On the Far Side, There's a Boy

by Coston, Paula

  Dear Miss Martine

  Thank you for the baby surprise. The fathers and mothers saw the photo.

  ‘Jayamal said “why has she rolled her jeans up? She doesn’t wade in the paddy.”

  He calls you “she”, as if you are below the lowest mountain. I did not answer. That makes him more annoyed.

  ‘I like Gretel like Pippi. Gretel could make laughing. That car is wheels with stuffing. Is Gretel really all right? Are Jonas and Astrid all right? I do not understand about storybooks-come-true. Do you still like Jonas?

  ‘I did not know his amma is dead. He has your tatta in America, but that is probably why [boy’s writing incomplete]

  ‘The bat is cousin Thurindu’s. He comes again and again. He lent it for a reason about Anupama.

  ‘My English teacher has the hair of a macaque. He says cricket is “vizard”. I also like football, but he says “it is not wery proper for English gentlemen, ne?” What sports do you have in England?

  ‘Cruz and I saw a Sinhalese boy in the town. Pieter. Cruz says he was in a convent. His parents are his parents and not his parents Dutch. Cruz says you do not have to be rich or the same colour for rich people to adopt you. Pieter looked happy.

  Mohan

  ‘P.S. I am not writing about a girl having a toy car because I am thinking about it.

  ‘P.P.S. Happy birthday for 27th August.’

  ‘2nd August 1988

  Dear Miss Martine

  Uncle Kumara can see Mr Mendes in Colombo. So here is another letter.

  ‘The fathers have finished the kitchen. I wish tatta was [boy’s writing incomplete] Tatta says the Kaier has broken. He says his arm hurts also.

  ‘I said “it is strong enough for crates of moonshine.”

  ‘Jayamal said “what do you know, you little [expletive deleted]?”

  ‘Upeksha has gone.

  ‘I went to the fast deep part. I caught three Martenstyn’s barbs.

  ‘Anupama said, “Their coats look like pineapple scales.”

  She cooked them.

  ‘Jayamal said, “Tasty for something so small. Thank you Anupama.”

  ‘I did one thing better. I caught a hare. My trap was bicycle cable.

  ‘Anupama smiled and said, “Well done.”

  ‘I did a thing even much better. I went to [boy has deleted his writing] with Nalin and some friends in the mountain. We [boy has deleted his writing] a big sapphire. We hit it in pieces. We shared it.

  ‘Anupama said, “What have you done?”

  ‘I said, “We found it lying.”

  ‘She cried. “I do not believe you.”

  ‘She bought a cow. She called it Raththi, Russet. I said no, Nila, Bluey. It is more interesting.

  ‘I wanted the money.

  ‘Jayamal says, “How sweet. Boys and girls playing mothers and fathers.”

  ‘I do not answer. That way he gets annoyed. I should be the leader of this family.

  Mohan’

  By the end of August, the gist of Martine’s confused dream had happened. Management had approved Charlie’s ideas: beside being teacher trainer for English he’d head a working group embedding multicultural content in each new school subject, trialling it across the teacher training programme. Through one of his contacts, the results would be fed to government.

  So much, Martine railed at him, for his tirades against what he liked to call ‘the unassailable monoculturalism of our education system, now’. Miraculously a bit of teaching about another culture here, another culture there were suddenly not, as he also said of her letters to Kandy, ‘sops to assuage your nation’s guilt about your cultural imperialism, look’. All along, he must have seen her LIPSS project as her opening hostilities with him, and his sell-out now was his revenge for that. To add insult to injury, his new group would take LIPSS over: another swerve.

  ‘“Multiculturalism, multiculturalism”: from now on you’ll have to parrot that frigging mantra,’ Martine raved in bed.

  Charlie shrugged, ‘I won’t say “It’s just politics.”’

  He locked his shoulders and turned his face away, offering her up the thick veins in his neck she loved, and told the wall a story she admittedly found funny about John Brough.

  And still she didn’t know what the machinery of her life was whirring towards, where it had still left to go.

  It occurred to her that she needed…not necessarily a man, but someone male, something male; at least, some alien counterpart. Mohan, maybe: she certainly wrote to him that way. ‘Dear Mohan

  Two whole letters!

  ‘Thanks for your birthday wishes. You remembered, as you promised.

  ‘I’m sorry for the slight delay, but I’ve got a few problems at work. Some people seem to think it’s a competition: between men and women, or younger and older people. Some behave as if being young, seeming young, is better, and that the things I do, the things I try, need changing. I assumed they wanted what I did but that’s not true.

  ‘Please don’t compete with Anupama. It could destroy your friendship.

  ‘Sometimes these battles follow me home. I often wonder if I’ll ever feel at one with other people, or if I should just admit I’m on my own in the end.

  ‘The family are fine, although I don’t see them enough. Jonas is great – except he could work a bit harder. I’m so glad I’ve got to know him. He might never have existed if our father hadn’t left me. It’s a strange thought.

  ‘As for your father, it sounds to me as if he’s struggling with his sadness about your mother. Try to admit that that’s how you’ve felt too.

  ‘Your teacher’s English is unusual, by the way. Could he be teasing you?

  ‘English sports: yes, football! Also rugby, tennis, swimming (as you know, my favourite), athletics, cycling, golf, hockey, horseracing…I could go on but I’ve had a visitor here, and it’s late, and I’m a bit tired, sorry.

  Miss Martine

  ‘P.S. Tell your father I’m sending him good thoughts.’

  ‘Dear Miss Martine

  I dreamt I was at Pieter’s house. It was very very nice.

  ‘I tried for the scholarship to big school.

  ‘I did not know the macaque’s English was wrong. The interview is wrong also. Ranatunga’s first half-century was 1982, not 1981. I am looking at it under the breadfruit tree.

  ‘I am explaining to Anupama, “In an interview one person tells, one person asks. No one should only ask or only tell. I do not like it.”

  ‘Anupama is milking the cow and saying, “Sometimes breadfruit trees bear leaves but no fruit, sometimes leaves and fruit. And when the wind throws away some leaves, they more clearly show their branches. All the things people say and the messages they send are absolutely significant.”

  ‘She says she was talking about our letters, the stamps you send me, the drawings I send you and the cricket writing, even the interview.

  ‘You are talking about a competition. I do not understand.

  ‘Jayamal tells me, “She only likes you because you’re far away.”

  ‘“She” is like the unknown mother of our cow.

  ‘He was in the Esala Perahera because he is older. The parade is in the family but tatta would not [boy’s writing incomplete].

  ‘Senior mother said, “J looked so manly, drumming and dancing in his thuppottiya skirt.”

  ‘Manly is not brave.

  Mohan

  ‘P.S. I still want cricket writing.

  ‘P.P.S. There is horseracing at Nuwara Eliya. Pieter goes with his nearly parents. You can take me.’

  Martine, offloading about work, didn’t notice her pie-chucker’s aim, how ragged and misplaced it was to a receiver of only ten; nor did she examine Mohan’s strokes, slogging some misguided message back.

  18 The object

  Tuesday 12 February 2013

  ‘Let’s go on with the birdboxes. Meanwhile, our friends from abroad can label these birdbox diagrams with the English words.’

  The male
warder, the technology teacher, hands out papers to the seven foreigners he is asking to stay at their desks. The English majority moves towards the clamps and saws and chisels, looking back with sardonic pity.

  Among the abandoned group Martine’s visitor-to-be mutters, ‘Friends from abroad my arse.’

  Fencing opponent Dietrich signals agreement with a pale eyebrow. Even the rest – the hostile Dead Moon Circus of fellow inmates, i.e. foreign students – sniggers in appreciation. They study technology as a subject in their own countries, are perfectly capable; they even mostly speak good English. There’s no reason for the teacher to give them a separate, easier task.

  ‘Roof’, ‘platform’, ‘entrance hole’, ‘nesting space’, ‘dovetail joint’: their pointless labelling begins.

  This morning the object of Martine’s decision doesn’t recite the calming mantra of fencing terms or use the rosary of feathers and keys, instead resting a hand on the comforter of the bumbag that is slung under the desk. It holds a piece of paper that no one, not even the family, knows exists. It came to light using the gym-locker key on the wristband, the one for the locker that belongs to the object’s brother, Black Sheep Shit.

  There’s also a print-out of a photo in there, brought to prison – school – by Mrs Teague from the agency. The woman’s name is Martine Haslett. She looks older than expected, but seems to enjoy a party. The viewer’s hoping for minimal fuss during this upcoming stay, and preferably quite a lot of silence. On second thoughts, the hand unzips the bag. Fingers take out BS’s paper, unfold and spread it on the desk for reassurance, masked by the birdbox diagram. The dark eyes focus intently.

  It’s an impressionistic map. BS Shit’s coloured penstrokes start at the family home: the pool of blood surrounded by a police cordon, not a real one, but obviously meant to symbolise family tensions and conflict, makes home easy to spot. Through Japantown, the part of town the viewer loves, an ambulance races, BS’s distinctive booted foot with its green bootlace sticking out of the back, pouring a trail of gore, again symbolic of family damage. At the entrance to the hospital, a cartoon BS lies prone, the ambulance gone. His face is grim, his body a bloody mess.

  The clear message is, ‘You bastards. Yes you, the family, did this.’

  Next a blood trail points to the doctor’s surgery, along another road. BS the cartoon figure is leaving, swinging the door with a jaunty air, his bandages soaked red, suggesting he’s on his way to some kind of teenage freedom. From there, crimson droplets fan out along various streets and roads, but there’s no more sign of BS. The edges of the paper are vague, just empty swirls of colour. They lack satisfying detail, the smashing crystals and tall white pillars and butterfly skies of Sailor Moon, say, but BS’s sibling likes to think that this is the boy’s alternative heaven, his escape.

  The police haven’t seen the map of course. Anyway, it doesn’t really tell you where he is.

  A paper pellet plops onto the desk. Dietrich’s head bobs over his diagram, at his desk over to one side. He looks up and winks.

  The photo: Martine Haslett. What will her landscape be? The city or the country? Garden or none? House or flat? Somewhere to be comfortable in, to be quiet in, to be shy in, or somewhere to escape from? What will the bedroom be like? Not painted, the object hopes, in the foulest of colours, yellow. As long as the walls aren’t that toxic colour, it’ll be a refuge from Dead Moon Circus, this shit lot.

  * * *

  Game of two halves

  1988–1989

  One October night in 1988 the door buzzer sounded during Martine’s bedroom persuasions.

  Charlie sighed and swung his legs over the bed edge, pouring himself more wine. ‘That’ll be your alter ego, now.’

  Saila Billet-Doux had been visiting Martine often late at night. Sure enough she pushed past her into the flat. She had less stubble already, already looking more female.

  ‘Ken’s plannin’ to come to Thailand, be with me every step of the way, says he wants to hold my hand.’

  ‘Not a bad sort of problem to have.’

  Saila dragged off her beret and wig. She hunkered on the sofa, crushing a posy of mixed flowers. Last time she’d brought a kitten. Martine had rejected it gently: the ferns and mosses were all the pets she could cope with, a kitten somehow seeming too much and not enough.

  ‘He thinks we’ll live together when we get back. He’s already found a flat. In Kensington.’

  Martine buttoned her man’s shirt, in other words Charlie’s. ‘Again, sounds—’

  ‘It’s not how I pictured it.’ Saila gripped her flaking skull.

  ‘Ah.’

  Saila groaned. ‘I’ve seen the flat. Like Saila the woman, all paid for.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It feels real now. Borin’.’ Shivering, Saila hugged her raddled bones. ‘You have a definite idea of what you want, the boyfriend you want, don’t you, and then…’

  Below Saila’s layered skirt Martine registered bare feet. They took her back to that first Sri Lankan photo, the little boy with one set of dusty toes roofing the other. These were contorted and grimy, with flaking purple paint. Saila’s more screwed up than I knew, she thought. She realised that no one ever hugged Saila but Saila. She thought of the boyfriend, Ken, acknowledging My craving is Ken’s, but homeless. Unlike Saila, she had no idea what she wanted. She’d given up on Charlie, but this nameless yearning made the ice inside her creak.

  Earlier, she’d stirred parsley and cream into garlic mussels and baked two sticks of bread, all barely touched by Charlie. She warmed them now, again, and Saila and she talked, and, for mutual relief, she speared each yellow morsel and fed her like a bird. But Saila wasn’t hers, and it wasn’t Saila she wanted.

  Charlie straddled the doorway, naked and unbothered.

  ‘I’ll away now,’ he said.

  Martine shrugged, as Charlie had before her. ‘I won’t say “Don’t bother coming back.”’

  If she could bring herself to look back, she’d admit that she didn’t trouble as she should have, writing to Mohan.

  ‘How full and long your letters are. I’m ashamed: this one to you will only be long in arriving.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m tired because things in my life are difficult – nothing for you to worry about.

  ‘Sorry about the races, but I don’t want to go to them, never will.

  ‘Here’s a leaflet about the Oval. English women play cricket too, you know. Men and women could use more middle ground.

  ‘Next time I’ll try to write a longer letter.

  Martine’

  Her letter was scattered and distracted, subconsciously assuming that the writer of the reply would return to their old philosophical bent. Mohan didn’t.

  ‘Thank you for the very brilliant Oval leaflet. Asgiriya is a big stadium. It is still quite far. Tatta says he saw a Test series against India. It was a draw. I was five too small.

  ‘All cricket fields are circles or ovals. I found a dictionary. “Oval” comes from a Latin egg.

  ‘My teacher said “That is poppydash, ne?”

  ‘But I will not talk about the not interesting eggs. Have you been to the Oval?

  ‘About the Asia Cup. I watched at the Wimalasiris’. Sri Lanka did not win, but at least we flew to the final.

  ‘I am not writing about women in cricket because I am still thinking about it.

  ‘You say “Men and women could use more middle ground.”

  ‘There is mid-wicket, mid-off and mid-on. Macaque will say, “Get your facts right.”

  ‘P.S. Cruz saw Pieter in the British Council in Kandy. He says his nearly parents are very nice.’

  Martine still failed to spot the subtext. She was preoccupied, new ideas and possibilities maybe activated by something in the letters. She even forgot to write.

  ‘Dear Miss Martine

  Your letter did not come. Mr Mendes is here. So here is another letter.

  ‘I dreamt you slept on the veranda. A jackal and a leopard ran awa
y.

  ‘I argued with Anupama.

  ‘Yesterday I said, “Miss Martine’s tatta left her to have a baby with another lady. The baby Jonas grew up and went to find Miss Martine. He made her a bit happy. So the tatta of Miss Martine died to make him happy.”

  ‘Anupama said, “Nonsense. There’s nothing that magnetises our lives as the moon does the waves, pulling them in a planned, neat straight line. One event causes another, and that may cause another. Everything’s absolutely unpredictable.”

  ‘I read your writing to her. “I am so glad I’ve got to know Jonas. He might never have existed if our father had not left me.”

  ‘Anupama said, ‘Miss Martine does not mean what you mean.”

  ‘I did not tell her something else. Jonas’s amma died so he had to find another lady. He found one and began a family so now he is happy. So his amma must have died to make him happy.

  ‘I went away and mended Nila’s milking post. Anupama does not know what we know.

  ‘Do not get tired. Play your certain music.

  Mohan’

  Seeing Charlie at college was like grit in a soft scab. Martine decided that she’d given up on men, that the compulsion to breed had left her. But, she thought, I still need an outlet for whatever’s brewing inside me.

  The Arctic in her heaved, green buds beginning to nose the ice. She started to do research and to make some phone calls, a new idea rising in her. She felt a bit delirious, found herself wanting to walk alone in Vauxhall Park. Its leafless trees promised to burst soon, one day soon. She tended to her ferns, and looked out for the moon.

  ‘8 January 1989

  Dear Mohan

  I’ve taken especially long to write. I’m sorry you had to write me two letters. I’ve been busy. Much in my life has been changing – still is. No time to visit the Oval for the moment.

  ‘It warms me that you think about my family; even more that a dream about me can help you feel protected.

  ‘I’m still tired, but only on the surface. By the time of my next letter I’m pretty sure I’ll have exciting news.

  ‘I read in a book last night that we can be like migrant geese, somehow knowing the season to travel. We have a voice inside us if we’ll only listen that tells us when to go out into the unknown. The book took me beyond Anupama’s words about fate to somewhere much more hopeful.