by Sharon Maas
‘Uncle Matt wasn’t a doctor to me. I was sixteen! Uncle Matt was just my beloved uncle, my Godfather, who came in his holidays bearing gifts and being nice to me. I never knew him as a doctor, not at all. Why would I think of him as a doctor at a time like this?’
‘But you could have waited for the ambulance?’
‘Ambulance? What ambulance? One of Mummy’s pet peeves was the unreliability of emergency services. People died every week because of ambulances never turning up. This wasn’t modern day UK, Inky. This was brain-drained Guyana of the late sixties. Nothing worked.’
She sighed.
‘To me, he was just dead. And there was only one thing to do: flee from that house of horror.’
‘Your parents must have been worried sick!’
Marion nodded. ‘Mummy was frantic, Rika. We were all frantic!’
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
RIKA
And at last she was alone with him. Inside the cottage his room was large, light and airy, with windows on three sides. A glass door led onto the west veranda, overlooking the river and the small dock leading out on to the water. Two boats were moored to the dock. Rika imagined Rajan as a boy, living here, going to school by boat. Growing up, falling in love with Fatima. Learning the skills of gardening and farming, learning to scale coconut trees barehanded and barefoot.
Inside, the wooden walls were painted a paler shade of yellow; pretty landscape paintings, Guyanese art, hung here and there on the walls, with now and then a portrait. Her own portrait hung in place of honour, above the bed.
He sat on a Morris chair across the room from the bed. She walked across and pulled up a pouffe so to sit right next to his knees, placed her hands on his thigh. He turned to smile at her.
‘Oh, Rajan!’ she sighed, overwhelmed with sadness. He laid a hand on hers, then looked up to point at her portrait. Then he pointed to her.
‘You!’ he said. ‘Rika.’ His smile widened.
‘Yes. That’s me.’ She bowed her head and laid her forehead against his hand. And then it came. In a rush. All the mourning and the grief and the horror of the years gone by, mixed in with all the relief and the joy and the gladness and the gratitude of the now; it all passed through her in waves that swelled and surged, rose and sank. Her body heaved to the outpouring of all that she had pushed beneath the earth of her being; it shook as that earth quaked and gashed wide and all the pain found freedom and all the joy release.
Rajan placed a hand on her head. On and on rolled the waves, like the tide of an ocean coming from the dark, waxing and crashing on the shore of her awareness. It seemed to never end. She gave herself into it, let it happen. For too long, she had controlled this underground torrent. Too long she had held it back, and now there was no reason to do so. The Beast was free, and it was not ugly after all, not bloody and fearsome, but benign and transforming, taking with it the burden of the years as it escaped into the light.
Gradually, finally, the waves subsided until all that was left was an occasional shudder. Her face was still buried on Rajan’s thigh, his hand still on her head, like a blessing.
He spoke, a whisper.
‘Rika!’
She looked up, and met his gaze. She sat up then, straightened her back, still holding his gaze. Her hands on his thigh opened and his slid into them.
He was still smiling, but differently. It was a serious kind of smile, and it was centred not on his lips but in his eyes. They held hers.
She could not look away. In those eyes there was so much – so much – what? What was it in those eyes? Something simple and straight and so very eloquent. There was only one word for it: love. Love, unfiltered and uncontaminated.
Not the kind of romantic love she had seen in his eyes that last night they were together. No; this was a different kind of love; that of a brother for a sister, perhaps, or of the dearest kind of friend, a simple love that is complete in itself.
Within her something else heaved, and it was her own love, coming from a source deep inside herself and rising up to meet his own. And her love, too, was no more the love of a woman for a man. There was no desire in it, no wanting. Her love, too, was that of a sister for a brother, or for the dearest kind of friend. There was no passion in this love, rather a deep calmness and a sense of coming home.
She was content.
And then the spell was broken, for Rajan’s smile widened and he let go of her hands and placed his on either side of her cheeks.
‘Oh, Rajan!’ she cried, this time in joy, and leaned into him and his arms pulled her close and then encircled her. She buried her face in his shoulder in an embrace that said all that need to be said, more clearly than the words they would never speak to each other.
* * *
Later, she helped him into his wheelchair and pushed him down the ramp and into the garden. The concrete path led across the hot white sand between the houses and into the cultivated area of the garden. Rajan pointed and grunted to show Rika where to wheel him. He wanted to be taken among the rose bushes, and when they were there, he signalled for her to help him out of the chair. He stood on his feet, wavering a bit, and bent over to remove a pair of secateurs from a pocket in the chair; with that in his hand, he tottered forward towards a particularly flourishing rose bush. His legs seemed to be made of rubber; his knees gave but always he caught himself and though his movements were jerky, uncoordinated, he made it.
Rika was right beside him; she wanted to reach out to support him, but some instinct held her back. Rajan could do this. She watched, holding her breath, as he opened the secateurs. His right hand shook and jerked as he brought them up to the stem of a half-open rose, placed its stem in the V of the blade. Snip! His fingers closed over the handles and the rose bowed down towards him; he took it in his left hand.
Rose in the left hand, secateurs in the right hand, he waddled back to the chair, Rika at his side, longing to reach out to hold him steady, but holding back. With jerky, uncoordinated movements he replaced the secateurs in its pocket, took the rose in his right. He held it out to Rika, and the smile on his lips and in his eyes was brighter than the daylight.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
INKY
We stayed the night in the big house and Marion and I returned to Georgetown the next day. Mummy stayed behind; for a few days, she said, to get to know Rajan again.
She returned after three days, and that very evening, at supper, Gran delivered the Grand Finale. She reached into her bra and pulled out a tiny plastic zip-lock bag. I knew that little bag. I knew its contents.
Gran handed it to Mum.
‘Here you are, Rika,’ she said. ‘It’s yours.’
Mum’s jaw dropped. ‘You’re giving it to me?’ Her expression changed, softened. ‘Mum – you don’t have to. I know you’re sorry and so am I. You don’t have to somehow pay me back. We both made mistakes. It’s all behind us now. The stamp is yours; I know how much you value it.’
She pushed Gran’s hand away. Gran waved it at her in annoyance.
‘Take the damned t’ing! Is yours!’
‘Leave it to me in your Will, if you insist,’ said Mum. I personally thought she was being stubborn all over again. If Gran was giving it, why refuse? There was the answer to all her problems, and she was turning it away! I shook my head in disgust.
‘Rika! You din’ hear me? The t’ing belong to you! Is yours already!’
Marion laughed out loud.
‘You better tell her, Mummy, or else she never going to take it. Put it down and tell her.’
Gran obeyed. She laid the plastic zip-lock bag on the middle of the table and finished off the story.
‘I told you Uncle Matt arranged for Rajan’s treatment, right? It was damned expensive. But that Professor Cohen, he led the team and he wouldn’t take any money. And other doctors too, donated their work, and Matt led a fund-raising drive – and anyway, it was done, thanks to Matt. He picked up all the expenses that weren’t covered. We couldn’t thank him en
ough. So – Daddy gave him the stamp.’
‘Daddy gave Uncle Matt the stamp? His precious stamp?’
‘Yes. Matt had always coveted the stamp. He had been offering to buy it for years, for decades. He kept raising the offer, but Humphrey wouldn’t sell. Now, he just gave it. As a thank you for all that Matt had done.’
Marion chuckled. ‘Uncle Matt didn’t even want to take it! It was so funny! But Daddy just sent it, with FedEx. He insisted.’
Mum gave a little gasp of amazement. ‘He did that, for Rajan? Gave away his most precious possession?’
‘For Rajan, and for you. You were gone; we hadn’t heard from you in weeks by that time, but we kept hoping, hoping. And when you turned up, or when you contacted us, we wanted to tell you that Rajan was alive; we thought that would lure you back. Rajan’s life was precious, but so were you. What was a little stamp in comparison? As you keep saying, Rika: it was only a little scrap of paper. Humphrey saw that now.’
‘Wow!’ was all Mum could say. Her eyes were moist. ‘But then – if it’s Uncle Matt’s, why do you say it’s mine?’
‘He gave it back,’ said Gran. ‘When he finally accepted it, it was under a gentleman’s agreement – no paperwork involved. He wanted it to come back to Daddy, to the Quint family, eventually. He knew how much Humphrey loved that stamp, and he wanted it to return to our family, rather than become an object of auctions and greed and escalating prices. It was in Matt’s Will; that the stamp should come to Humphrey. But then Humphrey died. Before him.’
She looked at Mum. ‘After Humphrey died, the stamp didn’t have anyone to love it any more. But there was you, Rika. You’re Matt’s Godchild. He was always close to you; he doesn’t have any daughters of his own, just the three sons. So he put you in his Will instead of Humphrey. That’s the thing I was supposed to tell you.’
‘So Uncle Matt died too? So many people died and I never said goodbye …’
Mum’s buried her face in her hands. She seemed more bothered by Uncle Matt’s death than delighted by the fact that the stamp was hers.
Gran seemed overcome with emotion, a thing I’d never seen before. On the verge of tears. Gran, my stalwart, heart-of-steel Gran! So Marion took over the story.
‘No. Rika. Uncle Matt was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a few months ago. No chance of survival. So he sent the stamp back to us to pass on to you. He knew you had moved home in the UK and didn’t have your new address. So he sent it to Gran – via FedEx, insured to the hilt – explaining that it was for you in lieu of an inheritance; it was cheaper and less hassle that way, less complicated. There wasn’t any paperwork about a sale or a gift to him anyway. You could sell it or keep it or do with it what you wanted.’
Gran had by now collected herself and took up the story again. ‘I was supposed to tell you and pass it on. I wanted to give you the stamp and tell you the story and make everything right again.’
‘So Uncle Matt – he’s still alive?’
‘Yes. So it seems,’ said Marion. ‘I’m in touch with his family – they promised to let me know as soon as – well, when he goes.’
‘I need to see him,’ said Mum. ‘I need to go – to thank him. Before it’s too late.’
I had to put in a word here.
‘But why didn’t you tell us right away, Gran? About the stamp, I mean. That it belongs to Mum? Why this whole theatre about finding an heir and all that?’
‘Rika’s fault.’ Gran looked at Mum, almost accusingly. ‘You seemed so indifferent; to me, to the stamp – hostile, even. I tried to get you interested but the more I talked about the stamp the more you rejected it. My lovely surprise: all spoilt! I couldn’t get through to you. So I tried, I tried so hard, to make you realise how valuable it was. What it meant to your Daddy. I even tried to make you jealous, by pretending to look for an heir.’
Gran suddenly switched moods. She gave me a sly look.
‘And Inky. So excited! An ol’ lady got to have she fun!’ she said. ‘You t’ink I didn’t see how much you wanted it? Coveted it? The greed shinin’ in you eyes? I had to tease you a lil bit. Cat an’ mouse.’
But then she turned serious again, dropped the game and the accent.
‘Nothing worked. Rika was indifferent to everything.’
‘Mummy! If you’d told me then what you have just told me now, about Rajan and how it paid for his surgery instead of playing stupid games I might not have been indifferent. How Daddy gave up his most precious possession for the surgery.’ Mum, eyes more moist than ever, was looking at Gran with a strange expression, as if she were seeing her for the first time.
‘But – but, I couldn’t tell you that either! You hadn’t replied to my letter. You hadn’t forgiven me, I thought. You’d said you didn’t want to hear one word more about that night. There’s so much history attached to that stamp. It played such a role in Rajan’s recovery … I didn’t want to just hand it over without you knowing the whole story … you had to know! But I couldn’t find the words. I couldn’t break the ice. In the end we all thought, that is, Marion and I and everyone, that you had to see Rajan for yourself first. That brain damage doesn’t mean a person is worthless. Then you’d understand. We wanted to bring you here. But you wouldn’t come, you refused.’
‘Still – you should have told me! Right away!’
‘Rika, stop complaining; stop blaming Mummy,’ said Marion firmly. ‘You have no idea! I mean, I was just a child at the time but Mummy was beside herself with desperation. Frantic about Rajan’s survival, frantic about your disappearance, longing to hear from you, worried about you, alone in Brazil, a teenager with no experience of life. And then you didn’t write to us – not properly – for over a decade! We didn’t even have a return address for you till Inky was born; that seemed to calm you down a little.
‘You just vanished out of our lives. We couldn’t tell you about Granny’s death and Daddy’s death. And Gran van Dam’s too, of course. And all the family things like births and marriages. It’s as if you didn’t care a damn about us; you’d withdrawn from all of us, abandoned us. And then when you did write us you insisted on not speaking a word about ‘what happened’. No mention of it, you said. So we thought very well, that’s probably for the best. You were married with a new baby; maybe it was better to put the past behind us. Like Granny always said.’
Mum, by now thoroughly put in her place, bowed her head. She said nothing. It seemed to me that Marion was right. Mum had wallowed in a lake of self-pity all these years, never asking after the lives of those she had left behind – those who had loved and cared for her.
‘In the end, the mountain had to go to Mohammed,’ Marion said. ‘Mummy moved to London, with the sole aim of giving you the stamp. But she couldn’t.’
‘The wall!’ Gran said. ‘The wall was too high! I had to break down the wall but I couldn’t! Because the wall was in you, Rika. You couldn’t forgive. Yes, you tried to do your duty on the surface. But I knew you hadn’t forgiven me.’
‘She’s a lot like you in that, Mummy. You can’t forgive either.’
Gran gave Marion a nod of acknowledgement and continued.
‘In you, Rika, I saw history repeating itself. We both lost the love of our life, violently and suddenly; and we both stewed in our own private broths of misery for decades; and I knew we had to climb out, but how? I couldn’t find the words. I found myself in a stupid charade, trying to provoke you into some kind of – I don’t know. Some kind of direct accusation. But you just wouldn’t let it happen.
‘After my accident I realised how short life was. It can be snuffed out in a moment. We had to get this done. I knew there was no way around it, and talking wasn’t the answer. You had to come back and face everything and meet Rajan. By force if necessary.’
She cackled then, the familiar old Gran-cackle. I saw a smile play on Mum’s lips.
She turned to Gran. Her eyes were big and soft, and her whole face seemed to glow from within with warmth and contentment. She ros
e from her chair, and, just as she’d done with Rajan earlier in the day, she knelt on the floor before Gran and took her hands in hers. Gran leaned forward; Mum rose up to meet her and the two of them simply melted into each other. I couldn’t bear it. Too much lovey-dovey for me. I got up and left the room. It was the only way to keep my eyes dry.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
DOROTHEA
It was over. Her work was done, and she was weary. Weary, but satisfied.
Dorothea was a woman of action. She was not given to introspection. She had no time for dreamers and navel-gazers, which, perhaps, had been the whole problem with Rika, who was her very opposite.
But now, alone in her old room, she lay on her bed and closed her eyes. It was time to recapitulate it all. And her whole life, it seemed, had, in fact, been driven by feelings. Actions had their roots in feelings.
The suppressed anger of her youth.
The bliss of first love.
The anxiety of the war years; the anguish at Freddy’s disappearance, the joy of his return.
Her utter devastation at his death, turning into yet more fear.
The fear of loving too much, for love inevitably means loss.
Dorothea had built an armour around her heart, and with that in place she had battled the world, and repaired it.
She had not repaired herself. She had thought herself strong, but she was only hard, and hardness can hurt. Had hurt. Hurt Rika, the child she had feared to love too much. She had pushed Rika away, failed to understand her. Failed her.
And then there was Rajan’s accident. The utter turmoil of that night of horror: worse, even, than the night of Freddy’s death. The agony of fear; the spark of hope; her heart cracking open to release the pent up fear, and love, and anguish. The fervour of prayer, the agonised cry of her soul; make me whole!
After that everything had changed; her actions no longer driven by anger and fear, but by something else, deep and real and thoroughly fulfilling.