Questions of Travel (6 page)
SHE LOOKED AT A
bridge, and what she saw wasn’t balustrade and arch but the embodiment of a sonnet. As for the monuments, they were iconic from tea towels. Then came a red-purple tree, magisterial in a park. Laura had never seen another like it and she recognized it at once—copper beeches were always turning up in novels. That was what it meant to be Australian: you came to London for the first time and discovered what you already knew.
But that was in the first floating, glassy days. Underneath, it was all strange. The trees were large green buildings locked up in squares. And why had they called it Paddington? It was nothing like Paddo in Sydney. That went for Edgeware Road, too. It was equally amazing to find Indian shops run by Indians, unlike at home, where Indians were few, and the same racks of bright, flimsy garments and clumsily carved pantheons were presided over by flowerchildren who had faded on the stem. “Hoxton! Isn’t that a little off-piste?” exclaimed a rotund voice, and Laura knew herself incurably alien. English in the mouths of the English was a dream language, an affair of allusion and code.
She couldn’t get used to the washing arrangements. No showers! But doing things differently was the point of leaving home. Willingly she scrubbed the tub before and after. Then her landlady, a sweet-faced Christadelphian called Blanche, asked her not to bathe every day. “It uses hot water, you see.”
It was June. Each blade of grass stood up polished and green.
Laura came out of the National Gallery. She told the first friendly face, “I am twenty-five years old.” What she meant was something like, I’ve missed twenty-five years of looking at those pictures. It was a straightforward sentiment, but all she could do, trembling a little, was repeat herself. Passersby saw one of London’s mad, a large girl talking to a lion.
Blanche’s house was the latest in a succession of rooms Laura had rented in Bermondsey, Stamford Hill, Hackney, the blighted boroughs to which the exchange rate sentenced her. From tower blocks, those modern wrecks worked by the twentieth century’s Unenlightenment, pit bulls and other monsters came and went. Once in a while, at the foot of a thundering flyover or mirror-glass cliff, she would observe a pink-eyed ancient frozen to the spot, as if engaged in a last attempt to drag a remembered map clear of the architectural felony that had obliterated it.
The ravages of monetarism were abroad, too: boarded-up shops, purse-snatchers, bulging job centers, bag-children asleep in doorways, cardboard suburbs erected and dismantled with the night.
Leaving the British Museum, Laura detected a distinctive vowel. Suddenly homesick, she accosted it. Phillip was elderly, forty-six at least. In archetypal tweed, he was a sausage in its skin. He admitted to his provenance but informed Laura at once and superfluously that Wollongong had been a long time ago. But as the day drooped in Finsbury, where she had after some labor drawn an orgasm from him, he spoke dreamily of
a really fresh lamington.
On learning where Laura lived, he said, “You can’t live there. We tried.” He recited, “Scrubber, mugger, junkie, thief. When we heard Toby’s new counting-out rhyme, we knew we had to get clear.”
He offered this splayed on Toby’s bed, for Toby had been dispatched to boarding school. On a chest of drawers, a silver dog grinned in a silver frame: Toby’s Weimaraner, run over at Easter. So unfortunate, but in the midst of life.
Exhausted by his exertions, he began to snore.
Autumn in Sydney was a chameleon season that borrowed from summer and winter. Here, shapeless August ended, and things took on a distinctive edge. There were afternoons of sidelit trees. Laura trod on wet grass, followed a gravel path where chestnuts gleamed. It was necessary to visit the parks, not only for the leaves, but because she needed to escape into calm, expensive districts, away from the shitty smears on the pavements, the litter, the mean-eyed children, the shops selling only ugly or necessary things.
Hurrying home past Electrical Goods in glum November, she turned her head. A bank of screens was showing men and women astride a wall or clambering across fallen barricades to embrace. At the reporter’s elbow, a boy’s round face stared into the camera. Multiple and diminished, history flashed before Laura’s gaze. She had missed it. She might have been in Berlin, could easily still go: Europe, to a mind that judged on an Australian scale, was an undersized place. But what had all that happiness to do with her? At home, memory thickened all occasions, however news-unworthy. Here, she would never look at a cinema and see the scene of her first kiss, never pass a stand of stiff-winged dark trees that had invaded the dreams of five-year-old Laura. She realized, That’s why ghosts return. She walked on, because the wind was gritty as well as cutting, but the face of the German boy went with her. It showed a peculiar mixture of satisfaction tinged with alarm—it was the face of someone who has just bitten into a hot potato.
Phillip’s card remained in her purse. From time to time, Laura took it out and looked at it. But she never called the number at University College. Put it down to the silver photograph, and to
we.
After she left him, he would have answered the phone. Nothing much, he might have said, or one of the other phrases that had reached Laura now and then as she lay in Charlie McKenzie’s bed.
Before Blanche inherited the house in Hackney, she had lived on a commune in Wales. A magnet fixed one of her poems to the fridge.
Once there was a rainbow valley, / Gentle people living free
…A photo showed children in multicolored crocheted ponchos standing in mud.
Christmas was coming. Blanche had spent up big on chickpeas, and Laura was invited to the feast. Phillip’s advice about moving had gone unheeded. Laura might experience a genuine frisson for the corpse discovered, after seven months and the rats had passed, in its council flat; might sincerely curse the vandalized telephone booth or the privatized, non-arriving bus. But where the fear of being trapped forever by these things was lacking, so too was the compulsion to
get clear.
The sun, if it showed itself at all, entered Laura’s room in the late afternoon. It lit up the scratches on the furniture, and the nylon fibers, each ending in a tiny ball, that quivered up from the peach-colored spread. Even along the river or in the stripped parks, the low winter sun was baleful. Suspended in bluish vapors, it showed as round and red as the eye on a surveillance camera. It stayed half an hour, as if that were all it could bear to record of earthly iniquity. If Laura was present when it slid through her window, a headache threatened along her hairline. But as long as the corners of the room remained in shadow, she could almost believe it was a painting: a minor effort by a would-be Sickert, in which wallpaper and wardrobe mirror offered the same creepy green. Was that why people went on leaving home to struggle with luggage and exchange rates? Not for the shot at novelty or adventure, profit or escape, but in the hope that their lives would be lifted into art?
The problem was that the mirror always held her, too: untransformed in the foreground of the scene.
Laura made up her mind to find work when Hester’s money ran out: to dig in, stay. The galleries were full of pictures; when she dared, she was looking at them one by one. Perhaps the point was also to stay away. There was the memory of all those times when she had rushed to question travelers returned from the magic land called
overseas.
They would assure her that it was great for a while but.
A while
was elastic and corresponded to the length of time they had been away. Laura learned that Australia was the best place to bring up kids, no question. Everything was so much easier here. It was simply wonderful how away confirmed that home was best. Photographs were produced as evidence that travel had occurred, for the travelers themselves were unchanged. Souvenirs, strategically deployed around the house, proclaimed the sophistication and broadness of outlook that familiarity with foreign cultures conferred. And that was all of
overseas
that anyone needed.
AT THE FAREWELL PARTY
for the de Mels, the young people were sitting out on the veranda. A vein of lightning opened, and sky showed bright and thin—it was the skin of a balloon seen from the inside. Then the power failed. In the commotion, Ravi drew Roshi de Mel around the side of the house and kissed her. She was sixteen and a district swimming champion. He kept a newspaper photograph of her in her swimsuit hidden in his old Bible, among the prayer cards and images of saints.
By this time, with the de Mels leaving for Canada in a week, there was a sense of crisis to the affair, which had not progressed beyond the play of glances and an exchange of boldly confessional letters.
The de Mel girls, a quartet of sisters, were all forward and long-limbed. Roshi returned Ravi’s kiss openmouthed and pressed herself against him. Early evening drizzle had left a vegetable scent in the air. Ravi had an impression of ripeness and branching. It was answered by a bloom of light on his lids. He opened his eyes and saw a bodiless head suspended beyond the trees.
Recently, the Mendises had attended a family wedding near Galle. All those cousins were cheerful and mean. One by one, they had spoken with satisfaction of a lane where each driveway contained a body with a dark circle in the forehead. The day after the ceremony, when the oldest cousin had sobered enough to drive the Mendises back to the station, they chanced on a little procession of soldiers herding a group of insurgents along the road. “Don’t look!” ordered Carmel. One of the prisoners was a girl, not much older than Ravi, wearing a printed cotton dress. She was plain and thick-browed, and her eyes moved sideways as the car passed. She was pushed on.
When Ravi tried to remember the girl’s face, all he could see was a brown button. But she was involved in the fear that opened inside him in the de Mels’ garden. The apparition, oddly lit and drawing closer, was entirely suited to the times: unnatural, out of joint. Then he recognized Dudley, a poor relation of the de Mels, a moonstruck idiot with a large, lolling head. He had come trotting up from the rear of the house with a lighted candle held under his chin. Roshi swiveled and, placing her hands on her hips, began to abuse him. Squealing with delight, the idiot brushed past. From the house, a voice called, “Roshi! Roshi! Where are you hiding, darling?” The girl seized Ravi’s hand and crushed it. Then she was gone.
Candles had been set around the room where everyone was gathered, and a kerosene lamp glowed. Christmas flies delirious with light littered every surface with iridescent wings. They dragged their maimed bodies here and there, then died.
Aloysius de Mel, Roshi’s father, was saying, “…our
bothal karaya’s
nephew. Young fellow, twenty years old. The JVP cut his throat after a falling-out, and left the body tied to a lamppost with a notice saying not to touch it. But the father went and cut down his son. In the middle of the funeral, the JVP showed up and killed the whole lot. All the mourners, ten, fifteen people.”
There were the standard murmurs. But reaction to the tale was muted. In the first place, there was nothing unusual about what had happened to the bottle-man’s relatives. For months, rumor and journalists had been reporting far worse. War and peace, anarchy and government were no longer discrete colors but had run together and changed hue. Besides, the de Mels’ ties to the country had already begun to fray. The gathering felt that it was less than tactful of Aloysius to dwell on woes that no longer touched him.
This vague resentment prompted Carmel Mendis to say, “The JVP is finished now. The universities are reopening. My son will be able to carry on with his studies at last.”
She might have said more but desisted. When people left the country, there were always clothes and household items that they were unable to sell and gave away at the last minute. Carmel coveted a mirror with a beveled border that hung on the de Mels’ wall. It was etched with clumps of grass and a pair of swans. On entering the room, she had checked at once to see if it was still hanging there from its chain. Months had been known to pass with no sign of her widow’s pension because the government claimed to have run out of money. Arrears were paid, eventually; meanwhile the Mendises lived on lentils and vegetables, supplemented now and then with tinned mackerel or an egg. To buy food meant standing in line for hours, and Carmel was down to a single pair of shoes that pinched. But a lady never left the house in rubber slippers.
All this was rendered bearable because of the mirror. It took shape in Carmel’s thoughts as soon as she woke. Throughout the day it remained there, gathering light at the back of her mind.
When Aloysius held forth, he would angle his neck forward and lift his chin. With his bald head, he had quite the air of a reckless tortoise. “Wijeweera has been finished off, correct. But his supporters are all over the place. Security forces are going into the villages and killing people left, right and center.” He evoked this bloodletting with great satisfaction, for it proved the wisdom of his decision to leave.
Discussion broke out about the circumstances of Wijeweera’s death in custody. The latest theory was that the insurgent leader had been taken to a crematorium, shot in the leg and burned alive. Not that anyone really gave two hoots. They were all pleased that the man was dead. It was this impression of the lifting of a pall that lent the party its festive sheen. Even the envy that attended every farewell was tempered by the sense that brighter days lay ahead. At one point or another in the evening, the conviction that the de Mels were making an atrocious blunder thrilled through each of their guests.
Leaning against a wall, Ravi was following the turns of the conversation in a swirl of boredom and disgust. He considered Wijeweera a vicious lunatic, but the relish in Aloysius’s voice sickened him. In fact they all sickened him: the politicians, the Tamil Tigers, the insurgents, the older people in the room. The sole function of their opinions was to cage them off from thought. What was more, their talk was always of death, when anyone could see that what mattered was life. He could hardly bear to think about his own. Here he was, stuck at home with the future on hold, obliged to coach lackluster schoolboys in physics and maths. He was seized by an urge to shout and overturn furniture. How wonderfully alive Roshi was, he thought, remembering how she had let fly at her idiot cousin. A little havoc wouldn’t upset her at all.
She was going around the room with a platter of food. When she reached him, she whispered, “Come to the back of St. Mary’s at seven tomorrow night.”
Ravi heard
the back of seminary
and was confused. “Where?”
Priya arrived at his elbow to ask, “What are you two lovebirds cooing about?” She considered Roshi not at all pretty. Those big tombstone teeth! But an aunt living abroad supplied the de Mel girls with clothes, so here was Roshi parading herself in imported jeans and a sequined T-shirt, while Priya had to get by with a purple rag that everyone would recognize as having belonged to her mother. After leaving school, Priya had held a secretarial position with a tour operator. But tourists were so few now that most of the staff had been sacked. For the first time, Priya would have nothing new to wear to church on Christmas morning. Gloomily, she picked out the largest stuffed chili on Roshi’s plate.
Roshi gave her ponytail a shake and laughed in Priya’s face. But Ravi said, “I was just asking Roshi what will happen to Dudley when they go.”
“He’s going to a place for people like that,” answered the girl. “He’ll be happy there. He’s always happy, anyway, the fool.” Then her voice changed. “Some people have been saying why don’t we take him to Vancouver. Can you imagine? Damn cheek.”
Just then, although scarcely an hour had passed, the lights came on. Everyone looked around in shock.
Roshi said, “It’s a home run by the church.” She looked at Ravi intently as she spoke and stressed the last two words.
Anusha, the youngest de Mel girl, came thrusting into the group. Ravi’s little sister, Varunika, tagged along—the two were great friends. Anusha wanted everyone at the party to sign her autograph album. Priya read aloud as she wrote:
Remember me by the river, / Remember me on the lake, / Remember me on your wedding day / And send
me a piece of your cake.
At this threat of matrimony, Varunika and Anusha exchanged a look. They started giggling and couldn’t stop.
Carmel could stand it no longer. She followed Roshi into the kitchen and said, “Darling, has Mummy sold her swan mirror?”
“Auntie Sunila’s taking it,” answered the girl. She stared boldly into Carmel’s face, finding Ravi’s handsome nose and rectangular brow. But the eyes, with that sunken look, were like nothing Roshi had ever seen.
The following evening, Ravi set out far too early for his rendezvous with Roshi. Not wishing to loiter, for aimless young men attracted the interest of the police, he walked with a purposeful stride while in fact turning left or right at random. He marveled at the freedom Roshi enjoyed. Anything might happen to her as she roamed the streets after dark. Yet the careless tilt she gave to everything was integral to her charm.
At one point, he found himself outside the house where his friend Dabrera had lived. In those days, the wrought-iron gates had always stood open. Now they were shut and reinforced with metal sheets. There was an intercom in the gatepost, and the wall had been raised above head-height and set with broken glass. The whole place was in darkness and seemed deserted, but that was true of most houses. People had got into the habit of barricading themselves indoors as soon as it began to get dark.
The caretaker, drunk but pious, was singing “Holy, holy, holy” in his hut. Lying entwined with Ravi in the side porch of St. Mary’s, Roshi sucked his finger and positioned it as she pleased. Her bushy hair gave off a pleasant reek of brine. Soon she turned her mouth away from his and nipped his arm.
Fastening her strong paw around him, she said, “Hurry up! Mummy will be wild if I’m late.”
He had no difficulty doing as she asked.
Roshi was already astride her bicycle when she dismounted and let it fall. She clung to Ravi and said, “I’m so frightened of going to Canada.”
“Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee,” came the caretaker’s unsteady bass.
For a few minutes, they exchanged all kinds of vows. Then Roshi sped off, having rejected Ravi’s pleas to let him pedal her home.
It was typical Christmas weather, windy and cool. Ravi was a box of birds. He knew he would never see Roshi again; also that everything they had said to each other was entirely sincere. A star wobbled at the bend in the road, and he thought she was coming back for a last exchange of kisses. But the cyclist passed without a word, and the sky winked Ravi on his way.
In the weeks that followed Roshi’s departure, his mood plummeted. He spent days dreaming of cities where everything was new and clean. Gleaming buildings stood out against a fresh-washed sky. Ravi saw himself crossing an expanse of pastel carpet to enter a glass lift. Effortlessly vertical, it bore him aloft.
It was the old human dream of
the good place:
one where horizons were wider, or at least less tightly jammed between sky and sea. It was associated in Ravi’s mind with the hotels that lined the beach. He could just recall the coconut palms they had replaced. Of the construction of the hotels, he remembered nothing. They had simply arrived, glamorous as spaceships and equally remote.
He fell into the habit of walking this stretch of beach. The hotels were deserted, many of them shuttered and barred like the businesses in the town that had catered to foreigners. The addition of politics turned paradise into hell; there was nothing in between. At the height of the insurgency, tourists had been flown out of the country. Ravi wondered where they went now: Phuket, perhaps, or Bali—anywhere cheap and with great food. Islands encouraged nursery wishes; on maps, they were miniatures that charmed.
One evening Ravi walked all the way to the end of the beach. Where the shore narrowed stood a hotel that had just been built when the flow of tourists trickled dry. The opulent fittings planned for it had never arrived; the developer hanged himself from a hook where a chandelier should have impressed.
The gate was padlocked but not sealed off since there was nothing to steal. In the inky-blue interval that preceded nightfall, the building’s imperfections disappeared. By day, the windows were wounds; now Ravi couldn’t detect the absence of glass. Set in greenery that had darkened first, the walls glimmered white, their stains camouflaged as shadows. There was the suggestion of a ship about the structure, its long balconies taking on the air of decks. Ravi could see it slipping its moorings one night, kitchens, bedrooms, conference suites gently lurching over the waves, a parched pool drinking its fill.
Then the light dimmed, or he heard a dog howl, or the moon slid out from behind a cloud to show him her scars. In any case the scene stirred and changed. The hotel now had the look of something very old, a secret the sea had clasped for a long time in its damp bed before it had risen and crawled back to shore. The hair lifted along Ravi’s arms. He tried to call up his vision of
the good place,
but its forms, so compelling by day, had melted. There was nothing for it but to return by the way he had come, although he didn’t like turning his back on the hotel.