Kalpana's Dream (9 page)
‘Imagination, ’ supplied Neema. Only last night her dad had told her this was the meaning of Kalpana, Nani’s name.
‘Yes, ’ agreed Kate. ‘Like she’d be really interesting to talk to, if you only could. How come you don’t know any Hindi? How come you didn’t learn it from your mum?’
‘Mum always speaks English at home, and when she wanted me to learn, well, I–’ Neema was saved from further uncomfortable explanation because Kate wasn’t listening any more; she was waving to someone on the other side of the road.
Neema turned to look. And then to stare. She could feel her eyes grow big and round, and her mouth dropping open, just a tiny bit.
It couldn’t be!
But it was: the boy on the skateboard, the flying boy,
her
flying boy.
‘Hi!’ Kate was calling, and ‘Hi!’ the boy called back. And for a second, before he sailed away, Neema thought he smiled at
her
. But why should he? Of course the smile had been for Kate.
‘Who’s that?’ she asked, trying to keep a tremble from her voice.
‘Gull Oliver, ’ replied Kate coolly. ‘He lives down the bottom of our street. You know him.’
‘Me?’ Neema felt her face grow hot. ‘No I don’t. I didn’t even know his name.’
‘You’ve forgotten, ’ said Kate. ‘Though I suppose he looked different back then.’
‘Back then?’
‘At Short Street, when we were in Prep. Gull was in Grade One, then his dad got this job in Germany and they all went overseas. They only came back this year. Don’t you remember him a little bit, though? You
should
.’
‘Why should I?’
‘Remember Mrs Flannery? The infants’ headmistress up at Short Street? And how she used to call the kids in Prep “new lambs”?’
‘New lambs!’
‘Soppy, eh? But she was nice, Mrs Flannery. And remember how she had this programme for the first week where every kid in Prep had a special friend from Grade One, to show them round, and stuff?’
‘And they were called
shepherds
!’
‘That’s right. Well, I had that awful Rosie Turner, but you–’
‘Had Gull Oliver!’
‘That’s right. He was your shepherd.’ Kate grinned. ‘And you were his little new lamb.’
Of course! Gull Oliver had been her ‘shepherd’ when she started primary school! Neema had been one of those weepy little kids who cried on their first day. She’d been standing at the window, all red and hot and teary, watching Mum walk away – down the path, through the gate and round the corner, out of sight, away – when a voice said cheerfully, ‘Don’t worry, she’ll come back.’ She’d turned and found a bigger boy with curly hair, whose eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled.
‘When it’s your first day you think they won’t come back, but they
do
, ’ he’d gone on calmly, handing her a crumpled tissue to dry her eyes. ‘I cried too, when I was new.’
She remembered the cool dry touch of his hand as he steered her along the corridors, pointing out the places she should know. ‘That’s the art room, see? And the library. And the girls’ – well, you know what – are over there. People say they’re heaps cleaner than the boys’ ones, but l wouldn’t know ’cause I’ve never been in there.’
He’d found Kate for her. ‘See that girl over there? The one with the frizzy hair? She looks nice, don’t you think? I reckon she might make a really good friend for you.’
Did Gull Oliver remember her from then? All red and hot and weepy, sticky . . .
Neema jumped up and went to look at herself in the big mirror on the wardrobe door. The mirror showed a slender, long-legged girl, whose perfect oval face, with its large lustrous eyes, was framed by a cloud of soft dark shining hair.
Neema didn’t see these lovely things. Her eyes were focused on what she hated most: her big knobbly ugly grotty sticking-out knees, so big they were like nasty bony faces, jeering out at her. Dad said they weren’t ugly, of course; and Mum kept on saying her legs would grow into them, very soon. Neema didn’t believe them . . .
‘Neema?’ Her mum peered round the door. ‘Can you help Nani with the washing-up?’
‘I’ve got all this homework. I’ve got this essay, Mum.’
And that was true. Ms Dallimore’s essay – or was it Count Dracula’s? – still lay untouched on the furthest corner of Neema’s desk.
‘Come on, now. It’ll only take five minutes. I offered to help, but Nani wouldn’t let me – it’s you she really wants.’
Dad’s voice sounded from the hall. ‘She wants her only great-granddaugher, the beautiful Nirmolini, ’ his voice took on those Bible tones, ‘whose name is like perfume poured out–’
Neema went downstairs.
Kalpana loved everything about her Nirmolini. She loved her hands, so busy with the tea-towel, square hands, a little like her own; she loved the way her hair grew, like Raj’s had, in a springy arc from her broad forehead; she loved her strong young legs and the delicate ankles above the sturdy flying shoes.
She
would
buy those flying shoes in the window of the sports store, decided Kalpana. She’d buy them tomorrow, when she went out with Priya, and she’d get the purple ones for Sumati, too. Even if Priya laughed and said they were too old for flying shoes. Even if Priya was in a hurry and impatient, and Priya would be, because she was so like Usha. Usha had been rushy and impatient even when she was a little child. On summer evenings Kalpana and Sumati would go to the river; they did nothing there; they simply sat, dreamily watching the sky, or the water flowing by. Usha had hated that: ten minutes by the river and she wanted to rush away. And Priya had been just the same, when she’d visited on holidays.
Nirmolini was different, thought Kalpana. Nirmolini would sit by the river with them. Hadn’t she done so, when she was a tiny child? Sat between her and Sumati, quietly, gazing up at the wide blue sky?
How small and delicate Nani was, thought Neema, and how gracefully she moved. Standing beside her, Neema felt big and gawky, like the picture in that storybook she’d had when she was little – the one of the princess and her great big genie slave. There were no photographs of Nani when she was young, but Gran said she’d been very beautiful and you could see a little bit of it even now, if you imagined the wrinkles away and changed the white hair to black. You could see it in the fine heart-shape of her face and the softness of her eyes. Neema’s mum was beautiful too, and on the bookshelf in her study there was a framed photograph of a lovely, gentle-looking girl that Neema often took down to examine, because who could believe that sweet-faced girl was her stern headmistress gran?
Nani was looking at her, Neema noticed as she dried the dishes, studying her face in that way she had: gravely, carefully. Perhaps she was thinking, as Neema was herself, that her great-granddaughter was the plain one of the family. Nani’s gaze drifted downwards, and Neema wished she wasn’t wearing shorts, because Nani was staring at her knobbly knees, and then at her new white air-soled runners, which made her feet look big. Nani probably disapproved of runners; old people often did.
Neema sighed and counted the cups and dishes on the sink; there weren’t many left to wash, it would only be a few minutes longer before she could get away. At least Nani wasn’t
talking
to her, telling her stuff and asking those questions Neema couldn’t understand.
At that very moment, as if once again she’d read her great-granddaughter’s thoughts, Nani spoke.
‘Do you remember the river, Nirmolini?’ Kalpana asked in Hindi. ‘Do you remember the river in my town?’
Neema’s face stiffened, the anxious smile which hid her true expression tightened at her lips. What had Nani asked her? The question had her name in it, that was all she knew. It could have been anything. It could have been something like, ‘I wonder how you will ever find a husband, poor Nirmolini, when you have such ungainly knobbly knees? And such huge feet, in those ugly, clumsy shoes?’
It probably was, thought Neema, panicking suddenly, because now Nani was looking at her again, and there was a tiny frown between her eyebrows, as if something made her sad.
In her soft sweet Hindi, Kalpana asked once more, ‘The river, Nirmolini? Where you sat with Sumati and me?’
Neema froze. She was saying it again! Or something like it – because one of the words was the same. Nadi. ‘
Nadi
’ could mean gawky, or even ugly; it sounded like it might. Nani thought Neema was a ‘
nadi
’ girl. She’d mentioned Sumati’s name too – she was probably saying how Sumati would also wonder, shaking her head sadly when she received the letter which told her how Neema had grown up very plain. And worse than plain:
NADI
.
‘In the evenings, all three of us?’ asked Nani softly. ‘You used to love the river, and the sky.’
Nadi
! There it was again. Neema flushed, and tears welled in her eyes. ‘I – I have to go and do my homework!’ she stammered, and tossing the tea-towel onto the bench, she ran out from the room.
How stupid I am! Kalpana scolded herself. She had upset Nirmolini, made her feel awkward, as she always did, chattering on in words the poor child didn’t understand. And Kalpana actually knew the English word for
nadi
, of course she did. It was ‘river’. And she knew ‘in my town’. She should have spoken them, even if she said them wrongly, even if she couldn’t manage a whole sentence, but only ‘river in my town?’ She heard Sumati’s voice again: ‘too proud in little things!’
Kalpana picked up the tea-towel and folded it slowly, carefully: it was still warm, still warm from Nirmolini’s little hands.
My Dear Sumati
, wrote Kalpana.
I am sorry to hear your throat is once again quite sore from shouting.
It’s a pity that your sister’s goat has made it his business to become your
enemy, and that he should discover your two best saris spread out on the
bushes to dry. What trials you have in life! Try not to worry too much
about the saris. When we are both back home, we will go to the bazaar
and buy the best and brightest saris in Bhairon Singh’s shop. As we both
know, he is the only person in the whole of India who understands how
to make rainbows out of cloth.
In the meantime, keep up the honey and lemon – once at morning,
and again at night. And dear Sumati, do try to stop from shouting. Speak
softly to the goat, in sweet and gentle words.
Ah, words, Sumati! I think of you often at your sister’s place – of
you and Lakshmi talking together, the words flowing easily between
you, clear as soft new rain.
Here words are muddy for me. The little awkward English that we
learned when Usha was at school I am too proud to speak. Remember
how Usha and her friends giggled when they heard us in the courtyard,
‘practising’? And remember how we also laughed, thinking it
strange that such funny, unfamiliar sounds could ever tell of anything
we knew?
But here, those words we found so funny are meaning everything.
My great-granddaughter says only ‘
Namaste
’. She says it perfectly
of course – but that is all.
My son-in-law is a kind and loving man, but I think, like me, he has
no ease with foreign tongues. When he tries a word (and he does try, he
is less proud than me) his face grows the shade of carrots, those young
tender carrots we buy in the bazaar at springtime, to make fresh pickles,
and
Gajjar Karrah
.
Priya, of course, speaks Hindi, but it is a strange kind of Hindi now,
Sumati. You cannot say her tongue is heavy because she speaks fast, very
fast – she was always a nervous child. And her words have that strange
‘yoing yoing’ sound the people’s tongues make here – often I cannot make
out what she says.
It is my great-granddaughter I would like to understand, and talk
with. If only I were not–
Kalpana laid down her pen and went to the window. It was time, she knew, for the flying boy to come past the house; already she could hear that faint ticktocking in the distance, far away down the street.
Gull Oliver stopped outside the gate to look up at the house. The streetlight shone on him; Kalpana saw his feet in big white flying shoes, and beneath them, the wooden board with wheels on which he stood. She had seen such things in the window of the sports store: skateboards, they were called. ‘Ah, ’ she murmured, as she raised her hand to wave at him. The boy waved back, and then Kalpana watched him sail away down the street, faster and faster, as if he was flying, a simple hand’s height from the ground.
