by Roma Tearne
‘Be quiet, men!’
The sound had gone on and on, not waking anyone else, but it had stayed in Jasper’s head and he remembered it now with his usual clarity.
During the shocking, hurried journey home, shocking because no one had ever seen Christopher in quite this way before, hurried because of the embarrassment, they had all been subdued.
‘It was a good party you missed,’ said Thornton tentatively, not wanting to upset Christopher any more by questioning him too closely.
What was the matter with him? he wondered uneasily. Had he been in a fight?
‘Time we left anyway,’ Aloysius said by way of comfort. He looked shocked, Thornton noticed, while Grace seemed almost too upset to speak.
‘What on earth were you doing at the demonstration?’ asked Jacob. The thought of what might have happened frightened him, making him sound furious. ‘What did you expect, you fool, if you go to dangerous places like that? I told you to keep away from the riots. I told you. You’re lucky to have got away with burnt hands!’
‘That’s enough now, Jacob,’ Grace said quietly from the back of the old Austin Morris. Her voice was that of a stranger. It was hardly audible. In the darkness her face looked deathly pale.
‘I hope Sunil will be all right,’ Alicia said anxiously, for, in spite of all her pleas, Sunil had gone back to the UEP headquarters to send a telegram.
‘Don’t worry, darling,’ Grace said, ‘he’ll be fine.’
She sounded as if she was gasping for air. Thornton’s unease grew. Christopher too seemed to be struck dumb. His headlong flight to find his mother, his astonishing uncontrollable grief, was followed by silence. As soon as they got back to the house, he disappeared. No one could make any sense of what had happened, no one could work out why he had been anywhere near the riots. Unobserved by any of them, Christopher slipped away and rode his bicycle all the way back to the beach at Galle Face.
It was now almost four o’clock in the morning. The rain had perfumed the air, only the sound of the sea gnawing at the shore remained, a reminder of the storm. Far away on the horizon a streak of lilac struggled to appear against the sky. The boats were coming in with the day’s catch. On the quay, seagulls circled around the fishermen, waiting for a pause in the activities, hoping for a morsel of food. Christopher stared at the beach, miraculously ironed smooth with the morning, every blemish swept as though by an unseen hand. Grief, like nothing he had ever felt before, broke, riding roughshod over him. He was distraught.
Last night was a million light years away. Remembering Jacob’s foolish questions he began to heave. Jacob, he thought, busy sucking up to the whites. And Thornton, the empty-headed beauty, what did he care about, except how he looked and what everyone thought of him? Only his mother, thought Christopher, incoherent now, only his mother had understood.
‘Come back,’ he screamed. ‘Come back!’ His voice was whipped by the sea breeze and caught in the roar of the waves. He stood screaming and choking as the seagulls circled the sky. ‘I’m finished,’ he cried. ‘It’s over.’
He had not gone to watch the riots as Jacob suspected, or to join in the demonstration. His thoughts became disjointed. Everything that had followed was blurred. Racked by sobs, broken, desperate, he fell to his knees on the soft white sand. Raising his face towards the sky, he whispered, ‘I can’t go on.’
Only a few hours earlier he had visited Kamala with a heart that brimmed over with hope. Carrying the tenderness that he showed no one else. Kamala had been ill, but seemed to Christopher’s anxious eyes to be much better.
‘You are better,’ he recalled saying fiercely, willing her to be. And Kamala, laughing (he always made her laugh), agreed.
Her father was at his Galle Face stall, selling plastic jewellery. White butterflies trapped in Perspex, flecked with gold, dozens of bangles, pink, yellow and green. There was to be a demonstration tonight, and a march organised by the railway and factory workers. A peaceful march. Christopher met Kamala at the stall.
‘Let’s walk along the beach,’ he had said, for he had brought money with him. ‘I want to buy you some fried crab and Lanka lime. Then we can be happy.’
Yes, that’s what he had said. He remembered it very clearly, being happy was something he could only do with Kamala. As they walked he had talked, as he often did, of his passionate desire for free state education. It was his favourite subject, his dream.
‘It must be offered to everyone,’ he had said. ‘Not just the rich but the coolies, the servants. In any case…’ he paused, while Kamala gazed admiringly at him, ‘why do we need servants anyway?’
Kamala listened not fully understanding, but agreeing with everything. Full of pride. He had told her the Greenwood story again. He was always telling her that story. How many times had she heard it? But on each occasion she listened patiently.
‘By the time it was my turn the money had run out. They gave it all to that fool Thornton. And what did he ever do with it?’ he had fumed, unable to stop himself. He had known Kamala hated to hear him talk about his brother in this way.
‘You mustn’t,’ she had said, earnestly. ‘You mustn’t say these things. Your family is a gift, Chris. It’s bad for you to talk like this.’
It hadn’t stopped him though. He had taken no notice of her. Last night he had begun again, moaning on and on about Thornton and the price of a decent education in this country. Never knowing how he was wasting time. Kamala had pulled his hand and teased him into a better mood.
‘Next year, after my sister’s wedding,’ he told her, ‘we’ll get married. I’ll speak to my mother. Just wait,’ he said, as if it was Kamala and not he who was in a hurry, ‘you’ll see, I will become a journalist.’
He hated to think of Kamala sleeping in the shack with the cajan roof that let in the monsoon.
‘Soon,’ he promised, ‘you’ll sleep on a proper bed in a clean, dry bedroom with a roof made of tiles. Our children will have decent educations. All of them, not just a chosen few.’
He had said all this. Only last night.
The Galle Face had been crowded with people. But Kamala’s father let her take a walk along the beach with Christopher. He knew his daughter’s illness was not curable. It was her karma. So he let them walk together along the seafront, letting them enjoy what brief happiness they could. Two young people with no idea of what their future held, but planning it anyway.
After a while they decided to go back up the hill towards the centre. Someone said there was a street fair and Christopher thought they might try the tombola. He had forgotten about the Tamil strikers’ demonstration. It was Kamala’s father, catching sight of them retracing their footsteps, who remembered. But by the time he had found someone to mind his stall they had vanished from sight. The crowds had grown. Away from the sea breeze the smell of sweaty bodies mixed with the fetid slabs of meat in the market as he hurried through the maze of stalls. An air of nervous tension hung over the neighbourhood. Outside, close to the Fort and behind the market, a few mounted policemen in white uniforms waited expectantly. Most of the shops in this area were shut or closing, there was no sign of the fair, and no sign of Kamala or Christopher. One or two men on bicycles rode by. A few dogs scavenged in the gutters. Kamala’s father quickened his pace.
The whole of this part of the city was in darkness. A muffled sound of voices, the faint throb of a loudspeaker could be heard in the distance, but still he could not see anyone. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw a movement, but when he turned there was nothing there. He hurried on knowing he could not leave the stall for long. He needed to find Kamala and Christopher, to warn them to keep away from the demonstration. He was now in St Anthony’s Road and in front of him was the great Roman Catholic cathedral. Close by was Temple Tree Square where the Bo trees were tied with offerings. Kamala’s father breathed more easily, for this was a sacred site with an open aspect and lights. Through the trees, on the other side of the square, he could see the reason for th
e silence. The demonstrators, with their banners, had gathered together to listen to the speaker. The march had ended peacefully after all and as he approached Kamala’s father saw with relief that Christopher and Kamala were on the edge of the crowd.
‘Kamala,’ he had called. ‘Kamala, Christopher. Come here.’ He waved urgently, becoming suddenly, unaccountably afraid.
Only then did he see the shadow of a saffron robe. Only then did he smell the petrol and see the ragged flames, one after another, until too late, a circle of fire surrounded him. Drawing closer and closer. A Kathakali dance of death.
‘Watch out,’ he had shouted in vain. ‘Be careful. Chris, Chris, take her away.’
They heard him shout but the words were indistinct. Kamala turned and ran towards him. For a brief moment, in the flare of the burning rags, Christopher saw them both clearly, her wide bright eyes reflecting the light, her hair aglow. Then he heard only their screams, father and daughter, mixing and blending together with the sound of his own anguish. Flesh against flesh, ashes to ashes.
The night was nearly over now. For Christopher there would never be such a night again. He stared at his hands. They oozed liquid through the bandages his mother had used. The burns covered both palms, crossing his lifeline, changing it forever. He had heard afterwards, there had been many others. One of them, he had cried, hardly registering the look on his mother’s face, had been the man she knew as Vijay.
The dawn rose, the sun came out. Beach sweepers began clearing the debris from the night before, but still Christopher stood motionless, Kamala’s name tolling a steady refrain in his head. A newspaper seller shouted out the headlines, riots, petrol bombs, fourteen dead, seven injured. The government was to impose a curfew. But Christopher heard none of this. It was the day of the total eclipse.
They found his bicycle first. It was another four days before they found him. He had wandered for miles along the outskirts of the city, without shoes, his bandages torn off, his hands a mass of sores and infected pus, his face covered in insect bites. He did not see the eclipse as the moon slipped slowly over the sun. Or the many thousand crescent shadows that drained the warmth from the earth. Or hear the birds, whose confused, small roosting sounds filled the sudden night. And, as his family searched frantically for him, Christopher remained oblivious of the darkness that slipped swiftly across the land before sinking at last, gently, into the Bay of Bengal.
6
GRACE, FACE DOWN, FISTS CLENCHED, was lying across the bed. She was trying to control herself. Somewhere far in the distance a train hooted. The sound sliced the air. She shuddered as though she had been hit by it. Aloysius was frightened. Closing the bedroom door, he stood for a moment staring at her in horror.
‘What is it, Grace?’ he asked in a whisper. ‘Nothing happened to Christopher in the end. What’s wrong?’
Her face was thrown against the pillow and she was shaking. No sound came from her. Nothing. Just the clenching and unclenching of her fists. ‘Grace,’ said Aloysius, fearfully. He took a step towards her, the room blurred for a moment. Not even when he had told her they were leaving their home in the hills had he seen her this way.
‘Grace,’ he said again.
His own voice sounded unrecognisable. He hesitated, suddenly terrified. Then he knelt down beside the bed and tried to take her in his arms. Her sari clung to her, dripping wet with filth from the road. She was shivering.
‘What is it, Grace?’ Aloysius asked again, pleading, half not wanting to know. ‘It isn’t Christopher, is it?’
Something in the tone of his voice made her turn blindly towards him and he caught her as she fell soaked and weeping into his arms. He had no idea how long he stayed in this way, with her cold body and her heart beating against him. Eventually there was a knock on the door. It was Thornton.
‘Not now,’ Aloysius said quickly, before Thornton could see the state his mother was in.
Then Aloysius undressed her, drying her hair, her arms, wiping her face even as she cried, getting her into bed, unquestioning. Concerned only that she would lie down under the mosquito net, with the lights off and the shutters closed.
‘I’ll call the doctor,’ he said, when it was clear that her grief would not abate. ‘Please,’ he said, huskily. ‘Please, Grace. Wait, I’ll be back.’
And he went out, shutting the door softly behind him, to make his phone call and send Thornton and Myrtle away, telling them Grace was ill with stomach cramp and the doctor would be here soon.
Outside the rain increased and thunder beat against the sky. The air had cooled rapidly and small insects invaded the house. Aloysius woke the servant woman and asked her to make some coriander tea for Grace. Then he waited for the doctor to arrive.
Frieda iced the wedding cake while Myrtle read the instructions out loud.
‘“To Ornament Your Wedding Cake.”’
With only two months to go there was still a lot to be done. Frieda’s head ached with a fever. It was raining again, heavy rain that vomited out of the sky, thrashing the branches of the coconut trees. Every word Myrtle uttered, every crack of thunder made the veins in Frieda’s temples pulsate harder. How her head ached. The rain had brought in several uninvited guests. Large garden spiders thudded against the walls and a rat snake slithered in through the front door, curling up by the open fire in the kitchen. The cook had been blowing into the flames when she saw it.
‘Missy, missy,’ she shouted to Frieda. ‘We have a visit from the Hindu God. It is good luck, missy. It is a good omen for the wedding.’
The cook would not move the snake. In the end it left of its own accord. Grace, had she heard, would have been annoyed by this superstitious nonsense, but Grace was not well. She had seen the doctor repeatedly, because her stomach pains had worsened. Now, almost a month later, although she was over it, she still slept badly. Once she was an early riser, now, everyone noticed, she found it difficult to get up at all. She looked so exhausted that Frieda and Myrtle had taken over the icing of the cake.
‘“For the ornamentation, fancy forcing pipes are not absolutely necessary,”’ said Myrtle.
It felt as though a thousand steel hammers banged inside Frieda’s head. What was Myrtle saying?
‘“This piping will not be easy for a beginner, but with patience and practice there is no reason why it should not be mastered.”’
Frieda imagined Robert. She saw his face reflected in the metal icing nozzle. The beautiful white icing reminded her of him. She wanted to write his name all over the cake. She wanted to write her own name next to it.
Soon the cake was finished, three tiers of it, all beautiful and porcelain – white, pristine and bridal. And then, on top of everything else, Frieda had developed another nagging worry. What was wrong with their mother? Was she sick with some terrible disease? In all her life Frieda had never known Grace to be ill.
‘Have you noticed how quiet she is?’ she asked Thornton, some time later. But Thornton too seemed preoccupied and answered only vaguely. Next, Frieda tried talking to Jacob.
‘D’you think what happened to Christopher has upset her?’
‘Christopher is an idiot,’ Jacob said sternly. ‘You must not encourage him to worry Mummy like this ever again. D’you understand?’ He almost said, ‘When I leave for England you will have to watch Christopher,’ but he stopped himself. It was too soon to tell anyone of his plans.
Grace had changed. In the weeks that followed Christopher’s escapade she stopped going into the city to visit the nuns and spent most of her time at home, sleeping. When she was awake, she seemed tired and short-tempered. Aloysius too was different. He seemed to have undergone a transformation, as far as Frieda could tell. He had stopped going to the club, played no poker at all and insisted Grace took her meals in bed. Frieda’s worry grew.
‘Alicia,’ she said finally, ‘have you noticed how exhausted Mummy is all the time?’
‘Mmm,’ said Alicia. ‘How d’you mean?’ She had just finished her prac
tice and was staring at her list of things to do.
‘Well,’ Frieda continued, glad to have her sister’s attention at last, ‘yesterday, when Daddy finally went out, she got one of the servants to bring over a huge climbing jasmine. It was in full flower but someone had pulled it up by the roots. Now isn’t that a strange thing to do? When I asked her where she got it from, she looked annoyed. She told me the nuns gave it to her as a present. I had a feeling she didn’t want me to ask.’
‘So?’ asked Alicia, looking up briefly. What was Frieda talking about now? Was she wrong, or had her sister become a little dull of late?
‘Well, isn’t it a strange present to give her?’ persisted Frieda. ‘When we’ve got three jasmine bushes in the garden!’
Alicia shook her head, not knowing what to say.
‘She got Christopher to plant it underneath her bedroom window,’ Frieda continued. ‘One of the branches accidentally broke and she started to cry! Can you imagine that? Mummy crying over a jasmine plant? And then, Christopher gave her a hug!’
Alicia had to admit, that was interesting. But then again she wasn’t all that surprised.
‘Weddings are emotional times,’ she told her sister wisely. ‘I read it in the Book of Etiquette.’
‘Perhaps,’ Frieda mused, ‘the scare of nearly losing Christopher has affected her more than we realised.’
As she iced her sister’s cake Frieda went over the sequences of events on that terrible night. Would any of them ever forget it? Even her father, Frieda noticed, had been affected by it. Her father was clearly very worried. At least Mummy has him, thought Frieda, wistfully, remembering again the way in which Robert had looked at Alicia. Lucky Alicia. Lucky everyone. Did no one care that she was suffering too? Staring at the expanse of white icing, thinking of her breaking heart, she listened to the rain. No, she reflected mournfully, no one cares. She was unaware that Myrtle watched her.
