Kalpana's Dream (14 page)
‘Now don’t you go telling me it’s school work you’re thinking about when you ride off on that thing! I wasn’t born yesterday, you know!’
The funny thing was, it might be school work. A problem that he felt stuck with, cooped up in his room, could somehow unravel as he sailed on through the quiet streets and the narrow mysterious pathways in the park.
But these last few weeks it had been Nirmolini he’d been thinking about. She obviously didn’t remember how they’d met each other all those years ago. Once he’d thought she might: that time he’d seen her with Katie Sullivan, walking home from school. For a second, as she looked across the road, Nirmolini had seemed to recognise him, but then her eyes glanced away so quickly, bounced right off him, that he knew he’d only imagined it.
How could he get to know her again? You couldn’t just walk up to a girl and say, ‘Hi, I’m Gull Oliver, remember me? I used to be your shepherd back at Short Street Primary. Seven years ago.’
She mightn’t even remember how there had
been
shepherds at Short Street Primary.
Skating by her house each evening he’d hoped to see her at a window so he could give her a little passing wave, and a smile – that would be a beginning, at least. But the only person he’d ever seen there was the old lady who waved and smiled at
him
.
How could he approach her? At school, she was always with other girls, a whole crowd of them, and that made it difficult to talk.
Gull sped up a little; he was nearing the end of the path now, the bit he loved best, where you came out from the shadow of the trees into the brilliant blue of lake and sky, where the light seemed to shower down. He soared out from the trees and – there they were! It was unbelievable, like a sort of miracle: beside the lake, the two of them, the old lady who always seemed to wear white, and – and
her
!
Her name flew from his lips. ‘Nirmolini!’
Kalpana left them together and stole quietly away; young people needed to be on their own. She walked swiftly over the soft green grass, her small old limbs filled with the amazing lightness that comes from risking the thing you’d long been afraid to do. And it had been so easy, after all. She’d fretted and worried and been so proud, and then, when she’d spoken those first English words to Nirmolini, there hadn’t been a trace of scorn or mockery on her great-granddaughter’s face. Nirmolini had been surprised, that was all, and then she’d been – delighted. Kalpana glanced up at the sky, where little pink clouds were sailing, and then across the water to the bank of silvery green trees on the other side. She knew this place, too, this park. Of course she did, and it seemed to her she had recognised it the very moment she spoke that first English word aloud to Nirmolini. She had looked up, and
seen
: seen how the water and the trees and the small scudding clouds were the ones of the place in her dream, the place where she would fly.
As she walked, Kalpana hugged Gull’s skateboard to her chest, cradling it gently, as tenderly as Blocky Stevenson had cradled the old junior football he’d found in the cupboard beneath the sink. She was looking for a private little place, firm and flat and hidden, because when you were old and wanted to try something new, you needed to be private, away from the eyes of people who might fuss and bother, who might tell you, ‘Not that way, but this!’ or even say, ‘You are too old, this you cannot do.’
At last she found it: a small deserted carpark, screened behind the trees.
Kalpana set the skateboard down. She placed one foot on it, then two. Exactly. Exactly so. There she was, a simple hand’s height from the ground. She wobbled a little, and set one foot back firmly upon the ground. This would need practice; ‘Practice makes perfect!’
Sumati was often saying. And practice took a little time.
Kalpana glanced through the trees – over there, across the lake, Nirmolini and the flying boy sat talking. Hours might pass for them like seconds, she thought, smiling. She had plenty of time.
Her sharp old ears picked up two words from their conversation: ‘Count Dracula’. Count Dracula? She knew what ‘count’ meant, of course – that was numbers. But Dracula? What could that be? It wasn’t a word she’d ever heard Usha say, and yet it seemed somehow familiar, as a word might be if you’d seen it on the cover of a book, or on a big poster outside a cinema. ‘A fairytale, ’ she murmured. Dracula was someone from a fairytale.
Gull and Neema talked for ages – shyly at first, then more confidently, and then as if they were very old friends and the seven years since they’d last talked together had simply melted away. They talked about many things, until, finally, their conversation came round to Ms Dallimore. ‘Do you think her boyfriend really is Count Dracula?’ asked Neema.
Gull shook his head. ‘It’s just one of those teacher stories.’
‘You mean how people say Mr Ruddy’s on day release from a prison farm?’
Mr Ruddy was the part-time woodwork teacher.
‘Yeah. It’s just because he’s got tattoos and dirty fingernails.’
‘So it’s because Ms Dallimore’s so pale, and her boyfriend has that spooky car?’
Gull nodded. ‘But I reckon it’s something else too. It’s because she’s the kind of teacher people remember, even when they’re grown up.’
‘Like my mum remembers this little old lady who taught her maths at university.’
‘And mine remembers the poetry teacher she had in Year Ten. Ms Dallimore’s one of them: a teacher you remember.’
‘Yes, she is, ’ said Neema thoughtfully, and a vision of her English teacher floated into her mind: Ms Dallimore as she might remember her when Neema was as old as Mum, or Gran, or even Nani; Ms Dallimore in her long swirly skirt, with her dark red hair and pale pale skin, standing at the front of the classroom, talking about thinking, and imagination, and flying, and the heavenly music of the soul–
She glanced up suddenly. ‘Where’s Nani?’
Neema and Gull stared round. The empty park stared back at them; the brooding lake, the hollow paths beneath the darkening trees.
‘Could she have gone home?’ asked Gull.
‘No, no, she wouldn’t, ’ said Neema.
But where could she have gone?
And then they heard it, the faint ticktocking sound of little wheels, and far away on the other side of the lake, they saw a graceful gliding figure, like a big white swan. Nani.
‘She’s – she’s got your skateboard!’
Together, they began to run.
And now Kalpana was flying: the trees rushed by, and the water, and the small rosy clouds above, cool air brushed against her face, her sari floated out, all as it had been in her dream. Faster she flew, and faster – at any moment, as she pushed against the world, the tiny crack would open and she would see him.
‘Nani!’
Faster. She needed to go faster now; only she couldn’t, because Nirmolini was running towards her, and Kalpana could see how anxious her small face was, how her mouth shaped itself in a tight circle of alarm. ‘Nani, stop!’
‘I need to go faster, ’ Kalpana wanted to shout out loud, ‘I need to see! Oh please!’
But there were tears sliding down Nirmolini’s cheeks. ‘Aah!’ sighed Kalpana, and she made the small graceful movements she had seen the flying boy make so many nights as she watched from the window of her room. And stopped.
Neema rushed up: she’d been so afraid Nani would fall, be hurt, but here she was, her feet quite safe and solid on the ground. ‘Oh, Nani!’ Neema smiled as she took the old lady’s hand. And this time it was her proper smile; the one that curved her soft lips upwards and brought the tiny dimple, the small hollow, to show beside her mouth. The smile that made her face, for a precious instant, the perfect image of Kalpana’s own lost Raj.
‘Come in for the seminar, love?’ asked Veronica, the maths department secretary.
‘Er, yes.’ Priya found Veronica a little unsettling; she was so very forthright, and her voice was so very loud. And though Veronica was young, and big, and blonde, there was something about her which kept reminding Priya of Sumati, Nani’s old friend.
‘Missed us, eh?’
Priya smiled. ‘Yes, I did. Do you know who’s giving the seminar paper today?’
Veronica rolled her bright blue eyes. ‘Him.’
Priya’s heart sunk. ‘Him’, from Veronica, could only mean one person – Dr Vladimir Goole.
‘Dr Goole?’
‘Yup. Rather you than me – he’ll go on for hours in that drony old voice of his.’
‘It is a bit muffled.’
‘Keeps his lips half-closed, that’s why, ’ said Veronica. ‘It’s to hide the fangs.’
‘Fangs?’
‘Yeah. He’s got these two really long sharp teeth at the sides.’Veronica flicked a bright red fingernail at her own plush lips. ‘I saw them once when he snarled at me.’
‘He snarled at you?’ gasped Priya, horrified. ‘What for?’
‘For looking at the address on the back of one of those letters he gets from foreign parts.’
‘Where was it?’ asked Priya curiously. ‘The address?’
‘Trans – Transvaal? Trans something, anyway.’Veronica took a roll of Koolmints from her desk drawer and peeled down the silver paper. ‘Have one?’
‘Um, no thanks.’
Veronica popped a mint into her mouth and spoke on through rolling peppermint. ‘The thing that gives me the creeps is those shades of his – the way he never takes them off.’ She chewed reflectively. ‘Makes you wonder what kind of eyes he’s got behind them, doesn’t it?’
‘Dark ones, I suppose.’
‘You know what my Gustave says?’
Gustave was Veronica’s six-year-old, who, with his little sister Theodora, was often to be found milling round the office after school.
‘What?’
‘He reckons there’s no eyes there. He reckons it’s just skin.’
Priya shuddered. ‘That’s horrible!’
‘Yeah, ’ said Veronica calmly. ‘Spooky. And Theodora, she reckons Dr Goole’s a vampire; she always wears her little silver cross around her neck when she comes in here after crèche.’
‘Oh!’
Veronica shrugged her shapely shoulders. ‘Kids these days, eh? They get it all from videos.’ She leaned forward confidentially. ‘Have you ever met Dr Goole’s girlfriend?’
‘I didn’t know he had one.’
‘Oh, he has. Tall, red-haired girl, very pale. A bit dopey-looking – well, you’d have to be dopey to get round with him, wouldn’t you?’
‘I suppose so, ’ said Priya uncomfortably.
‘She’s a teacher at Mum’s school.’
‘Your mother’s a teacher?’ Priya was surprised. Veronica didn’t seem the least bit like a teacher’s child.
‘Mum? God no.’ Veronica chuckled amiably. ‘She’s a cleaner – chief one, but. That’s what my Harry calls her: Chiefie.’ Veronica chuckled again. ‘It really gets Mum riled.’
He did look spooky, Priya thought ten minutes later, in the seminar room where Dr Goole was holding forth. His hair was so very black, and his skin so very white – a thick sort of whiteness which made Priya think of a wreath of wax lilies in a funeral parlour. And those dark glasses were unnerving, especially after she’d heard what Veronica’s little Gustave thought. Priya shifted uneasily in her chair and at once the dark glasses swerved towards her, balefully. She tried to sit still and pay attention, but a small face floated into her mind: Nani’s face, with the absorbed and tender expression it wore as she made
ras malai
, or watched her crackly old film. When she caught sight of Neema walking into the room, or sat outside on the swing in the very early mornings, all by herself, gazing up at the sky. As if, thought Priya, Nani was listening to little Miss Dabke’s heavenly mathematical music of the spheres.
Mathematical?
Nani
?
But perhaps there was other heavenly music, thought Priya suddenly, besides the mathematical. Music that Nani heard, and Neema, and Ignatius, and – and everyone. Perhaps – she stole a quick uneasy glance at him – even spooky Dr Goole. What kind of heavenly music would he hear?
Somehow, it seemed better not to think of that. She thought instead of Ignatius’s voice in the garden last night, Ignatius urging her to go into the university, take a break, pick lilies – ‘Go, Priya, go!’ And then her mum’s voice, saying the exact same thing, all those years ago.
And Nani, too. Because now Priya remembered her mother telling her how Nani had said those very words to her when Mum was young and living in that dusty little town, where, miraculously, she’d won her scholarship to Delhi University. ‘Go, Usha, go!’
And if Nani hadn’t fought for Mum to go to university, then she, Priya, might never have been able to go; she might have been stuck, her whole life long, in that little country town; she’d never have met Miss Dabke, perhaps never once heard the mathematical music of the spheres. She wouldn’t have come here, either, so she wouldn’t have met Ignatius, or had Neema for her daughter. Everything she had now had come from Nani.
‘Oh,
Nani
!’ Grabbing her handbag, Priya jumped up from her chair.
Dr Goole’s dark glasses swivelled angrily again. ‘Sorry, ’ mumbled Priya, and bolted for the door. As it closed behind her, she thought she heard him snarl.
‘Nice boy, ’ said Nani, as they hurried back home down Lawrence Road.