The Flower Boy (34 page)

Termites had tried to get their teeth into the claw-footed dining room furniture, but the ebony had proved too much of a challenge, so they contented themselves with nibbling on the rafters, hence the sudden showers of wood slivers. In the living room, the linoleum had faded to an indistinct orange, which Chandi privately thought was much prettier than the original tomato red.

The upholstery on the chairs had faded too and the whole effect was somehow subtler and warmer than it used to be during Elsie's time. But then, Elsie would never have put up with faded fabric or linoleum.

John's study was where lessons were learned, chats were had and family meetings were convened. It was perhaps the only room that showed any serious signs of wear and tear, but nobody seemed to mind the frayed armchairs or the equally frayed rug that Robin Cartwright paced as he taught, and John paced as he thought.

Nobody could remember when the kitchen had ever looked anything but well worn and well used.

The lawns were mown once a month, and the flowerbeds no longer had to put up with Rose-Lizzie's vicious attentions. She had given up gardening in favor of Chandi, or rather, her renewed friendship with Chandi.

Oddly enough, they seemed to be doing far better on their own. Like rush-hour traffic and traffic policemen. The guava tree outside the dining room had finally stopped bearing fruit and now bore only fire ants. Unlike the fruit, however, the fire ants were allowed to grow undisturbed. And at the end of the garden, the boundary walls were covered in lichen and moss.

SINCE NO ONE of any reliability knew quite what to expect before, during or after the handing over, John cabled people in Britain for news. His solicitor cabled back reminding John of the “India thing,” as he called it, and advising him to come back, or, at the very least, send his family back.

Jim Hogan from Windsor had paid Glencairn one of his rare visits to inform John that his missus and children were going back to England on Thursday's steamer and to borrow the old truck. His Plymouth couldn't take all their belongings. He also informed John that the folks from St. Coombs had already left, and advised him to send the girls back because who knew what could transpire.

John listened politely and said he had decided to hang on and see what happened, which Jim Hogan thought was a mistake and said so. Better send the family back, he said in parting.

Since the family had already decided that it had no intention of being sent back, and John himself had no intention of leaving until he was literally forced to, he politely thanked the solicitor and people like Jim Hogan for their advice and carried on as he had before. The frown on his forehead, however, remained, as did Premawathi's preoccupation.

IN AN EFFORT to relegate, at least temporarily, worries to the back of minds from the undeniably frontal position they were currently occupying, John suggested a trip. He first brought the subject up in the privacy of his room late at night, while the others slept.

“What do you think about us all piling into the car and going off to Belihuloya for the day?”

She was re-coiling her hair, which had come undone in the course of his enthusiastic greeting, and stopped abruptly.

“Well? What do you say? We could go somewhere else if you want.” He was busy packing his pipe and didn't see her stiffen.

“I don't really want to,” she managed, clearing her throat, for her voice had suddenly become quite husky.

Still he didn't look up. “How about Colombo then? I have some work there, and we could easily make it there and back in a day. Could even stay the night somewhere if you wanted to.”

“No.” The word came out more harshly than she had meant it to. John looked up. She was standing in front of his dressing table, which had one main mirror and two smaller ones on either side, and was reflected at different angles in all three. The bedside lamp cast deep shadows over her, gently tracing the long line of her neck and the vulnerability of her chin. He thought he had never seen her look so beautiful. But her eyes were pained.

He rose and went over to her, lifting her chin from its resting place on her chest. “Prema?” he said gently, using the abbreviation of her name that he used when they were alone. “What is it?”

Her eyes, when she raised them to his, were quite dry and yet swimming with remembered sorrow. Rangi-remembered sorrow, he knew instantly. She went unprotestingly when he drew her into his arms and stayed there quietly like an obedient child. He held her like that for a long time, looking over her head at the three reflections of the two of them.

She finally lifted her head. “I'm sorry.”

“For what?” he said. “It's me who should be sorry, for being such an insensitive ass. I just thought it would be a nice change for us to get away from the worry and all.”

“I suppose we could go—” she began, but he laid a finger on her lips.

“No. It was a bad idea. Forget it.”

He rubbed his cheek on her head and she laughed. “You remind me of a cat when you do that!”

“A contented cat,” he murmured.

A few days later, she was lying down on her mat in the middle of the afternoon, feeling guilty for resting although there was nothing that needed doing. John was at the factory and lunch had been cleared away long ago. Anne was reading somewhere and Rose-Lizzie and Chandi were rushing through the house playing some game or another. It was because of their loud voices that she had escaped, needing some peace and quiet.

The previous night, she had snapped at Chandi over an errand she had asked him to run. She was mending his shirts and discovered she had run out of needles. When she asked him to run down to the shop at the workers' compound, he had protested, asking if he might go in the morning instead. It wasn't an unreasonable request, because it had been raining heavily and the path down the hillside was muddy and slippery. But she had lost her temper.

“It's for your shirts, you know,” she said sarcastically.

“I know, Ammi, but it's raining so hard. I'll go first thing tomorrow morning. Leave them for now.”

She flung the shirts away. “Where am I going to have time tomorrow?” she demanded angrily. “You talk as if I sit around all day doing nothing.”

“No, Ammi, that's not what I meant,” he protested, but he already knew there was no point. When she got into these moods, it was as if she didn't hear anyone else.

“I know what you meant. And that lazy devil Sunil has also slipped off!”

“Ammi, he asked you if he could go early because he had finished his work and you said he could,” Chandi was compelled to say.

But again, she didn't hear. “There are two able-bodied men in this house and I do all the work!”

Chandi had heard enough. He stood up, took the money from the table and grabbed the old umbrella from its place behind the kitchen door. He paused on the steps. “I don't know what's wrong with you sometimes. You can be so unfair,” he said levelly and left before she could think of a suitable retort.

After he had gone, she stood there wondering if she was mad to send him out in the storm. It was pouring and there was a gale blowing. She rushed to the door, cupped her hands over her mouth and shouted his name. Either the wind whisked her voice away or he heard and ignored her.

He was soaking when he came back, because the umbrella had blown away more than once. Without a word, he placed the needles on the table and went into his room to change, shutting the door behind him quietly but firmly.

Ordinarily, that wouldn't have stopped her from entering anyway, but she knew she had been unfair. So she waited for him to come out. He didn't.

When she sneaked in an hour later, he was asleep. He hadn't eaten dinner.

Now she wondered if she had been too hasty and too insensitive about the trip. If they continued this way, they'd all burst, she thought dismally. Rose-Lizzie and Chandi had become so loud lately, but she suspected it was because they were worried and afraid about the future. Rather than creep around and whisper like they probably wanted to do, they yelled and hoped no one would know what they were feeling.

Even Anne was morose and uncommunicative, spending hours pretending to read, but actually staring into space.

“SOMETIMES I THINK my mother hates me,” Chandi said morosely.

Rose-Lizzie stooped to pick an early Easter lily. “Of course she doesn't hate you,” she said dismissively. “Don't you think these look like lacy hats?”

“Sometimes she sounds as if she does.”

She spotted another one and darted off. “It's only your imagination,” she called out over her shoulder.

Chandi glared at her. “No it's not. You should have heard her last night, going on and on.”

Rose-Lizzie wandered back. “What about?”

“A needle.”

“A needle?”

“She wanted me to go and buy one last night, but it was raining so I told her I'd go this morning and she went mad,” he said, his mouth twisting with distaste as he remembered. “She yelled and kept on yelling.”

“So what did you do?” she asked, now interested.

“I went.”

“What? In the rain?”

“Yes. I got soaked too.”

“What fun!” she exclaimed. “I wish you'd thought to ask me along. I
love
walking in the rain.”

He looked impatiently at her. “This wasn't rain. This was a storm. The path was slippery and I nearly fell a couple of times. The umbrella flew off a couple of times too.”

She burst out laughing. “Oh, Chandi!” she pealed. “I wish I'd been there!”

He stared at her. “It wasn't funny.”

“But it must have been! I can imagine you running after the umbrella in the dark! Thank God old Asilin wasn't out walking! She would have thought it was her yakka and had a heart attack!” She wiped tears of mirth from her eyes.

“Why would she have thought I was the yakka?” Chandi demanded.

Rose-Lizzie collapsed on the grass, shrieking with laughter again. “Not you, idiot! The umbrella! Can you imagine what would have happened if it had blown out of nowhere into her face?”

Against his will, Chandi began to smile. “She'd have probably died of fright, poor woman,” he said.

“About time too,” Rose-Lizzie declared. “She must be a hundred by now. I think she's trying to beat Appuhamy's record.”

“You mustn't say things like that,” Chandi said reprovingly. “One day you'll be old too. How would you like it if all the children went around wishing you were dead?”

“I have no intention of living long enough for them to,” she said airily. “I don't want to become old and bent and toothless, thank you very much.”

“Well, just for saying nasty things, you probably will,” Chandi said.

“In that case, so will you,” she said. “I can see you—you'll be a huffy old man, all prim and proper.”

“And I suppose you'll be a can-can dancer at seventy,” he retorted.

She pretended to be shocked. “Why, Chandi! Wherever did you hear of can-can dancers?”

“I heard Mr. Cartwright telling the Sudu Mahattaya that the only thing he missed about living in a city were the clubs and the can-can dancers.”

“Do you suppose I could be one?” she asked, kicking her legs up.

He looked at her consideringly. “No. Too ugly,” he said finally.

“Beast!” She turned sharply and flounced off.

He grinned at her retreating back. “Far too ugly,” he called after her. But she didn't turn and come running back to pummel him as she usually did. She just kept going. He hurried after her.

“Rose-Lizzie! Rose-Lizzie, wait.”

She didn't wait. He ran after her and when he reached her, he spun her around to face him. To his consternation, her eyes were full of tears.

“Rose-Lizzie!” he said, appalled. She never cried. “Why are you crying?”

She glared at him. “I'm not crying,” she said, but her voice sounded small.

He didn't know whether to laugh or to feel bad. Only Rose-Lizzie could look at him with tears running down her cheeks and declare that she wasn't crying.

She started walking again and he kept pace with her. “I didn't mean it, you know. About you being ugly and all.”

She kept her eyes firmly fixed on the grass. “Yes you did,” she said briefly.

“I didn't. I think you're very pretty,” he said earnestly.

“Now you're making fun of me,” she said, her voice wobbling in spite of her efforts to keep it steady.

He grabbed her shoulders and turned her around to face him. “Look at me,” he commanded. She looked the other way. “I think you're really very pretty. You have beautiful dark hair even if it looks like a crow's nest sometimes, your eyes are like the sky in the evenings just before it gets dark and your skin is like a damson but browner. You have nice legs too, so I think you'll be a good can-can dancer,” he finished judiciously.

She had been staring at him, her eyes wide. Now a huge grin split her face. “Why, Chandi!” she exclaimed. “That's the nicest thing you've said to me!”

Her words shook him out of his trance, because that was almost what he'd been in. He blinked and looked at her. She really did look pretty, although he'd originally said it just to make her feel better. Her mouth was too wide, but better too wide than too stingy, he thought. And she really did have a sunny smile.

“Yoohoo!”

They were both startled and a little thankful to see John striding across the grass toward them.

“Hello, Daddy!” Rose-Lizzie called happily.

John reached them and regarded them a little quizzically. “What are the two of you doing standing up here?”

“Nothing,” Chandi said.

“Talking,” Rose-Lizzie said at the same time.

John laughed. “Well, was it nothing or were you talking?”

“Both,” Rose-Lizzie said.

John lifted an eyebrow. “Both?” He looked from one to the other. If Rose-Lizzie were older, he'd have thought this was a lover's tryst, they both looked so guilty. Actually, Chandi looked acutely uncomfortable. John wondered if his minx of a daughter had actually made some kind of a move toward him. No, he told himself, surely not. She was too young—and yet her eyes were definitely full of fondness as she gazed up at Chandi.