Black British (14 page)

The time I had disgraced myself on that carpet was when the Christmas fare was in full swing. Knowing full well that pestering my mother was pointless I had worked on my father instead. With the single-mindedness of a tiny person with an even tinier brain, I repeated with deadly monotony,
only one more sweet, Daddy and just a few more nuts, pleeeease
.

The result was predictable.

It truly wasn't my fault. I was on a winning streak, having just shot five consecutive winks (buttons) home when the excitement got too much for me.

“Take careful aim,” my father encouraged. “If you win this one you'll have a bullseye.” So I flicked my wink with all the force I could muster and instead of travelling towards my pot, it took off at a rate of knots, heading straight for my father's right eye.

Rather than see stars, he brushed the button aside with more energy than skill, so it changed directions and flew halfway across the room. I grabbed a deep breath to support a yell of protest, but the extra abdominal pressure proved too much for a small stomach, particularly one that was already overburdened by Christmas goodies. To my eternal shame a disgusting mixture of you-don't-want-to-know-what surged up onto that luxurious family heirloom, the only Persian carpet in Kanpur and probably the only one left in India.

Though, at the time, Persian carpets had a reputation for being the best in the world, were housed in august residences like Number 10 Downing Street and were prohibitively expensive for the majority of the world's population, neither of my parents reproached me.

“This is your home,” my father said, “Not a showpiece. I ran across that carpet with muddy shoes when I was a boy.” We knew he remembered playing Tiddlywinks with his father on exactly the same carpet and, like us, remembered learning about colours, geometric shapes and improving hand–eye coordination.

“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 high 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.