Black British Page 11

  “But Mummy, why didn’t he tell us? Doesn’t he know it’s worse not to know?” Not knowing allows one’s imagination to play nasty tricks and conjure up the worst of horrors. Knowing your enemy means a person can organise a defence.

  “He didn’t want to spoil your Christmas,” she replied. “Give your father credit. He was happy to shoulder the burden alone so you could enjoy Christmas.” Forestalling my sulky response, she added with emphasis on the pronoun, “He didn’t spoil your presents. The people who scribbled on the wall did. With intent. They didn’t chose Christmas at random.” Both the timing and the wording made it impossible to bluff ourselves – the message was personal.

  “It’s hard on your father,” my mother continued as though she were thinking aloud. “This is the only home he’s ever known. He belongs here, has come home to this house all his life. All his children have been born here. Yes I know,” almost glaring at me, “It’s your home too but it’s been his a lot longer.”

  That Christmas morning our father had been thinking about his boyhood, his parents and siblings, all his home-comings and the other highlights in his life that were centred around this wonderful place. We also knew he was deeply hurt by the overt display of aggression and worried about what the future would hold for all.

  A small sound of protest makes me turn to look enquiringly at my companion. “You must have been badly frightened,” he says.

  I turn back but instead of seeing the church in front of me, my mind sees a low boundary wall adorned with a nasty message. Yes, we’d been frightened – badly frightened! Bewildered and frightened; panicked and frightened; a whole array of feelings, but the predominant one was fear.

  As the days passed and there was no exacerbation of the malicious intent, the shock dulled, and such was our confidence in life that we took to mocking the event. Watch it, missy, Lorraine, Lily or I would say, Any more cheek from you and I’ll write rude words on your mirror / bed / wardrobe. And together we laughed, entertained by the implication of language we would never actually use. If our father heard us he didn’t remark until a few months later.

  “It could have been worse,” he said, “I was worried and didn’t know what to do.” He used the word “worried” but we knew he meant “frightened”. Being young girls we were obvious targets for degrading physical violence so had every reason to be terrified. But it was his responsibility to protect us; the weight of our safety lay squarely in his hands, he was the one who carried the burden of duty loaded with love.

  “I wasn’t sure what to do,” he repeated. “I didn’t know if it was some chokra being an over-smart idiot or a gang of gundas intent on worse. I didn’t know how to react.” He paused before continuing. “I didn’t want to do anything that would spark an incident, lead to a riot or cause any sort of ruction.” With the killings of the India–Pakistan partition still fresh in his mind, as they will always be for anyone who witnessed the senseless massacre of brother against brother, lifelong friends against each other, he was right in not knowing what to expect, what it all meant.

  “I tried to remain calm but it’s hard to think straight when one is so worried.”

  “He also didn’t want to involve us,” my mother chimed in. “He didn’t want to terrify us so he carried the load alone.” She was affectionate and at the same time mildly admonishing, not one to shield her daughters from the nastier aspects of life. From her tone we knew she had said as much to our father in a private moment.

  “What did you do, Dad?”

  He replied with careful precision. “I talked it over with Claude and Barton,” he replied, referring to his brother and cousin. “When we were at Aunt Betty’s house later that morning I discussed it with them.

  Uncle Claude was a barrister and was on friendly terms with the local Chief of Police. In his own interests as much as ours, he would sound out any suspected civil unrest. In the frenzy of riots every one of the extended family would be vulnerable.

  Uncle Barton was my father’s first cousin. He was a bachelor, lived a simple, unassuming life mainly on family money and owned a series of bicycle shops around the city. He spent his mornings drifting from one shop to another chatting with the local Indian-Christian families that he employed, always one of the boys and never “the boss”. He knew everybody and everyone knew him. He liked knowing what was “going on”.

  Under this facade he had a brilliant esoteric brain that was wasted in the backwaters of Kanpur. He liked nothing better than to indulge his hobby of collecting first editions and quoting lengthy passages of Latin that no one but he understood. I often suspected he was telling us dirty stories that he would never, could never, given my parents standards, translate into English.

  “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.

  I think Uncle Monty got the fright of his life. He never came near me again. Apart from shooting bewildered glances in my general direction the following years, he ignored me. Lorraine and Lily, my older sisters, took cover behind me and thereafter, at calculated moments I reminded them of the size of their debt.