Black British Read online

  By that stage my face was red and I was breathless with hiccups but ready to repeat my performance if anyone came so much as near me. Why wouldn’t I? Unintentionally, I’d got a response I’d never dreamed of.

  To regain some semblance of order, the decision was made to send me home so a chaprassi was dispatched post-haste to fetch my ayah.

  Uncle Hugh came instead, accompanied by an ever-silent, self-effacing Reg. My great-uncle was an exceptional man and I loved him dearly. Sensible person that he was, he ignored both nun and teacher. Instead he took my hand, took me home and gave me a rare treat – a spoonful of homemade ice cream.

  Obviously he believed ice cream was a good mother-substitute for a five-year-old.

  For the rest of the day, with Reg by my side, I followed Uncle Hugh around like a faithful puppy, not letting him out of my sight. Every step saw us immediately behind him, each time he turned around, there we were, ready to trip him. When he retired for his afternoon sleep, together we curled up on the floor amidst the curtains in the doorway to his rooms. By evening he’d had enough. “I wish I was in Heaven sucking oranges!” His favourite saying was laced with exasperation.

  Privacy was important to him so something had to be done. In an unprecedented action he appeared at breakfast the next day. Seating me on the dining table, which was against all rules in our house, he looked me in the eye and spoke, as he always did, as though I were an adult.

  “You have to go to school. If you don’t, you’ll grow up to be a jungli-billi, a wild cat, and you are far too bright for that.” I knew from his tone that the wiser action was to wait and not interrupt.

  I waited.

  I didn’t interrupt!

  “Today,” he announced, “I’ll come with you and sit at the back of your class. When you miss your mother look over your shoulder and I’ll be there.”

  The nuns of course objected, but no army of German nuns could match an ex-Royal Fusilier who had endured trench warfare on the Somme in World War I. In Delville Wood he had survived a general shrapnel wound to his head but a ruptured left eye didn’t limit him in any way. Uncle Hugh balanced himself on his shooting stick at the back of the class and there he stayed until the morning tea break.

  The Indian girls had never seen anything like it before. Regardless of what she did, what she tried, the teacher couldn’t get their attention. They stared at him over their shoulders, silently, with respect and awe. At the morning tea break, after the meal and ablutions were done, he lined us up and taught us to march while he whistled “Colonel Bogey” and sang World War I songs.

  Other classes came to watch and soon were involved, unknowingly playing into his hands by using up our stores of energy. We happily ignored the school bell calling us back to class and continued to follow our leader. Unconsciously we knew we’d be allowed this disobedience – just once.

  Lily, recognising her elevated status as great-niece of the Master of Ceremonies, took the opportunity to show off to her friends. Together we lustily told them it’s a long way to Tipperary and to pack up their troubles in their old kit bags, all the while not having the foggiest notion of who, what or where Tipperary might be or that kit bags referred to standard army issue in World War I. We didn’t care. Fun overtook us.

  It’s a sad fact of life that such an outrageous situation cannot last. On the way home Uncle Hugh explained that he’d “done his time” at school and wasn’t about to repeat the experience, even for me. I had to cope like hundreds before me. Screaming so wildly that I made myself sick and frightened everyone was not an option.

  Some things are worth saying twice: Uncle Hugh was an exceptional man and I loved him dearly. Born in the 1880s he had ideas way ahead of his time. Not for him to tie a woman to the kitchen sink or that other private room in a domestic dwelling. Instead it was, “You’ve got brains. Use them.” Because he always spoke to us as though we were adults we endeavoured to live up to his expectations and respond accordingly. That evening, he called Lorraine, Lily and me together. Armed with a calendar he asked me, “How far can you count?”

  “I can count to three hundred and sixty-five.” Lily sniggered to indicate that she could count much more.

  “Right!” he went on. “Now, tell me what happens on September eighth.”

  “Mummy comes home.”

  “Right!” he repeated, and giving Lorraine a black crayon asked her to number the days on the calendar, starting on September eighth and counting backwards.

  Lorraine rushed through the task and before anyone could edge a word in sideways, turned to me, “Now you know! It’s a hundred and thirty-seven days before Mummy gets home. Get that through your thick skull and quit wailing like a banshee every five blinking minutes.” She replenished her breath to add scathingly, “Then we can all get some peace.”

  Sympathy for my motherless plight was drying up.

  But now I knew. A hundred and thirty-seven days was manageable and counting the days made it real, gave me irrefutable evidence that my mother would really, truly come home. Pity the child whose mother goes away forever, say to heaven, and is never, ever able to return. What abandonment must that child feel?

  That evening I transferred my gaze from Lorraine to Uncle Hugh as the penny made a slow decent. Then scrambling down from my chair I rushed to climb onto my father’s lap and insert myself in front of his Economic Times.

  “Daddy,” I said, “did you know it’s one hundred and thirty-seven days before Mummy comes home?” He smiled, ruffled my curls and returned to the world market.

  “Daddy,” I said as he kissed me good night. “Did you know it’s one hundred and thirty-seven days before Mummy comes home?” He smiled as he turned the light out.

  “Daddy,” I said at breakfast the next morning. “Did you know it’s one hundred and thirty-six days before Mummy comes home?” His smile had become a bit strained.

  “Daddy,” I said when he came home that evening. “Did you know…”

  Looking over the top of my head he spoke to no one in particular, “Maybe an anguished Lucy was a preferable option.”

  But somehow I knew it was said tongue-in-cheek and without a care I snuggled into the comfort of his lap.

  My companion stirs. Until now he has been placid and quiet so I take this movement to mean he has something to say.

  I wait.

  He speaks and I get the sense he is choosing his words with care. “The first few days of school are difficult for every child, especially if you are among strangers. Maybe starting school was difficult for your father so that’s why he understood your distress.”

  I think about this then shake my head, in disbelief at what had actually happened.

  “No, the first few months of school were much worse for him. As a small child he was sent away from his mother and home for nine months of the year. At seven years old he was sent to boarding school.”

  We were lazing away one summer afternoon amiably bickering with one another when Lily pointedly accused me, “You’re a cry baby. Look at the way you yelled and yelled and yelled when Mummy went abroad.”

  I was accustomed to this accusation so had a number of responses ready, but didn’t get a chance.

  “Leave her alone.” The tone was mild with just a hint of steel. My father never interfered with our squabbles so three pairs of eyes enquired of a newspaper.

  “I was sent to boarding school at the age of seven. From being the cherished first son surrounded with dogs, horses, pet mongooses, music and singing I went to long draughty dormitories, cold corridors and people who spoke with a funny accent. For nine months of the year I was separated from the family.”

  Our father had been educated in what was considered the best school in India, in a hill station 1,000 kilometres away. For eleven years, the time that made up his childhood and teens, he had seen his family for only three months each year. We knew that, but the context brought home the impact it must have made on him at the time. Our stunned silence was audible. It sounded
like a priceless vase had smashed into smithereens on the hard floor. In my mind I heard the tinkling of broken glass.

  With an ironic smile my father lowered the newspaper. “Don’t look so tragic. In time I came to love it and enjoyed the camaraderie of the other boys. We had lots of fun. But in the beginning it was terrible. So I felt for Lucy.”

  He considered a moment and added, “I feel for my mother. It was dreadful for her. We were adults when school was over and then each of us was sent to college in England. She missed out on watching her sons grow into men.”

  We digested this reality before he continued. “A lot of mothers suffered in this way but were powerless to intervene. They had to cope with long absences however much they might have hated it.”

  What about fathers? Didn’t they miss their sons too? I looked up, caught Lily’s eye and in that moment knew why none of us had been “given away” to be reared in boarding schools.

  We also knew his response to that initial separation would have been stoic. Fear, isolation, abandonment, bewilderment were feelings that were not allowed to be expressed. Boys were expected to have a stiff upper lip and prove themselves worthy of inheriting an empire.

  It was the norm set by the then ruling classes. They sent their children away from a preposterously young age, in the stated best interests of the child. Since that section of society persisted in the misguided illusion that they were superior to all others, they insisted they had a God-given right to tell other civilisations how to live and bring up their children. Their rules went unquestioned. They couldn’t – or wouldn’t – or didn’t want to see that their actions were nothing short of a sophisticated form of child abuse. And control.

  For many of those boys, continued isolation from families that started at a tender age reputedly led to attachment problems in later life. So perhaps it was a deliberate strategy to block close family ties so that young men were left emotionally free to service lonely and often dangerous outposts to ever expand the Empire. We were lucky, however. Our father openly acknowledged his affection and high regard for us, his family.

  It was a double-edged sword when two years later his younger brother joined him at boarding school for those oh-so long months. At least he had a sibling with him, someone with whom he shared those unspoken, all-important family ties. On the other hand, he gained the added responsibility of looking after a younger brother. In practice that meant at nine years old, while he was still a child, he was expected to manage his own feelings as well as assume an adult carer’s role. Ever after he was vigilant about charging an older child with the unfair responsibility of caring for a younger one, regardless of either child’s temperament.

  My noisy panic must have brought back all the horrors and incomprehension of my father’s first childhood separation. The square-peg-in-a-round-hole feelings I experienced in the classroom must have been miniscule compared to what he went through: my incarceration lasted four hours per day, his for nine months of the year.

  “With Lucy’s distress, I was out of my depth,” my father continued. “I didn’t know what to do for any of you and Lucy made so much noise.” As my two sisters sniggered I had the grace to be embarrassed. My father continued, “I was thankful Uncle Hugh stepped in.”

  That explained why Uncle Hugh, accompanied by Reg, walked me to and from school for the duration of my mother’s absence.

  Though he wasn’t given to indulging his daughters – we too were expected to be tough – my father was exceptionally tolerant of my tantrums over my mother’s disappearance. Thank God those were the days of looking beyond the behaviour instead of reaching for quick-fix prescription drugs.

  In time I settled down and eventually made friends in school, though I was always conscious of being the odd man out because of my different mother tongue, my different religion, my big home and garden, and our totally different way of life. Even my name was different. I was the only girl in my class with an English first name and a Portuguese surname.

  The difference was never mentioned, never referred to. There is little point in stating the glaringly obvious. I gradually learnt a smattering of Hindi but the foundation remained unstable. Given that children are notorious for the ease with which they pick up language from their peers, it remains a mystery why Hindi, a phonetic language, was so difficult to master. From a flawed start with insensitive adults and a defective system, I was left, to my detriment, with the lifelong belief that I am minus the ability to learn another language. I wonder how many others are in the same boat?

  The nuns never forgave me. My reputation was set. Over the years they regularly reminded me: “You! You were twice sent to school and twice returned with ‘no thanks’.”

  CHAPTER 5

  THE BOOK OF SINS

  The school bell rings and I jump. The amorphous mass in front of me swirls and curls and morphs into a two-by-two line of navy shorts and white shirts.

  “They are lining up to go into church for Confession,” my companion tells me.

  Oh yes. Confession! I think. That ubiquitous Catholic practice of Confession.

  “I don’t see why I have to go to confession. Again!” I screwed up my face to emphasise my disdain, knowing my protest would go unheeded. I had voiced similar objections umpteen times before, even though my six years of schooling had taught me that Saturday morning Confession was a time-honoured ritual during school terms.

  That particular morning I spoke under my breath, just loud enough to register an objection but soft enough so my mother could pretend she hadn’t heard, and ignore me. She wouldn’t buy into a fray when one could be avoided.

  Knowing I wasn’t allowed out of the home compound alone, I called to my ayah whose presence gave me an air of respectability on the roads as I walked to school. It was similar to the role played by “Mammie” in Gone with the Wind when her attendance lent propriety to Scarlett O’Hara’s visit to Rhett Butler in prison. In the same way, my ayah’s role was a deterrent against eve-teasing from young chokras and hooligans.

  Entering the school compound, I looked up at buildings constructed in low maintenance, locally made, sun-baked bricks. These were mortared together and rendered with cement on both sides, making the structure expensive and resistant to wear. A deep verandah with classic Romanesque arches shaded all the buildings and at the front entrance stood a porch large enough to house two motorised vehicles.

  A long driveway curved past vast playing fields and a grotto that was an imitation of the cave of Massabielle. Manicured lawn bordered the porch so that the whole image of the school was grand and intimidating. That might not have been the intention of the founding nuns but was the picture presented in the seventh decade of the twentieth century.

  It was fine for rich parents wanting to take advantage of the excellent reputation of a convent education for their daughters but different for the not-so-rich. Those with improved circumstances in a postcolonial era, who were still struggling amidst the chaos left behind by exploitive rulers and who aspired to a respected schooling for their daughters, must have found it hard. Travelling up the long driveway by bicycle, rickshaw or on foot, they had plenty of time to recognise the status of the institution and be in no doubt of the magnitude of their daring. Gratitude was expected for the enormous favour the school was bestowing by even considering their child for admission.

  My sisters and I didn’t have that concern. We were Catholic girls, which meant the nuns were obliged to enrol us. If they didn’t, they ran the risk that we’d attend the rival American missionary school, convert to the Methodist faith and lose the Church some of its victims.

  As I waited on the verandah outside the chapel that day when I was eleven years old, a nun called Ann condescended to speak as she went past.

  “Good girl. You’ll feel better when you’ve confessed your sins.”

  What sins? I thought. I haven’t done anything. Mentally scowling I tried to maintain an impassive expression but the nuns and I had never been friends. Having blott
ed my copy-book during my first year in school I had compounded my reputation the following year when I questioned the nuns’ conventional titles. The underlings were addressed by the prefix “Sister” with the head honcho called “Mother”.

  “You’re not my sister,” I advised my teacher Kanesia, concerned that her error arose because she was from Germany and therefore didn’t understand how things worked in Kanpur. “I have two sisters. Lori – her real name is Lorraine but we call her Lori for short – who is in class six and Lily in class four.”

  Kanesia smiled with her mouth. “I’m your spiritual sister just as God is your spiritual father and Mary your spiritual mother.”

  I was bewildered. Nebulous concepts resident in the ether I could cope with since they were overshadowed by strong, real parents. My confusion came from the hard, cold reality of the person standing in front of me who, to my six-year-old eyes, was clothed in a drab dressing-gown-like garment that was meant to be white. This person had colourless skin and stormy grey eyes, didn’t look anything like we did, and yet insisted on claiming kinship.

  I tried again. I knew Germany was far away, which might explain why their customs were so different and why they called each other “sister” when there was no blood relationship. Perhaps they didn’t have sisters of their own and needed some. I also knew English was Kanesia’s second language. Maybe she hadn’t understood. So, puffing out my chest to show how clever I was, I said, “I shall call you ‘Miss Kanesia’ like I did with Mrs Saunders last year.”

  Instead of appreciating precocious behaviour, Kanesia narrowed her eyes, resembling my pet parrot when I pulled its tail. She decided to exercise her power.

  My mother was called in to face a triumvirate. The Reverend Mother Melita was tall and bony with steel blue eyes in a thin, pinched face. She looked like a mean, repressed woman with no joy in her life. To demonstrate her importance, she sat behind an enormous desk and fastened a frigid stare on my mother.