Brixton Beach (34 page)

‘What time did it happen?’ she had asked, woodenly.

And when the answer came back to her, broken up by the line and served up with her own echo, she had insisted:

‘What were they doing, up so early?’

Namil spoke then, telling her unfamiliar things that made her want to scream, enough, enough, but instead she asked:

‘When is the funeral?’

Later, when she began to register the shock, long before there were any tears, she imagined May saying, ‘Have they forgotten how it is here already?’ She imagined May judging her.

Like her mother, Alice had not reacted much. The sound of her voice echoing back across the telephone line had distracted her too. The hour and the rude awakening had made her clumsy and slow-witted. The line crackled. It was hard to imagine her grandfather’s face, here in the cold, windowless hallway. The magnolia paint, Alice noticed irrelevantly, listening to her uncle’s voice, was peeling in patches. Pink wallpaper showed through like raw flesh. Alice reached out and began to scratch at it a little more, delighted that it came off so easily in her hand. Her mother was speaking on the telephone again; the call would be costing someone a lot of money. This is my home, thought Alice, making a hole in the plaster as though the house was a living, breathing thing, so that her mother, still talking, still holding the phone with both hands, turned to her with a bewildered, half-wild look. Then, when the phone call was finally over (how many different ways was it possible to lament the dead), they wandered aimlessly around the house. Sita, walking into her bedroom, staring at the double bed she had leapt out of moments before, noticing the condensation
on the windows, the cold linoleum floor, warm only near the two-bar gas fire, felt her thoughts stumble clumsily about. What sort of reality had she just heard?

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Alice said.

Silent, slender Alice, with her mane of dark hair and her face pinched with shock, brewing tea as though it were tears. When had Alice the child become so inscrutable? Sita asked herself, bewildered. They drank tea with the electric light switched on and the paraffin heater spluttering fumes. They talked in shocked, low voices, not knowing how to communicate with each other. It had been so long since they had had anything to say.

‘What shall we do?’ Alice asked. ‘Should we try to ring them back?’ It was a pound a minute. They could not afford it. Had May wondered why they had never rung before? Had they thought that Sita had plenty of money? Old anxieties surfaced. But in any case, thought Sita as the news renewed itself with another shockwave, her parents were no longer there to judge her. Relief-tinged bereavement. ‘No. They’re not in a state to talk. I’m going to write.’ ‘I thought you said that letters were being opened?’ It was true; those letters that did get through were still being opened. But what harm could words of condolence do? Sita looked at her daughter in the harsh electric light. Sixteen-year-old Alice, nearly seventeen. Here, in this single moment she had shed her childhood, freed herself like a butterfly; become someone else. The eager child was no more. She is almost a woman, thought Sita, surprised, seeing her daughter outlined against the wintry light. Beautiful and remote. Like her father, thought Sita, and unlike mine, she thought again, feeling a small prick of tears; a sensation of a dam that was blocked. Had it happened after Kunal? thought Sita.

‘I’ll send flowers,’ Alice said, and for a moment her voice trembled before steadying itself. ‘Don’t worry, you don’t have to go out. On my way to school I’ll send flowers.’

She was thinking she would send white roses. An image of her grandparents burned briefly before her, but she concentrated hard to blank it out. Sita was remembering her sister’s voice, swollen with
tears, rising and falling, speaking in Singhalese; the only language possible for their grief. In the background, Sita was certain she heard the sea.

‘Did you hear the sea?’ she asked, frowning. ‘In the background, I mean?’

‘No, I don’t think so. Why?’

‘Nothing. It’s just…I don’t know. It was hard to picture them, the place…’ her voice trailed off.

Alice nodded. They were both thinking the same thing. Outside, the light had become stronger. Surprisingly, this November day would be sunny. Icy, but with a blue sky. The tea in the pot was cold too and the paraffin heater, having spluttered a few times, went out. They would, thought Alice dully, have to buy an electric fire soon. Stirring herself with difficulty, she went to have a wash. She was due in school in two hours.

Alice went to the art block as soon as she could. Mr Eliot was washing paintbrushes, a cigarette dangling from his lips as usual. Every now and then he coughed and ash dropped into the sink. Outside in the bright winter sunshine a fight was in progress and once or twice he banged on the window.

‘Oy,’ he shouted, ‘pack it in.’

No one took any notice. Opening the door, Alice rushed in.

‘How many times have I told you kids not to use that door,’ the teacher cried angrily.

‘Sir,’ Alice said, and then she stopped.

‘Oh it’s you, Alice.’

‘They killed him…’ she cried before she could stop herself, and then with no warning she burst into tears.

Sitting in David Eliot’s office she told him the story, slowly, bit by disjointed bit.

‘He was my grandfather, sir,’ she said. ‘He loved me.’

Outside, snow had begun to fall heavily, transforming the playground, muffling the sound of traffic, as Alice haltingly described her last glimpse of her grandparents.

‘The sun shone all the way to the harbour,’ she said, and now she was crying in earnest.

Having started she found herself unable to stop.

‘He wouldn’t come to the jetty and when I asked my grandmother, she said he couldn’t bear to.’

The teacher nodded, saying nothing, waiting.

‘I was angry with him, sir, for not coming. I didn’t understand. And then, later, I was angry he didn’t send for me.’

The lunch break was nearly over. Children lined up, jostling against each other, laughing, while Alice talked to David Eliot about her home, her voice rising in a passionate flood of tears.

‘He was the only one who ever loved me, sir,’ she cried piteously.

Still the art teacher said nothing.

And I never wrote, not often. I couldn’t.’

Mr Eliot turned to her with a look of grave pity in his eyes.

Alice,’ he said at last, when there seemed no letting up of her tears, ‘you are very young.’

Bemused, she looked at him with eyes magnified by tears and something of his confused thoughts communicated themselves to her.

Alice,’ he sighed, unable to find the words he wanted.

Then he put his hand on her thin shoulder and shook her very slightly.

Alice…do you think you should go home?’

She didn’t seem to hear; she was too busy shredding a paper hanky.

‘Shall I send a note to your form teacher?’ he asked finally. She shook her head violently. The thought of her mother was more than she could bear. David Eliot pressed his lips together. He could hear the whistle being blown.

‘Listen,’ he said, ‘Miss Kimberley will be here in a minute…’He cleared his throat, gazing at her hopelessly. ‘I’ve got to teach now. And you better go and wash your face in the girls’ toilet. Come back after school, okay?’

Alice nodded, wiping eyes that continued to weep.

‘Come back and tell me about your grandfather, okay?’ David Eliot said. ‘You are going to be a really good artist one day, you’ll see.

I promise you. I’ve only had one other pupil like you before. And he wasn’t half as good as you’re going to be. You listening to me?’

His smile was wry. The look on his face was unreadable.

‘I’ve been teaching a very long time, Alice, I’ve seen many, many students…’

Still she made no move to leave. The door opened and a boy put his head around the door.

‘Sir, can we come in?’

‘Get out, Joe,’ the teacher bellowed. ‘And remember to knock and WAIT!’

Alice stood up.

‘Okay?’ Mr Eliot asked, turning to Alice with a completely different voice. ‘You’ll come back after school?’

Yes,’ she said faintly, tremulously, catching at his heart.

And remember what I said. One day you
will
be a really good artist! Hold on to that, will you?’

She nodded wanly and left.

And one day,’ murmured David Eliot softly, ‘you will be beautiful too.’

She waited impatiently for the end of the day, wanting simply to see him again. But when she walked into the art room after the last bell it was Miss Kimberley who was there.

Yes, what is it? It’s Alice, isn’t it?’

Alice nodded.

‘It’s okay, Kim,’ David Eliot said easily, coming in. ‘She’s seeing me. Come on into my office, Alice.’

Aware of hostility Alice hesitated.

‘What’s the matter?’ David Eliot asked, seeing her wariness, adding, before she could say anything, ‘Oh, just ignore her! I’m going to have a cup of tea. Want one?’

Alice smiled and he considered her.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Nice to see you smile.’

At that her eyes filled with tears again.

‘Listen to me, Alice. How long have I known you now? Since first year?’

She nodded.

‘Well then. You come in here most days and work on your constructions, and right from the beginning I saw there was something, very…I dunno,’ he shrugged. ‘Poetic, I suppose,’ he said, hesitantly. ‘That’s it. You don’t often see that in the daily shit that’s given to you here, believe me!’

A faint smile crossed her face; a small dimple appeared in her cheek.

‘So, listen to me,’ the teacher continued, in a voice that made her want to cry once more. ‘I know there’s all sorts of things in your life feeding into your work.’

She looked at the ground, motionless, long eyelashes sweeping downwards. She could hardly bear the tone of his voice. She had not heard such tenderness for a long time.

‘And that’s great, you know. That’s the stuff that will make the work terrific,’ he was saying. ‘The best thing about teaching is when, once in a while, you find an interesting student. So talk to me about your grandfather.’

Later, after he had shooed her out into the cold slushy playground, she watched him walk towards his car wondering where he was going, seeing the man who was her teacher in a different light. The sky was a hard fluorescent expanse, empty of any cloud. Her mother would be wondering where she was. It was so cold that there would be snow again, quite soon. Uncertain, exhausted with weeping on and off all day, she headed for home, her mind filled with lightness at the memory of the art teacher’s voice.

By the time she was able to even contemplate writing the letter, the double cremation was over, the alms had been distributed, and the Sea House had been closed and boarded up. Time had arrived to lie heavily like an animal on May’s hands. It was the school holidays and she did not even have her work to distract her. Putting aside old grievances, she wrote to her sister and her niece. When Sita opened the envelope, miraculously untampered, two photographs would fall out. Black-and-white images from a happier past. The photographs were blurred, but even so, thought May, her eyes swimming with
tears, it was possible to distinguish Bee, standing under the murunga tree with the six-year-old Alice. Their father in his striped sarong, puffing his pipe, and Alice in the yellow cotton dress with the two ducks embroidered by Kamala. A wash of innocent memories spread before her.