The stable door opened: a man knee-deep in polished brown riding boots stepped out. I recognised him and caught a whiff of horse. An animal stamped noisily behind him.
Jay reappeared at the same time. ‘Uncle, you are here.’
‘Hello. What are you up to? Is it Batman or Tarzan today?’
‘Uncle, I am me today. Me am I.’
‘And who is this young fellow? I have seen him before, have I not?’ Elvin lifted a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles that hung on a black cord around his neck and examined me.
‘My pal, Uncle.’
‘Oh, yes. Little Robin. That’s good. You need a proper friend, not just another squirrel or chimpanzee.’ He curled his upper lip. ‘You are not a chimp, are you my boy?’
‘No, sir.’
‘That’s good. Our Tarzan here could do with some human company, otherwise he’s going to turn into a jungle animal himself one of these days.’
‘We are all animals, Uncle. No life without wildlife.’
‘Ah, but we do not have to be wild. That makes all the difference. Some of us can behave in a civilised manner.’ He glanced at me again. ‘What do you think, dear boy?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Quite. “Yes” is probably not what you think, but at least you are civil – which is halfway to civilised – and might have a beneficial influence on our Tarzan here. You have a name?’
‘Kairo.’
‘Good. You were Kairo when I saw you at Marty’s house, were you not? Unusual enough, but remind me next time. I shouldn’t be calling you “boy”, should I?’
Jay climbed down from a broken heap of furniture. ‘What happened to all that takarang, Uncle? You had sheets of takarang here, like thrown away.’ He pulled a piece of cane from a broken rattan chair and twisted it. ‘I could use them to protect my birds.’
‘Did you forget about a roof? Better off with asbestos, you know. The miracle mineral, advocated by Charlemagne no less.’ He checked the weeds by his boots.
‘Obviously, we have the roof.’ Jay quickly sketched out his plan to fortify the base of the cage against underground predators. Using the palms of his hands, he showed how the sheets of metal would be laid three inches under the ground with the edges bent up to meet the wood frame of the cage. Fresh earth over it and it would look normal, but it would have a metal shell to it that would make it as safe as Fort Knox. ‘Good, no, Uncle?’
‘I like it,’ Elvin said. ‘You can be quite cunning when you put your mind to it. I like that too. Not that deviousness should be encouraged, but the way things are going in this country it might be very handy.’
‘So, you know where the takarang is?’
‘That damn stable boy probably sold it to the tinkers. He’ll sell anything given half a chance.’ Elvin’s expression softened, loosening the ruffles gathered at the edges of his eyes. ‘Tell you what. Let’s go get you some new sheets. Those old things wouldn’t have done the job anyway, if they were already rusting. We might even find some galvanised sheets which would be a lot better for your purposes.’
Jay brightened. ‘We’ll go in the…?’
‘What else? You couldn’t get all your takarang in our sporty little Austin, could you?’
‘Austin 1800?’ I let out the name under my breath. Surely no one in Ceylon had one yet. Even London was waiting.
He chuckled. ‘Think sportier, dear boy. The tops.’
‘Austin Healey?’
‘You know the little beauty? The 3000 Mark II?’
‘I’ve never seen one. Except, I mean, in Autocar.’
‘Ah, motoring magazines. What a dream world.’
Elvin pulled open the door of the smallest barn: it had just one vehicle inside, shrouded in a grey cloth. ‘Take the covers off, chaps.’
Jay unclipped one side, showing me how to do the other. We peeled back the cloth, rolling it into a bundle and revealing a creamy-white open-top sports car with a vibrant red racing stripe down the side.
Elvin patted the curved haunch. ‘Get in, dear boy. Feel the leather. Calfskin.’
‘Kairo.’
‘What?’
‘Kairo,’ I repeated, haltingly. ‘My name is Kairo. You said I should remind you.’
‘Quite right. So, you should. Get in, young Master Kairos.’ He added the ‘s’, unable to simply obey a boy’s wish.
Carefully opening the door, I slipped into the red cocoon of the front passenger seat. Twin round dials stared back from under the surprised brow of the dashboard. I half expected it to eject me and send me flying out.
‘You like it? We’ll go for a spin another day. Beauty needs appreciation, and the adoration of the young is a wonderful thing. But today we have a rather serious job to do with the old warhorse next door.’
The warhorse turned out to be a big, muscly jeep; its massive wheels belonged on a battlefield. Elvin climbed into the driver’s seat and banged things about.
‘It’s been modified by the army.’ Jay pointed out the alterations. ‘Wheelbase extended, metal braces and an extra roof rod also.’
The top was off and the spare tyre – a black rosette – was fixed to the back. Elvin started it up.
A red setter appeared, barking furiously.
‘Hey, Garibaldi.’ Jay pulled the dog close and nuzzled him.
‘Open that other door some more,’ Elvin shouted above the clatter of the engine.
Jay pushed the warped wooden door and the jeep juddered out.
Elvin gestured vigorously with his right hand. ‘Let’s go.’
I climbed in the back and Jay jumped in next to his uncle. The jeep jerked forwards and Elvin beeped the horn. Garibaldi started racing around the jeep, bouncing from yelp to yelp.
Elvin charged down the drive and into the lane without even looking to see if the way was clear. On Jawatte Road, the breeze rose: I let my hand float in the flow, more carefree than I had ever imagined possible.
I assumed we were going to Imperial Stores, but we pulled up at a Maradana junkyard barricaded by piles of tyres and oil cans. Elvin beeped the horn and a weedy, white-haired man emerged from a shack, blinking at the sunlight.
‘Cornelius, how? I need some metal sheets,’ Elvin said in brusque broken Sinhala, not unlike my father’s. ‘Galvanised,’ he added in English.
Cornelius ran a hand over his head. ‘Rust-proof? Those sheets so hard to find today, sir.’
‘You tell him,’ Elvin said to Jay. ‘Tell him your devious plan.’
Jay began to explain and Elvin burst out laughing: ‘Ever heard of stopping a bugger trying to get into a cage instead of escaping from it?’
Cornelius continued trying to dig into his brain.
‘Sir, sheet is not the answer,’ he said eventually, resorting to English. ‘Not only cost but when it rains sheets make all the ground muddy – galvanised or not. You end up with a big puddle problem that is not good. Your birds are not waterfowl, no? Better you put chicken wire. Two layers of wire mesh can stop even a Bolshevik. Water goes through and no thalagoya can get in without the will of God.’
‘I should have thought of that.’ Jay looked at me. ‘Obvious, no? We’d have had to put perforations in the sheets. Mesh will be a helluva lot easier.’
I had failed him; was it not up to me – the cool-headed pardner – to anticipate those things Jay missed?
‘You have enough mesh?’ Elvin asked.
‘Could do with more.’ Jay did a calculation with his fingers. ‘Maybe five more yards.’
Cornelius’s eyebrows shot up in a triumphant arc. ‘We have high-grade mesh. Nothing can bite or break it. But where the sides meet the ground, young sir, what’ll you put?’
‘Batons.’
‘Two-by-two? Not enough. There you must put takarang, or galvanised plate. Wood they can break like matchsticks. Pin the mesh on the ground to the batons but also line the batons with metal strips. Cover the mesh with sand. Then you’ll have a number-one safe place.’
‘Then we’ll need some
metal strips also.’
‘How long, Jay-baba, sir?’
‘Let’s see what you have.’ Jay followed Cornelius. The stronger gravitational pull around Elvin held me back.
Elvin opened a packet of filter cigarettes and shook one out. He put it in his mouth and flicked open a chrome lighter; he scraped the emery wheel shielding the flame with a cupped hand even though the air was still. The tip of the lit cigarette brightened into an orange star.
‘So, my boy,’ Elvin let the smoke drift out with his words. ‘Are you also mad about birds like our friend?’
‘Budgies?’
‘You have a couple more years to go, my boy, but he should have moved on from the feathered kind by now.’
‘Kairo.’
‘Right you are, Kairo. Yes. Good, you remembered. You must persevere, otherwise you get nothing in this world.’ He blew a smoke ring.
I reached out to make something more of it than a coiled puff waddling to nowhere. A glimmer of recognition flared in Elvin’s eyes briefly before he sucked more smoke from his cigarette and obscured it.
Jay came back carrying two rolls of wire mesh under his arm. Beaming. ‘I got two different gauges. No way the bugger can get through.’
‘And the long strips for the sides?’ Elvin asked.
‘Chap is bringing them.’ He leant the rolls against the spare tyre.
Cornelius appeared with a bundle of long metal strips balanced on his shoulder, bouncing at the ends as he walked.
‘Can’t fit those in the jeep.’ Grey smoke trailed out of Elvin’s mouth.
‘Easy.’ Jay undid the buckles and locks of the windshield and swung it down flat on the bonnet. He then laid the metal strips along the length of the jeep and chucked the rolls of mesh in the back. ‘See? No problem. They’ll hardly stick out at all. We’ll fit in some takarang also for extra cover, if that’s okay, Uncle?’
Elvin flicked his cigarette to smoulder on the oily ground, threatening to send the whole yard up in flames. ‘Good.’
After the metal sheets were loaded, he climbed in and told Cornelius to bill his account. We two boys perched at an angle and held the cargo in place. Elvin reversed straight over his cigarette butt the way another man might have used his shoe to grind it out.
And then we were flying down the main road.
That evening my parents had formed a coalition and when I came down for a bite, they pounced.
‘Son,’ my father started, ‘it has come to our notice…’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Clarence, speak normally,’ my mother interrupted.
‘So, you tell then, mother superior.’
‘You were seen today Kairo, not on the badminton court where you were meant to be but in a jeep shooting down Bullers Road. In fact, the coach says he has not seen you at badminton since God knows when.’
‘I was there last week.’
‘Well, you didn’t make much of an impression on him then. But you certainly made an impression on all and sundry today in that ridiculous jeep.’
‘What is this jeep?’ My father craned his neck, aloof but puzzled.
In my father’s view, the best defensive action is to launch an immediate attack, so I went for it. ‘Who saw? Is it Siripala? How can you believe him? Do you know what he’s up to?’ A salvo at both. The next question directly at him, the weaker point: ‘Have you ever wondered why you never get any winnings?’
He squirmed. ‘Don’t change the subject.’
‘Funny how he says he got the bets confused every time your horse wins. He’s no fool.’
‘Not every time.’
‘You are the fool – to believe him.’
My mother intervened. ‘Don’t call your father a fool.’
‘I only meant…’ It was not the right word; not to fling at a father whose need was a lifebuoy more than a son to keep him afloat.
‘Whose jeep is it? And what were you up to charging around in it?’ My mother remained implacable.
‘I wasn’t driving it.’
‘I should hope not.’
‘It belongs to Jay’s uncle.’
‘And who the heck is Jay?’ My father tried to wrest back control.
‘My friend.’
‘I’ve warned you: be careful with fair-weather friends.’
‘He’s a good friend, not like your friends.’
‘I told you – don’t be cheeky, Kairo.’ My mother’s voice rose a notch.
I knew I was not going to get the better of her. It might be best to come clean. The Alavises were lucky. Their good fortune surely could not be a fault. I sketched out for my unhappy parents the dreamy grandeur of Casa Lihiniya and Elvin’s mansion.
‘Well, well, well,’ my father’s attempt at admonishment betrayed more than a hint of grudging admiration. ‘You certainly move in nefarious circles. No wonder you’ve kept it a secret.’ He sucked in a dose of parental seriousness and converted it into a manifesto point. ‘You should not be consorting with the class enemy, son, however dazzling they may be. Fool’s gold – that is all they accumulate.’
‘It has nothing to do with school.’
‘They are the haute bourgeoisie par excellence, your Alavises. Stay away or you’ll end up on toast.’
‘What your father means is that these people are not like us. You don’t belong with them.’
‘Why? What are we?’
‘It’s not so much a matter of what you are, but what you believe.’
‘Is this not a free country?’
That was a dangerous challenge at the best of times, with or without a sulk, risking a parental lecture in response that could last for hours. But, oddly subdued, my father barely managed a few short sentences: ‘Freedom is not easy in a state like ours, son. Greed motivates these people, not need. Mark my words.’ He paused, trying to decide between a warning and a prohibition. ‘Better you stay away,’ he added, without resolving the deeper issues that troubled him.
‘I’d prefer to be over there any day than in this dump.’ I could not stop the words, cruel as they were.
Over the next week, I managed to avoid the subject of Jay coming up again until my mother took me to the KVG bookshop in Fort to buy a science primer.
‘You have to start preparing for tests in all your subjects. It’s a big reorganisation next year and you’ll be reassigned to new classes. If you do badly in January, you’ll be consigned to a dustbin.’
‘The schools may not even open next term – Jay’s father said.’
‘You can be sure families like your Alavises will be fully prepared.’
‘That shop makes my skin itch.’
‘How can that be? You like books, Kairo.’
‘Not schoolbooks.’
At the bookshop, she marched straight to the textbook department where she dispatched an assistant, caught idly cleaning his fingernails, to seek out the recommended primer. The whole dismal section made me feel ill with its exhortations of required learning so far removed from the pleasures offered at Mr Ismail’s treasure island. Worse, my mother added a Sinhala grammar to the science primer before starting the complicated procedure of settling up through multiple dockets and fistfuls of carbon copies.
‘Can I check out the comics section, Ma?’ The single ray of sunlight, a hint of hope squeezed between the stacks of stultifying sermons.
‘No, Kairo. You have enough comics. You need to start concentrating on these.’ She handed over the parcel of books and gave me a push towards the door.
‘But these are for dopes, Ma.’
On the way back home, niggled by maternal remorse, she tried to mollify me. ‘How about a sundae at Fountain Café?’
‘Knickerbocker Glory?’
‘If that’s what you want, my dear, but you must be a good boy and really start studying now. Also, enough of that rudeness to your father. Don’t pick up bad habits from those posh people.’
Three scoops with nuts on top and a glacé cherry, as well as chocolate sauce, was possibly fai
r recompense for putting up with more schoolbooks.
The famous fountain in the front garden of the fashionable café was in full flow. My mother drove steadily down the drive, past the see-saws and the red swing, to the parking lot at the back where the old boundary walls crumbled between the clumps of orchids and weather-beaten notices for children’s parties and tea dances. She parked in her usual place and quickly dabbed the sweat from under her eyes with a hanky before opening the door. As I got out of the car, someone cried out. A cry of helplessness more than a plea for help. A muffled sob. I patted the gun I always carried in my mind – a Colt .45 – and flexed my fingers.
My mother held the car door open, puzzled, uncertain.
‘Over there.’ The sound had come from behind the green delivery van by the bicycle shed on the far side.
Another cry. This time fear in it, not disappointment. A boy’s fear. My mother pulled at the stirrup-handles of the round canister handbag she’d lodged under my seat. ‘Only a dog, no?’
She looked for the convenient, easy explanation, whereas I immediately imagined the worst: death, destruction, disaster.
‘It’s not a dog. I’ll go see.’
She tried to catch my hand but clutched air – way too slow for a boy who lived with imaginary gunslingers and metaphors of greased lightning.
On the other side of the van, three older boys had ganged up around a small, chubby younger one pushed against the wall with his white shorts in a puddle at his ankles, his hands spread out in front of his crotch.
‘Let’s see, fatso. Come on.’ The leader of the gang reached for the boy’s speckled mesh Y-fronts.
The cornered boy searched for help, his eyes uncertain. I did not know what to do.
Then something whizzed past and exploded against the wall. The bigger bully spun around, going off-balance.
‘Wha—?’
‘You touch him and I swear I’ll bust your balls with the next shot.’ Jay had come up from behind and had a huge catapult in his hand, fully drawn.
‘Why the fuck are you protecting his arse?’ The gang leader pulled back, perplexed, searching with his foot for his rubber slipper.
‘Get lost.’ Jay raised the catapult and took aim.
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