Black British (16 page)

“And of course, we alerted Uncle Hugh who didn't say much. He was of the opinion that if anything was brewing we'd never know. No forewarning would prepare us!” Though Uncle Hugh was old and not as strong as he had been in his prime, the local people respected him. There was a network of men who honoured him for the good boss he'd been to their fathers in the local leather factory so they covertly looked out for him. Uncle Hugh also had a lot of experience of unrest so his opinion on the situation was highly respected.

The consensus of opinion had been to do nothing, to wait and watch, be on high alert.

“But Daddy, why did they do it?” As always, the effort to keep my mouth shut was beyond me. “Why did they write dirty words on our wall?”

That afternoon I listened to silence for a few minutes while the air tingled with pathos and my father struggled to explain. With heartfelt compassion he continued. “People around us are pathetically poor. They have been kept poor for generations so they don't have enough food for their children. Their growth is stunted, their mental capacity arrested. They haven't the energy to rebel. They're so poor they're little better than animals. Can you imagine how a mother feels watching her child be hungry and having no power to alleviate the suffering? Or seeing her child sick and not being able to afford medical help!”

We knew we received the best health care available. Every year we were immunised against the prevailing contagious diseases that were a death sentence for many. The first Saturday in February saw Lorraine, Lily and me inoculated against typhoid and cholera and vaccinated against smallpox. In the early years we were admonished about the undue expression of pain. “How do you think the nurse will feel if all of you howl like jackasses when she's performing a precise movement? Don't you think it's rough on her when all she's doing is helping you?”

“I'm
kuttcha roti
, Mummy, so only I'll cry.” My precocious implication was that as the youngest I was “the baby” and legitimately allowed to throw tantrums over something as small as an injection.

But I never did. We lined up with Lorraine leading the way, set our sights in the opposite direction, got jabbed in our left arm, winced, mentally used strong language and moved forward for the smallpox scratches. It was over in five minutes.

Such is the power of role models. We took pride in being stoical and for the rest of my life I insisted on upholding a contemptuous attitude towards anyone – man, woman or adolescent – who screams in protest against health-saving injections.

We knew other people weren't so lucky. The poverty outside our gates was dreadful. Many people lived a hand-to-mouth existence, totally dependent on the benevolence of their employers, if they were lucky enough to have jobs. For countless years development had been stunted and the country's wealth pilfered to support multiple palatial lifestyles in a distant island, lifestyles that had no foundation other than in the blood sweated by their colonies. Power had been held in the hands of an elite few with the masses
duboured
, held down under someone's thumb and used for the sole purpose of propping up the Empire.

The country was suffering from years of oppression. The current regime had a mammoth task to pull up the standard of living by its bootstraps. It didn't help that corruption was endemic. The worst part was that poverty was seen as inevitable, almost a God-given decree that had to be accepted and endured. People born poor had but one choice: stay and remain poor or go back to God. It's only by the grace of that same God that a small percentage of us are born free of that harsh decision.

“I'm offended when you turn your noses up at food,” my father continued. “Your mother agrees with me.” Our mother never allowed us to complain about food or waste it. Three small cooked meals a day were served in a formal setting in the dining room and at each we emptied our plates. If something wasn't to our taste we were served less, but eat it we did. Since all our food was grown locally we ate only what was in season so never cooling mangoes in winter or heavy, stodgy, fatty victuals in summer. In a twelve-month period we were fed a healthy variety of food. Hunger was beyond our experience.

“People get angry when they suffer and see their children suffering while other people live on the fat of the land. We have more than most people, much more than we need; empty rooms in this house while people swelter or freeze on the streets. The local people have cause to be angry with us! We have no right to live like this.”

My father's reflections helped us understand the justifiable rage behind that Christmas message. We realised that the entrapment of poverty can lead to fury and resentment, railings against an unjust fate, one that condemns some people to a life of great disadvantage, hunger and illness while others live with riches superfluous to their needs.

However, in spite of his compassion there was little my father could do for the local people. The problem was so big it was beyond us. The offending words were never washed away but the blistering heat of the following summers faded the script until it was almost indecipherable. But however much we understood the reasons, the malicious intent remained forever fresh in our minds. The dark monsoon cloud had grown more tentacles.

CHAPTER 11

FINALLY, CHRISTMAS DAY

“You look nice,” said my great-aunt, eyeing my new woollen skirt. “You are quite the young lady now you've reached your teens.”

“Yes,” I replied, and knowing there were tensions between my mother and her in-laws I added proudly, “Mummy made it. It's A-line with a hidden front pleat and all the rage at the moment.” I conveniently forgot my earlier complaints about the skirt. Balanced on that fine edge of early adolescence, one moment I was uninterested in fashion and the next enamoured.

Aunt Betty leaned forward to peer at the hem. “Did you do that? It doesn't look like your mother's work.” Before I could answer she added, “A blind man can see those stitches a mile away.”

I didn't care about the criticism. I wasn't easily intimidated. “Oh that doesn't matter. The large stitches are on the under-side so can't be seen unless a person's looking to find fault.” I'd learnt to flavour acid words with a sugary tone so I couldn't be accused of rudeness. I didn't dare give her ammunition that I knew she'd use. So I didn't tell her that the previous afternoon, after a bout of fierce concentration I had produced immaculate stitches that would've made a professional seam-stress proud.

The only problem was that I'd turned the material the wrong way and hemmed it on the upper surface. “It's the latest fashion, Mummy. I saw it in the
Vogue
at the Club.” It was by look only that she had me unpicking my stitches.

I knew my sisters would remind me of my mistake forever, as sisters always do, but their aim would be sibling dominance or sibling teasing, something in which we all participated. I also knew that as an act of solidarity against the aunts, my imaginative hem would remain a secret on this occasion but would live on in the exclusivity of family memory.

To distract Aunt Betty I quickly added, “I love the lilac in your costume,” deliberately choosing the wrong colour to give her an opportunity to correct me.

My needlework was forgotten. “I think it's more of a mauve, don't you, dear?” She looked self-satisfied and laughed gently at what she supposed was a joke at my expense. It must be so comforting to feel superior and to correct everyone at every opportunity.

Our Christmas tradition was similar to most other people's in that it involved the extended family. We didn't collect for a
burra khana
or a big meal. Instead every Christmas morning we trooped around cantonments visiting my father's older relations. This was a sign of our respect for their advancing years and the wisdom that is supposed to have been accumulated along the way. It was another one of those customs that are never articulated, but still understood and acted on. Every Christmas was the same.

After Mass, a later-than-usual breakfast and the opening of our presents, we set off. Christmas afternoon had us around the winter garden with the expectation of visits from the few younger relations left in Kanpur. The five days following Christmas saw a reverse of this order. In the morning we received calls from older relations and in the afternoon we returned the favour to the younger ones. Our only contemporaries were our first cousins, Bennie and George. The other cousins of our generation were older than us and, there being few opportunities for careers in Kanpur, they had left for greener pastures in various places dotted around the world. It wasn't the norm to be on visiting terms with my school friends at any time so I didn't see them at Christmas. It didn't help that they lived in the commercial areas and not around us in cantonments.

My mother always maintained that at least once a year, whatever our inclinations, all differences had to be put aside to adopt the mantle of goodwill that is the Christmas spirit. In actual fact, isolated as we were from a Goan community, and had been for generations, we needed to stick together for safety and couldn't let disagreements get out of hand.

Lorraine, Lily and I enjoyed the pattern of these Christmases. Apart from school during term time, church on Sundays and the occasional visit to the cinema, we didn't go out much. There was nowhere to go. Companionship and entertainment came from music, our animals, the garden and most of all books that inspired in us imaginings of an improbable, exotic future in distant lands. A diet of Enid Blyton, the adventures of
The Four Marys
and the ballet dancer
Lorna Drake
in the Bunty and Judy comics complemented, as we grew older, by Agatha Christie, Georgette Heyer, Biggles and Alistair MacLean, had stimulated fertile if unrealistic daydreams.

We only visited our relatives at Christmas and Easter so there was little chance for the novelty of this to wear off. Instead, there was that sense of security, knowing extended family were dotted around and this contributed to a feeling of belonging.

There was only one flaw with Christmas and that was kissing. Convention at the time dictated firm handshakes with a murmured “Happy Christmas” or, during the five days after, “Compliments of the Season”. However, each year Uncle Monty wanted to lean towards each of us and plonk a wet, scratchy kiss on both cheeks.

Uncle Monty was my father's distant cousin. He had been widowed many years earlier and his children lived abroad so he was alone with just a
bearer
to cook and clean for him. Though he was always scrupulously clean all his clothes had seen better days. He saw no reason to buy new ones. His jaw was always a mass of stubble left over from a hit and miss shave and his thinning hair did little to cover his bald patch.

I think he genuinely loved us and saw us as the grand-daughters he didn't have around him. We didn't dislike him. We just wished he wouldn't invade our space to try to kiss us. So in previous years we had strategised to avoid him.

Shaking hands from behind a chair didn't work. Leaning backwards while extending a right arm didn't work either. “Pretend you have a cold,” suggested Lorraine, “And hold a big, fat, handkerchief up against your mouth and nose.”

We chose carefully, making sure our armour was more than a whiff of lace. With eyes streaming from laughter at our in-joke but the lower half of our faces safely covered, we managed to keep him at arm's length that year.

The strategy was so successful, the following year we ran through a series of ailments trying to find a suitable one.

“I don't suppose we can say we've got the measles.” Lily was sad. “It'd look too obvious.”

Out came the medical dictionary but diphtheria, whooping cough, consumption, the plague – all obsolete diseases – were gloomily rejected.

“What we want is something that makes us look pale, romantic and interesting.” Lorraine had discovered Denise Robbins novels.

Nothing came to mind so we were defenceless the year I was thirteen and particularly prickly about my personal space. As we spotted Uncle Monty's black car roll into the driveway Lorraine had a brain wave.

“Mum,” she called, “I'm going to take photographs of Aunt Betty's hedge. Come on, Lily, give me a hand.” And abandoning me to my awful fate they took off…with me trailing behind.

A
Pyrostegia ignea
that we called
Aunt Betty's Creeper
– Latin names being beyond us – had been trained over a two-metre wire fence, providing a stunning display of yellow, orange and red trumpet-shaped flowers. The picture was magnificent. That year it was particularly spectacular, so we had a believable excuse to make ourselves scarce.

Unfortunately, Uncle Monty came looking for us and I was the first one in his firing line.

But I had other ideas.

As he leaned forward to grasp my hand, I pretended to slip and inadvertently-on-purpose aimed a vicious kick in his direction. Though I intentionally missed, my meaning was clear. Ducking around him I sped away, calling over my shoulder in a mock American accent that I had heard in movies, “Happy-Christmas-Uncle-Monty-I-have-to-use-the-bathroom.” The shocked silence behind me told me I had gone too far but it was too late. The deed was done.