Brixton Beach (12 page)

‘Losing the baby has made you mad,’ Stanley screamed. ‘Crazy bloody woman!’

More coconut shells flew across the room. Alice heard one crack against the wall as though it was a head. There was the sound of water pouring out.

‘Now look what you’ve done!’ Stanley said.

In the silence that followed, his voice sounded uncertain and frightened. Alice could hear her mother. She was still crying but now the sound had changed. Her mother was crying in the way she had cried on the day she returned from the hospital; softly and without hope. Alice stared into the darkness, her mind a hide-and-seek of evasion. It was a moonless night; her hand ached. The day and all its many facets began to blur sleepily in her head. Since her birthday everything had become complicated. Before she had turned nine, life had been full of nice things, she decided dreamily. Now everything was a series of never-ending confusing events. Jennifer had come out into the playground to watch her this afternoon, satisfied that at last she was crying, giving her the proof needed that the caning had hurt. But it wouldn’t happen again, thought Alice, feeling her eyelids grow heavy. She would not cry like that ever again. In the darkness, lying on her back, she pushed her chin out stubbornly, trying to hide the fact that inside herself she felt defeated. Her friendship with Jennifer was over. In her heart of hearts she had known it would not last. I am not like her, thought Alice sleepily. Outside in the starry night there was the usual wail of police sirens and
byla
music. The sounds pulsed, like her hands. A drum was beating slowly beyond the trees and beyond that, in the distance, she heard the faint hoot of the Colombo night train leaving
for Dondra. Closing her eyes she thought of her grandfather, who would hear it too as it passed Mount Lavinia in an hour. The thought filled her with contentment.

The next morning, Stanley’s last complete day on the island began with the usual bright unending sunshine. In twenty-four hours he would be on the ship sailing towards the Suez Canal, heading for England. At last his dream was coming true. He had looked at the small route map that came with his ticket so often that it had torn along its folds. The ship he would be travelling on was coming from Melbourne. It would make its way via Aden into the Mediterranean. Even the name signified romance for him. Greece would follow, he thought sighing with pleasure. Ever since his boyhood days he had had a secret desire to visit Greece. There was a slight possibility that he might be able to leave the ship when it docked. He wanted to see the Parthenon, hear the Greeks speak in their language, experience the cradle of civilisation for himself. He kept all such plans to himself, knowing Sita would only fuss about his safety or the added expense of disembarking and joining a tour. The only thing that seemed to interest her was that he got a job in England.

‘The sooner we can get Alice out of here, the better,’ she kept telling him.

Of course he would do his duty, Alice needed to get to a safe place, but Sita did not seem to recognise he would not have another chance for a holiday.

Stanley stared at the molten light flickering on the ceiling. He moved his legs lazily across the bed. Tomorrow at this time he would be heading for the harbour. He smiled. Then he remembered they had had another fight last night. What had this one been about? Perhaps it was because he had been late home? Had he been drunk? He couldn’t remember. It’s my money, anyway, thought Stanley, and he swung his legs on to the floor. Coconut shells littered the ground. What the devil are they doing here? he wondered. He was just opening his mouth to call Sita when what had happened came back to him. Crazy woman, he thought, shaking his head. Mad as a hatter! He gave a short,
barking, laugh and followed the sound of the sewing machine into the sitting room. What the hell was she sewing now? His trunk was packed and ready. Sita looked up at the sound of his footsteps. Her eyes had dark rings around them and Stanley looked quickly away.

‘You need to weigh it,’ she said, pointing at the trunk. ‘You’ll have to find a pair of scales from someone.’

Stanley nodded, relieved she wasn’t shouting. Yawning, he started buttoning his shirt up.

‘Where’s Alice?’

‘She’s playing with the cat next door.’

Stanley snorted but refrained from comment.

‘Do you want some tea?

He nodded, glancing at her as she left the room. Sita’s face was closed; she looked as though she might have been crying again. He sighed heavily. What the hell, he thought. It wasn’t that he hadn’t any sympathy for her. He had. He felt the injustice of what had happened, if not the physical loss of the baby, as much as any husband in his position could. Sita came in with a tray. She had a plate with an egg hopper on it and some juggery. There were two teacups, a pot of tea and a jug of boiled milk. She had made hoppers for him, knowing it was his last day. Unexpectedly he was overcome by a feeling of pity for her. She was still a good-looking woman, he decided, glancing at her sideways. Although the doctor had said there should be nothing intimate for a few months, he wondered if she would refuse him, on this, his last day. Who knows what might happen to me, he thought, a chill of self-pity passing over him. I might be the one to die next. But at that instant he heard the child’s voice through the doorway, talking to next-door’s cat. Sex would not be possible with her around.

‘I’ll get some scales from Aruguna,’ he said, picking up the cup of tea she held out to him. ‘I’ve got to go over there anyway, to say good-bye.’

After Stanley had gone to get the scales, Sita closed up the house. She had two errands. One was to pick up a sari for her sister, and the other was to go to the spice mill for her mother to have some chillies ground into powder. She called to Alice to put her shoes on and they went out. Sita felt desolation walk beside her. The reasons were so
many she could not decide which pained her most. There was the ghost of the baby, lying in her arms. Sometimes she felt this was the greatest ache, but then she would decide the child and all she had suffered was a thing apart. So what was it, she wondered dully, for it wasn’t the thought of Stanley’s departure that bothered her. Last night when he had thrown his indifference at her, taunting her, turning all she had suffered into useless mockery, she had realised that his leaving mattered less and less. She did not care about the new life he kept talking about because she had no life left in her to start. The real problem she felt was that she no longer had the will to go on. This morning she had noticed a rope at the back of the kitchen yard. She had no idea where it had come from, but it was dark and heavily coiled. She imagined it hanging neatly from the rafters, turned into a knot, a noose, a gallows.

‘Why do people say “a bolt of silk,” Mama?’ Alice asked, tugging at her hand, breaking into her thoughts. ‘Why do thunder and silk come in bolts?’

Sita didn’t reply and Alice’s chatter continued. Why, why, why? thought Sita bitterly. The ordinariness of every single day was more than she could stand.

First, they headed for Pettar and the sari shop. The sun was beginning to dry the mud as they dodged the garbage spilling out on to the roadside. Sita held her sari above her ankles with one hand and Alice with the other. Overhead the trees were alive with whistling bulbuls; bright yellow sunbirds. Alice stared upwards as she walked. Always after it rained she noticed the colours glowed more vividly and the air became scented with the smell of temple flowers.

‘Anay
, look where you’re walking, Alice, please,’ her mother said, tugging at her hand. ‘There’s filth everywhere.’

The shops were opening their shutters again. Men in sarongs squatted on the ground, their bodies curved in long bent question marks; street sellers and beggars rubbed shoulders as the tiffin boys ran back to their kitchens with empty curry tins.

They turned towards the railway station, going deeper into Pettar where the silk merchants had their emporiums. May’s going-away sari
was ready to be collected. Guilt filled Sita’s head, it stopped up her ears and filled her nose with its sweet sad scent. In spite of the disgrace Sita had brought to her family, May was getting married. No thanks to me, thought Sita, with a bitter smile. I’m being punished, she decided, this is my fate. All around the tropics teemed with life and colour; with the frantic hurry of rickshaw men’s feet, the grating sound of gears on antiquated London buses and the intermittent cries of the streets, while never far off, like a steady heartbeat, was the soft sound of the ocean. Sita heard none of it. A slow refrain played in her head: I should have died, I should have died, I should have died. Taking my shame with me. Removed myself from this place.

At Lukesman’s sari shop she handed the assistant her receipt. Bee had insisted he pay for her sari as well as the bride’s trousseau.

‘I’ve not bought you any clothes in a long while,’ he had said gruffly, his face inscrutable.

No one had commented, but they all knew that he was thinking of the wedding he had never been able to give her. Sita had not wanted to accept until Kamala, for the one and only time, had rebuked her privately.

‘Do it,’ she had said. ‘Don’t hurt your father.’

Any more than you have already, was what she meant, Sita decided.

‘Would you like to see them first?’ the assistant asked, opening the brown-paper wrapping.

‘Oh yes, yes,’ Alice said, peering over the counter.

The shop was dark and lined with shelves all the way up to the ceiling. It rustled with new cloth and tissue paper; it glowed gently with lavish silk colours. May’s going-away sari was crimson and magenta embroidered with small gold birds. Six and a half yards of the finest Kashmir silk. With half a yard to be cut off for the jacket.

‘Yes?’ asked the assistant, watching their faces.

The silk draped itself and spilled across the counter, catching the light as if it had an amorphous life all of its own.

‘A bolt of silk,’ Alice said experimentally, and the shop assistant nodded.

‘How beautiful,’ a voice said in English close to them. ‘Hello, Sita, hello, Alice.’

Sita turned. It was Jennifer’s mother.

She was trapped, by a trick of fate, in this place of dead silk worms. Pramless, lifeless and incomplete. Oh God! thought Sita, wanting to flee. Jennifer’s mother was smiling at them. Behind her was Jennifer and dimly, just entering the shop, was the servant woman carrying the baby.

‘Someone getting married?’ Jennifer’s mother asked in a friendly voice.

She was smiling uncertainly now. In the background the servant woman jiggled the baby, who made gurgling noises whilst chewing his fist. The servant woman came towards them. When the baby saw his mother he stared for a moment, fixedly. Taking his fist out of his mouth, he broke into a huge toothless grin.

‘You weren’t at school,’ Jennifer whispered. ‘Why not?’

She too sounded uncertain.

‘I’m not coming back,’ Alice told her, triumph turning like a boiled sweet on her tongue.

‘But you’ll get behind with your studies.’

‘The work done in this country doesn’t amount to much,’ Alice said scornfully, repeating something she had heard her father say.

She hesitated, wanting to say something that had the word ‘bastard’ in it, but her mother was within earshot and with a flash of perception she saw her mother too was struggling. Jennifer continued to stare at her. She looked taken aback. Some regret for this lost friendship hovered on her face. She hesitated.

‘Did it hurt? The cane? Is that why you’re not coming back?’

Alice shook her head. She glanced at her mother and felt her own anger flapping like a kite in the breeze.

‘No, of course not!’ she said. ‘I’m not coming back because it’s a waste of time if I can’t study in English.’

The sight of Jennifer, lost for words, wanting at last to be friends was more than she could bear.

‘I have no interest in this backward country, you know,’ she said, gaining confidence, speaking loudly. ‘I’m going to make new friends in England.’

And she turned her back on Jennifer, slipping her hand into her mother’s cold one, ignoring the small space of loneliness that lodged inside her.

They hurried out. Neither of them said anything more about the encounter. In the mill, they joined the queue. Great mounds of spice spewed out of the machine into gunny bags. Saffron, cumin and coriander. The fine particles of chilli in the air made their eyes water and their throats sore. Sita covered her mouth with her sari train and told Alice to put her handkerchief over her nose. The air was full of red dust. An old woman sneezed without covering her mouth and Sita drew Alice aside, angrily. Small things made her angry, very quickly, Alice observed.

‘There are thirty thousand germs suspended in the air,’ she whispered.

Alice tried to imagine thirty thousand germs somersaulting in the spice mounds, grinning and deadly. The old woman sucked her breath in and Sita frowned. The queue was moving very slowly and all she could see was the rope, lying quietly coiled beside the broom, out in the kitchen yard.

Stanley had lied to Sita. It was a small lie that she would never think to check up on, but he wasn’t going to see their friend Aruguna. He was on his way to visit Neville, his Tamil friend. Neville worked at the Colombo News Agency. Stanley headed towards Main Street and the bus stop, but as he approached the number 14 bus drove swiftly past, laden to bursting point with passengers. Stanley cursed under his breath. He knew there wouldn’t be another bus for half an hour, at least. Deciding to wait, he glanced at his watch. It was by now a quarter to eleven and already the day was hot. By early afternoon he would be walking in a pool of sweat. He hated this wretched climate. He leant against a piece of guttering and watched a crow foraging for food in a drain, his mind a contented blank. When he heard the soft thud, followed a moment later by the sound of breaking glass, he hardly registered it. There was a short, stunned silence and then screams. The back end of the number 14 bus lurched towards the pavement and was ripped apart. Smoke belched out. Stanley froze. He had missed
the bomb by a whisker. There were people running in all directions. Stanley hesitated, not wanting to go too close just in case there was a second bomb. Almost immediately it seemed the screams were overlaid by the sounds of ambulance sirens. The police arrived and began cordoning off the area with tape, moving people on and shouting to the paramedics carting off the bodies. The army, appearing swiftly, began directing operations at gunpoint. Onlookers began to move hastily away. No one wanted to get tangled up with the army. Stanley stood in a shocked haze of sweat and horror, watching. But for a stroke of luck he would have been a victim.