Black British (15 page)

So what was she thinking, our aunt, when she chose twinsets for her three young nieces? Was she trying to tell us something? Did she have a message for our mother?

“Go and thank her,” my mother instructed, almost commanded. “Shake hands, wish her for Christmas and thank her for her generous gift. And Smile! Make sure you smile. I'll be watching.”

Her injunctions were partly to insist on good manners at all times and partly because she knew she was an “out-law” and would be criticised if our behaviour didn't come up to scratch.

We dutifully thanked Aunt Moira and suffered the twinsets for two further occasions so that our aunt could believe they were appreciated. Then mercifully, the seasons changed and the awful clothes were packed away for the summer months while Lorraine triumphantly smirked to herself, insufferably superior about her age.

We knew what she was thinking. Her “time” with the twinsets was limited. The following winter she would have outgrown them and would be in a position to generously bequeath them to her younger sisters.

My position was dire. I had two sets of twinsets to inherit.

My mother, that dear, sweet, noble person, came to the rescue. The following winter she discreetly donated the offending clothes to neighbourhood children, thereby squashing forever their dreaded spectre.

Thus the mere mention of twinsets was enough to subdue me into silence.

As we did every year we were assembled in the drawing room waiting to leave the house for the parochial Mass of the day. The midnight service was the more important religious event that people attended but somehow I never did. Though I did try. On more than one occasion.

“Why can't I come to Midnight Mass with you?” I wailed. And was ignored. I knew that thirteen was the magical age but that didn't stop me from protesting when I was younger. When Lily became a teenager my remonstrations must have been extra enthusiastic because, uncharacteristically, my mother relented with a deal.

“You go to bed at eight and I'll wake you at eleven thirty. You'll have twenty minutes to get ready before we leave. If you get some sleep you won't be so cranky and embarrassing.”

She was referring to the instance when, as an insignificant little girl, I had slept through most of the Mass only to wake at the Consecration, the most holy part of the service when the church was pin-drop silent. With the intense concentration of a child I quietly watched proceedings before enunciating in loud, clear, severely censorious tones, “Mummy! Padre drank wine and he never said
Cheers
.”

My mother didn't want a repeat of that performance.

“She's cranky all the time, so what's the difference?” Lorraine's remarks, and similar ones from Lily, suggested to me that I accept the bargain. As the clock chimed the hour I duly took myself off to bed.

The next thing I knew the creamy fingers of a cold dawn were reaching into our bedroom and Christmas morning was well on its way. “I called you twice,” I was told when I complained, “but you wouldn't budge.”

The following year I refused to go to bed and curled up in an armchair in front of the fire in the drawing room with my nose buried in a novel. The next morning I found myself stretched out on the sofa under an assortment of crocheted blankets, with a crick in my neck. Not only had I missed Midnight Mass but had also slept through the celebratory drinks, cake
and
singing that followed.

By the time I was legitimately allowed to attend the midnight service I had lost interest. Isn't that always the case? The proximity of a desired object tarnishes its magical allure; distance does indeed lend enchantment to the view. Since the novelty of being awake at midnight had worn off, my sisters joined me at the parochial Mass.

That year, when the drama of hanging decorations had been accomplished, the threat of twinsets nullified and the preferred Mass agreed and attended, we were finishing a late breakfast when a commotion among the servants at the pantry door attracted our attention.

Not being a family for superfluous amounts of help in the house, at that time we had only two servants. The
mali
who was an old family retainer, had been around as long as I could remember and lived with his extended family in the servant's quarters at the bottom of the compound out of sight of the house. It was he who kept the garden in a respectable shape and managed the well and overhead tank, keeping us in running water twenty-four hours a day.

Like most cantonments houses our property had a well that was fed by a water table 20 metres below. While the concept may sound primitive, the reality was sophisticated and efficient. An electric pump drew water into an overhead tank and gravity fed the house pipes. Importantly, we owned control of this essential resource, without which survival in the stinking hot months of summer was questionable. While the
mali
was dependent on us for a job we were totally dependent on him for this precious commodity.

The
ayha
was another aged family retainer who helped my mother around the house. I was never sure of her role but she was always present. Other than that, an assortment of daily women came in and out to do dishes, clean the house – no negligible feat, given the obscure corners and corridors left by previous generations – attend to the laundry and other necessary tasks. Though it was their labour that ensured I went out into the world clean and polished, I never noticed them. With the arrogance of youth, they were extraneous to my interests.

That Christmas morning, the excited chatter among the servants surprised us. It was customary for all members of the
mali
's family to collect on Christmas morning with a boutonniere or garland for each of us. It was a sign of their respect and acknowledgement of our religious festival. In return they received
bakshi
which was our way of saying thank you for wishing us well on our special day.

As a general rule male servants didn't enter the house so it was unexpected when an agitated
mali
approached the dining room door, obviously wanting to talk to my father and surprisingly, not my mother, who usually managed the household.

He walked back into the drawing room with the stiff, unsteady gait of an old man. It was as though he had aged twenty years in half an hour. His tone, when he spoke, was as usual but the giveaway was his choice of extra-formal language when he thanked us for waiting before we opened our presents. When it was obvious he wasn't going to explain I organised my mind to voice one of the questions that was jumping around in my head. But before I could speak I caught Lorraine's eye and received a telepathic message that said
SHUT. UP
.

Confused, I looked back towards my father and saw that mentally he was way beyond our puny world of Christmas. He was looking back to safer times.

Bit by bit I pieced the story together.

In the dead of night, an unknown hand had braved the arctic temperatures to adorn our boundary wall with a bright yellow, unambiguous message:

“
de Souza is shit
”.

In numb silence, staring uncomprehendingly at the words, I read them over and over again as though repeated reading would expose the joke.

“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.