Black British Page 10

  “Possessions are subordinate to our wants, even to our whims,” was another of his favourite sayings, to which our mother always added, “We look after our things,” and fixing a stern eye on us added, “We don’t deliberately damage them, but neither do we worship at the altar of belongings.”

  The quality of the carpet was such that without the aid of modern abrasive cleaning agents, with only old-fashioned soap, water and elbow grease, no stain was ever discernible. That didn’t stop ghoulish young girls, as young people are the world over, from looking for it.

  “That’s where Lucy was sick,” was part of the tradition of laying the carpet every Christmas but it was more imagination than reality that pinpointed the spot.

  Spring cleaning included changing the soft furnishings of the two front rooms. Lorraine would climb onto a tall stool to replace the lightweight curtains that allowed air to circulate during the hot summer months. Double drapes, one of self-coloured maroon, the other a cretonne pattern of deep pink and burgundy roses, were hung at all four door-ways of the drawing room and matched the cushion covers and antimacassars. The design was reflected on the pelmets, mantelpiece and cocktail cabinet, making the room warm, comfortable and comforting.

  The dining room was interesting. Year in, year out, the long rectangular dining table sat in the middle of the room under the ceiling fan. My father’s position was at one end, my mother’s at the other, while Lorraine’s designated place was opposite Lily’s and mine. This “natural” order of seating never varied. The style of furnishings matched the drawing room in comfort but the fabric pattern for winter was leaves and vines in colours of burnt orange, earthy green and rich red-brown. As with the drawing room, the arrangement was echoed in the dinner and tea sets and stencilled onto pelmets, sideboard and dining table.

  “No! You can’t have your chair backed in purple. Or lilac. Or mauve! Those aren’t autumn colours.” I was bewildered at my mother’s exasperation because my sisters and I had never experienced autumn so I wasn’t to know. The seasons in north India are traditionally recognised as summer, winter and the monsoons. Autumn was just a figment of our imagination, not a reality and the dining room furnishings we lived with year after year were evidence of the incongruity of our lifestyles.

  The winter garden was another example. During the first week of November the early morning temperatures were cool enough to plant English cottage garden flowers. The manual labour was tremendous. Large beds were dug out to border the lawn, the soil was aerated and fertilised and as many plants as could be induced to survive were bedded down. Blocks of richly coloured annuals in every shade known to man vied with each other to grab our attention and together their splendour rivalled the Chelsea Flower Show.

  In another life, another hemisphere, a different month but the same season, my mother surveyed the flowers which filled every vase in her home in celebration of Mother’s Day. “For some reason, chrysanthemums always remind me of Christmas,” she said idly, “I can’t think why.”

  My response was equally lazy. “Funny you should say that. They remind me of Tuscan earthenware and I don’t know why. It’s not as though they come in that colour.” I caught her eye in shared empathy when recognition struck simultaneously for both of us and forever bound us in mutual memory.

  “Try and get more paint on the flowerpot than on yourself,” my mother admonished, as it was always my task to use colourwash and freshen up the terracotta pots that housed chrysanthemums along the driveway. At the time we didn’t realise how deeply that little tableau would bury itself within our subconscious to be triggered at a much later date with the sight of that particular flower.

  But it was the roses that were truly spectacular at Christmas time.

  “You stink,” said Lily “PHOO,” she added and stuck her nose in the air, pinching her nostrils together with thumb and finger in what she presumed was an artistic gesture.

  “I do not!” I attempted what dignity I could muster when telling a blatant lie. I had been helping my mother in the rose garden – not a job for the timid when there were 500 rose-bushes to prune and fertilise within a tight deadline.

  “Abbae salae!” I swore silently, as I scratched myself yet again. Using language I had heard at school but with no idea of the meaning, I was smart enough to refrain from repeating the words in the presence of my parents. “These blinking things have vicious thorns.” Some euphemisms were acceptable.

  But I couldn’t afford to complain because I knew the reward would be bountiful in six weeks when the rose garden blossomed with a profusion of colour and fragrance in time for Christmas day and the following two months. It was unnecessary to advise anyone to stop and smell the roses. If you breathed, the exotic, sensuous perfume filled your nostrils, your mind, your brain. Not breathing was never an option – it brought obvious consequences.

  “We are incredibly lucky.” My father sighed with deep pleasure as he surveyed the riot of colour as far as his eye could see. “Other people have to drive miles and pay large sums of money to get into a garden like this and we have it on our doorstep. Year after year your mother excels.”

  Though my father was a compassionate man, it never occurred to him to recognise that the hard physical labour of digging, fertilising and planting was provided by the mali. He simply took the existing order of things for granted. I, on the other hand, took everything for granted. Why wouldn’t I? In my young life, Christmas had always been accompanied by the trappings of opulent fare. It was beyond my comprehension that what I knew as “Christmas Cake”, a special treat that was only available once a year, could become commonplace, shop-bought, ordinary fruit cake; that Christmas sweets, with Turkish Delight being my favourite, would be mass-produced, available all year round, contain preservatives and drop in quality.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE WRITING ON THE WALL

  The Christmas season was the same for us each year and each Christmas day began with magic. It was everywhere – in the subdued lighting of the drawing room where silver candelabras on the mantelpiece, excited about their annual outing, whispered encouragingly to the fading embers in the fireplace. On the other side of the room a healthy imli branch that served as a Christmas tree was covered with twinkling lights that sang carols in muted xylophone tones.

  Unlike the spring cleaning, putting up decorations was just a fun thing to do. The same carefully preserved ones were dug out year after year and lovingly hung in place. “This streamer is on its last legs.” Lorraine carefully unpacked tissue paper that crackled with age, that housed even older tinsel, now gossamer thin. “Be careful how you handle it, Lucy. It’s so worn it might break at any moment.”

  As I picked up the silver ribbon, it protested at being woken from its peaceful slumber and silently separated into a few strands, leaving us in real anguish. Our Christmas decorations were antiquated family heirlooms and, like many things in our lives, were used over and over again. In monetary terms they were worthless but to us they were irreplaceable, much-loved friends. Taking care not to catch anyone’s eye so that blame was not apportioned anywhere, Lorraine took charge. “We can still use it if we are gentle. Just tuck the frayed ends behind some leaves and it won’t be noticeable.”

  The end result was a spectacular tree, probably more so because we’d invested so much of ourselves in the process and therefore the awe was as much in our eyes as in reality. Standing in the semi-dark of the early morning, the tree was testimony to our efforts and we were profoundly happy with ourselves. And unusually, with each other.

  But not for long.

  “How can you find warm skirts exciting?” I asked, wriggling in discomfort. “They poke and scratch. I’d much rather wear my birthday dress,” which had been a young girl’s dream in blue silk. Most years we got a new woollen skirt for Christmas. The material was bought in bulk but each of us was allowed to express our personal preference in the pattern.

  Lorraine was strutting around the drawing room, parading her new suit and hi
gh heel shoes, prouder than Punch. “It looks just like the model in the November issue of Woman and Home,” she crowed, deliberately using an impersonal preposition when it was obvious she meant the personal pronoun. Equally obviously, as she swayed and moved, she was likening herself to the model who featured regularly in the English magazine that was sent out to us monthly, that she pored over with intense concentration. “I love it!” she exulted.

  Usually our mother made our clothes with assistance from Lorraine and Lily. Occasionally I could be coerced into doing simple stuff like the hems. Because Lorraine at seventeen was now a “young lady” her skirt and jacket were made at the local tailor’s shop. Though the dressmakers were illiterate, with only primitive tools to assist them, they were skilled beyond measure.

  “I like the collar in that picture,” Lorraine pointed to clothes featured in a coloured magazine, “and the sleeves of this green dress.” She chose a skirt from another pattern and maybe a bodice from yet another and without paper patterns, with no training in individual features, with only a good eye, tape measures, scissors they sharpened themselves and old-fashioned, basic sewing-machines, the clothes would appear with the combination of all that was chosen. And the quality was equal, or even superior, to clothes bought in fashionable shops in big cities.

  That Christmas morning I brushed fashion aside. Ranting was much more satisfying. As I inhaled loudly in a mockadenoidal manner, Lorraine rounded on me, sounding like an angry snake. “Quit carrying on about warm skirts. Do you want the You’re So Lucky spiel again? Any more from you and Mummy will make you wear the twinset!”

  Those hated twinsets.

  A few years earlier Aunt Moira had unexpectedly presented each of us with a Christmas gift of a twinset, bought from our very own Lal Imli woollen mill. They were grey with coloured Fair Isle work and obviously expensive – much more expensive than our usual clothes. Being machine-knitted with a close weave, they were extremely warm. The pullover was close fitting with a crew neck, had tiny cap sleeves and extended down to just above the hips. The cardigan was just as close-fitting, had half sleeves and was an inch longer than the pullover. Together they made up an exceptionally warm ensemble and presented a smart, stylish picture.

  The problem was they were totally impractical. And inappropriate. Restrictive clothing is not for active, growing girls. The short sleeves meant our torsos were toasty while our arms froze. The short length made them creep up every time we stretched our arms thus letting in a draught of cold air and worse, exposing a bare midriff. Twinsets were fashionable in an era long before our time and were currently considered to be conservative, frumpish and the worst attribute for young girls – spinsterish!

  Besides, we were not young ladies living in the English countryside; neither were we, nor did we want to be, first-cousins to the Queen.

  So what was she thinking, our aunt, when she chose twinsets for her three young nieces? Was she trying to tell us something? Did she have a message for our mother?

  “Go and thank her,” my mother instructed, almost commanded. “Shake hands, wish her for Christmas and thank her for her generous gift. And Smile! Make sure you smile. I’ll be watching.”

  Her injunctions were partly to insist on good manners at all times and partly because she knew she was an “out-law” and would be criticised if our behaviour didn’t come up to scratch.

  We dutifully thanked Aunt Moira and suffered the twinsets for two further occasions so that our aunt could believe they were appreciated. Then mercifully, the seasons changed and the awful clothes were packed away for the summer months while Lorraine triumphantly smirked to herself, insufferably superior about her age.

  We knew what she was thinking. Her “time” with the twinsets was limited. The following winter she would have outgrown them and would be in a position to generously bequeath them to her younger sisters.

  My position was dire. I had two sets of twinsets to inherit.

  My mother, that dear, sweet, noble person, came to the rescue. The following winter she discreetly donated the offending clothes to neighbourhood children, thereby squashing forever their dreaded spectre.

  Thus the mere mention of twinsets was enough to subdue me into silence.

  As we did every year we were assembled in the drawing room waiting to leave the house for the parochial Mass of the day. The midnight service was the more important religious event that people attended but somehow I never did. Though I did try. On more than one occasion.

  “Why can’t I come to Midnight Mass with you?” I wailed. And was ignored. I knew that thirteen was the magical age but that didn’t stop me from protesting when I was younger. When Lily became a teenager my remonstrations must have been extra enthusiastic because, uncharacteristically, my mother relented with a deal.

  “You go to bed at eight and I’ll wake you at eleven thirty. You’ll have twenty minutes to get ready before we leave. If you get some sleep you won’t be so cranky and embarrassing.”

  She was referring to the instance when, as an insignificant little girl, I had slept through most of the Mass only to wake at the Consecration, the most holy part of the service when the church was pin-drop silent. With the intense concentration of a child I quietly watched proceedings before enunciating in loud, clear, severely censorious tones, “Mummy! Padre drank wine and he never said Cheers.”

  My mother didn’t want a repeat of that performance.

  “She’s cranky all the time, so what’s the difference?” Lorraine’s remarks, and similar ones from Lily, suggested to me that I accept the bargain. As the clock chimed the hour I duly took myself off to bed.

  The next thing I knew the creamy fingers of a cold dawn were reaching into our bedroom and Christmas morning was well on its way. “I called you twice,” I was told when I complained, “but you wouldn’t budge.”

  The following year I refused to go to bed and curled up in an armchair in front of the fire in the drawing room with my nose buried in a novel. The next morning I found myself stretched out on the sofa under an assortment of crocheted blankets, with a crick in my neck. Not only had I missed Midnight Mass but had also slept through the celebratory drinks, cake and singing that followed.

  By the time I was legitimately allowed to attend the midnight service I had lost interest. Isn’t that always the case? The proximity of a desired object tarnishes its magical allure; distance does indeed lend enchantment to the view. Since the novelty of being awake at midnight had worn off, my sisters joined me at the parochial Mass.

  That year, when the drama of hanging decorations had been accomplished, the threat of twinsets nullified and the preferred Mass agreed and attended, we were finishing a late breakfast when a commotion among the servants at the pantry door attracted our attention.

  Not being a family for superfluous amounts of help in the house, at that time we had only two servants. The mali who was an old family retainer, had been around as long as I could remember and lived with his extended family in the servant’s quarters at the bottom of the compound out of sight of the house. It was he who kept the garden in a respectable shape and managed the well and overhead tank, keeping us in running water twenty-four hours a day.

  Like most cantonments houses our property had a well that was fed by a water table 20 metres below. While the concept may sound primitive, the reality was sophisticated and efficient. An electric pump drew water into an overhead tank and gravity fed the house pipes. Importantly, we owned control of this essential resource, without which survival in the stinking hot months of summer was questionable. While the mali was dependent on us for a job we were totally dependent on him for this precious commodity.

  The ayha was another aged family retainer who helped my mother around the house. I was never sure of her role but she was always present. Other than that, an assortment of daily women came in and out to do dishes, clean the house – no negligible feat, given the obscure corners and corridors left by previous generations – attend to the laundry and other necess
ary tasks. Though it was their labour that ensured I went out into the world clean and polished, I never noticed them. With the arrogance of youth, they were extraneous to my interests.

  That Christmas morning, the excited chatter among the servants surprised us. It was customary for all members of the mali’s family to collect on Christmas morning with a boutonniere or garland for each of us. It was a sign of their respect and acknowledgement of our religious festival. In return they received bakshi which was our way of saying thank you for wishing us well on our special day.

  As a general rule male servants didn’t enter the house so it was unexpected when an agitated mali approached the dining room door, obviously wanting to talk to my father and surprisingly, not my mother, who usually managed the household.

  He walked back into the drawing room with the stiff, unsteady gait of an old man. It was as though he had aged twenty years in half an hour. His tone, when he spoke, was as usual but the giveaway was his choice of extra-formal language when he thanked us for waiting before we opened our presents. When it was obvious he wasn’t going to explain I organised my mind to voice one of the questions that was jumping around in my head. But before I could speak I caught Lorraine’s eye and received a telepathic message that said SHUT. UP.

  Confused, I looked back towards my father and saw that mentally he was way beyond our puny world of Christmas. He was looking back to safer times.

  Bit by bit I pieced the story together.

  In the dead of night, an unknown hand had braved the arctic temperatures to adorn our boundary wall with a bright yellow, unambiguous message:

  “de Souza is shit”.

  In numb silence, staring uncomprehendingly at the words, I read them over and over again as though repeated reading would expose the joke.