by Roma Tearne
Christopher stared at his eldest brother disbelievingly. Then he burst out laughing.
‘You know your problem, Jacob,’ he said conversationally. ‘This country has turned you into one of the bourgeoisie. You were halfway there before you left Sri Lanka and this country has simply completed the job. Soon you’ll marry someone safe, just like our dear brother, and that will be that.’ He paused for a second to take a great gulp of his drink. ‘And if I want to be seen with a prostitute,’ he continued challengingly, looking around for the barman, ‘that’s up to me, no?’
Jacob winced. ‘Keep your voice down,’ he said wearily. ‘I’m sorry, Christopher, but you worry me. You’re drinking far too much. What will they say at home? What will Mummy say?’
Christopher snorted. ‘You don’t know what Mummy thinks? Let me tell you, she’s not the person you think she is. Let me tell you –’
Jacob held up his hand. ‘Don’t start getting excited about everything I say.’
They both fell silent. Sipping their drinks.
‘We have nothing in common,’ Christopher said finally, flatly. ‘You and I and Thornton.’ He spoke without heat, his face expressionless. ‘That’s the truth of it.’
‘Whose idea was it to meet?’ Jacob said, defensively.
‘Mine,’ Christopher said, suddenly serious. ‘It’s what Mummy would have liked. I suggested it for her sake. Not my own.’
Jacob was surprised. England had changed his youngest brother almost beyond recognition. He had become confident. Or maybe he always was, thought Jacob, but we never noticed. Christopher drank too much and when he was drunk it made him want to pick a fight. Just like Daddy, Jacob sighed. Why was it that every time he had any dealings with his family it was always unpleasant?
‘The only good thing about him,’ remarked Christopher catching sight of Thornton, ‘is Anna-Meeka. She should be my daughter!’
Thornton had told Savitha he would be late back. He had a feeling Savitha did not want Christopher getting drunk in their house. He also suspected Anna-Meeka listened in on their conversation. So he was happy to meet his brothers in the pub. Tonight he had come straight from work where, as usual, his day as a clerk at the Central Office of Information had been both confusing and tiring. He had not told anyone, but he would never like the job. He had not made friends but he did not tell his family this either. Picking up his glass, he went over to his brothers.
‘Aha!’ Christopher said immediately, in a combative sort of way. He looked alert and full of energy.
‘God, Christopher,’ Thornton said mildly, sipping his beer, ‘where do you get your energy from?’
‘How’s my niece?’
‘She’s been asked to join the school choir,’ Thornton said, brightening up.
‘Really? I say! This calls for a present.’ Christopher leapt up and went over to the bar to buy some chocolate.
‘He told me he didn’t have any money,’ Jacob said.
‘Oh, he’s mad,’ said Thornton. ‘Take no notice. I’m so cold,’ he added, distractedly.
Jacob considered him. Thornton looked unbelievably oppressed, weighed down and unhappy. The speed with which he had saddled himself with a wife so unlike him still amazed Jacob. A wife now working in a sweatshop, no less!
‘How’s Savitha’s job?’ he asked.
Thornton groaned.
‘Tell her to give it up, men. How can you let her work there?’
‘Shh!’ said Thornton, for Christopher was returning. ‘Don’t start him off, for God’s sake.’
Jacob shook his head. His family was a complete mystery. Thank goodness his new girlfriend was nothing like any of them. Christopher threw the bar of chocolate down on the table next to Thornton.
‘For Meeka,’ he said. ‘Ask her if she’s written another tune yet.’ He gave a short laugh. His brothers both looked like a couple of stuffed cats. ‘Cheer up,’ he said, ‘it might never happen!’
Half-term arrived. Meeka seemed a little happier at her school. Savitha noticed she had some friends, now. There was a girl called Gillian and another called Susan. Meeka talked earnestly about them and Savitha listened, suppressing a smile. Thornton did not think it significant but she could see her daughter looked more confident, and had begun to sing to herself again. Thornton only wanted Meeka to work hard. Soon she would be taking her eleven plus and he wanted her to stop wasting time playing piano and get into the grammar school. He noticed Meeka was still adding bits to the sonatas she was supposed to be learning, trying to improve on Beethoven he called it, disapprovingly. He noticed she was trying to talk in the peculiar way of the white children. He was not happy about this either. Nor was he pleased when she told him one evening that from now on she would be calling him Dad because Daddy was too babyish. All this added to Thornton’s irritation. Only Savitha was simply glad her daughter was settling down. Once or twice she suggested Meeka bring a child home for a meal but Meeka mumbled something about the children not eating spicy food.
‘What d’you mean?’ demanded Savitha. ‘I can make them a cake. You like my cake, don’t you?’
But no one came and eventually she forgot about it.
Savitha had decided to stay on at the sweatshop until she found a better job. They needed the money, and besides, the article she had been writing was developing nicely. She planned to polish it up and send it to a newspaper back home. Until then she would stay with Rosenberg. On the first morning of the holidays, she left Meeka alone in the house while she went to work the early shift. There was plenty of rice for lunch and there were two curries. She showed her daughter how to warm them. There were some sweetmeats and apples. On no account was Meeka to open the door to anyone. She could go down the road to the children’s library to change her books but she was to come straight back. No dawdling, no going into shops, no buying sweets. Meeka nodded, keeping the gleam out of her eyes. Her mother wrote the phone number of her father’s office, and Rosenberg’s too. She then went to the bathroom and fussed around, changing her slacks, redoing her hair, looking at herself in the mirror, admiring her new coat. Meeka groaned inwardly. Would her mother never leave?
‘I’m off now, Meeka,’ she called out finally.
Meeka, lying on her bed, legs waving in the air, put them down hastily. Savitha came into the room and gave her a kiss. She hesitated. A feeling of unease was beginning to form at the back of her mind. There was something a little unsleepy about the child. Savitha could not put her finger on it, but there was a tension, a feeling of excitement, running along the length of Meeka’s sleek little body as she hugged her mother with slightly too much enthusiasm. Savitha looked at her.
‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’ she asked again, anxiously, feeling her way around the dark corners of doubt lodged in her suspicious mind.
‘Yes, Mum,’ said Meeka obediently and she sighed, and she yawned and then she slumped back into bed for all the world as though she were dog-tired.
Savitha hesitated again. She looked at her watch. If she did not leave now she would be late for Rosenberg’s. After all, there was not much that Meeka could get up to. Finally, satisfied, she picked up her umbrella, saying she would be back at two. And out she went, shutting the front door with a brisk little tug. A small slam, the sweetest of slams, the most beautiful sound in the world, thought Anna-Meeka, pausing a moment. Which was just as well because Savitha was back a moment later having forgotten her lunch. But then finally she left, trailing a string of instructions behind her, unable to linger any longer.
‘Yes,’ said Meeka. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ She went on saying it for a few moments after this second wonderful closing of the door. Just in case.
She counted to ten. (She had overheard someone saying there was safety in numbers.) Then, in a flash, she dressed. She forgot to do her teeth or wash her face, but still, she was dressed and her hair hastily combed. There was no time to waste. Her mother would be back by two. Pulling out a paper bag from under her bed, she went into the dining
room to set the table for lunch.
It was quite chilly in the dining room. She had learned that you said ‘chilly’ when it was cold and ‘cold’ when it was freezing, unlike her father who said it was cold even when the sun was shining. So far, she noticed, no one at school said it was cold yet. Clearly it would get a lot chillier. It was from the dinner ladies, now her firm friends, that she got much of her information. All those bits that Gillian and the others failed to tell her, all the filler-in bits that were needed for daily life, came from these wonderful ladies. They told her she was a little horror, and, holding this new applauded status to her chest like a shield, she hoped finally to be accepted by the boys and get into the rounders team. It was a modest ambition but one that, so far, she had been unable to fulfil. When she asked Geoff why this was so, he had grinned and tweaked her hair. Then, making a noise like a motorbike, working the imaginary handlebars with his hands, he told her.
‘Titch!’ he said succinctly. ‘Everyone thinks you’re a titch. Won’t catch the ball, will yer. That’s wot. Won’t run fast enough!’
He grinned, not unkindly, for Geoff was the sort of boy who was nice to his cat. Later, he offered Meeka some Maltesers, but this was not enough for her. She took the Maltesers of course, but she loathed and hated Geoff-the-messenger. For a while she could barely talk to him. Luckily Geoff did not notice.
One evening Meeka had asked her father if she was a ‘titch’?
‘What is that you are saying?’ asked Thornton suspiciously, looking up from one of his newspapers (tonight it was The Times and the New Statesman).
‘What is that word?’
Meeka wished he did not talk so loud. Get so excited every time she opened her mouth.
‘Of course you are not small!’ her father had said, outraged. ‘You are my daughter. You are beautiful!’ Having given his final word on the subject, Thornton went back to his reading.
After some time Meeka decided to change tactics with Geoff and the other boys. Suspecting rightly that he was the most powerful one in the class, she decided to be nicer to him. Since Geoff had never noticed she hated him in the first place, this too was lost on him. The subject of rounders never came up again but Meeka was merely biding her time. And that was when she had her good idea.
Today, at twelve o’clock, she was having a party. She had invited her whole class for lunch. She had given them invitations telling them it was her birthday. It was not her birthday, but still, that was a small point. Her stepmother, she told them, was a frightening woman. They would not want to meet her. But thankfully, Meeka assured them, she would be out. So would her father. They had left her to have her party in peace. Unfortunately the party would have to finish at two o’clock promptly, as her stepmother wanted the house tidied up for when she came home. The children were agog. Never had there been such interesting goings-on in their class.
Meeka began getting ready. First she stood on a chair and got Savitha’s new cookery book from the bookcase. The Good Housekeeping Book of Dinner Parties. Prawn Cocktail, she was going to make prawn cocktail, without the prawn. Then she was going to heat last night’s leftover rice. Last night’s curries would also be reheated. There were crisps and fish fingers, which had been defrosting nicely under her bed for a couple of days but, because the money was running out, only a few chocolates. She had been saving her pocket money for weeks, ever since she had first had the idea of the birthday party, to spend on bits of food from the shop at the end of her street on her way home from school. There was nothing to drink, only water. She had, however, noticed her mother buying some limes last Saturday, and Meeka planned to squeeze these into water to make Lanka lime. It was all decided in her mind. She had two hours to get everything ready. It was a race against the clock.
Carefully, so as not to break it, she took out the special china. There was a lot to choose from. The cupboard gleamed with the most beautiful things: pink-and-white plates covered in rosebuds, blue-and-white dishes, small bowls, jugs and teapots. But it was at the back of the cupboard that she found the real treasures. At the back, tucked away behind the Whitefriars crystal glass, were small neat stacks of the oldest pieces. There were tureens with worn patterns, cups and saucers, a whole dinner service with delicate figures, dense foliage, ivy, ferns, passion flowers. Meeka picked out her especial favourites. Side plates, sugar bowls for the jelly that she was about to make, serving dishes for the curries, a tureen for the rice. She spread them around on the floor, vague memories like the music that lived constantly in her head, rose up to greet her. Here was a dish that her granny used to serve bolo de coco on; here was another that always had pente frito in them whenever she visited her grandparents in their beautiful house in Station Road. For a moment she longed to taste some vadi or some thosai. To smell again the rose water and cinnamon in Auntie Frieda’s kitchen. Her aunt always had something sweet for her to eat whenever she visited and when she hugged Meeka she always smelt of rulang and cochineal. Meeka had loved visiting them, her grandparents and her aunt, in their house by the sea. In the excitement of being in England she had forgotten how much she loved the island.
Suddenly, with unexpected force, she heard the rhythmic sweep of the sea and her father’s laughter as they ran the length of the beach together. She could almost taste the fried prawns they used to buy. The texture within the sounds in her head changed becoming slower and more intense and she heard her younger self, screaming with excitement, as her father chased her under a wave. Droplets of spray sparkled in the sunlight as she swam through the water. When they returned to the house in Station Road, Aunt Frieda used to dry Meeka off with a soft towel and then serve a delicious meal on the old pink-and-white plates. On one occasion, when Meeka was sitting on the veranda, a crow had flown down from the murunga tree, knocking over a dish and breaking it. Auntie Frieda had said that was exactly what Jasper used to do when he was young. Meeka had loved the stories of Jasper. Thinking of him, after so long, she wished suddenly that he were still alive. Her father, who used to tell her lots of funny stories about him, still found it difficult to talk about the way he had died.
The memory of Jasper made the music in Meeka’s head shift subtly, getting faster. Forgetting about her preparations, going into the sitting room, she lifted the lid of the piano. Then frowning with concentration she began to play. It was not quite right. She played the G minor scales adding six extra notes. Then she went back to her piece of music and added the bit in Debussy to the end of it. Her music sounded a bit better, but was still not quite right. Perhaps it was the scale that was wrong? Her mother, who always encouraged her, had said, ‘Practice makes perfect, Meeka.’
At the thought of those folded lips, a sudden twinge of unease gripped Anna-Meeka. Hastily, so as not to spoil the day in any way, she put the thought firmly out of her mind and went back into the kitchen. There was still an awful lot to do.
She set the table with the special white damask tablecloth, lemonade glasses, dishes, side plates. Then she made the jelly. When she poured the boiling water over the ruby-red gelatine the bowl cracked and coloured water began seeping onto the draining board. Hurriedly she took some Tupperware from under the sink, hiding the cracked dish at the back of the cupboard. Again the feeling of unease washed over her, only this time it was much stronger. But it was too late to start worrying now, she told herself sensibly.
Soon the jelly was setting nicely in the fridge. The prawnless cocktails were done, arranged in long crystal glasses. Unfortunately there were only four. The children would have to share. Or have a teaspoonful each, so it would all go round. The recipe book asked for something called cayenne pepper. Meeka did not know what this was. It looked red and the book said it was hot. So she sprinkled some chilli from her mother’s spice jar. It looked so nice that she sprinkled a bit more on top. Gillian was bringing a birthday cake with candles. Meeka had told her there would be no cake because her stepmother would not bake her one. It was against her religion, she said. When Gillian’s mother
heard this her eyes filled with tears.
‘Poor little mite!’ she said to Gillian’s dad. ‘Don’t you fret, Gilly luv, we’ll make her one. You can help me mix a Victoria sponge.’
So Gillian was bringing the cake. Soon the table began to look wonderful. True, the jelly did not seem to want to jell and the fish fingers smelt funny and had crumbled but the curries were magnificent. Meeka had heated them as her mother had taught her, with a tiny bit of water on a low heat, scraping the non-stick saucepan with a fork, until the familiar smell rose invitingly. The rice too had reheated successfully. All that remained was the mess from the limes she had squeezed rather vigorously. It was a quarter to twelve. She felt excitement rise up like the smell of paraffin from the heaters in the house. The telephone rang. It was her father, checking she was all right, checking she wasn’t lonely, checking she would take his library books back.
‘And don’t waste time on the piano before you finish your homework. Understand? You must do well, Meeka. Playing the piano all day isn’t going to get you into the grammar school, huh?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Meeka, hopping from one foot to another nervously. ‘Yes, yes, yes. Bye-bye, Dad.’
Again she felt unease creep up behind her, trying, but not quite succeeding, to stifle her excitement. Then, just as she wondered, what if no one came, the doorbell rang.
By the time they got to it, the jelly was almost set.
‘Oh good!’ said Meeka taking it out of the fridge, bringing it to the table with a flourish, all semi-wobbly and red.
‘Now,’ she said firmly, ‘if you eat some of this your mouth will stop burning.’
The curries had proved too hot for the children, and the prawnless cocktail was too full of chilli. But there was cake, Gillian reminded her, when she had become crestfallen. There was still the cake. Meeka brightened up and it was then, as Gillian and Jennifer and Susan began to stack the plates and the dishes and the cutlery in a great clattering heap in the sink, that she had remembered the jelly, jammed at the back of the fridge, against a jar of seeni sambal and jaggery. So it’ll be all right, thought Meeka.
