The Crow Eaters (13 page)

‘About that,’ said Freddy gloomily.

At five o’clock they went to the Nedous Hotel to collect Mr Allen’s luggage, and from there they drove straight to the station.

‘I could have easily had the train delayed. You would have had a chance to wash and rest,’ said Freddy.

Stretching himself full length on the red velvet couch in his compartment, Mr Allen disagreed.

‘Better this way. I’ll sleep right through to Karachi. Best way to recover from a ripping night, old chap.’ A small fan
directed over a tubful of ice had already cooled the compart ment.

The train left the station at six-thirty.

Putli had just come down from the terrace when Freddy returned.

‘How was the party?’ she asked her haggard-looking husband.

‘Too damn tiring,’ he replied, heading for the bathroom.

Freddy emerged somewhat refreshed from his shower and change of clothes. Putli had his breakfast ready. His tongue felt thick. ‘No eggs for me,’ he said pressing his throbbing forehead. ‘I’ll just have some tea.’

Putli quietly made an egg-nog and placed it before him.

Freddy looked up. ‘By the way, Yazdi is not to go to school. I will take him over to St Anthony’s at ten-thirty. About time he went to a man’s school. God, what a poetry-ridden, spunkless little sissy you’ve turned him into.’

‘I’ll tell him to be ready,’ said Putli.

‘It’s all your fault really. If you had let me transfer him when I wanted to, this would never have happened! God alone knows what kind of a girl has him trapped … She may be a prostitute for all I know.’

Putli looked shocked and reproving.

‘Why not?’ Freddy continued. ‘What do we know about her? From what Yazdi told me I gather she is from one of the worst type of Anglo-Indian families. You know how low some of them can be.’ His rage flared up suddenly. He flung his napkin on to the table and said with unforgiving severity, ‘If only you’d listen to me sometimes!’

At ten-thirty Freddy mutely transported his sullen son to his new school.

BILLY hitched up his pyjamas and squatted on the six-inch cement parapet in the bathroom. It was Friday morning. He splashed his face at the tap and ducking his head forward allowed a trail of water to dribble over his scrawny neck. Still squatting, he drew a rough towel and dried himself briskly. He scoured his teeth with a walnut twig until they gleamed white, put on his glasses and replaced the skull-cap on his curly hair.

Billy stood up and solemnly turning to face the bathroom mirror, began to mumble his prayers. He dexterously undid the knots of the sacred thread and held the unravelled
kusti
in both hands. Billy did not understand a word of the ancient Avesta text, except the bit ‘Shikasta shikasta, sehtan’ which roughly translated means, ‘I shall conquer evil.’ When he came to this bit he whipped the tasselled ends of the thread so that they cracked thinly at the back. Once again he wound the
kusti
round his waist, tying it in a reef knot at the front and back. Each twist of the knot was meant to remind him that God is One Eternal Being, that the Mazdayasni Faith is the true faith, that Zarathustra is the true Prophet of God and that he should obey the three commandments:
good thoughts, good words and good deeds
.

The thread tied, he raised his eyes to the mirror, joined his hands in front and proceeded to sibilate through the remaining prayers.

This was his most private moment of the day. Alone with his God, alone with the mirror, Billy studied the unique details of his person. He was neither pleased nor disturbed by what he saw – merely interested.

Billy’s eyes fastened on the reflection of his large fleshy ears. He was acutely conscious of them. They stuck out at absolute right angles to his face, level with his eyes, making his eyes appear even more close-set than they were. His ears were the most vulnerable thing about his person. His brothers and sisters found them handy to get hold of in a disagreement, and his elders punished him by tweaking them, or literally hauling him out or in by his ears whenever expedient.

Billy flattened them with his palms and felt he looked much better – but the moment he removed his hands they sprang back, like red, scrubbed soldiers falling in line. For all their size, his ears were as soft as cotton and the cartilage could be pinched together like lint.

Billy’s wandering eye fell on the toothpaste on the dresser. The tube belonged to Freddy and no one was allowed to use it. He glanced at the bolt on the door and made up his mind to experiment.

Racing through the prayers, gulping short cuts, he quickly touched his forehead, touched his fingers to the floor in hasty salutation to God, and reached for the tube. It tasted of mint. Billy squeezed a little more on his finger and the pressure released a wiggly white worm that spilled to the floor. Nervously scraping the paste off the floor with a finger he licked it clean. The taste was sharp and refreshing but there was too much of it and he felt mildly sick. He screwed the top on and carefully put the tube back where it belonged. At this moment he noticed the emerald ring.

Billy recognised the ring at once. Freddy had given it to Yasmin on her sixteenth birthday. It lay on the dresser and Billy had missed seeing it in his anxiety to get at the toothpaste.

There was an impatient knock on the door.

‘Are you going to be at it all morning or what? Don’t blame me if we’re late for school.’ Yazdi sounded peevish. It was a month since he had changed schools and now that Soli went to college, Yazdi and Billy cycled to St Anthony’s together.

‘Just a minute,’ shouted Billy. As he ducked past the mirror he caught a glimpse of his face. His wide mouth was almost split in two by an irrepressible grin; his eyes sparkled like shiny black buttons behind round metal-framed glasses.

‘You’d better hurry up,’ he said, opening the door and rushing past Yazdi.

Once he was in his room (Billy shared the room with Katy but she had already left for school) he unclenched his fist and examined the ring. He changed into his grey school shorts and slipped the ring into a pocket.

Freddy held Yazdi on a tight leash and Yazdi carried his sullenness around like a virus. He was accompanied to school by Billy and returned with him. In the evenings Yazdi was under the tactful surveillance of his family. If he went out, Soli made some excuse or other to accompany him. His two married sisters invited him to their homes frequently and took him out to dinner, dance-dramas or the cinema. St Anthony’s was quite far from Yazdi’s former school and it was impossible for him to cycle back and forth and squeeze in a visit with Rosy during the break.

Yet a week back he had boldly approached Brother Jones to excuse him from class before break. ‘It’s urgent,’ he said and the teacher gave him permission.

Yazdi had pedalled furiously all the way and hung around the school gate until he heard the bell. Rosy came running up as soon as she spied the gangling, forlorn boy leaning against his bicycle. Wordlessly they hurried to their private nook behind the hedges.

Yazdi barely had time to explain his absence from school and give an account of his father’s unfortunate reaction.

‘Please don’t be so angry,’ he begged.

Rosy’s face was flushed with rage and her eyes smarted with tears. She struck the grass with childish fists and hissed in a choked and curiously husky voice. ‘The bloody bastard! Who the bloody hell does he think he is, man?’

Yazdi gripped her frail arms and kissed her flushed, wet mouth. ‘Look, don’t feel like that. Does he matter? I’ll marry
you. I’ll find a way out. I promise. Just have a little faith in me … please … please?’

The school bell clamoured urgently. Rosy moved back. ‘When can you see me again?’ she asked.

‘Next Friday. I’ll skip class again.’

Yazdi looked deep into the flecked green eyes, large and bitter in the wan little face. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get round my father … just give me a little time.’

Rosy stood up, smoothing her pleated school skirt. ‘Can you carry a message for me? Tell him go bugger himself, man!’

Yazdi had alternately blushed and wept all the way back to St Anthony’s.

While Billy affectionately fingered the ring in his pocket during the maths period, Yazdi went through an agony of timidity in the 10th form. Brother Jones had been in a thunderous mood all morning. Twice Yazdi had risen from his chair determined to confront him, and both times he was deterred by the unapproachable scowl on the teacher’s face. ‘Rosy is waiting for me,’ he kept repeating to himself and finally, gathering courage from the vision of her wrath and disappointment if he didn’t show up, he approached Brother Jones.

‘Excuse me, sir. I have to go out – it’s rather urgent. Please excuse me for this class. I’ll be back after recess.’

Brother Jones, bald and corpulent, scowled up from the books he was correcting.

‘You skipped out last Friday as well, didn’t you?’

‘Yes sir. I’m sorry, sir. Only this once more, sir.’

‘I doubt if your father pays us so that you can cut classes whenever you wish. I’m afraid I can’t allow you to go. Next time you think something urgent is liable to crop up, get a note from one of your parents.’

‘Yes, sir,’ gulped Yazdi, biting his lip. Dejectedly he returned to his desk.

Billy spent the entire recess closeted in the school toilet, examining and admiring the ring. When he returned home late in the afternoon he wandered about the house hoping to catch a glimpse of Yasmin. He wanted to observe her face knowing it would reveal, as plain as chalk on a blackboard, whether the ring had been missed – and reveal also the full satisfying measure of her wretchedness.

He sauntered casually through the rooms where his sister might be found and he climbed to the terrace. The roof, like the rooms, was bare of Yasmin. Disappointed, Billy climbed down. Seeing his mother in the kitchen, he inquired, ‘Where’s Yasmin?’

‘I told her to lie down in my room. She looked as though she’d swallowed castor-oil. I hope that girl isn’t sickening for something.’

Billy turned away, hiding a grin.

When Yasmin, subdued and preoccupied, came to the dinner table, Billy was hard put to contain his merriment. He lowered his brow to his plate and wrapping huge chunks of bread round the meat with his fingers, stuffed his mouth.

Billy found it as impossible to control the grin that split his face from one outstanding ear to the other as the tears sprang to his eyes at the merest hint of moisture in another’s. He felt his tears unmasked a shameful and sissyish softness. And, of course, one look at his grin when he’d been up to mischief, and the whole family pounced on him to discover what it was.

Half way through the rice course, having succeeded in gaining control of his features, Billy ventured innocently, ‘Why are you so quiet, Yasmin?’

‘None of your business,’ replied Yasmin dully. She remained quiet throughout the rest of the meal.

Saturday there was no school. Billy tossed drowsily in bed as Katy slipped into her clothes, combed her hair and left the room. It was already too cold to sleep on the roof and the nip in the October air that had sent Katy hungrily to breakfast had kept Billy lazing in bed.

Katy returned to find Billy fast asleep. He was covered from
head to toe by his bedsheet as by a shroud. Soothing little snores were issuing, and Katy went straight past him to the chest of drawers which served as their dressing table.

Billy’s eyes were wide open beneath the sheet. His ears were cocked vigilantly to follow the sound of her movements; and he was careful to snore lightly every now and again. Katy, not caring if she disturbed her sleeping brother, set up a din that would have awakened a hibernating bear. She lifted and banged down jars, bottles, and hairbrushes. At last the clatter stopped and Billy heard her say, ‘Have you seen my money? I left two two-piece bits on the dresser a minute ago.’

Billy emitted a little crop of snores.

There was a moment of ominous quiet. Billy wished he could see what Katy was up to. Maybe she had left the room to search elsewhere. Cheered by this reflection he gingerly prised up an edge of the bedsheet, and found himself looking straight into Katy’s watchful eyes. She crouched by the bed, peering at him from a distance of two inches.

Before Billy had time to seal the chink, Katy had snatched the sheet off his face. ‘I knew you were pretending to sleep,’ she cried, demanding in the same breath, ‘Have you seen the money? I left it on the dresser.’

‘Ahaaaaaahooooo,’ yawned Billy, as elaborately and loudly as a lion. He stretched himself full-length on the bed, and turning away with an exasperated and aggrieved rustle of sheets, he once again covered himself from head to toe.

‘You have it! I know you have!’ cried Katy jumping astride Billy’s buttocks and pounding on the bedsheet.

Billy cowered beneath the rain of blows from her small wrathful fists, and stuck out his skinny elbows to protect his face.

‘O.K., O.K.,’ he temporised, and the instant Katy suspended her pummelling, caught her off balance and sprang upright on the strong bed. He adjusted his glasses and wagged a stick-like finger solemnly in her face.

‘Serves you right for being so careless.’

‘Give me back my money,’ demanded Katy.

‘Oh? Why?’

‘Because it’s mine.’

‘No, I don’t think I will. That will teach you not to be careless with money. What if one of the servants had taken it?’

‘But I knew you were in the room!’ wailed Katy. ‘The servants wouldn’t steal my money.’

‘Oh yes, they would! You are a wicked girl. I’ll tell Mama you are teaching the servants to steal!’

Katy was not to be put out by the threat. ‘Mama, Mama!’ she bawled at the very top of her voice.

‘What is it?’ Putli called from some recess of the house that was undergoing a ferocious scrubbing.

‘Mama, Billy has taken my money and he won’t give it back!’

Putli’s voice came shrill and exasperated. ‘Stop teasing your little sister at once,’ and then, ‘Yasmin, go and stop those two quarrelling.’

Billy jumped up and down on the bed chanting, ‘Careless Kitty. Careless Kitty,’ and just as Katy was lifting a jar of cold cream to throw at him, Yasmin came into the room in her night-dress, demanding: ‘All right, all right, now what’s going on?’

‘I left my money on the dresser and went out for just two minutes and Billy took it and now he won’t give it back!’ bawled Katy.

‘Of course he will,’ soothed her sister. Yasmin was a plump, slow, light-skinned girl with nondescript features that had bloomed miraculously when she turned sixteen. ‘Won’t you Billy?’ she coaxed with conciliatory elder-sisterliness.

‘She can’t go around leaving money like that! I’m teaching her the value of money! She musn’t be so careless.’

‘O.K., O.K., now that she has learnt her lesson, give her back her money.’

‘I’ll give it when I feel like, not when you tell me!’

A heavy, distended look came of a sudden into Yasmin’s eyes. Billy gave an imperceptible start and all at once his
assurance slid off him and out of the window. He guessed the train of thought responsible for the strange look; and he knew also where it would lead. Even before his slow-thinking sister could marshal her thoughts, he looked about warily for a route of escape.

‘You wouldn’t happen to know anything about a ring, now, would you?’ asked Yasmin craftily, closing in on him with eyes as narrow as a boxer’s about to strike.

‘What ring?’

‘A gold ring with an emerald. My birthday present.’

Billy knew the game was up. It was no use pretending innocence. It was a perilous moment. He flashed past her in a mighty leap and landing by the clothes-hanger fixed to the wall he dug into the pockets of his grey shorts.

In the brief time it took him to clasp the ring, Yasmin, whirling about with a startled gasp, had him securely pinned by his ears. She turned them like door-knobs. Billy tried to wriggle out of the painful vice, kicking and punching.

‘Katy, get hold of his legs,’ panted Yasmin, retracting her soft body as far as she could from the stinging blows.

Now there were two of them at him. But the resourceful Billy suddenly swung an arm and threw something that clicked and bounced and clicked again on the bare floor.