by Carl Muller
It had to be the act of a middle-class God. The thirteenth child of Cecilprins and Maudiegirl and the thirteenth child of Florrie and Clarence, deceased. Sonnaboy returned home, bathed, got into his best clothes and cycled back to Nimal Lane, Bambalapitiya, to number 19, and rapped at the gate. There were no frills about his calling. He was thirty-five years old, a government servant and on the list for consideration as an apprentice driver. Florrie was taken by the grey eyes and the candid manner of his calling. She shooed her daughters indoors and invited him to sit. Sonnaboy was not there to mince words. He wished to marry Beryl. Was that her name? A nice name. So he was twenty years her senior. His parents? Everything was laid on the table for Florrie’s dissection.
‘But you don’t know my daughter even.’
Sonnaboy nodded. ‘Can I see her?’
Florrie said no. She was a schoolgirl. A good girl. An innocent girl. She must study. She was still a child. Her little patiya (Sinhala for ‘tiny tot’ or smallest child). ‘Sin, no, to marry a girl this age. What she know about anything?’
Beryl, listening behind the inner door, frowned. Elva pinched her, almost made her squeal. ‘What she know,’ Elva hissed, ‘I’ll tell Mama how you go to that Lauries Lane house after school. Taking money from that man there. What are you doing with him?’
Beryl tossed her head. All that old man did was sit her on his lap and feel her legs. She regretted ever having told Elva about it. They listened together as Sonnaboy offered to bring his parents. Tomorrow?
Florrie was flustered. If only Clarence was here to deal with this huge fellow and his big hands. Such a big, bulgy man. But a railway man. That’s a good job. Pension, too, and later maybe government quarters to live in. But he’s thirty-five. That’s not good. May die soon and leave my Beryl a widow with children. ‘Must ask Saint Anthony,’ she muttered as she watched Sonnaboy pedal away.
The girls came out. ‘Mama, who is that?’
‘You mind your business, will you. Nobody can come and even fart in this house without you asking why. See, child, if have a candle in the whatnot.’
Elva nudged Beryl. ‘Mama is going to pray for you.’
Florrie took the candle crossly. ‘See the time Millie went to work and still not coming. I don’t know why somebody won’t come and marry you big two. That fellow coming here sweet as you please and saying never mind the school, he wants to marry Beryl. Cheek, no? I have told you girls a thousand times don’t encourage every loafer on the road. Otherwise how he know this place to come like this? See, will you, how nicely he walked in. As sweet as you please. Must be knowing your father is dead. Here, light this. I must ask Saint Anthony to help me. Better he take you, miss,’ poking the candle at Elva, ‘You are almost twenty-five now.’
Beryl was outraged. She had never had a suitor. And here was a knight on a bicycle and her mother wanted to fob Elva on him. ‘But he wants to marry me,’ she wailed.
‘Who said so? Walls have big ears.’
‘But he saw me after school.’
‘Shut, shut. You stay in the kitchen when he comes again, miss. Marry. You’re only fifteen. What you know about men? How you can make babies at your age? And cook and wash his clothes and what you do when he comes drunk I like to know. See how big he is.’
Elva ran to strike a pose before the long wardrobe mirror. A slim, willowy beauty, to be sure. Narrow-hipped, neatly tapering calves and ankles. She had put a good many boys to flight, but this Sonnaboy struck her as someone to be wary of. There was something brutal about being so big. Why, his muscles rippled under those short sleeves. ‘Will I do?’ she asked, making large eyes.
Beryl was on her in a fit of fury. ‘He wants to marry me,’ she cried seizing a fistful of hair. Elva screamed and Florrie waded in to slap both soundly.
‘You wait,’ said Elva darkly, ‘I’ll tell.’
‘So tell. As if I care. If you tell, Mama will quickly say to marry him.’
Elva was annoyed. She was the elder sister. She must marry first. What will people say if Beryl married first. ‘They will call me an old maid,’ she cried.
‘Serves you right,’ said Florrie. ‘What about that Koelmeyer boy? And who’s that other fellow. Forsythe? Came every day. Why they don’t come now? Why you want to get all high and mighty, ah? See that Peterson boy. From this high we know him. Used to ring the bell for Angelus in church when he was small. Now he is in Mackinnons. Good job. He wanted to take you for his office party. How many times he came.’
‘But Mama, he is awful. Only want to go to the beach and hold hands.’
‘Because he is gentleman, that’s why. Not like some fellows. Even this fellow. See how he come to talk with me. Because he knows his place, that’s why. No hanky-panky nonsense. Telling the parents first. That is why I even talk so long with him. Because he is well-brought up. And railway man. He will be good husband for you. Tomorrow I will go to Kanatte and tell your father and he will be happy to hear. Beryl, stop that long face business and go and tell Soma to make some tea. Don’t you pout at me, my girl. I’ll pout you on the other side of your face!’
And while Florrie skittered around aimlessly, talking to herself, and Beryl rattled cups and stamped her feet in the kitchen and poured out her woes to Soma, and while Elva was making up her mind that Sonnaboy would make an eminently suitable husband, the cause of all this domestic pother was soaping himself at the well and emerged, reeking of carbolic to tell his fond papa and mama that they must accompany him the next day to meet his future bride.
‘But you’re engaged to Elaine, no?’ Maudiegirl objected.
‘I don’t care,’ said Sonnaboy, ‘I love this girl.’
Cecilprins fussed over the name. ‘Da Brea . . . da Brea? Sounds like Portuguese to me. Who is the father?’
‘Father is dead.’
‘Hmmm. But old lady is managing. Must be all right. Never mind, can see tomorrow, no. How’s the house?’
‘Not bad. Like this. Two three rooms, I think.’
‘Then can’t be badly off. But you go and tell Elaine, do you hear? Her father is good friend of mine. Damn shame if they get angry because of your nonsense.’
*
Eric de Mello worked in the General Post Office too, and was a mite lower in rank to Cecilprins who had his own desk and keys to drawers he could lock and, glory be, his own row of pigeon holes where he would stuff odds and ends. Each pigeon hole had been carefully labelled ‘Standing orders’, ‘Memoranda’, ‘PMG’s Circulars’, ‘Queries’, etc., and Eric marvelled at this edifice of efficiency.
Eric shared a counter with a Tamil clerk named Naiswamy and a freckled Burgher lad named Raux who was easier called Rooks and who whistled tonelessly all day. Eric lived in Dehiwela too—in Station Lane—and was always on the platform to greet Cecilprins. He, being younger would always swing aboard first and secure a window seat, back to the engine, for Cecilprins, which was his first humble duty for the day. You see, Eric had his eye on Elsie and cultivated the father quite atrociously. It did not strike him that, as a couple, he and Elsie would cut quite a ludicrous figure. He, thin as a pipecleaner, slightly stooped with an air of permanent defeat; she, a healthy, strapping woman with calves and upper arms bigger than his thigh. He loved her to distraction. He needed someone to domineer him, even beat him, as his mother still did, yet, to tend to him, for Eric could never tend to himself. His was a world full of stumblings and bumblings, and odd socks and shirts buttoned wrong and leaving umbrellas in buses and sitting on his spectacles. Yet, he had his own little vice: the Ceylon Turf Club, and although he sometimes forgot and carried the race paper home and was soundly pummelled by his mother for venturing on this road to eternal damnation, he was mad on horse-racing. A sad, timid soul, he would resort to stealing from his own pay packet to put a fifty cents each way on horses who always insisted on raising their tails and refusing to finish.
‘Canteen!’ mother Aggie would bellow, ‘What’s this canteen nonsense? I give lunch packet and ten cents ever
y day, no? And you have train season-ticket, no? So what for you going to canteen and eating and drinking God knows what? And four rupees cut from your pay. Four rupees! Can buy eggs and meat and pay the baker and get kerosene oil, no? with that money. You are waster like your father. Don’t talk! God in heaven, what is this son you give me. I feed him and darn his shirts and only yesterday I cut cardboard with my own two hands to put in his shoes. And I think today he bring his pay home to his old mama who is slaving and grinding away with no rest from morning to night and four rupees gone for canteen. Canteen!’
Eric would cower near the sofa with its ghastly purple flower pattern and say, ‘I’m sorry, Mama,’ and Aggie would charge him like an enraged buffalo and twist a fat forearm around his neck and drag him to the centre of the hall, pummelling his head with her fist and breathing like an overworked bellows. Eric would yelp and struggle feebly, then stand still and inhale his mother’s body smell as she whacked him, then pushed him into a chair and tucked in her hairpins.
‘Think that I do this for your own good,’ she would puff. ‘Responsible you can be if you want. When I die and go what you will do, I don’t know.’
Eric didn’t know either. But Mama had whacked him and that was balm to his soul. Mama loved him.
It took a long time for Eric to summon the courage to tell Cecilprins of his intentions. The latter was impressed. Runty little fellow, to be sure, but steady, obliging, respectful and good son-in-law material. Could be kept in order, too. So Eric was invited home and he came with a tin of Bluebird toffees and made eyes at Elsie who glared back fiercely and scattered toffee wrappers in the veranda. Close up to his goddess, Eric was positively inflamed. Such a bosom. He could bury his head in that while she beat him and she was welcome to beat him every hour if she wished.
Mother Aggie was pleased. She was always impressed by the von Blosses who had produced such strong girls, each built like a pack-bull. When she learned of her son’s intentions she swatted him affectionately and taking out a large bunch of keys, opened the kitchen safe and cut him a large wedge of love cake. ‘From Christmas I save this cake,’ she breathed, ‘to give you one day you make your poor mama happy. So today you take a piece. You marry that girl. I will say a rosary for you.’
Eric, overwhelmed, cried: ‘Mama.’
‘My sugar ball,’ Aggie cried—and that was perhaps the only maternal endearment Eric ever received. Aggie passed away that night with a sneer on her lips and Eric found a pillowcase full of money the old lady had stashed away and had a grand funeral with a band and two Tamil women he paid fifty cents each, to wail at the cemetery and beat their foreheads in the dust.
Cecilprins had had his reservations about Aggie. Now that she was safely interred his last doubts were dispelled. His Elsie would be mistress of a nice home in Station Lane. Eric would have to wait a decent interval, of course, but that couldn’t be helped. ‘I think six months is enough,’ he told Maudiegirl.
‘Chickay (Sinhala expression conveying contempt or disgust), that’s not enough,’ said Maudiegirl, heaving herself upright in her lounger. ‘Poor mother in the sand and no time even to say twelve masses. Must wait one year, no?’
‘You’re mad, woman? When he coming here every day. Now not even talking in the house. Putting chairs under jam fruit tree and who knows what he’s telling to her? Putting ideas in her head, must be. Everybody going on the road can see also. Tell, will you, to be like normal.’
Sonnaboy regarded his sister’s boyfriend with contempt. ‘Soththiya (Sinhala word meaning a weak, effeminate person), no? Bugger can’t even stand straight.’
‘You don’t worry, will you,’ Maudiegirl would frown. ‘He does better job than you, no? Have brains in his head.’
Cecilprins was assured by Father Romiel that there was no harm in an early wedding. ‘I’m sure the poor soul would like an early wedding.’
‘But what will people think, don’t know.’
‘Think of the poor soul,’ the priest murmured.
Cecilprins bridled. ‘What poor soul? My Elsie is all right. I’m giving her almirah and the old sewing-machine. A Pfaff. Only needs oiling. And some pots and pans and some money also. She will be all right.’
‘No, no, I’m meaning Mrs de Mello. Surely she is now in heaven, waiting to see her son get married.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yes. So when shall we fix the day.’
‘As you like, Father. Maybe two-three months.’ Poor soul. Hah! Must tell that to Maudiegirl.
Elsie was delighted. ‘So now we can get married,’ she told Eric and seizing his hand thrust it between her legs. She deplored Eric’s lack of spirit. She expected him to be more forthcoming. Like Dunnyboy, for example, whose nightly predations were clockwork regular. When Eric rose to go, he held the Morning Leader strategically to hide the bulge in his trousers. He felt, at last, a man.
*
George de Mello was Eric’s cousin, and when he heard of the latter’s marriage plans he called to check out the lay of the land. George was a crafty piece of work. Old Papa de Mello, who kept milch cows and was known in Kandana as a real bullshitter, was inordinately proud of his Georgieboy. ‘Such a mind he has,’ he told wife Mattie, ‘and not even thinking of girls. Only work, work, work. Like his father, no?’
Mattie would shrug her bony shoulders and scorn reply. If goaded to reply she would sniff and say, ‘Apoi, yes. If doing well, like the father. When Barbie painting toenails, you say like the mother. Easy for you to talk.’
She would then sweep away to the kitchen and bang away at the pots and pans. Papa de Mello would twist the tops of his pajamas into a knot, tuck it in and bawl: ‘So what for you putting parts, woman. What your temper for? See, can’t even put a elastic on my pajamas.’ And having got that shot in he would clump out to give the man who was cutting grass for the cows a piece of his mind.
George de Mello was a perfect crow of a man. Hooked nose, sunken cheeks and sly eyes, he was a cold fish. From the firm of Bosanquet and Skrine, general importers, he moved to Delmege Forsythe, shippers, where the pickings were infinitely better. The shipping firm took him in as a tally clerk, and he found the port and shipside job one of vast potential. He scorned bus and train. The old Ebert Silva buses were a nightmare to travel in anyway. The hard wooden seats hurt his back and his long, spindly legs were always in the way. So he had his own rickshaw man to carry him in state to work each day and bowl him back. It was a long trot to the most enthusiastic of rickshaw-wallahs, but George’s arrivals and departures in so regal a fashion impressed his fellow-workers no end. Yet, he remained a small, mean man and not above stealing or cadging what he could, given the opportunities galore on board cargo ships and merchant packets.
Thus would he bring home boxes of Cadbury’s Roses one day and tins of Black Magic another. He made it a point to cadge a bottle of whisky or Martell’s Three Stars from ships captains and swiped what he could from purser’s cabins. He found that he could tally cargo consignments so well that there were always a couple of tins of this or packets of that, which belonged to nobody and were naturally, his. His dedication pleased his bosses no end. When he came to see his cousin Eric, he was senior tally master and the port of Colombo sang his praises in fifty different sharps and flats.
‘You know,’ he told Eric, ‘high time I also got married, no?’
Eric nodded like a puppet. He had always admired George. Even when they were children he always bowled and George always batted. Eric never had the courage to ask to bat. Today, however, he felt almost equal to his beady-eyed cousin. He was one step ahead, wasn’t he? He was going to marry. George was not.
The thought irked George. ‘What do you know about getting married, men? You know what to do?’
Eric’s lips trembled. He thought about how warm his hand felt between Elsie’s legs. ‘Of course I know,’ he croaked, ‘What you think I don’t know? Foo, I know all about that.’ Then he elaborated: ‘My Elsie also know. And she wants to do even now. But better
to wait, no, until the wedding.’
George was not impressed. ‘You’re a bloody fool, men.’
Eric was used to being called so. He didn’t mind. Together they went to Boteju Lane and George was introduced and Leah came in after work and George was all eyes for this florist’s assistant. His conversation with Cecilprins was forcefully loud; lots of swagger about the docks and the harbour workers he controlled and the ships captains he knew and how the firm of Delmege Forsyth would surely fold up tomorrow if he walked out on it. All this, naturally, for Leah’s benefit, who listened and sighed and brought him a cup of tea and said she had never been to the port or seen a ship close up.
George was in his element. ‘I can arrange,’ he said, ‘You can come on board with me. I have permits for visitors, no? Anything in the port I can do and anywhere I can go. I’ll tell when big ship comes and we can go.’
Maudiegirl hauled Leah indoors and propelled her to the back verenda. ‘I’ll port you. You’re mad or what? All coolies there and those ships fellows big cads. Go and wash the grinding stone and clean the fireplace. Listening to all this nonsense. You know what happened to Nellie, no? Went to visit ship and how many fellows got round her. What you girls thinking of, I don’t know.’
Cecilprins expelled noisily when George left. Pukka fellow, no?’ he told Maudiegirl. ‘One to talk. Two hours boasting, boasting. And damn cheek, no? Telling will take Leah to big ship. And in front of me! Not even asking. Just telling. Because he is Eric’s relation I keep quiet. Tchah! Feel like chasing both from here. What for he bring that fellow I don’t know. He coming to see Elsie, all right. What for he bringing his family people also?’
