The Flower Boy (31 page)

“They're old enough to solve their own problems. That's what I meant,” Chandi said angrily. He wished she would just go.

“Well anyway, can I play cricket or not?” she demanded.

Chandi still hesitated. “I don't know, Rose-Lizzie. I don't think you'll feel comfortable with them.”

She jumped up and surveyed him, her hands on her hips. “Now who's the snob?”

Chandi rose too. “Do whatever you want,” he almost shouted, and stomped away.

“I will!” she yelled after him, and he childishly stuck his fingers in his ears to drown out her voice.

He went down to the oya and sat there glumly. He hated fighting with Rose-Lizzie, but she was so difficult. Lately she had become almost impossible, and he had stayed away from her a lot. He knew she was hurt by his attitude, but he didn't know what else to do.

The four years between them had suddenly started to matter, because at sixteen, he had other things on his mind than running wildly through the gardens and getting involved in all kinds of escapades.

After the incident with his mother, he had become more introspective, and preferred to read and take long walks by himself rather than play.

Rose-Lizzie, on the other hand, was just twelve. She had enormous amounts of energy to expend and looked to Chandi to play with her, the way he always had. Now that he didn't, she looked for ways to get back at him. Sitting and sulking in a corner wasn't her style, but sly digs and sarcastic comments definitely were. They wore him down, and often he grew furious with her for not understanding what he was going through. But then, even he didn't understand what he was going through.

ROSE-LIZZIE STORMED through the vegetable garden, which had become a small jungle now. The plants no longer grew in neat rows or wound sedately up wooden frames, but rioted everywhere with careless abandon.

Since Jinadasa had left, there was no one to tend it. Chandi wasn't really interested, so tomatoes and aubergines hung unheeded, some weighting their branches down so much that they rested comfortably on the ground. The long chilies grew and matured and turned from green to yellow to red in the sun and then fell off their stalks all by themselves. Spinach grew wild and caterpillars feasted on the tender green leaves and stalks.

Occasionally, Premawathi asked Chandi and Rose-Lizzie to pick some vegetables to cook, but she was in another world these days, so that wasn't very often.

Rose-Lizzie stepped on an overripe tomato that had fallen to the ground and let out a string of colorful curses that would have made a sailor blush. She sat down and took her shoe off, then scraped the tomato pulp off with a stiff leaf. The red pulp got on to her hands, so she wiped them on her skirt.

She sat there and surveyed the mess dismally. She wanted to cry, but determinedly held back the hot tears that crowded behind her lids. She thought back to her conversation with Chandi, which had so rapidly escalated into an argument. That happened a lot these days, and although everyone thought she gloried in riling him, she didn't really. She was just hurt.

These days, whenever she suggested a walk, he had something to do. When she asked if she could go with him when he ran his errands, he always had an excuse. It seemed to her that he didn't want to be friends with her anymore, and she didn't know why.

Oh, she knew what everyone else knew, that things were not right between her father and his mother, between his mother and him, that he was missing Leela and Jinadasa and the baby, and probably Rangi too, but there had been no trouble between Chandi and herself. Not until recently. She was aware that he was growing up faster than her, but despite all her attempts to keep up with him, she ended up feeling like a stupid, irritating child.

Whenever she tried to talk to him he shrugged her off, saying everything was okay, but it wasn't. Any blind fool could see that, she thought savagely.

The truth was that she missed him.

She felt that she had lost her best friend. Her only friend.

She finally put her face in her hands and sobbed her heart out. Loud, noisy sobs that sent little mice scurrying in all directions, sent birds flurrying off in alarm and brought Premawathi out to see what the commotion was about.

She stood there and looked at Rose-Lizzie, half sympathetically and half in exasperation. She loved drama, this one, even when she was genuinely upset.

“Lizzie Baby, what is it?” she asked loudly, to be heard above the sobbing.

Rose-Lizzie lifted a tearstained face to Premawathi. “Leave me alone. I want to die,” she sobbed.

“Okay,” Premawathi said equably and turned to go back to the kitchen.

“Wait!”

Premawathi waited.

Rose-Lizzie inelegantly wiped her face in her skirt and then noisily blew her nose in it. “Why is he so mean to me, Premawathi?” she asked tragically.

“I suppose you're talking about Chandi,” Premawathi said, finally turning around.

“Who else is mean to me?” Rose-Lizzie demanded. “Yes, Chandi. He doesn't talk to me anymore, or play with me or go swimming in the oya with me. He even prefers that stupid Sunil to me!”

“Did he say so?”

“No, he didn't say so, he's too scared to say so.”

Premawathi looked down at Rose-Lizzie's clenched fists. “I'm not surprised,” she said reasonably. “You can be quite fierce sometimes.”

Rose-Lizzie squinted suspiciously at Premawathi. “Are you laughing at me?” she demanded.

“Oh no!” Premawathi said. “I'm too scared of you myself.”

“You
are
laughing at me,” Rose-Lizzie declared. “See, no one takes me seriously. Not even you.”

Premawathi squatted down next to her. “Lizzie Baby, you're talking nonsense now,” she said firmly. “No one's laughing at you, although sometimes you can be quite funny. But you have to understand Chandi. You can't just get angry with him, if you don't even know what he's thinking and feeling.”

“But he won't tell me. I've asked so many times!”

“Perhaps he doesn't want to tell you.”

Rose-Lizzie looked indignant. “He used to tell me everything!”

“Ah, but that was before, Lizzie Baby.”

“Before what?”

“Before he started to grow up,” she said. She took one of Rose-Lizzie's hot, grubby hands in hers. “You see, Lizzie Baby, Chandi is becoming a young man, whereas you, you're growing up too, but you're still a child. No, wait— ” she said, as Rose-Lizzie started to protest. “You are an intelligent, clever girl, but a child nonetheless. Chandi is now starting to understand life and it is a difficult, complicated process.”

“Why? What is so difficult and complicated and painful about it?” Rose-Lizzie asked, bewildered.

“You see? You don't see those things because you are still young. When you're a child you see only happy things, because we adults make sure you do. We shield you from the bad things and the hardships.”

“So what must I do?” Rose-Lizzie asked humbly, trying unsuccessfully to understand.

“Wait,” Premawathi said gently. “When Chandi understands things more fully, he will be able to understand you better.”

“But why is he pushing me aside like this?” she asked with a sob in her voice.

“Because you are one of the few things he is sure of. He knows that even if you get angry and even if he hurts you, you will still be there for him.”

“Really?”

“Really. Now come in. You'd better go and wash your face and change that dress. You look like a ruffian.”

“That's what Mrs. Dabrera used to call Chandi.”

Premawathi looked hard at Rose-Lizzie. “When?”

“Oh, a long time ago.”

CHANDI HAD ONE more thing to understand now: the sudden change in Rose-Lizzie. From arguing endlessly and challenging everything he said and did, she had suddenly become quiet and almost meek.

Even when they were doing their lessons with Mr. Cartwright and he interrupted every few minutes to ask a question, she didn't roll her eyes or tell him impatiently to get on with it. She didn't follow him around anymore, and although she still asked him to go for walks with her, she didn't argue or get angry when he refused. Instead, she went by herself.

Everyone noticed the change in her. John was sure it was all an act and that she was planning something. Anne worried about her and kept asking her if she was all right. Mr. Cartwright didn't quite know how to handle this new, decorous Rose-Lizzie. Ayah kept trying to take her temperature and gave her hot water bottles at night.

Only Premawathi knew and admired her for her efforts.

Rose-Lizzie was trying hard to be patient. She wasn't very good at either trying or being patient, so it was a double effort for her, but she was determined, and when Rose-Lizzie was determined, she was like a dog trying to dig up a long-buried bone. She didn't give up.

She cried in her bath and kicked her bed until her toes were sore, but always in private. In public, she was patience personified.

Chandi stared at her and tried to understand what she was thinking and feeling. While he was enjoying the ceasefire, he sometimes perversely longed for the old fiery, argumentative Rose-Lizzie he used to spar with.

And when Rose-Lizzie would sometimes catch Chandi regarding her with a puzzled look on his face, she was thrilled, although her expression gave nothing away.

Premawathi was right. Patience, although unbelievably hard to practice, was paying off.

SUNIL CAME TO work at Glencairn but he didn't live there. Every morning at six o'clock, he walked up from the workers' compound and every evening at eight o'clock, after dinner had been served and cleared away, he walked home.

The arrangement suited everyone, and although Chandi had been a little anxious at the beginning, Sunil was honest and hardworking and soon settled in.

Premawathi was grateful for the help, although sometimes Sunil drove her mad.

His main problem was that he was completely overawed by his surroundings. He spent most of his first week at Glencairn gazing open-mouthed at the rooms, the people and the food. It took him a month to be able to sweep out the Sudu Mahattaya's room without standing there with his broom and looking around it. He was actually committing it to memory because when he went home, he regaled the people in the compound with stories of the grand house. They wanted all the details.

“There was a roast chicken the size of a horse for dinner today!” he said to his rapt audience.

“Must have been a horse, then!” someone retorted.

Another day, he reported that “The beds are like playgrounds,” to which one toothless old crone nodded wisely and said, “Who knows what kind of games these white people play,” and drew a round of appreciative laughter.

Sunil was not amused. Now that he was actually working at Glencairn, he had become fiercely loyal and disliked the ribald comments.

He avoided Rose-Lizzie and Anne and became quite adept at disappearing when they appeared. Anne thought it was very sweet and went out of her way to put him at ease. Rose-Lizzie thought it was typical of Sunil and went out of her way to jump out of corners at him, or hide under her bed when he came in to clean and suddenly grab the broom when he tried to dust underneath. Sunil was too afraid to tell anyone, and Rose-Lizzie certainly wasn't going to. It would hardly be in keeping with her new image.

He hardly had much occasion to talk to either John or Robin Cartwright except when he served them at table. He had known Ayah and Premawathi since he was a little boy, so he had no problems with them. For all her scolding and nagging, Premawathi liked Sunil, and often sent him home with leftover food or some fresh mangoes or mulberries when the trees at Glencairn were full. She knew how difficult it was to feed a big family on a small wage.

Sunil had anticipated some happy times working in such close proximity to his closest friend. He had seen them both working companionably side by side and becoming the friends they used to be when Chandi was still attending the church school.

Instead, the gap between them widened.

It was inevitable that Sunil should be more than a little overawed at the ease with which Chandi fitted into the lives of the Buckwaters. In the afternoons, he went into the schoolroom to serve tea and saw his old friend all dressed up like the white people, speaking English and reading from books. He couldn't help overhearing the discussions and the frequent arguments that erupted among them and had once even heard Chandi hotly contesting an opinion voiced by Mr. Cartwright.

Part of him nearly burst with pride because his friend could hold his own so well with these intelligent and educated people, and another part felt shame that he himself had so much to learn.

And so, although Chandi was the same to Sunil, Sunil changed toward Chandi, became more formal, less funny. As Chandi saw less of the traits that had endeared Sunil to him, he said less to him and spent less time with him.

Still, Sunil had his grand job, and if the comfort he gained from it was rather cold, he was still a hero at the workers' compound.

chapter 28

AYAH DELIBERATELY UNDID HER HAIR, ALLOWING IT TO RIPPLE BRIEFLY down her back, before recoiling it at her nape. The firewood man stared longingly.

“It's so hot,” she said, blowing downward into the low neck of her blouse. His eyes followed, and a sheen of perspiration filmed his upper lip. The sun made his bare torso look like polished ebony.

Premawathi, looking out from the dining room window, sighed. It was only a matter of time before Ayah left to answer love's call. She felt no anger though. Ayah had been through much with Gunadasa and deserved whatever happiness she could get. No, what Premawathi felt was envy. How wonderful to be able to succumb to a love rather than deny it, to be able to revel in it without doubting it.

“So our Ayah's in love.”

Premawathi jumped at the sound of John's voice behind her, every muscle tensing at his nearness.

“She looks happy, and he's a nice fellow too,” John said musingly. “Do you think we'll be losing her soon?”

“Yes,” Premawathi replied briefly.

He turned away from the window and looked at her. “You don't sound too happy, Premawathi. Worried about finding a replacement, or is it something else?”

Premawathi felt her face getting hot under his intent stare. “Lizzie Baby is grown up now. She doesn't need an ayah.”

He smiled slowly and sauntered off, leaving her going over the conversation in her mind, wondering if she should have said something different and why she felt as if she had given something away.

She directed her attention outside once more. Now Ayah was smiling and talking and the firewood man was leaning toward her attentively.

Premawathi turned away angrily. Ayah obviously had nothing better to do than simper all day, but she had work to do. She squared her shoulders and made her way to the kitchen, wondering why her chest felt hollow.

In the corridor, she was nearly knocked over by Rose-Lizzie, rushing pellmell as if all the demons in Hell were after her. Premawathi staggered; Rose-Lizzie muttered an apology and kept going.

In the kitchen, she found Chandi gazing morosely into space and for once, the sight didn't amuse her or arouse any sympathy.

“For heaven's sake, is nobody doing any work today?” she snapped irritably.

Chandi looked up at her. “What's wrong, Ammi?”

“Wrong? What's wrong is that nobody seems to be doing anything useful today except me.” She banged a few clay pots on the table to prove her point.

“If you do that, you'll crack them and then you won't be able to use them,” he said mildly.

“So what do you care? It's not as if
you
have to cook with them,” she said.

“Ammi, why are you acting so childishly?” he said gently. “Why don't you sit down for a minute? You're obviously upset.”

Far from calming her down, his words only infuriated her further. “Oh, so now I'm the child and you're my father, I suppose!” she said, her voice rising.

He looked steadily at her for a few seconds, then silently stood up and left the kitchen.

She kept staring at the spot where he had stood, feeling tears start to trickle down her cheeks.

Chandi was both worried and exasperated. His mother was becoming quite unbearable, her frequent mood swings making it impossible for anyone to know how to approach her. When she was upset, it seemed as if everything anyone did or said was wrong, so he usually removed himself from her presence as quietly and unobtrusively as he could.

Today she had looked so upset that he had felt compelled to ask why, and look at what that had got him. Keep your mouth shut in future, he told himself.

He sat by the oya and worried the water with his foot. Earlier on, he had had words with Rose-Lizzie. She was acting so strangely these days that he was worried about her too. He wondered if he had been too dismissive and if he had hurt her feelings. But he also had a sneaking suspicion that she was putting it all on, so today, he had come right out and asked her.

Normally, Rose-Lizzie would have reacted by swinging a well-aimed shoe at his ankle or sticking her tongue out at him, regardless of whether he was right or wrong in his suspicions.

Instead, her eyes had filled with tears and she had spun on her heel and rushed away. Chandi had been sitting there feeling guilty and miserable when his mother came in.

Now his eyes stung from trying not to cry. His idyllic life at Glencairn seemed to be disintegrating slowly, as the things and people that held it together came apart. He longed to get away. But where? Deniyaya was a possibility, but he shrank away from it. He would get old there.

He could go to Leela and Jinadasa or try and contact his father and ask him if he could go and live with him, even for a while. As his thoughts ran on, he knew deep down that he wouldn't be going anywhere. Not in the near future anyway, because regardless of how impossible she was, he couldn't abandon his mother.

He lay down on the grass and resisted the urge to squint against the glare of the sunlight, opening his eyes wide instead. The harsh light made his eyes water and if his tears emerged too, he didn't know.

The sky spread over him like an unrelenting canopy of blue, uniform and uninterrupted except by a single cloud. It looked out of place in the blue vastness but it floated along bravely, and suddenly Wordsworth's simile made sense to Chandi.

It all depended on one's mood, he thought.

IN HER BEDROOM, Rose-Lizzie punched her pillow ferociously and swore that she would get even with Chandi. The fact that his suspicions were not too far off the mark made her even madder. She had kept her promise to herself for almost a year now, and it had been one of the longest periods in her young life. But now her patience was wearing thin.

On her thirteenth birthday, and Chandi's seventeenth, beyond a stilted greeting, she had avoided him all day. He had given her a beautiful stone he had picked up from the oya, black with flecks of silver embedded in it, and although she had been thrilled with it, she had given it a cursory look, murmured her thanks and left it on the table next to the chair where she was sitting.

His look of disappointment was better than any birthday present.

These days, she accepted invitations to go to other estates with her father and Anne, and although she found the children and their games boring, at least it was something to do. She had also found herself a new hobby. On her last birthday, her father had given her some packets of seeds, more from exasperation at her constant aimlessness than from any particular desire to make her a horticulturalist.

She had commandeered a plot that bordered the side lawn and proceeded to dig, weed and manure it with grim determination. When she finally planted her seeds, everyone held their breaths waiting for something to happen, and when the tiny plants finally pushed their way up past the surface, there was a collective sigh of relief.

Now, a few months later, a profusion of marigolds, azaleas and button flowers fought for space in their cramped quarters, and Rose-Lizzie had been seen digging up another plot elsewhere in the garden.

John didn't mind because although Sunil weeded, watered and mowed whenever he had the time, he didn't really have a green thumb. Besides, finally, Rose-Lizzie seemed to have found something to do.

Chandi had watched her a few times, but she didn't acknowledge his presence so he didn't say anything either. He stood there and scowled, unreasonably angry at her for ignoring him and paying more attention to the garden than to him. He was used to Rose-Lizzie's devotion, which bordered on hero worship, and to be ousted from her affections by a bunch of plants was galling to say the least.

Now she sought sanctuary in her garden and plunged her fork into the already pliant soil, digging up perfectly good seedlings and hurling clumps of soil into the grass behind her.

She had hoped Chandi would follow her, but apparently he had better things to do. She yanked at a clump of weeds, which suddenly came free and unbalanced her, making her fall backward.

She heard laughter from the veranda and looked up angrily.

“Whoa, whoa!” John said, holding up his hands placatingly. “Don't shoot me. I'm on your side, remember?”

“Nobody's on my side,” she muttered.

John sat on the low wall encircling the veranda and looked down at her. “Lizzie, what has happened to you? You used to be such a happy child. Lately you've been”—he looked at her face and chose his words carefully—“well, different. Not like yourself at all. Want to tell your old dad what's troubling you?”

The fork dropped from her fingers and she looked up at him pathetically. “I'm trying to be patient, Daddy.”

“Why do you have to be patient?” he asked, his heart going out to her.

“That's what Premawathi told me I must be. Then he'll play with me again and not be nasty and horrible.”

“Ah.” John finally understood. “She's right, you know. Everyone needs time, and unfortunately, sometimes it's not the right time for other people. Chandi is growing up.”

“But he'll be old soon and then he
really
won't want me anymore!” she wailed.

John laughed. “Oh, I think it will be a while before he's so old and doddering that he won't want to play with you, my darling. Give it a little more time. Things always work themselves out, you'll see.” He straightened up. “I've got to drive over to the club to pick up some papers. Want to come along?”

She stood up and wiped her hands on her skirt. “I suppose so,” she muttered, “but only if I can come like this. I can't be bothered to go and change.”

“I didn't expect you to,” John replied, wondering desperately how long this phase was going to last.

As they drove along the peaceful mountain passes, he kept glancing sideways at her mutinous profile and thought how strange that his union with Elsie could have produced three children who were all so unlike one another.

There was Jonathan, peevish and surly, who showed every sign of becoming a male version of his mother.

Anne, self-possessed and gracious, who reminded John of his own mother, who had been a lady in the truest sense of the word.

And lastly, Lizzie. She looked like neither of them, and her impetuosity and clever tongue were all her own.

In some ways, John was proudest of her. In others, he despaired and often wondered if he should have sent her back to England. Living with Elsie would have taken the edge off her a bit, but every time he had thought about it, he couldn't bear the thought of not being with her.

“Would you like to go home to England for a holiday?” he suddenly asked her.

She looked at him as if he had gone mad. “No! This is my home!”

“Well, would you like to go there for a holiday anyway?” he pressed.

She looked fearful. “And stay with Mummy? No, Daddy, I want to stay here with you.”

“Yes, I know, but, Lizzie, this is not really our home, you know. And one day, we're going to have to go back,” he said gently.

“Why?”

“Because we will soon be giving Ceylon her independence. There won't be a place for us then.”

She studied him. “I don't understand this at all, Daddy. How can we give Ceylon independence?”

“Because we took it away from them in the first place, moppet,” he said bluntly. “Doesn't make much sense to me either, although I don't know if I should be saying that. After all, look at me. Sudu Mahattaya and all that.”

She looked impatiently at him. “I know you don't care about all that, Daddy, but sometimes it seems so unfair.”

“What does?”

“You know, Chandi and Sunil and people like them living where they do, while we live in the bungalow. I sometimes wonder why they don't hate us.”

He laughed humorlessly. “Some of them do, some of them do. That's why we're going through the production of giving the country back to them.”

“Before they take it back for themselves?”

“Yes.”

“Will we have to go then?”

“Yes, I should think so,” he said honestly.

“Can't we stay? Just us?”

“No. It would only be a matter of time before they booted us out if we stayed. We remind them of too much.”

“Too much bad?”

“Certainly not too much good,” he replied wryly.

She sank deeper in her seat and thought about what he had said. She didn't want to go back to England and wondered how she could stay. So deep was she in her reverie that she didn't notice they had arrived until the car stopped with its usual inelegant lurch.

John was gone for less than five minutes, but when he got back, he looked worried.

“Is everything okay, Daddy?” she asked, feeling guilty about her tantrum when he had so many more important things on his mind.

“What? Oh yes, yes. Everything's fine,” he said distractedly.

She pretended to study the passing scenery, wondering why grown-ups bothered to lie. Obviously something was bothering her father and, equally obviously, he didn't want to tell her about it. So why say everything was fine?