Kalpana's Dream (11 page)
‘No, of course not, ’ answered Kate. ‘I’ll be sleeping in my new room. This is
your
room now.’
Lucy’s room had new curtains too, and another brilliant rug from Gran – a woolly garden of birds and fruits and flowers.
‘See?’ Kate pointed at the small china plaque Mum had bought for Lucy’s door. ‘See, it’s got your name on it: “Lucy”.’
‘I know!’ Lucy shouted. ‘I can read my name!’
‘And that says “room”.’
‘I know that too!’
‘Oh well, ’ Kate sighed, and then she’d run off because Mum was calling her. She hadn’t seen Lucy since then, though she’d heard her yelling at Mum and Dad at bedtime, which was something she always did. But as Kate fell asleep, she kept seeing the way Lucy had stood in front of her out in the hall, with her back held very straight and her small fists clenched hard down by her sides.
Much later, Kate woke sharply; the glowing figures on her bedside clock showed half-past two. The house was silent, yet a strange sound had woken her, Kate felt sure, and as she sat up and switched the light on, the strange sound came again.
‘Aaarooo’ – a low, painful keening, as if some small creature had been hurt out in the yard. Kate switched off the light again and looked out through the window.
Nothing moved: Mum’s rose bushes stood black and straight beside the fence, the pegs on the empty clothesline perched like a row of frozen birds.
‘Aaarooo!’
Kate turned. The awful sound was coming from behind the wall of their old room – from Lucy’s room.
Lucy?
Lucy
crying
?
Lucy
never
cried.
She roared and shouted, hollered, yelled, protested, but she never, never cried. Not when she fell off bikes and swings and monkey bars, not on her first day at crèche, not even that time Charlie Moss had bashed her.
Could
it be Lucy then?
That spooky noise?
Could it?
Kate crept out into the hall. The noise had stopped again; in the silence that followed, Kate heard a long sobby sniff.
‘Lucy?’
Lucy didn’t answer. Kate opened the door and walked in. Light from the hallway showed the bed was empty.
‘Lucy?’ There was a tiny movement from the floor. Kate looked down. Her sister lay curled on Gran’s new rug, in the place where Kate’s bed had been. ‘Lucy!’
Lucy shot up straight. ‘You’re
mean
!’
‘Mean?’
‘You left me here!’
‘But–’ Kate knelt down beside her, ‘but this is your room now. Remember how you always kept on saying, “This is
my
room!” Well–’ Kate waved her hand. ‘Now it is!’
Lucy sniffed. ‘But I thought it would still have you in it, when it was mine.’
‘Did you?’ Kate put an arm round Lucy’s shoulders. ‘Come on, Luce, you can’t sleep on the floor, let’s get you into bed . . .’
And somehow – Kate wasn’t sure quite how it happened – there she was, on the first night of her new room, back in her old one, in Lucy’s bed, with Lucy, hot and heavy, squeezed up by her side.
And there was worse.
‘I want to go to the zoo, ’ Lucy whispered damply against her sister’s neck.
Kate said nothing.
‘The ZOO!’
‘Yes, I heard.’
‘And Mum and Dad won’t take me, they keep on saying, “Soon”. And “soon” is never.’
‘It mightn’t be.’
‘Yes it IS! And I really want to go; I’ve been wanting for years and years! Katie?’
Kate knew what was coming.
‘Will
you
take me?’
Kate sighed. ‘All right, I’ll take you one day.’
Lucy’s voice sharpened. ‘When?’
‘Soo– I mean, um, I’m not sure just when.’
‘You were going to say “soon”!’
‘No I wasn’t.’
‘Yes you were. Tomorrow? Will you take me tomorrow?’
‘Not tomorrow; I haven’t got time.’
‘Yes you have. You’ve got a whole afternoon’s holiday – Mum said.’
Trust Mum. ‘I was going to ask Neema to come over and see my sleep-out.’
Lucy drew in a long shuddering breath.
‘Oh, all
right
, ’ sighed Kate. She felt doomed.
Neema and her dad sat on the garden swing, rocking gently, watching the last of the day.
‘Did you see Nani’s new runners?’ asked Dad.
‘Yeah.’
‘And the ones she bought for Sumati: purple, with orange laces? Your mum says she calls them “flying shoes”.’
Neema nodded. She’d been wrong about Nani the other night: her great-grandmother hadn’t been thinking Neema’s big white runners were ugly; she’d been admiring them. The pair she’d bought for herself were exactly the same.
Perhaps she hadn’t been thinking Neema’s knees were knobbly, either, or that her great-granddaughter was the ugly person of the family. Neema had gone to her room that night and looked up ‘ugly’ and ‘hideous’ in the little English–Hindi primer Dad had given her; she’d been too embarrassed to go and ask her mum. None of the words she’d found looked like the one Nani had kept on saying: ‘
nadi
’. ‘Knees’ was ‘
ghutana
’ and Neema was almost certain Nani hadn’t used that word. So she’d got all upset for nothing, and she might have upset Nani too, rushing from the kitchen as she’d done, in tears.
Above their swing the sky grew pale and tender, the clouds flushed pink and for a moment the whole garden glowed; on the clothesline near the back fence Nani’s white saris swayed and drifted; a row of airy ghosts pinned upon the wire.
‘Dad?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Why does Nani always wear white saris, and never coloured ones?’
‘Because she’s a widow – white saris are widows’ saris.’
‘But Gran wears coloured saris, and she’s a widow.’
‘Your gran’s from a different generation; she’s a modern city lady now.’
‘When did Nani’s husband die?’
‘Your great-grandfather? A very long time ago, in a cholera epidemic.’ Ignatius sighed. ‘He was only a boy, really – barely twenty. And your Nani was only eighteen. Think of it, Neema! An eighteen-year-old girl left alone with a tiny baby daughter . . .’
That baby daughter would have been bossy old headmistress Gran! It was hard to imagine Gran as a tiny fatherless child, but she had been, all the same. It was easier to picture Nani as a sad young girl, already dressed in her white widow’s sari, gently rocking a small child in her arms.
‘Widow’ sounded old, thought Neema, but Nani had only been a few years older than her, the same age as the Year Twelve girls at school. The Year Twelve girls in their vivid scarlet sweatshirts, who would leave next summer and begin their larger lives: going on to work and university, travelling, searching for adventure and fresh experiences, friendships and love, bright new worlds. Dressed in colours . . .
Imagine never wearing a colour again: yellow, which made you feel happy, dashing red, peaceful blue, those flowery prints which told of summer coming, sunshine and long light days.
‘You know, ’ said her dad thoughtfully, ‘those little blue flashes on her new runners must be the first colour Nani’s worn in nearly sixty years.’
Sixty years! ‘What was he like, my great-grandfather?’
‘No-one really knows now, except for your Nani and Sumati. Your gran was too young to remember him, and everyone else is gone. But I think he must have been a very special young man: certainly your nani loved him very much, and even Sumati liked him.’ Dad smiled. ‘That’s the real test: Sumati’s very hard to please.’
‘What was his name?’
‘Raj.’
From inside the house there came a sudden noisy clang and clatter. Neema and her dad exchanged glances. ‘Mum’s tripped over the bucket again!’
‘Sounds like it.’
Nani washed her saris by hand, not in their rusty old laundry tub, but in two big buckets she kept on the bathroom floor. Neema and her dad had learned to step round them, but Priya kept on tripping. The back door crashed open and she came limping towards them across the lawn. ‘Why can’t she use the washing machine?’ she exploded. ‘Why can’t she? Or why can’t she let
me
wash her saris? Why does she have to use those
buckets
?’
Going loopy, thought Neema, hearing the rising note in her mother’s voice.
‘Er–’ began Dad.
‘No, don’t tell me.’ Priya raised a warning hand. ‘Don’t tell me, because I
know
! She’s an intelligent woman, she knows how to work the video! But she washes her clothes in buckets because Sumati does; because that’s how Sumati’s family did their washing a hundred years ago, up there in the hills.’
Neema and her dad glanced uneasily towards the house.
‘It’s all right; she can’t hear you, she’s watching her film again! That song! It’s driving me mad! It runs through my head all day! I hardly know who I am! Last night when I went into the study and switched my computer on to do some work – proper work, like I used to do – I started singing it. I started singing
Beloved! After so
long, to see your dear face once more
–’
Mum’s eyes were round and shiny with bewilderment. She reminded Neema of Jessaline O’Harris: that time Jessaline had come up to her and Kate in the library and told them how she couldn’t seem to get a start on Ms Dallimore’s essay. There was an old school photo of Mum, Neema remembered suddenly – and in it, she had exactly those same tight skinny plaits as Jessaline. And now she made an abrupt little shaking motion with her head, as if, like Jessaline, she was twitching her own long-ago plaits in dismay.
Priya gave a small choking sob and sank down onto the grass. ‘Sometimes I think, ’ she stared up at them with those big bewildered eyes, ‘sometimes I think I’ll never hear Miss Dabke’s mathematical music of the spheres again! Ever, ever again!’
Oh! Neema was horrified. Mum never to hear Miss Dabke’s heavenly music – that was
bad
. Worse by far than mere bad temper or going a little loopy.
They sat down beside her on the grass. Ignatius put his arm around her shoulders, Neema patted her arm.
‘Oh, don’t!’ She batted them away. ‘I’m being awful, I know. But I’m so sick of trailing round that Indian grocery, and watching that film, and cooking, and – and everything. Oh, I’m sorry, sorry.’
Ignatius took her hand and tugged it gently. ‘Rise up, my darling; my fairest, come away. You need to delight in the garden, and to pick the lilies.’
‘What?’
‘In plain old ordinary words, you need to take a little break, Pree. Tomorrow’s Friday, why not go into the university, to the Friday seminar?’
‘The Friday seminar?’ Priya’s dark eyes glowed yearningly behind their tears. ‘Oh, if only I
could
!’
‘Of course you can!’
‘But how? I can’t leave Nani all alone and go out by myself.’
‘I’ll stay home, ’ said Ignatius.
‘But you can’t; you’ve got surgery tomorrow.’
‘I’ll get a locum, ’ Ignatius said airily.
‘Your patients
hate
locums. Old Mrs Pepperel slapped that last one’s hand!’
‘Old Mrs Pepperel has since–’ Neema’s dad cleared his throat, ‘gone to live at Booligal with her longsuffering son.’ He slapped his knee and grinned. ‘And Booligal can have ’er!’
‘Oh.’
‘So you can go tomorrow. To delight in the garden, and pick the lilies.’
‘But–’
Ignatius squeezed her hand. ‘Go, Priya, go!’
‘Oh!’ Tears welled freshly in Priya’s eyes. Her mother had used those very same words when Priya had won her scholarship to Australia. ‘Go, Priya, go!’
‘I’ll ring that locum, ’ said Ignatius.
Neema took a long deep breath. ‘No, Dad, you don’t have to.’
‘Eh?’
‘You don’t have to miss surgery, Dad. I can stay at home.’
‘But you’ve got school.’
Neema took another long deep breath: offering this meant she’d be alone in the house with Nani. For a whole long afternoon! But she offered, anyway. ‘No I haven’t, ’ she told them. ‘Not in the afternoon, anyway. It’s a half holiday, for curriculum day, so – so I can keep Nani company.’
They turned to her with hopeful faces, both of them. ‘Oh Neema, would you?’ begged her mum.
Neema nodded.
‘Nirmolini, ’ said her father. ‘Nirmolini, thank you. You are beyond price. Beyond all pearls and rubies. You are like–’ He ran a hand through his thinning sandy hair and smiled at her. ‘You are like an apricot tree among the trees of the wood. Thank you.’
Her English notebook open on the table, Big Molly Matthews was about to make a start on Ms Dallimore’s – or was it Count Dracula’s? – essay. Tenderly she examined the subject of all her school compositions: her little blue baby shoes.
How perfect they were: how soft, and sweet, and – and small! Molly kicked off a runner and measured a baby shoe against her large bare foot – the tiny slipper was scarcely larger than her big toe.
And then, out of nowhere, an awful thought seized Molly; squeezing at her heart, making her blood run cold. She was suddenly absolutely certain she had never worn those little shoes.
‘Mum! Mum!’
Her mother’s face appeared around the doorway. ‘Is something wrong, dear?’
Wrong
? Molly’s own moon-shaped face twisted horribly. It was a thousand times worse than wrong.
‘This!’ She brandished the tiny blue shoes. ‘I never wore these, did I? Gran bought them for me, but I never wore them; I was too big the minute I was born!’
‘Oh.’ Her mother at once guessed what was happening. ‘Hold on a sec, ’ she said.
Hold on
?
‘I’ve got something I want to show you.’
When Mrs Matthews came back she had two old photographs in her hand. School photographs. ‘Look, ’ she said to Molly. ‘That’s me in Year Seven – the girl right at the back.’
It could have been a photograph of the cast of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, thought Molly: a giant person – Mum – rising from a crowd of little ones, like an enormous sunflower from a bed of daisies.
‘But?’ began Molly, looking up at her mother with a puzzled frown. ‘You’re not–’
‘Exactly, ’ said Mrs Matthews briskly. ‘I’m no giant. And this’, she placed the second photograph in front of Molly, ‘is me in Year Twelve.’
Now there were only daisies, tall and short and medium, but all daisies, no alien bloom in sight. ‘That’s me, ’ said Mrs Matthews, pointing to a middle-sized girl in the centre of the second row.