too insensitive about the trip. If they continued this way, they’d all burst, she thought dismally. Rose-Lizzie and Chandi had become so loud lately, but she suspected it was because they were worried and afraid about the future. Rather than creep around and whisper like they probably wanted to do, they yelled and hoped no one would know what they were feeling.

  Even Anne was morose and uncommunicative, spending hours pretending to read, but actually staring into space.

  “SOMETIMES I THINK my mother hates me,” Chandi said morosely.

  Rose-Lizzie stooped to pick an early Easter lily. “Of course she doesn’t hate you,” she said dismissively. “Don’t you think these look like lacy hats?”

  “Sometimes she sounds as if she does.”

  She spotted another one and darted off. “It’s only your imagination,” she called out over her shoulder.

  Chandi glared at her. “No it’s not. You should have heard her last night, going on and on.”

  Rose-Lizzie wandered back. “What about?”

  “A needle.”

  “A needle?”

  “She wanted me to go and buy one last night, but it was raining so I told her I’d go this morning and she went mad,” he said, his mouth twisting with distaste as he remembered. “She yelled and kept on yelling.”

  “So what did you do?” she asked, now interested.

  “I went.”

  “What? In the rain?”

  “Yes. I got soaked too.”

  “What fun!” she exclaimed. “I wish you’d thought to ask me along. I love walking in the rain.”

  He looked impatiently at her. “This wasn’t rain. This was a storm. The path was slippery and I nearly fell a couple of times. The umbrella flew off a couple of times too.”

  She burst out laughing. “Oh, Chandi!” she pealed. “I wish I’d been there!”

  He stared at her. “It wasn’t funny.”

  “But it must have been! I can imagine you running after the umbrella in the dark! Thank God old Asilin wasn’t out walking! She would have thought it was her yakka and had a heart attack!” She wiped tears of mirth from her eyes.

  “Why would she have thought I was the yakka?” Chandi demanded.

  Rose-Lizzie collapsed on the grass, shrieking with laughter again. “Not you, idiot! The umbrella! Can you imagine what would have happened if it had blown out of nowhere into her face?”

  Against his will, Chandi began to smile. “She’d have probably died of fright, poor woman,” he said.

  “About time too,” Rose-Lizzie declared. “She must be a hundred by now. I think she’s trying to beat Appuhamy’s record.”

  “You mustn’t say things like that,” Chandi said reprovingly. “One day you’ll be old too. How would you like it if all the children went around wishing you were dead?”

  “I have no intention of living long enough for them to,” she said airily. “I don’t want to become old and bent and toothless, thank you very much.”

  “Well, just for saying nasty things, you probably will,” Chandi said.

  “In that case, so will you,” she said. “I can see you—you’ll be a huffy old man, all prim and proper.”

  “And I suppose you’ll be a can-can dancer at seventy,” he retorted.

  She pretended to be shocked. “Why, Chandi! Wherever did you hear of can-can dancers?”

  “I heard Mr. Cartwright telling the Sudu Mahattaya that the only thing he missed about living in a city were the clubs and the can-can dancers.”

  “Do you suppose I could be one?” she asked, kicking her legs up.

  He looked at her consideringly. “No. Too ugly,” he said finally.

  “Beast!” She turned sharply and flounced off.

  He grinned at her retreating back. “Far too ugly,” he called after her. But she didn’t turn and come running back to pummel him as she usually did. She just kept going. He hurried after her.

  “Rose-Lizzie! Rose-Lizzie, wait.”

  She didn’t wait. He ran after her and when he reached her, he spun her around to face him. To his consternation, her eyes were full of tears.

  “Rose-Lizzie!” he said, appalled. She never cried. “Why are you crying?”

  She glared at him. “I’m not crying,” she said, but her voice sounded small.

  He didn’t know whether to laugh or to feel bad. Only Rose-Lizzie could look at him with tears running down her cheeks and declare that she wasn’t crying.

  She started walking again and he kept pace with her. “I didn’t mean it, you know. About you being ugly and all.”

  She kept her eyes firmly fixed on the grass. “Yes you did,” she said briefly.

  “I didn’t. I think you’re very pretty,” he said earnestly.

  “Now you’re making fun of me,” she said, her voice wobbling in spite of her efforts to keep it steady.

  He grabbed her shoulders and turned her around to face him. “Look at me,” he commanded. She looked the other way. “I think you’re really very pretty. You have beautif
ul dark hair even if it looks like a crow’s nest sometimes, your eyes are like the sky in the evenings just before it gets dark and your skin is like a damson but browner. You have nice legs too, so I think you’ll be a good can-can dancer,” he finished judiciously.

  She had been staring at him, her eyes wide. Now a huge grin split her face. “Why, Chandi!” she exclaimed. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me!”

  Her words shook him out of his trance, because that was almost what he’d been in. He blinked and looked at her. She really did look pretty, although he’d originally said it just to make her feel better. Her mouth was too wide, but better too wide than too stingy, he thought. And she really did have a sunny smile.

  “Yoohoo!”

  They were both startled and a little thankful to see John striding across the grass toward them.

  “Hello, Daddy!” Rose-Lizzie called happily.

  John reached them and regarded them a little quizzically. “What are the two of you doing standing up here?”

  “Nothing,” Chandi said.

  “Talking,” Rose-Lizzie said at the same time.

  John laughed. “Well, was it nothing or were you talking?”

  “Both,” Rose-Lizzie said.

  John lifted an eyebrow. “Both?” He looked from one to the other. If Rose-Lizzie were older, he’d have thought this was a lover’s tryst, they both looked so guilty. Actually, Chandi looked acutely uncomfortable. John wondered if his minx of a daughter had actually made some kind of a move toward him. No, he told himself, surely not. She was too young—and yet her eyes were definitely full of fondness as she gazed up at Chandi.

  “Look what I found,” John said, pulling something carefully from his pocket.

  “Oh, Daddy!” Rose-Lizzie exclaimed, looking at the tiny bird that lay in his palm. “Where did you find it?”

  “In the grass under the flamboyant. I think it’s hurt its wing.”

  Chandi reached out and gently took the bird. He looked at it carefully. “I think it’s his leg, Sudu Mahattaya,” he said. “We’d better get a matchstick and make a splint. Then we’ll have to put him somewhere warm until it heals. Look, he’s so afraid you can see his heart beating.”

  John looked at Chandi in surprise. “You should think of medicine, you know. It looks as if you have the healing touch.”

  “No, I don’t think I want to,” Chandi said, still stroking the bird with his little finger. “Whenever I think of doctors, I remember Dr. Wijesundera.”

  John laughed. “I think you’d make a far better doctor than Wijesundera ever was. Actually, anyone would.” He started walking back with the two of them. “You really should think about it, Chandi,” he remarked. “Just imagine how proud your mother would be.”

  John didn’t miss the scowl that appeared on Chandi’s face at the mention of his mother. “What’s wrong? Had a spat?” he asked sympathetically.

  “No, not really,” Chandi muttered.

  “If Chandi wanted to be a doctor, where would he go to school?” Rose-Lizzie asked interestedly.

  “Well, there is an excellent one in London, and a few more around,” John said.

  Chandi’s heart leapt. He looked at Rose-Lizzie to see if she’d noticed too, but she was still talking to her father.

  “Aren’t they frightfully expensive, Daddy?” she inquired.

  “Well, they offer scholarships to bright students. I wouldn’t think Chandi would have any problem getting one,” he said thoughtfully.

  Chandi’s heart beat a happy rhythm. No, he hadn’t imagined it. Here was the Sudu Mahattaya actually talking as if Chandi were not only going to England with them, but also going to medical school. It was like hearing the sweetest music after being deaf for a long time. He forced himself to concentrate on the conversation.

  “Would he have to live at the school?” Rose-Lizzie was asking.

  “He could, or he could live at home and go in daily if the school was nearby,” John replied. He continued saying something more, but Chandi had stopped listening.

  At home. The Sudu Mahattaya had said he could live at home. Their home. In England. The original Nuwara Eliya. With no Gunadasa, no Krishnas, no sly ticket men or thambili sellers to throw knowing looks at his mother or him, no Sunils with big mouths to worry about, no Rangi memories to cloud people’s happiness. He wondered if his mother would marry the Sudu Mahattaya after all, and if the Sudu Mahattaya would perhaps one day want to adopt him. Chandi Buckwater. He tasted the name silently and it tasted better even than chocolate.

  He stumbled over a clump of weeds and almost fell.

  “Chandi! Watch out!” Rose-Lizzie cried. “You don’t want to kill the bird before you can cure him.”

  At home.

  For weeks, he drifted around turning that conversation over in his mind, examining it for inflections, trying to see if there was anything about it he’d missed. He searched the Sudu Mahattaya’s face for new expressions—potentially paternal ones, if it must be known—and beamed approvingly when his mother slipped silently down the corridor at night. Suddenly he saw everything in a new light.

  He knew now that the Sudu Mahattaya was definitely entertaining the idea of taking Chandi to England with them.

  Now everything depended on his mother.

  Much as he was loath to bring up the subject with her, given the fact that she hadn’t exactly been affectionate these past few weeks, he had to know. He circled the kitchen looking for an opportunity to speak to her, and succeeded only in irritating her even more.

  “For goodness sake, Chandi!” she exclaimed. “What do you want? You keep walking around and eyeing me as if I was about to pounce on you or something. Do you want something?”

  He was dying to tell her she was pouncing on him, but he wisely held his tongue. “No,” he said, and hastily removed himself from the kitchen.

  She looked after him and sighed. She had to stop treating him like a child, but sometimes she couldn’t help it. Especially when he behaved like one. He obviously wanted to say something or ask her something and obviously it was a tricky subject, or he would have come straight out and said it, whatever it was. She had a sneaking suspicion it was something to do with the Sudu Mahattaya, because she’d also seen Chandi following him around a lot lately, hanging on his words and listening anxiously to his conversations.

  Chandi slouched around the passageway, pausing briefly by the stone vats, which had been empty of ginger beer and wine for years now. Hardly anyone came to visit anymore so there was no need of it. He still remembered the taste of ginger-beer-drowned raisins from that day all those years ago.

  He was concerned. He really had to know how his mother felt about the England thing, but how to bring it up? She lost her temper at the drop of a hat and snapped rather than spoke. Chandi knew everyone was worried, even the Sudu Mahattaya, but as far as he was concerned, the solution was there, sitting on a silver platter, waiting for her to pick it up. In a word—England. If they accepted the Sudu Mahattaya’s invitation, which would surely come, they wouldn’t have to worry about what would happen to them when the family left. There’d be no Deniyaya to dread, no poverty to fear, no chance of a dreary cutlet existence. It was not just a solution, but a perfect solution, with a happily-ever-after attached to it.

  So why did he have this bad feeling that his mother wouldn’t want to go? It didn’t make sense. If she sneaked to the Sudu Mahattaya’s room every night, why couldn’t she go to England, where she most probably wouldn’t have to sneak around anymore? Because she was proud, his head replied swiftly, and would rather eke out a living frying cutlets than be dependent on someone else’s charity. But it wouldn’t be charity, he argued with himself—the Sudu Mahattaya would want to marry her. But what about the Sudu Nona, his head taunted, what was he going to do about her? Okay then, the Sudu Mahattaya wouldn’t marry his mother, but what was bad about that? They weren’t married now and they were quite happy.

  “Chandi, what are you doing standing th
ere, staring into space?” Robin Cartwright was standing at the dining room window peering out. “Hold on, old chap, I’ll join you,” he said and disappeared, to open the door. He stepped out, smiling broadly.

  Chandi concealed his annoyance with difficulty. What did a person have to do to be alone in this place? “Hello, Mr. Cartwright,” he said lamely.

  “So what’s the matter? Something wrong?” Robin Cartwright eyed him shrewdly. “You’re looking very pensive.”

  Chandi blushed. “It’s nothing,” he said.

  Robin Cartwright paused to fill his pipe. “A problem shared is a problem halved, you know,” he said without looking at Chandi.

  “There’s no problem,” Chandi muttered, hunting around for a means of escape. He couldn’t just walk away, because that would be rude and Mr. Cartwright was a nice man, really. Chandi would have welcomed his company at any other time. Just not now. He watched him bending down to light his pipe. He wasn’t white like he had been when he first arrived, but his ears were still bright red. He had big ears with large, fleshy lobes that hung slightly. Like the ears on the Buddha statue at the junction. He thought of a story Rose-Lizzie had told him long ago, about a girl in England called Little Red Riding Hood and a wolf.

  Mr. Cartwright, what big ears you have!

  All the better to hear you with, my dear!

  He grinned. “That’s better!” the wolf said approvingly. “There’s a good side to everything. Silver lining and all that.”

  Chandi had no idea what Mr. Cartwright was talking about, but he pretended to understand. “Everything will sort itself out, dear boy,” Mr. Cartwright continued kindly. “I know it seems all up in the air right now, but it will settle down.”

  They started walking down the passageway. They passed Anne’s bedroom window and saw her sitting by it, reading. She glanced up and waved to them. They waved back.

  “Beastly business, politics,” he said, puffing thoughtfully. “As bad as marriage.”

  Chandi looked at him curiously. “Why did you never get married? Didn’t you want to at all?”