‘Come on, now. It’ll only take five minutes. I offered to help, but Nani wouldn’t let me – it’s you she really wants.’
Dad’s voice sounded from the hall. ‘She wants her only great-granddaugher, the beautiful Nirmolini, ’ his voice took on those Bible tones, ‘whose name is like perfume poured out–’
Neema went downstairs.
Kalpana loved everything about her Nirmolini. She loved her hands, so busy with the tea-towel, square hands, a little like her own; she loved the way her hair grew, like Raj’s had, in a springy arc from her broad forehead; she loved her strong young legs and the delicate ankles above the sturdy flying shoes.
She would buy those flying shoes in the window of the sports store, decided Kalpana. She’d buy them tomorrow, when she went out with Priya, and she’d get the purple ones for Sumati, too. Even if Priya laughed and said they were too old for flying shoes. Even if Priya was in a hurry and impatient, and Priya would be, because she was so like Usha. Usha had been rushy and impatient even when she was a little child. On summer evenings Kalpana and Sumati would go to the river; they did nothing there; they simply sat, dreamily watching the sky, or the water flowing by. Usha had hated that: ten minutes by the river and she wanted to rush away. And Priya had been just the same, when she’d visited on holidays.
Nirmolini was different, thought Kalpana. Nirmolini would sit by the river with them. Hadn’t she done so, when she was a tiny child? Sat between her and Sumati, quietly, gazing up at the wide blue sky?
How small and delicate Nani was, thought Neema, and how gracefully she moved. Standing beside her, Neema felt big and gawky, like the picture in that storybook she’d had when she was little – the one of the princess and her great big genie slave. There were no photographs of Nani when she was young, but Gran said she’d been very beautiful and you could see a little bit of it even now, if you imagined the wrinkles away and changed the white hair to black. You could see it in the fine heart-shape of her face and the softness of her eyes. Neema’s mum was beautiful too, and on the bookshelf in her study there was a framed photograph of a lovely, gentle-looking girl that Neema often took down to examine, because who could believe that sweet-faced girl was her stern headmistress gran?
Nani was looking at her, Neema noticed as she dried the dishes, studying her face in that way she had: gravely, carefully. Perhaps she was thinking, as Neema was herself, that her great-granddaughter was the plain one of the family. Nani’s gaze drifted downwards, and Neema wished she wasn’t wearing shorts, because Nani was staring at her knobbly knees, and then at her new white air-soled runners, which made her feet look big. Nani probably disapproved of runners; old people often did.
Neema sighed and counted the cups and dishes on the sink; there weren’t many left to wash, it would only be a few minutes longer before she could get away. At least Nani wasn’t talking to her, telling her stuff and asking those questions Neema couldn’t understand.
At that very moment, as if once again she’d read her great-granddaughter’s thoughts, Nani spoke.
‘Do you remember the river, Nirmolini?’ Kalpana asked in Hindi. ‘Do you remember the river in my town?’
Neema’s face stiffened, the anxious smile which hid her true expression tightened at her lips. What had Nani asked her? The question had her name in it, that was all she knew. It could have been anything. It could have been something like, ‘I wonder how you will ever find a husband, poor Nirmolini, when you have such ungainly knobbly knees? And such huge feet, in those ugly, clumsy shoes?’
It probably was, thought Neema, panicking suddenly, because now Nani was looking at her again, and there was a tiny frown between her eyebrows, as if something made her sad.
In her soft sweet Hindi, Kalpana asked once more, ‘The river, Nirmolini? Where you sat with Sumati and me?’
Neema froze. She was saying it again! Or something like it – because one of the words was the same. Nadi. ‘Nadi’ could mean gawky, or even ugly; it sounded like it might. Nani thought Neema was a ‘nadi’ girl. She’d mentioned Sumati’s name too – she was probably saying how Sumati would also wonder, shaking her head sadly when she received the letter which told her how Neema had grown up very plain. And worse than plain: NADI.
‘In the evenings, all three of us?’ asked Nani softly. ‘You used to love the river, and the sky.’
Nadi! There it was again. Neema flushed, and tears welled in her eyes. ‘I – I have to go and do my homework!’ she stammered, and tossing the tea-towel onto the bench, she ran out from the room.
How stupid I am! Kalpana scolded herself. She had upset Nirmolini, made her feel awkward, as she always did, chattering on in words the poor child didn’t understand. And Kalpana actually knew the English word for nadi, of course she did. It was ‘river’. And she knew ‘in my town’. She should have spoken them, even if she said them wrongly, even if she couldn’t manage a whole sentence, but only ‘river in my town?’ She heard Sumati’s voice again: ‘too proud in little things!’
Kalpana picked up the tea-towel and folded it slowly, carefully: it was still warm, still warm from Nirmolini’s little hands.
15
Trouble Sleeping
My Dear Sumati, wrote Kalpana.
I am sorry to hear your throat is once again quite sore from shouting. It’s a pity that your sister’s goat has made it his business to become your enemy, and that he should discover your two best saris spread out on the bushes to dry. What trials you have in life! Try not to worry too much about the saris. When we are both back home, we will go to the bazaar and buy the best and brightest saris in Bhairon Singh’s shop. As we both know, he is the only person in the whole of India who understands how to make rainbows out of cloth.
In the meantime, keep up the honey and lemon – once at morning, and again at night. And dear Sumati, do try to stop from shouting. Speak softly to the goat, in sweet and gentle words.
Ah, words, Sumati! I think of you often at your sister’s place – of you and Lakshmi talking together, the words flowing easily between you, clear as soft new rain.
Here words are muddy for me. The little awkward English that we learned when Usha was at school I am too proud to speak. Remember how Usha and her friends giggled when they heard us in the courtyard, ‘practising’? And remember how we also laughed, thinking it strange that such funny, unfamiliar sounds could ever tell of anything we knew?
But here, those words we found so funny are meaning everything.
My great-granddaughter says only ‘Namaste’. She says it perfectly of course – but that is all.
My son-in-law is a kind and loving man, but I think, like me, he has no ease with foreign tongues. When he tries a word (and he does try, he is less proud than me) his face grows the shade of carrots, those young tender carrots we buy in the bazaar at springtime, to make fresh pickles, and Gajjar Karrah.
Priya, of course, speaks Hindi, but it is a strange kind of Hindi now, Sumati. You cannot say her tongue is heavy because she speaks fast, very fast – she was always a nervous child. And her words have that strange ‘yoing yoing’ sound the people’s tongues make here – often I cannot make out what she says.
It is my great-granddaughter I would like to understand, and talk with. If only I were not–
Kalpana laid down her pen and went to the window. It was time, she knew, for the flying boy to come past the house; already she could hear that faint ticktocking in the distance, far away down the street.
Gull Oliver stopped outside the gate to look up at the house. The streetlight shone on him; Kalpana saw his feet in big white flying shoes, and beneath them, the wooden board with wheels on which he stood. She had seen such things in the window of the sports store: skateboards, they were called. ‘Ah, ’ she murmured, as she raised her hand to wave at him. The boy waved back, and then Kalpana watched him sail away down the street, faster and faster, as if he was flying, a simple hand’s height from the ground.
Gull’s route homeward took him past the house where Ms D
allimore lived. It was a creepy house, thought Gull, tall and narrow, with two crooked chimney pots, its whole front veiled by a thick net of glistening ivy. The windows were shuttered and dark. Gull skated by as quickly as he could.
Could there be any truth in that story the Year Eight kids whispered round the school? That Ms Dallimore – oh, get real, he told himself – of course it wasn’t true. All kinds of weird yarns went round about the teachers: how Mr Crombie had been in the local paper because he had two wives and fifteen children; how Mrs Tierny had been taken to court for slipping a live ferret through her neighbour’s letterbox; how the headmaster had a weekend job as a children’s party clown – they couldn’t all be true.
Ms Dallimore was simply unusual. She was the kind of teacher you remembered, like his mum remembered Mr Glazby, who’d jump up on his teacher’s desk, arms waving, to recite a favourite poem.
‘Nirmolini, oh Nirmolineee–’ he carolled as he swooped into his drive. His sharp-eared mother heard him from inside the house, and smiled. Now where had she heard that name before? Because she had heard it, Mrs Oliver felt sure, somewhere, a long time ago.
‘Nirmolini–’ she whispered, as she lay awake that night. ‘Joe!’ she said, prodding Gull’s father awake. ‘Joe, listen!’
‘What?’ Mr Oliver mumbled, sleepily.
‘I’ve worked out who Nirmolini is!’
‘Nirmolini? What’s that?’
‘It’s a girl’s name, a name Gull keeps on – sort of singing.’
‘Yeah?’
‘She’s that little girl Gull used to shepherd.’
‘Shepherd?’
‘When he was in Grade One at Short Street, before we went away? Remember how they had that programme where the Grade One kids looked after the Preps? She was that little dark-haired girl who came here once, to tea?’
‘Ur, right, ’ said Mr Oliver foggily. ‘Yeah, nice little kid, she was.’
Nirmolini would be quite grown up by now, thought Mrs Oliver. And – and beautiful, perhaps.
In her creepy house, Ms Dallimore was also having trouble sleeping. ‘Vladimir! Vlad! Wake up!’
Vladimir’s hooded eyes sprang open instantly. ‘Madeleine?’
‘I’ve had the most awful nightmare, Vlad!’
‘A nightmare, my love? Of what?’
She drew a long shaky breath. ‘I dreamed this old, old Indian woman was standing right there!’ Ms Dallimore’s fine green eyes were glassy with fright as she pointed to a spot beside the bed. ‘Oh, Vlad! She was a perfect crone! In the most hideous sari, all clashing colours – violet, and orange, and puce – and she was hissing at me, Vlad!’
‘Hissing, my love?’
‘Violently! Her name was Sumati.’
‘She told you her name?’
‘No! I just knew it. This was a dream, Vlad.’ Ms Dallimore glanced nervously towards the side of the bed where Sumati had appeared. ‘Or at least I hope it was!’
‘And what did this ancient oriental lady have to say?’
‘That was the worst part; she accused me!’
‘Accused you?’ For a moment Vladimir seemed uneasy. ‘Of what?’
‘Of – of being bossy to children.’
‘Ah.’ Vladimir smiled.
‘Of – cudgelling their brains!’
‘Truly?’
‘Truly. Vlad, do you think I cudgel children’s brains?’
‘Of course not. They have no brains to cudgel.’
‘But 7B are having so much difficulty with that essay you suggested. You know the one: “Who Am I?”’
‘Pfft! 7B!’ Vladimir snapped his fingers. ‘As I said, no brains.’
‘They have got brains, you know, ’ said Ms Dallimore, a little uncertainly. ‘One simply has to get them working. But oh, Vlad, that awful woman! She was so aggressive, and so convincing! She said I’d be reborn as a cockroach in the next life . . . I won’t, will I, Vlad?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Imagine being a cockroach!’ Ms Dallimore shuddered. ‘I couldn’t bear it, Vlad! All that scuttling round in the dark, hiding from people–’
It didn’t sound bad to Vladimir: he liked the dark, and he didn’t have all that much time for people.
‘What if she comes back?’ fretted Ms Dallimore. ‘That old woman? Sumati? When I fall asleep?’
‘She won’t.’ Vladimir gazed tenderly at her sweet white throat. ‘You work too hard, my lovely Madeleine, you wear yourself out with this 7B of yours. These brainless–’
‘But Vlad! I told you they do have brains! They only need–’ ‘Hush!’ Vladimir put a finger to her lips. ‘What you need, my love, is a holiday.’
‘A holiday! As if!’
‘Far away in the mountains, ’ Vladimir went on dreamily.
Ms Dallimore clasped her hands. ‘Oh, that would be so wonderful!’
‘In a castle.’
‘A castle? A castle, Vladimir?’
‘A castle, my love, ’ said Vladimir softly. ‘One day, not too far away.’
16
How Many Words?
Once again Ms Dallimore was struggling to stir a little creative enthusiasm in the citizens of 7B.
It was hard work, and beads of sweat glistened on her broad white forehead. ‘Paler, ’ the Year Eight kids still whispered. ‘She’s getting paler.’
Ms Dallimore surveyed her charges, those tender hearts and minds she had within her keeping. ‘Hearts and minds, my love?’ Vladimir was always asking. ‘Are you sure they have them?’
‘Yes, they do, ’ Ms Dallimore would answer, but as she looked around the room, something deep inside her faltered. Neema Grace had been staring out of the window for most of the period, Kate Sullivan was daydreaming. Molly Matthews was drawing a little border of tiny baby shoes around an empty page, Kerry Moss had her hand-mirror out and was scowling at her chin. And as for Blocky Stevenson and his mates down the back, Tony Prospero and Leonardo Mack–
Ms Dallimore sighed. If only they would use their minds, if only they would think, imagine, fly – why was it that anything to do with school work seemed to turn their brains to stone?
Jessaline O’Harris raised her hand.
‘Yes, Jessaline?’
‘Ms Dallimore, how long does this essay have to be?’
7B looked up from their various occupations because this was something they really wanted to know. How loooong did they have to write for?
‘As long as you like, ’ replied Ms Dallimore.
‘But, Ms Dallimore, how long? How many words?’
‘As many as you wish, ’ smiled Ms Dallimore. ‘Or as few.’
‘As few?’
‘How few is few?’ asked Leonardo Mack, and now every single soul was listening. For they did have souls, even though Vladimir kept suggesting that they mightn’t.
‘You mean, like – two hundred?’ asked Jessaline.
‘Or one hundred, ’ said Tony Prospero. ‘Or, say, fifty?’
It was like some kind of dreadful auction.
‘Fifty, Miss?’
‘Could we do just fifty, Miss?’
Ms Dallimore’s head was whirling. ‘Less if you like, ’ she said faintly.
Less?
How less was less?
‘Five words?’ ventured Leonardo.
‘One if you like, ’ gasped Ms Dallimore. ‘It could be one word – as long as you get the essence of who you are.’
Essence? wondered Blocky Stevenson and several other people. Wasn’t that to do with cakes? Cakes like Blocky’s gran made: vanilla, that was one, and then there was lemon, and coconut . . .
‘It’s what makes a cake a cake, Brian love, ’ Gran had told him, showing the tiny bottle with the red and yellow label. ‘It’s an essence which goes all the way through, that makes the cake the sort of cake it is.’
So with a person, Blocky figured slowly, essence would be what made you the sort of person you were. Which was? With him?
Well, footy for a start – no doubt abo
ut it, he was a footy person. But so were lots of other guys, and they weren’t him. So what was the essence of him? What was Blocky essence? As he pondered, Blocky suddenly remembered that night when Ivy wouldn’t lend him a pen, when she acted like he hadn’t any feelings. And how he’d felt sort of all soft and hurt. Then there was how he felt with Gran: how he loved it when she showed him how to make cakes. It was as if, inside him, there was this person who– Blocky put a hand up to his head; his scalp had gone all tingly. What was happening? What was he doing?
He was – thinking. He was thinking about stuff, stuff that had to do with homework! How come? It had never happened before. It felt unnatural. Or did it? Blocky narrowed his eyes in Ms Dallimore’s direction. It was all her fault, she was to blame, she was dangerous!
One word! thought Kerry Moss scornfully. Like – like bugger! Or two words: bugger homework! That was her all right: bugger homework! Imagine if she wrote that! Imagine Ms Dallimore’s face; the pale face which rose like a flower from her slender throat. There was a small red mark at the base of that throat which Kerry Moss knew was an ordinary love bite from that weirdo she went around with, even though the Year Eight kids said it was the mark of Dracula.
Dracula! Fat chance! scoffed Kerry. As if a teacher would be game for Dracula! And yeah, she just might write ‘Bugger Homework!’ for her essay. She was tough, wasn’t she? She came from a tough family: Dad was a softie, of course, but Mum was tough, and Danny, and even little Charlie was showing signs of it: Miss Lilibet was talking about banning him from Kindness Kreche.
She was tough, all the way through – except, if she was, then how come she couldn’t stand some of that stuff on the TV news, stuff about wars and terrorists that worried her in bed at night so that she couldn’t get to sleep and kept on whispering, ‘Please, God, please–’
And how come she loved winter so much, especially those rare frosty mornings when the grass was all crinkly with ice and she’d walk across it because she loved the sharp little pin-pricks of ice beneath her feet? ‘Kerry! Are you bloody crazy!’ Mum would yell out through the fuggy kitchen window.
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