Once Upon a Tender Time

by Carl Muller

  There would be many such trips before it was time to return to school: to Talaimannar where Sonnaboy would uncouple and shunt his engine to the rear of the train and then push it slowly onto the pier. There the ferry steamer from Danushkodi, India, would disgorge its passengers, through the Customs checkpoint into their compartments for the overnight journey to Colombo. The family would also come at times—to the Kinniya hot springs, or to Tholagatty where Rosicrucian monks made excellent table wines. At times his aunts, uncles, cousins would also come for the holidays and they brought with them the faintest breath of Colombo and all it stood for. The cousins couldn’t enjoy themselves. Marlene and Ivor, Leah’s children, were quite unmoved by outpost charm. It was necessary, even, to save Ivor from a certain watery grave when the family picnicked by the Tissa Wewa8 one day. While the adults ate hard boiled eggs and bananas and Beryl’s roast beef sandwiches and grew quite limp in the warm breeze, the boys cast their lines.

  ‘Have crocodiles here,’ Benno said.

  ‘What? Here?’ Ivor asked.

  ‘Yes. Two three days ago took a child and went.’

  Ivor, perched on a rock, busily tangling his fishing line, stared into the water. The breeze raised frenzied little waves that dashed energetically on the rock-pile bund. When Carloboy pulled in a magura,9 Ivor rose to remark on it, tread on a patch of slime and fell over, sinking so rapidly that it was barely time to fling rod and fish away and grab an ankle. Leah’s shrieks scared every crocodile for miles, it was later said with much merriment, while Marlene wrung her hands and stood up to allow the wind to raise her dress and show a bemused world her bright red knickers.

  Carloboy hung on and Benno hung low over the treacherous rock to seize another foot. Sonnaboy sped down the slope, hauled up the boy and dragged him up the bund where he collapsed and gagged and was thumped so lustily that everything that had achieved a liquid state inside him was expelled.

  ‘Enough for you?’ Marlene scolded. ‘If Carloboy hadn’t caught you . . .’

  Beryl scowled. ‘Caught? That devil? Don’t know if pushed even!’

  Yes, Anuradhapura was taking on an acid flavour. A flavour of Beryl von Bloss whose one wholehearted resentment was that here she was, at twenty-three, with four children and being quite smothered with children, led by Carloboy whose birth had seemed to open the floodgates for the others who followed, thick and fast.

  Sonnaboy handed over his son to guard Lucas. ‘Put him at the Mount Lavinia bus stand,’ he said, ‘he can go to Wellawatte. Now go carefully, you heard,’ he told Carloboy, ‘and go straight to Aunty Leah’s. No going anywhere else. And see to your books and pipelay your tennis shoes.’ (People rarely said it correct. One always ‘pipelaid’ tennis shoes—never pipeclayed them!)

  ‘Then Diana?’

  ‘Diana I’ll bring and come to Granny’s. Can’t send both alone.’

  So Carloboy chattered all the way to Colombo and Lucas went back to tell his wife, ‘My God, that boy. Bright is not the word. Telling about planets also. And can play the piano. Must ask to come and play our piano to see.’

  Lucas had two stunning daughters. Claudette and Rosemary. They giggled and Claudette said, ‘Must see him loafing all over. Must be telling fibs. He to play this?’ But they did call him during the August holidays and Carloboy played and Claudette was enchanted and Carloboy said he was in love with her and took to running over every day to meet her until Mrs Lucas took Claudette by the ear and screamed at the boy. ‘You wait, I’ll come and tell your father!’ and Carloboy ran out to stand by the gate and catcall and sing, ‘Tell, tell and go to hell!’

  Oh, he was at that age—that age when falling in love was as easy as falling, like Ivor, into the wewa. He was in love with cousin Marlene, with Sheilagh Mortimer, with Yvette Raux, with Diedrie Ratnayake, with cousin Shirley da Brea and another cousin Elise da Brea. Maureen Koch was another and Thelma Jobz yet another. They all blazed like comets for a week, a month, then were forgotten. Drena Swan held him for a while but wasn’t sister Yolande more promising? And this time there was no Sonnaboy to whale the tar out of him.

  He arrived, quite breathless, at Leah’s and was welcomed with his aunt’s half-smile and a disparaging sound from Uncle George. He was shown the store room with its tiny wall cupboard and the bed and an old table at which he could sit and study. The bathroom was dark and dingy with large moisture sores on the walls. His uncle Dunnyboy was there, too, visiting it was said, while Leah prayed silently he would go. Dunnyboy stayed, however, and was given a mat and pillow and shown the store room floor. ‘Uncle Dunnyboy also will sleep here today,’ Aunty Leah said, and Carloboy, hiding his catapult under his mattress, nodded and paid scant head.

  It was a shock to find his uncle, quite naked, clasping him urgently that night, dragging down his short pyjamas. ‘Uncle,’ he breathed, ‘what?’

  ‘Wait quiet,’ Dunnyboy said in his half-whine, gripping him thrusting against him. Carloboy felt a big penis press urgently against his buttocks, then settle between his thighs. He tried to fight against it but the man was strong and hard arms pinned him while large fingers gripped his cock and shook it, willing it to grow hard. There was no effusion. Just that big organ creasing through his thighs and the prickles of the old man’s chin on the back of his neck and those insinuating fingers working back and forth. Dunnyboy heaved, thrusting him against the wall and ceased, breathing heavily and Carloboy felt a sudden jerk within him and a thick salve that shot out of him. The fingers scooped at it, spread it along his penis and under his testicles. Carloboy lay tight-lipped in the darkness. He had never felt like this before—that blinding sensation of release, that fierce ejaculation that seemed to propel his very spirit into his uncle’s gnarled hand. And the feeling. Yes, that feeling of being drawn like a bow which suddenly, blindingly released an arrow from deep inside him, an arrow of sunfire and silk. He found he was breathing heavily and his uncle still clutched him, rubbed him, and squeezed him. ‘I want to do pippie,’ he whispered.

  ‘Then go and come.’ And the man waited and embraced him again and it was towards morning when Carloboy ejaculated yet again and, unheeding allowed Dunnyboy to keep slapping against him until he heard the sound of tea cups and running water and knew that Leah was up and it was morning. Dunny went to his mat, pulled up his baggy trousers and lay there. Within minutes he was asleep. Carloboy stared at his rumpled sheet, a few grey hairs on his pillow, ran a finger along his penis. The stickiness had dried. He trotted to the bathroom, dragging his towel.

  ‘What, child, so early you’re bathing. Hurry up and come, right? Now George will come to wash and go to work,’ Leah said.

  Yes, he thought, it is all too right. I’m in Colombo. Here it is like this. Not like Anuradhapura. And under the shower he recaptured that tremendous sensation of orgiastic wonder, masturbating with a sense of dire urgency while George de Mello yelled to him to hurry up and come out. He did, towel around him, and Leah said, ‘Didn’t wipe your head properly, no? Go to the room and clean and put the towel on the line to dry.’ Dunnyboy slept on. Hurriedly he dressed and mocked himself in the mirror and admired the puff of hair he made on his head. It was the style of the times and boys would remark of another, ‘How the puff? Like Elvis Presley, no?’ Comb the hair back, then push it forward from the centre of the head to form a rise over the forehead. That was how it was done.

  ‘Wear your home clothes,’ Leah would call, ‘and don’t go anywhere, you hear? Your tea is on the table.’

  Breakfast was on an old table in the rear veranda and all other meals too. The large dining table was only used when there were visitors or on special days. Marlene would whine constantly. She battled her father all the time, for George was the mingiest of men and railed incessantly when called on to fork out.

  ‘So what, Daddy, told to bring five rupees for the class trip to the Museum. From last week I’m asking,’

  George would scowl. ‘Your mother hasn’t five rupees to give? Coming to worry me.’

/>   ‘So Mummy only told to ask you.’

  ‘Museum. Damn nonsense. What for going to the Museum. Because nuns don’t know that trying to take and go to show. And so much? Go in a bus and come asking five rupees?’

  Marlene stamps a tennis-shoed foot. ‘You want me to go and ask all that. What they are asking I told.’

  George’s scowl deepens. He goes to his almirah and unlocks it. That almirah is the repository of a great deal of pilfered goods, smuggled out of the port of Colombo. Nobody really knew what George squirrelled away and why. He came home with parcels of this, that, or the other effectively disguised in heavy wrapping, locked the contraband in and there it stayed.

  His keys, on a strong chain, are tied with pyjama cord around his waist. Marlene follows and is waved away. ‘You go and wait. I’ll see if have and give. But don’t come every time to ask like this. Can see the price of things these days,’ and he extracts a five-rupee note, crackles it between his bony fingers to make sure it is just one and grudgingly gives it to Marlene.

  George liked to ‘dole out.’ Leah would place a hand against her cheek. ‘What is this? Only twenty rupees. To buy meat and vegetables and kerosene oil and coconut oil enough? Kitchen soap also and dhoby woman will come tomorrow.’

  ‘So then how much?’

  ‘Give about another twenty.’

  ‘You’re mad, men? This way if going to spend, how to manage?’

  ‘Spending thamai, spending on whom? Five mouths to feed, no?’

  ‘So anyway must be careful. If go to spend like this where we will end up? Just think and see. Here, have ‘nother ten. See if you can manage. In the port using that ball soap to clean. I’ll bring and come big lump. No harm if use instead of this bar soap.’ It was then that Carloboy talked Ivor into raiding his father’s almirah . . . and that scheme, pretty unreal à la Carloboy, nearly introduced Uncle George to the joys of a first heart attack!

  It was novel, to say the least. All they had to do was lift off the top board which was of very heavy wood. That was a bit of a struggle and Ivor smashed a thumb and Carloboy nearly fell off the dining room chair on which he perched. Cautiously, and with much huffing, they slid the board away and peered in. It was the long empty section where George hung his Christmas suit. Below, piled quarter of the way up were all manner of stuffed bags, parcels, boxes and tins, the latter making the boys’ eyes sparkle. ‘Cadbury’s Roses!’ Carloboy hissed, ‘and Bluebird toffees! Sha! Should have had a fishing rod . . . I’ll tell you, you get in and pass to me.’

  Ivor looked doubtful.

  ‘You’re thinner, men, and not so heavy. Have to climb out also, no? If I try whole side may come out.’

  A reasonable argument . . . So Ivor climbed, banged his knee and gingerly lowered himself into the contraption.

  ‘You pass out the tins. I’ll take,’ and a large tin of Cadbury’s Roses hove into view. Carloboy placed it reverently on the floor.

  ‘These boxes,’ Ivor said, husky with excitement.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m trampling, all getting smashed. Don’t know what have inside even.’

  ‘Don’t trample them. Where? Give some more!’

  Leah and Marlene had told the boys, ‘Going to Claassens close by. You two sit and play quietly.’ One should never ask boys to sit and play quietly on a Saturday morning. And then Carloboy heard his aunt come in and Marlene saying, ‘Why you told to put lace round the hem I don’t know—’ obviously referring to a dress Mrs Claassen hoped to sew for the girl.

  Carloboy whipped back the big board, kicked the tin of Roses under the bed and pushed the two chairs out of the way. ‘Stay quiet inside,’ he said, ‘don’t make a noise. Try to sit or something.’

  Ivor gave a dismal ‘ooohw’ and Carloboy moved the chairs.

  ‘Where, child, taking the chairs and going? Where is Ivor?’

  ‘Must be plucking mangoes in the back.’

  ‘Go and tell to come inside. Throwing sticks and eating green mangoes. Tell to come in at once.’

  Carloboy shrugged and went, shinned up the mango tree and pondered his next move. Of course, Ivor could suffocate and there would be a funeral and he hadn’t a black tie even, but sundry things like that could be remedied. Leah busied herself in the kitchen and Marlene lolled in the hall to read (a great reader, was Marlene) and it was only when lunch was served that Leah began to regard her husband’s almirah with deep suspicion. She told Marlene, ‘Come here child and see. Funny noises inside. God knows if rats have got in even.’

  Marlene paid scant regard. But when Ivor shifted and there was that distinct sound of a small wooden thump and crumpling cardboard and the rustle of paper, Leah gave a little yelp and retreated to the safety of the rear veranda. ‘Let eat anything inside,’ she muttered. ‘Bringing God knows what and putting. Won’t even tell what.’

  Ivor, too, seemed to have vanished—a fact which Carloboy gave valiant explanations for. He’s in the next garden . . . he’s playing cricket. . . calling, calling won’t come. And then, it being Saturday, George came to lunch and was quite disturbed at the way his almirah door creaked and swung loosely open which was only to be expected since the heavy top board, quickly shoved back to give an appearance of being as normal as ever, was not notched in place. ‘Whole almirah is shaking,’ George growled, must have knocked it or something. Leah came up. ‘Shaking not, rats full inside. Noises can hear up to the kitchen and—’

  ‘My God!’

  George reeled back, purpling gloriously. Ivor’s head was buried behind the Christmas suit. But his legs and midsection were there and his feet were buried in a mess of mangled parcels.

  Leah shrieked, Marlene ran in, George sat on the bed gasping and outside, Carloboy reached the highest branch of the mango tree where he perched and decided that all the uncles in the world would never get him down.

  Ivor emerged and was immediately cradled by Leah and George kept imitating a dying puffer fish and kept saying, ‘Never in all my born,’ in a voice that would have delighted any tragedian. Ivor snivelled, said Carloboy put him in and where, demanded Leah, was that devil?

  ‘Don’t give to eat!’ George roared and Ivor was hauled to the kitchen and Leah shouted, ‘What for going to beat? Not his fault, no?’ and fond mother that she was, firmly believed that her son had been seized and bodily thrust into the almirah, although how this had been done she couldn’t imagine.

  Marlene spotted Carloboy and said, ‘You come down, you’ll get it.’ But he came down and slunk into his room and listened to a long sermon and the threat of a letter (and bill for damages) to his father: ‘And if come and skin you even, not going to lift a finger, did you hear!’

  Sonnaboy laughed. ‘Damn good for the bugger,’ he chortled. ‘Robbing from the port and bringing. What, men, a slab of chocolates even won’t give the children. Only bringing boxes and boxes and locking up.’

  Beryl was peeved. ‘And if Leah won’t keep, then what? Write and tell to behave, men. Tell that Father Sebastian even to catch and talk to him.’

  Sonnaboy said it was a good idea. ‘That St Lawrence’s has a club for boys, no?’

  Beryl said she didn’t know and added, ‘Who knows if. going to church even? Who’s going to see? Just dancing the devil. That’s all he knows to do.’

  So Sonnaboy went to Millicent, Beryl’s spinster sister and a ‘church pillar’, as everyone called her and Millie said that Carloboy needed to be ‘channelled’ and how can anyone blame a boy who had no family around him. ‘Lot of things he can do if he likes,’ she said. ‘Can be an altar boy also. He comes here in the evenings sometimes. I’ll catch and talk to him.’

  Sonnaboy was relieved. ‘One thing, likes to learn things. And to put on uniforms and all. Was a wolf cub and scout and very proud when became sixer leader. That all gave up when went to Anuradhapura. Might like to serve at Mass.’

  ‘I’ll talk and see, you don’t worry,’ and Millie gave Carloboy Lives of the Martyrs and said, ‘read and see how e
ven boys and girls died for the Church. If you also be good and strong you will also be not afraid to say you are a Catholic to anybody. How people suffered those days. Burnt them, killed them, gave to the lions to eat but they were not afraid. Even boys like you. And today all are saints. You go and read. I’ll get some more books like this. You see what a big thing it is to be good and listen to God and keep the Commandments and all. So close, why you cannot come for daily mass? After mass you can come and have some breakfast here. Early morning five-thirty mass you come and see. Only few people and no sermon or anything. I’ll tell Father Sebastian you like to be an altar boy. Learn the prayers in Latin only. You like?’

  Carloboy leafed through the book. Why, this was another world entirely. He nodded and ran off—to his storeroom bed where he devoured the book and gave way to a riot of images that danced in his mind. Leah was startled to find a neatly-dressed Carloboy stealing out of the house at five a.m. She clattered back to bed where she prodded George in the ribs (an easy thing, that, since the man was, as far as she knew, all ribs).

  ‘Garrumph,’ said George.

  ‘Early morning went to church!’

  ‘Growwxk!’

  ‘You’re up?’

  ‘Up I am. How to sleep with you coming and waking? What church? Who?’

  ‘Said going to church and went. Myee, child, like a miracle, no?’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense, men. Look at the time!’

  A little while later George understood that Carloboy had actually gone for morning mass and snorted uncharitably.

  ‘You went to church?’ he asked Carloboy unnecessarily.