by Sharon Maas
He paused, and then continued:
‘Remember I told you once that my father killed one of your uncles? It was your uncle Fred, the youngest. He was the great love of your mother’s life.’
‘Uncle Fred!’ Rika exclaimed. ‘Wow! It’s funny – I thought somehow that maybe it was your dad who was this great love.’
Freddy only shrugged, and continued.
‘She waited for him for years after he went to war. Then out of the blue, he came back. And she was overjoyed. They had been married just a few weeks but there was a fight and my father killed him and went to prison for it. She went berserk – turned against my mother and against life itself.’
‘Why would she turn against your mother and you? You were innocent!’
Rajan shrugged again. ‘I suppose we reminded her of him? It was because of my mother that Fred got into the fight in the first place. Maybe that’s why … ‘
Silence fell between them. Raj looked at his watch again but he made no move to leave.
Almost under his breath, he added one last sentence: ‘I was three at the time.’
Rika sat there as if paralysed. Maths might be her weakest subject, but she was capable of simple arithmetic.
‘Seventeen years ago,’ she whispered after a while. ‘And I’m sixteen. And my name – my name is Frederika.’
* * *
Rika’s newfound strength stayed with her all week. It stayed with her when, at school, she found she was no longer the rising star but the butt of whispered jokes and tittering verbal jabs. It stayed with her when Jen placed herself in front of her, arms akimbo, and declared her a weak, wet and watery weed.
‘You might like to know,’ sneered Jen, ‘that Jag never cared for you. He bet the boys he could bust your cherry in a week. He boasted he could do it, and if there was even a grain of personality in your little bird-brain you would have known what a chance you had, to have someone like him notice you. Now he’s mine – he was only trying to make me jealous and you can be sure I’m not a weakling like you!’
Jen’s words pearled off Rika like the proverbial water off a duck’s back – it amazed her to see she truly didn’t care. The only thing she cared about, right now, was the horrible mess of her hair, which now was as stiff as wire and stuck straight down without the slightest swing or curl. At the roots it was beginning to grow back. It would grow back. It had all been a dreadful error; she had been blind but now she saw and she had learned a valuable lesson. That stiff hair was a reminder, the price she had to pay, but one day it would be gone.
* * *
That week she spent every afternoon in Rajan’s back yard, but she no longer watched him at work. She worked with him; she pulled out weeds, set baby tomato plants into the earth, and, on Saturday, helped him mow the parapets along Waterloo Street, raking the cut grass and loading it on to the donkey cart. She had never felt happier.
To make things even better, Uncle Matt had come to stay for his annual holiday, bringing a suitcase full of books for her, and her three most coveted LPs: The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde and his Greatest Hits. Rika had written to him the previous month to tell him of her new musical discovery, and now with the little record player – also a present from Uncle Matt – in her room she played the new discs over and over and over again.
‘So,’ said Uncle Matt one afternoon, ‘you don’t have a boyfriend yet?’
‘Not really,’ said Rika. ‘I mean, I do have a boy friend, but he’s not a boyfriend, if you know what I mean!’ And she told Uncle Matt about Rajan, and took him over to Waterloo Street to introduce them. Uncle Matt, as a neurologist, was duly impressed with Rajan and his plans to win a scholarship and study medicine.
‘That’s a jewel of a boy,’ he said to Rika. ‘I’d hold on to him if I were you.’
‘Oh, but …’ Rika began. She wanted to say it wasn’t that kind of a relationship. But then again, what was that kind of a relationship?
Uncle Matt grinned. ‘I think you’re a bit blind, Rika. The way that boy looks at you … there’s something special there.’
Rika’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Oh!’ was all she managed to say.
‘I think I’d like to play Cupid for a while,’ said Uncle Matt. ‘How about I take you two to the Pegasus on Saturday night?’
The Pegasus, Georgetown’s newly built luxury hotel, stood round and gleaming at the estuary of the Demerara River; with its kidney-shaped swimming pool, its top-class discotheque and its poolside dining, it was a step up from Palm Court. Rika’s eyes shone as she nodded approval.
They picked Rajan up in a taxi. He was wearing clothes Rika had never seen before: a white shirt, black trousers, and for the first time ever, laced-up shoes; she had only ever seen him barefoot or in scuffed old boots. Simple, but smart and, she suspected, brand new. She guessed that, just as she had done for Jag, he had gone on a shopping spree and spent some of his hard-earned university fund. For her! Again, her heart skipped a beat. They looked at each other; their eyes met and Rika this time searched his for the signs Uncle Matt had seen. An instant later he dropped her gaze in complete confusion. It couldn’t be. Could it?
Uncle Matt led them both through the lobby and out to the poolside terrace. The water glimmered, reflecting the string of lights strung around it. They were early; the band had not yet arrived, but a jukebox in the corner played soft instrumental music. The Shadows, Rika noted, ‘Apache’. A waiter pulled out a chair for her at their reserved table. Ever since that exchanged glance in the taxi, Rika’s heart had tied itself up in knots, and she wasn’t sure if she was capable of speaking a word. All the ease she normally felt in Rajan’s company had fled – that look in his eyes, a look that, perhaps, had always been there but she had never noticed before, had in one moment pulled away the scales from her own eyes, her own heart and left her breathless, speechless.
She need not have worried. Once they were settled and their drinks placed before them Rajan reached into his trouser pocket and produced an envelope, slightly crumpled. His face was one huge smile.
‘I got it!’ he said. ‘The scholarship!’
Uncle Matt ordered champagne and they all drank a toast. Uncle Matt got up to feed the jukebox. He returned. The stirring opening bars to Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass’ ‘The Lonely Bull’ flooded the terrace.
Rajan looked at her. ‘Want to dance?’
Surprised, she nodded. She’d never thought of Rajan as a dancer.
‘I can’t really dance,’ Rajan confirmed, as he led her to the dance floor, ‘but I guess there’s nothing to it. I just have to hold you.’
And as he held her gently close and they moved to the music, Rika felt it again, more strongly than before, a stirring, a swelling in her heart. She looked up Rajan in surprise, and this time his eyes held hers. His shone in a new and wonderful way. Or maybe it wasn’t all that new. Maybe they had always shone this way. She just had never noticed. She had taken that glow for granted. It was the glow of love. Unmistakeable. A lump rose in her throat. She found her voice.
‘I’m glad you won the scholarship,’ she said. ‘But I don’t want you to go.’ Her voice faltered. ‘What’ll I do without you?’
‘You could come too.’ Rajan’s hand on her back felt warm and comforting. ‘Not yet, of course. But in two or three years? When you’re eighteen? Didn’t you say that’s what you planned?’
‘Really? You mean …’
She hardly dared say it, think it. It was too big a thing; too easy, too soon. But then, what else was there for her to do?
‘You said you wanted to be a librarian. You could be that over there. Better than working in a bank, don’t you think?’
The lump in her throat grew so big she couldn’t get a word past it, so she only nodded.
‘You’re the best friend I ever had,’ said Rajan, and his hand on her back pressed her closer. ‘More than a friend. Rika, I – I’ll miss you too. I’ll wait. Please come! You�
�ve got O Levels coming up – next month, right?’
She nodded. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but it wouldn’t budge.
‘OK. Do your best. Your maths is quite good now – you’ll pass. You should get six or seven subjects. Get those, and then maybe work a year or two; maybe you can even take A Levels. And then come and join me.’ He stopped, and then said, again, ‘I’ll wait.’
Those last words: not explicit, but she knew what they meant, and he knew that she knew. It was a pact, a promise, a proposal. A declaration of abiding love, even though the word love had not been uttered. But it hung between them, unspoken, quivering in Rika’s heart. Sure and true. Why had she not known it before? Why had she gone chasing after the shadow of Jag, when the real thing was so very near? She sighed in contentment, buried her face in his shoulder, and in reply Rajan pressed the small of her back.
When they returned to the table at a break in the music Uncle Matt teased them.
‘So what’s the difference between a boy friend and a boyfriend?’ he asked Rika, who found the question incredibly embarrassing. She had never once been embarrassed with Rajan, not even when she’d told him the most distressing things about herself; but this question of Uncle Matt’s discomfited her, made her feel shy and set off a swarm of butterflies in her tummy. Rajan only chuckled, as if he knew the answer.
* * *
The next day, Sunday, Rajan phoned her. He had never done so in his life before; there seemed no need. He sounded different; a little shy.
‘Would you go to the cinema with me tonight?’ he asked.
She didn’t hesitate for a second. ‘Yes! What’s on?’
‘There’s My Fair Lady back at the Astor,’ said Rajan. ‘Have you seen it?’
‘No!’ said Rika. ‘When it came two years ago a lot of my cousins went with Granny but I had flu at the time and so I missed it. I’d love to see it!’
‘Ok, then. I’ll pick you up.’
She wondered briefly if he’d pick her up in the donkey cart. And she realised she didn’t care an ass’s hoof.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
INKY: THE NOUGHTIES
One day, when the doorbell rang, I opened it to find a tall thin black woman about Mum’s age standing on the threshold.
‘Myrtle Patterson,’ she said, beaming. ‘You must be Dorothea’s granddaughter?’
Yes; but Gran was out, I said warily. Another reporter? I thought the Quint was stale news.
‘I’m the head of the Bishops’ High School Old Girls’ Union in London;’ said Myrtle Patterson. That changed things. I opened the door wide.
‘Gran went to the shops,’ I told her. ‘She’ll be back in about half an hour. But come in and wait for her.’ I let her in anyway, sat her down in the dining room and served her coffee and biscuits, and sat with her to wait for Gran’s return, and while waiting we chatted.
It was actually called ‘Old Students’ Union’ these days, she said, as Bishops’ had gone co-ed about ten years ago, much to the consternation of the Old Guard; the addition of boys into the hallowed halls of Bishops’ was tantamount to sacrilege. Boys spoilt everything. For her generation it would always be the Old Girls’ Union. She’d come to invite Gran to an Old Students’ Reunion of Bishops’ High, right here in London.
‘I’ve been getting so many calls,’ she said. ‘Over the last few weeks. Ever since your Gran became famous, and all the Old Girls found out she’s here. But even before that, through the grapevine. I made some enquiries and found Doreen, who had the phone number. You know we have hundreds of Old Girls here in London?’
No, I didn’t. I’d never heard of Bishops’ High School, much less their Old Girls/Students Union.
‘Small world, eh? Anyway, they’re all clamouring for me to invite her to our next Reunion. That’s in two weeks’ time. Everybody wants to see Dorothea van Dam again.’
‘van Dam?’
‘Yes. Your Granny’s maiden name. You don’t know your Granny’s maiden name?’
No, I didn’t.
‘Well, it’s about time. Your Granny was famous in her day, you know. A legend, even while she was at school. Back home, back in the days. She was Head Girl in her last year of school, in Upper Sixth. By then she’d changed her name to Quint; she married young, while still at school, as an exception, considering the circumstances – war, and everything. After she left school she became known as Dorothea Q. Such a pity about …Well, never mind.’
‘About what?’
‘Ask her. I’m sure she’ll tell you. I didn’t know her myself at the time, of course. I wasn’t even born yet, but these things become legends. Growing up in BG we had certain names, everybody knew them. Dorothea van Dam is one of those names – later, Dorothea Q. Now everybody wants to see Dorothea Q. All the old Bishops’ girls. All old ladies now, of course, and middle-aged women like me. Between your mother’s generation and Dorothea’s, that’s a whole lot of women. If she comes it’s going to be packed. We might even have to look for a new venue. How’s your Mum? How’s she coping with the hullabaloo?’
It turned out that Mum, too, had made a splash, but a different kind to Gran’s. Mum had first made a small splash by going out with some boy who all the girls were crazy about; and then she made a big splash, and headlines, by disappearing.
‘She ran away,’ said Myrtle. ‘Just vanished. I remember the hullabaloo well; they couldn’t find a trace of her on any of the airlines’ passenger lists so everyone thought she was hiding out with a boy. Then a month later we heard she had run off to Peru. A bit of an anti-climax. Anyway …’
A key turned in the front door. Myrtle stood up as Mum entered the room, still peeling off her jacket.
‘Inky, there you are. Have you …’ She stopped in her tracks.
‘Hello, Rika, remember me?’
Mum obviously didn’t. She frowned, trying to place our visitor. I calculated that almost forty years had passed since Mum’s schooldays; unless they had been best buddies she could hardly be expected to fall into Myrtle’s arms. But remembering her manners, she smiled and held out her hand.
‘Can’t say I do,’ she said. ‘Remind me.’
‘Myrtle. Myrtle Patterson.’
‘Ah. Myrtle.’ Mum’s forehead relaxed and her smile broadened. ‘Excuse me. It’s been a long time. I didn’t know you were in London too.’
‘Hundreds of us Old Girls ended up here,’ Myrtle said. ‘I happen to be head of the London Chapter of the Old Girls’ Union, so I’ve kept in touch with many of them.’
Right then, Granny’s scooter whirred up the garden path and came to a stop. I helped her get down and took her arm to lead her into the house, setting her rollator down in front of her.
Gran waddled forward and stood in the doorway to the living room, me right behind her.
‘Ah. You mus’ be Myrtle Patterson.’
Obviously, Gran was expecting Myrtle. No doubt one of her myriad friends and relations had warned her of the imminent visit. She turned around and with an impatient gesture shooed me and Mum away. After which she closed the door, sequestering herself away with Myrtle. Once again I had to suppress my curiosity; I shrugged and turned away.
* * *
One thing about Gran: she certainly knew how to make a grand entrance, rollator or not. She wanted me, not Mum, to push her into the hall for the BHS Reunion. We were the last to arrive, and a trio of women, including Myrtle Patterson, stood waiting for us in the cold outside the building. We bustled Gran into her wheelchair and, me pushing, off we went.
Up a short flight of stairs via a wheelchair ramp, across a hallway; then Myrtle and another women flung open a pair of double doors and Gran rolled in. She made me stop just as we crossed the threshold. The animated buzz of conversation came to an abrupt halt. In that silence, a sea of faces, of every shade from white to black, turned our way. A moment passed, then a thundering crash of applause burst out and a rush of bodies lunged towards us. Faces, lit with joy, converged upon her. And she
just sat there smugly, basking in the adulation.
It was only then that I really, truly understood that my grandmother had been a legend in her own time, an icon in her own country. I should have known. Mum, of course, had never told me a thing, but that was to be expected. But those Sunday after-church meetings at Doreen’s house. Why, they had practically told me. I remembered now, all the comments: ‘Your grandmother is such a wonderful woman!’ ‘What a remarkable person she is!’ ‘She was quite amazing in her day, you know.’
Yes, they’d told me. But I hadn’t taken it seriously. ‘Wonderful!’, ‘Amazing!’, ‘Fantastic!’ – all words that have lost their meaning in the hyperbole of modern language.
But with these women, the words were real. When they said Gran was great, they meant it. It was not just a word. I knew this with an instinct as sure as a baby’s discernment between its own mother and a stranger. It was as if I’d played with glass beads all my life, throwing around superlatives like confetti and receiving the same in like manner. And now, diamonds. The difference was stupendous.
As the granddaughter, I was engulfed in the sea of goodwill. The women, having claimed Gran as their own, nudged me away into a huddle, where they plied me with food and drink and mollycoddled me like a long-lost relative.
‘How proud you must be of your grandmother!’ I kept hearing those words. I’d heard them before, at Doreen’s, after church. Back then, my first reaction had been ‘Hello? Proud? Me? Why?’
I was accustomed to people saying those words to Mum. ‘How proud you must be of your marvellous daughter! How brilliant Inky is! What amazing GCSE results! What brilliant A Levels! She’ll be Top Lawyer in no time!’ In our crowd it was generally accepted that Mum was a loser and I was the surprise trump she’d somehow pulled out of a hat. But since Gran had come into her life it was she who was reaping all the praise. And today, for the first time, I realised that somehow, that praise must have been deserved. And I had no idea how.