Black British (22 page)

Her face flushed brick red, and it wasn't from exertion. We were hurrying home after delivering vegetables to our great-aunt's kitchens and were anxious to get indoors before the heat of the day.

Looking at her I wondered, Hmmmm! Perhaps you like Tomas Savio. Huddled together as we shared a sun umbrella, Lorraine was a trapped audience for my questions. I had just asked her if she knew why Uncle Claude and Tomas Savio had called on our father that morning.

“I don't know,” she mumbled and wrenched the umbrella away from me.

Physical discomfort often blocks trivia from a person's mind. “Ouch,” I yelled as the sun scorched my bare arms. But I recognised her tactic and knew better than to pursue an uncomfortable subject while I was vulnerable.

Wait! I'll get you, was in my mind.

Her reticence served to strengthen my inkling that something was “up”.

First Mummy won't tell me and now you.

I smarted with resentment because I had run out of people to ask. Intuitively I knew better than to approach my father. But I wasn't clever enough to recognise the consequences of forcing the issue. At dinner that evening I saw an opportunity to publicly tease Lorraine.

“Tomas Savio is Lorraine's boyfriend.” I announced in a sing-song voice. “They were…” Before I could go any further my father barked.

“You are
not
to talk like that, do you hear?” Toppling his chair as he flung out of the room he threw clipped tones over his shoulder at my mother. “Please have a word with your youngest daughter.”

Twin pits of burning charcoal that had originally been his eyes, plus the unusual vehemence of his exit had me sitting up straight.

What had I said now?

Lorraine too, looked at me with fury, not the annoyance I usually invoked when I harassed my sisters. My mother was no help. Her fierce concentration on her plate spoke volumes. I knew something bad was at stake.

Our father seldom reprimanded us. He was determined his daughters would remain unaccustomed to, or be intimidated by, male bully behaviour, either verbal or physical. Instead, he usually spoke with mild tone and precise word accompanied with consistent action. When our noise and boisterousness became extreme or our behaviours stretched boundaries, he removed himself to his library which adjoined the drawing room so he was able to be close to us but not immediately present. Simultaneously there and not there – there, because he couldn't bear to be without us, and not there to distance himself from behaviours that he saw as unacceptable. Having been deprived of that irreplaceable commodity that is family life when he was a powerless child, first at boarding school from the tender age of seven, followed by long years of exile in the cold, miserable climate of England while he refined his professional skills, he now made sure he hung on to his most treasured asset – us.

Most times our mother managed us with a few well-chosen words, though sometimes looking to her for support was useless. She'd join my father and together they indicated that it was time to curtail our excesses. Withdrawing love, even a tiny amount, is a powerful control mechanism and open to abuse in human relationships where power imbalances abound. We were lucky our parents used that strategy judiciously and with the best of intentions.

That night I was genuinely perplexed with no idea of the gaffe I had committed. As the evening progressed the silence expanded like a painful boil that threatens to suppurate if not immediately lanced. But no one explained and my bewilderment and hurt escalated.

Standing in front of our dressing table while I brushed my hair before bed, I made sure I took up maximum space. Though the mirror was large enough for three girls to share with ease, my elaborate arm movements guaranteed it was difficult for anyone to stand beside me with any assurance of safety.

“Can you move, please?”

I moved. A fraction of an inch.

“Can you move a bit more, please?”

I became temporarily deaf.

Like most people, hurt and bewilderment rendered me powerless in the face of tensions I didn't understand. Anger returned some of that power. Lorraine must have recognised that I was spoiling for a fight, and not wanting to aggravate the situation she quietly moved away. About fifteen minutes later, with the lights extinguished, I heard furtive movements in the bed beside me. Lily and I slept in separate single beds that were pushed up against each other so we could share a double mosquito net. Lorraine's bed, with her own protective netting, was on the other side of mine.

“Move over,” came a hoarse whisper. “Let me in,” and Lorraine climbed into Lily's bed. Shining her torch in my face she gave me no opportunity to pretend to be asleep.

Without preamble she got to the point. “Of course Daddy's upset. You shouldn't have talked about Tomas Savio.” She spoke in muted tones though we were a sufficient distance from our parents' bedroom to be safe from disturbing them. “Daddy is angry that Uncle Claude brought Tomas Savio here. Now he's forced to acknowledge they go about together. Otherwise he could ignore it.”

“What's wrong with that?” I needed to show that I wasn't ready to be conciliatory.

“Listen, stupid,” her voice was urgent. “Daddy doesn't like Uncle Claude being so friendly with Tomas Savio. It's not acceptable.”

“How do you know?”

“Bistie Gupta told me. Her father hosts Bridge nights and there's where Uncle Claude meets Tomas. They've been playing Bridge every Tuesday evening and sometimes on Saturdays too.”

Bistie Gupta attended teacher training college with Lorraine and the two were fast friends. Being a year or two older, Bistie appeared far more worldly than my sheltered sister so Lorraine looked up to her and quoted her incessantly. Sensing my continued scepticism my eldest sister indulged in a prolonged, long-suffering sigh, the sort a person gives when forced to explain something simple to an obtuse younger sister.

“Tomas Savio is Uncle Claude's special friend, and it's wrong. Men are not allowed to have friends like that. That's why Daddy won't acknowledge it.

“But I have a special friend.” I was thinking of Peggy Biswas who, along with her family, had migrated to Canada a year earlier leaving behind a hole I was unable to fill. So why was it wrong for Uncle Claude to have a special friend?

Lorraine sighed again but this time it was with resignation and free of affectation. But not free from her usual fake superiority, born of a five-year seniority. There is nothing more patronising than the words, “you are too young to understand”, because there is no answer, no come back.

Leaning forward and unconsciously speaking faster, as though to outpace uncomfortable thoughts, Lorraine committed her characteristic sin. “You are too young to understand, but one day your best friend will most likely be a man. You will want to be with him…just like – er – Daddy wants to be with Mummy.” In the dim light I sensed her embarrassment and became increasingly confused.

My best friend being a boy was beyond my imagination. Mother Goose was still firmly entrenched in my mind so I knew for a fact that “frogs and snails and puppy-dogs' tails” were the main component of the male species of my generation.

I was also too naive to understand that every child is disinclined to contemplate, almost ashamed to acknowledge, that their parents have a sex life. But I knew enough to realise that Lorraine was making herself be patient and gentle with me, that in her own way she was trying to assuage my hurt. Though we squabbled and quarrelled as siblings do the world over, though we argued incessantly and tried to out-answer each other, though I was often convinced I'd be better off as an only child, at that moment I loved my eldest sister.

We sat in companionable silence, enveloped by darkness and bound together by mutual support. My eyelids grew heavy as strong emotion is exhausting, and I sought the reviving effect of sleep. But before I could drop off Lorraine's voice jerked me awake.

“It may explain why he is so nasty to Aunt Kitty, but,” and she brought my mother's words to life, “that's no excuse. Because he doesn't like aspects of himself doesn't mean he should take it out on his wife in front of all of us.” She collected her thoughts for a few moments before continuing. “But, we mustn't discuss this with Mummy. It will only distress her.” Instinctively we knew that “distress” was a mild word should we be silly enough to talk with our father.

Lily, who had been listening quietly, took up the thread. “It isn't as though Uncle Claude meets up with Tomas Savio, except at the Bridge evenings. There're no clandestine meetings, wouldn't be possible in a gossip-ridden town like this.” She spat out the last few words so I picked up her meaning immediately.

In a town like Kanpur where our community was small in numbers, there were no possibilities for secrets. Besides, we were a prominent family, so lived with the risk that any small action would be deliberately distorted out of proportion. We also knew that Uncle Claude loved and revered his brother and wouldn't do anything to provoke dislike or contempt.

In that moment the parent–child relationship altered forever. For the first time in my life I recognised that my parents' omnipotence was limited, they were powerless within a force greater than their principles. I understood that my father couldn't change the way his brother was, that all he could do was ignore it and thereby protect himself from an unpalatable truth.

Unknown to us, that night Lorraine, Lily and I shifted a little up the spectrum of maturity. It was our turn to shield our parents and, as one, we rose to the occasion. Without words we tacitly agreed to refrain from discussing Uncle Claude with anyone. For Lorraine that meant Bistie Gupta, while my role was to keep my big mouth shut, however difficult that might be.

The conversation that night, among the three sisters, about the first blot on our near-perfect lives, served to consolidate our friendship. In that moment I knew that however much we quarrelled the connection between us was strong and that forever we'd be there for each other.

Many years later when time hadn't delivered even a teaspoon of maturity, I was in the throes of yet another disintegrating love affair. It was then I understood the electricity in the atmosphere on that summer morning in Kanpur. Uncle Claude and Tomas Savio had stood the length of a room apart, because they couldn't trust themselves to be any closer. The strength of feeling between them, unexpressed in word or deed, rendered them vulnerable.

That desperate longing, the aching unsatisfied need, for a deep connection to another human being, another warm, breathing, heart-beating person, was denied them. The intense yearning to share every aspect of a life, emotional, mental, physical and everything else in between, with another person, goes much deeper than mere carnal desire. I realised then that to reduce Uncle Claude's need to nothing but sexual gratification was to diminish the miracle, the beauty, the complexity, of all human relationships.

I never discovered why Uncle Claude committed the cardinal sin of calling on my father while he was in the company of Tomas Savio, but I did learn about the brutal tensions caused by social taboos of the times that paled everything else into insignificance.

CHAPTER 15

AUNT KITTY'S EXIT

November mornings in Kanpur are magic. The air's like champagne. September mornings come a close second with the promise of glorious days ahead. People relax, knowing the scalding months of May and June are behind them for the year. In September the early morning air sparkles with energy, nerve endings tingle, senses come alive.
Cassia Spectabilis
bloom, a sure sign the weather has cooled. Their golden blossoms above the canopy of leaves create a bicolour picture. The sun shines liquid gold and casts long, soft shadows.

September mornings saw us laugh for no apparent reason – intoxicated by the sheer joy of being alive. On such a morning Aunt Kitty died. Exhausted from the constant struggle to maintain her self-respect in a tart environment, she gave up the ghost as she had lived, with a minimum of fuss, slipping away peacefully in her sleep.

We received the news in typical Kanpur style – by a hand-delivered message.

Deep grief is beyond words. No language is comprehensive enough, no person sufficiently eloquent to describe the feelings that invaded our household that September morning, the intensity of which carried the potential for operatic expression. The magic had fled.

My mother's hands shook as she poured tea at breakfast, the clink of china as teapot bumped teacup was testimony to a grief that could not, would not, be assuaged by cathartic tears. Her every movement was slow and deliberate, as though she needed to concentrate hard to get through the motions of life; as if one tiny slip meant she'd come to a standstill forever. Frozen in time.

When the clinking became embarrassingly loud, too loud to ignore, Lorraine silently took over. By deeds and not words did she demonstrate support for her mother.