by Isla Blair
The servants lined up on the verandah in their crisp white dhotis and their turbans and salaamed us goodbye. And we salaamed them back. Saying goodbye to these loved people, so far as I was concerned, was like saying goodnight and I half expected to see them all again when I next woke up.
The little black car bumped down the red road, through the tea and Munnar town and out towards Pullivasal Estate and down the winding ghat. We went through the coffee and the cardamom groves and the fragrant lemon-scented grass wafted its delicious scent through our car windows on the breeze, along with the smell of burning eucalyptus and pines. Pye-dogs barked and tried to chase the car, snapping at the wheels. Fiona’s face had gone all still and stiff and she sat silently looking out of the window. I wondered if she was trying to imprint these scenes on her memory, as I had done. Her hands lay in her lap clasped but unmoving, and she kept swallowing. I didn’t say anything to her in case she cried.
Michael, Boy and Matey outside our bungalow
Soon the little car brought us towards the low country, passing the chattering monkeys and the brightly coloured birds. We stopped to have a picnic of boiled eggs and Bovril sandwiches and bananas and I laughed as the sandwiches were whisked from my hands by a tiny monkey. Our parents pretended exasperation with much “shooing”, but they found it funny too and soon we were coaxing the nimble little creatures to eat from our hands, until our father decided we should finish our lunch in the car. It wasn’t long before the coffee bushes and the blue High Range Hills were far behind us and we were passing the water buffalo as they slowly moved up and down the fields yoked together and looking doleful. We passed the flooded paddy fields and the banana palms and went through the noisy, colourful little towns on the way to Cochin.
The gulls told us we were near the sea and soon we smelled it and the oil of the big ships in the harbour. We also smelled the cloves and the cinnamon and the spices that told us we couldn’t be anywhere but Cochin. We passed the thousand year old Chinese fishing nets and the stately Arabian dhows and drove up the Bougainvillea-bordered drive to the Malabar Hotel, a house with dark wooden floors and mosquito nets shrouding our beds; the corridors were cool and smelt of damp books, floor polish and citronella oil.
Cochin is famous for mosquitoes, which sometimes carry malaria, as well as the dreaded elephantiasis or dropsy, where people’s legs swell to huge proportions, making them heavy and painful. My father and I seemed to attract the mosquitoes, while Fiona and my mother were left in relative peace. So he and I sat having our evening drinks, with our legs in pillow cases, sloshed and sprayed in Dettol (it was thought this would keep them at bay, but actually it didn’t; it just made us smell of hospitals), watching the fishing boats come back with their catch, hovered over by the ever present swooping gulls and we waited for the sun to go down, suddenly, like a light going out, as if the horizon had swallowed it with one gulp.
The next day we went on a boat round the backwaters, to little lagoons fringed with coconut palms, banana and cashew trees and climbing pepper vines. We saw people braid their hair, scold their children and feed their chickens; the air was heady with the scent of cloves, ginger, cardamoms and pepper. Daddy said the houses were painted according to the religion of the occupants – Muslims preferred green houses, Hindus blue, orange, yellow and pink, while the Christians houses were painted white. They were all jumbled up together and side by side. He said that families had been living like this for hundreds of years and, just for a moment, I wished I lived like that too, shaking the coconut trees, fetching pails of water and carrying them on my head. The children all seemed to be smiling.
We swapped the mosquito nets and the cool sheets of the Malabar hotel for the hot and stuffy berth on the ferry that would take us on the long journey to Colombo. We listened to the cries of the vendors of all kinds as they passed us on the harbour quay, with delicious smelling sweet things and spicy curries and fruit. I put my head in Mummy’s lap as she and Daddy told us things about Scotland and soon it was time for the next stage of our adventure – the big ship.
The ship’s siren had sounded so loudly, it seemed to reverberate through my whole body. There was something exciting about it though. It heralded a beginning and a certainty that we were on our way. I wasn’t sad leaving the bustling quay–side, with the mass of moving people in their white dhotis and shirts, the seagulls competing with the crows, the loud chatter of the crowds on the pier, the droning cry of the beggars, the tinkling bicycle bells, the car horns, the wail of crying children. The whole scene seemed so frenetic and here I was high up on the deck watching them all below me. Traders with trays of mangoes or bananas on their heads, the water wallah with his cask and lots of little tin mugs, goats and pye-dogs darting in and out of the crowd. People were waving handkerchiefs and some were crying. I stood beside my mother and father and Fiona and we waved too. The siren sounded again and Fiona and I laughed as we cupped our hands over our ears and felt the boat slowly pull away. I didn’t feel sad, because it didn’t feel like goodbye, not like the end of something. We shouted out above the rushing of the waves as the ship knifed through them, we shouted above all the quayside noises, “Goodbye, Colombo Harbour, goodbye India, goodbye Ayah and Boy and Matey and Sunderaj, goodbye Samson and Mingo and tigers and elephants and the club and the wobbly bridge and Munnar and The High Range Tiger – goodbye, goodbye, goodbye….”
We were now in a different world; on board ship life assumed a different pattern, disciplined, ordered. There were certain rules on board that we children had to adhere to. I think we were expected to be seen and not heard and there were certainly places where we were not allowed, such as the ballroom and the grown-up dining room. There were appointed children’s times for the pool. Fiona and I had never learnt to swim and so we sat stiffly on the edge with our legs dangling into the water, embarrassed by our nylon costumes that looked like blue eiderdowns and our inability to jump into the water like most of the other children. Our father saw our reluctance about getting into the water as we watched the little boys and girls from Australia dive and splash and generally have a good time. We weren’t having any fun and Daddy said, “You girls must have swimming lessons; you must not feel left out of things. We must put that on the list of extras required at the school.”
Eventually we were persuaded to go into the water with rubber rings and although we were self-conscious to begin with, we soon started splashing about and when the children’s hostess lowered the water in the pool, we started to do a rough sort of doggy-paddle. There was a young Australian boy who had lots of warts on his hands, but who could swim like an eel; I was fascinated by him and he was equally fascinated – not by me, but by my feet. On my left foot are two toes, the ones next to the big toe, that are half joined together.
“Webbed, feet, webbed feet, you’ve got webbed feet like a duck. You should be a brilliant swimmer but you can’t swim at all. Webbed feet, webbed feet, squishy squashy webbed duck.” It had never occurred to me that they were odd. Mummy said they were special and when we played “This little piggy went to market,” she kissed them for being nice. So I thought they were interesting and unusual toes and that I was lucky to have them. I didn’t realise that they were yucky or the subject for mockery.
Each day after breakfast (we had to have all our meals separately from our parents, although Mummy was allowed to sit with us when we had ours), we were shepherded by the children’s hostess to the pool. I hung back as I saw the freckle-nosed Australian boy with warts all over his hands diving and swimming like a dolphin. I was scared of him in case he shouted at me and started chanting. He did.
“Hey, Squishy–Squashy Duck – you don’t need flippers, you’ve got them already!” I shrank back a bit more; I felt hurt and embarrassed and as if I was going to cry. The children’s hostess, in her white dress and white shoes, tried to pull me towards the pool, but I refused to move, so she picked me up and carried me to the edge of the pool, but I kicked and lashed out at her with my fists. She
said I was a silly girl and she could do nothing with me and went to find my parents. Mummy was having her hair done and sat under a dome-shaped dryer, so Daddy came.
He saw my rebellion, but also my distress. “What is it Isla? Why do you not want to splash in the pool? Is it because you can’t swim?”
“No, it’s because of my feet, they are all wrong. The big toes are too big and those ones,” I said, pointing, “are webbed, like a duck. Ducks swim and I can’t and all the children are laughing at me and want to touch my webbed toes and when they do, they run away going ‘Eeah, ugh ,Yuk, Yuk, yuk.’ And I’ve got this pain here,” I patted my breast bone, “and I never, never want to go in the pool, not ever.”
Daddy put his arms around me. “Uncle Roy has got two toes like that. It must run in families.” I wasn’t comforted. “There is nothing really strange about webbed toes; lots of people have them. That little boy hasn’t seen any, that’s all.”
“He’s got warts on his hands.”
“Well there you are, then. As a matter of fact, your toes are two of the things Mummy and I and Fiona love most about you.”
“And Ayah,” I said.
“And Ayah.”
That night as I sat on the bottom bunk (Fiona had the top bunk as she was the oldest), I looked at my offending toes and wondered if I could cut them up the middle.
The sea view on the Orion was a pretty permanent fixture for some three weeks. The days were broken up by meals and formalised games, parties, and sing-songs.
After breakfast and after our swim, we were supposed to do some lessons, then there would be a break – adults had beef tea (probably Bovril or consommé – whatever the weather) and we children had orange squash and sometimes delicious Italian ice cream stuck between two wafers.
There were fancy dress parties and a headdress competition where everyone won a prize. Fiona’s was a blue and white rabbit with springs in its legs to make it bounce. She declared it was too babyish for her and gave it to me. My prize was a dark brown hare with a blue stomach and long, lollopy ears that fell over his face. I was enchanted. The best things about him were his eyes; they were tiny light bulbs that lit up every time you pressed his tummy. I pressed his tummy a lot.
There was an entertainment committee, which was formed from the ship’s officers and some of the passengers. It must have been quite daunting trying to fill each hour of each day; no wonder there were endless meals that were served all day and most of the night. There was Scottish dancing, choir practice, “Housey-Housey” – this was Bingo and seemed to be played somewhere most evenings. There was the ship’s orchestra, of course, and people would dance in the evenings and listen to “light music” in the afternoons. Sometimes the passengers performed for each other, by invitation of the professional singers and dancers on board. On one occasion, in the afternoon, the Master of Ceremonies at a concert said, “Is there anyone here who would like to sing for us?”
I put my hand up. “I would.”
The MC looked surprised and said, “This little girl with a fringe. And what would you like to sing dear?”
“I would like to sing ‘The Girl that I Marry’.” There was a nod to the pianist and I started. I’d worked out all the gestures to the song back in India and I loved singing it. The ship’s tannoy was turned on and my parents and Fiona heard my voice blaring out – interrupting their game of deck quoits.
Family history relates that Fiona said, “Oh my God, it’s Isla. Stop her, Daddy, you must stop her.”
But it was too late. I rather liked the applause and the fact that lots of people were putting their heads round the door to listen.
“That was very good. What’s your name little girl?”
“Isla.”.
“Well, Isla, would you like to sing another song?”
“I would.”
And I started into “If I knew you were coming, I’d have baked a cake.”
I don’t think I was showing off; I just liked singing. My mother and father looked embarrassed, surprised and a bit proud as the applause swelled. Daddy said, quietly, “Very good, Isla, but that’s enough now,” and I knew he didn’t want me to get above myself. But I never forgot that first-time feeling of holding the audience and making them go quiet. It was as if I had somehow hypnotised them, for they didn’t laugh as they had when I was a pixie in the High Range concert; they were silent and seemed to be holding their breath. It was an intoxicating feeling and one that stayed with me for a long time; in truth it never left me. It didn’t matter that maybe they were just relieved that I got through the song without stumbling; small children singing in public was much less common then than now.
The ship progressed westward and soon we were in the Red Sea and the days and nights got hotter. We were witness to the most spectacular sunsets – blood red skies and golden clouds, like a miracle each evening. We would stand by the rails on deck with our parents holding onto us tightly as we watched flying fishes jump and dive. Sometimes porpoises and dolphins swam alongside the ship; they jumped and dived too, in greeting and just for sheer pleasure – lovely, smiling creatures.
A tradition that goes back years when in the tropics is “Crossing the Line” or “Crossing the Equator”. King Neptune arrives at this ceremony with his court, including his beautiful queen, Amphitrite, and his first assistant, Davy Jones. It was an initiation ceremony for those sailors who had not crossed the equator before and I thought it was quite frightening and watched with horror as the drama unfolded.
Neptune appeared in a long red beard, and hair that seemed to be made out of seaweed. He had a painted face and sat with a large trident in his hand and said in his boomy voice that he wanted his “victim”. The Queen was also a man, with long yellow hair and a bra made out of coconut shells. There was a “doctor” and a “barber” and the former would hand out “medicine” to anyone who felt a little seasick. I cowered behind my Mother when he came near me. A young sailor who had not crossed the line before was made to kiss a smelly kipper at the feet of Neptune, kiss Neptune’s ring and then, amidst much cheering, he was thrown in the swimming pool. He was ducked three times and then fished out to kiss Neptune’s ring again, after which he was handed a certificate to show that he had Crossed The Line.
Everyone cheered and drinks were handed round, even for us children, and we had fruit punch with bits of orange and squares of pineapple and little leaves of mint in it.
I wondered where the line was. If we had crossed the equator, crossed the line – where was it?
“Where is the line, Daddy? The line we’ve crossed, the equator line.”
Daddy said you couldn’t see it. I ran with Fiona to the ship’s rails and Daddy shouted at us to “Stop! Wait for me, girls!”
He took our hands and said we were never to go near the rails on our own, in case we fell into the sea. “The ship is going so fast we wouldn’t be able to stop for you.”
“But where is the line? Where does it come from? What colour is it? Is it blue or red and where does it go?”
Daddy scratched his head in the way that he had. “Well, it’s a sort of belt around the earth. You know there’s a northern hemisphere and a southern hemisphere and the equator is what separates them.”
“What sort of belt?”
Daddy said, “Why don’t we go back and get some more fruit punch?”
It wasn’t long before we were sailing through the Suez Canal and met the famous Gully-Gully men and saw all sorts of sights and wonders. Traders stood with their wares along the quay and you could buy almost anything, but you had to be wary. Daddy told us about one gullible young man on his way out to India through the Suez Canal, who had bought a pair of green canaries that he kept on the deck. He wondered why they didn’t sing the way he expected them to; the reason became clear when, in a tropical downpour, the canaries revealed themselves to be little brown sparrows.
There were scarves and trinkets, bangles and necklaces, pots and lanterns, tables and rugs; the list just gets
too long. We were allowed off the ship and visited the famous Simon Artz store where Daddy, as a young man on his way out to India, bought his tropical gear, topees and shorts and boots – all things necessary, apparently, for his new Indian life.
The Gully-Gully men were remarkable, incredibly clever. They came on board in their galabias and one of them wore a red fez hat. They made baby chicks come from the most amazing places, from inside their mouths, behind your ear, inside your shirt; the chicks were so sweet, tiny and yellow and “cheep-cheeping”. Sometimes people would stand by the quay holding out the skirts of their galabias and people threw coins into them; little boys not much older than me would dive into the water beside the boat to retrieve the coins people threw. It must have been hideously dangerous and Daddy kept repeating, “Poor little buggers, poor little buggers.” Mummy told him off for saying that in front of us. He felt it was awful that children had to do this, but he threw them some coins all the same.
We left the shouts and the smells and the Gully-Gully men and the small boys behind as we glided out of the Suez Canal and headed towards the Mediterranean. We docked at Marseilles and Daddy bought a beautiful oil painting of the quay at Capri; I was more fascinated by the lines of washing that hung from windows on either side of the streets, rows and rows of them flapping away above our heads and the women would shout at each other across the towels and shirts and pillow cases. Daddy said it seemed more like Italy than France.