Once Upon a Tender Time

by Carl Muller

  ‘So I’ll be.’

  ‘And if the Bishop says no war. You stay in the church and say mass and keep quiet?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That’s the trouble. Priests have to be obedient. Whatever the Bishop tells they must do. And did God tell you to be a priest?’

  The boy pondered. ‘I don’t know. Even if telling how do I know?’

  The priest leaned forward. ‘You know, sometimes the devil also comes and puts ideas like this. Become a priest, he tells. And you know why? Because he knows you will be a bad priest. So that is the way the devil is playing tricks.’

  Sonnaboy grunted. ‘What to priest! Shooting birds, hooting masters, tormenting his aunty, getting complaints from everywhere. Got together with the cousin and robbed the uncle’s almirah also.’

  ‘How if all this is a trick? Trick of the devil? You go and become a priest and if you are not good biggest shame is for you, no?’

  Suddenly Carloboy found it all too much. All his earnest attempts at being good were now making him the devil’s plaything. It was all beginning to get beyond schoolboy comprehension. There were more practical things to consider: (a) a bad end of term report with the most charitable remark being ‘can study but does not apply himself’; (b) that tomorrow he would be in Anuradhapura and (c) that if his luck held, a tin of Cadbury’s Roses still skulked under the bed and which he had completely forgotten about in the stirring events of the moment. This had to be retrieved and surreptitiously packed away. He would give the chocolates to his mummy, he thought, and maybe the holidays would be happier.

  George and Leah wanted to do a little jig. They waved their charge away with relief writ in wood type capital letters on their faces. Sonnaboy stopped at Florrie da Brea’s to pick up Diana. ‘You two sit in the brake van and come,’ he said. ‘Sit here until I bring the train to the platform. And don’t run to the edge, you heard? Watch your bags and wait.’

  Carloboy pouted. ‘Because of you have to go with the guard. Otherwise Daddy will take me in the engine.’

  Diana tossed her head. ‘So you go if you want. As if I can’t go alone.’

  ‘Huh! You alone? Why do you think I have to go with you?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’re a girl, that’s why?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So alone you want to go with the guard? If catch and do something to you? As if you don’t know.’

  Diana shuddered. ‘You wait I’ll tell Mummy what you said. Always talking things like this.’

  ‘Big people you must be careful, men. Because you’re small I’m telling you. You don’t know these big people. “Hullo son,” they say and buy and give toffees and very nice. You can see, no, that Uncle Clarence next to Aunty Anna’s. When coming to talk always catching you and putting on the lap. And what did Aunty Anna say, “Don’t go, child, near even when call,” and telling to go to the room. You thought I did not notice?’

  All this was pretty unreal to Diana who was only ten, still wet her bed and looked for sympathy wherever it was manifest. She protested weakly that Uncle Clarence was nice. Very black, but nice.

  ‘That’s all you know. I’m bigger so I must look after you. That is why I must also be in the van. To see to you. Only thing I’m telling don’t go too much with big people. Daddy an’ Mummy never mind, but anybody else be careful. Uncles also don’t know what will do.’

  Diana sniffed. She decided that her brother was becoming worse with each passing day. Also, she couldn’t believe a word of all this, ‘Everybody?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Priests also? And Uncle Edema next door and everybody.’

  ‘Yes, and Hitler also and Churchill and everybody.’

  ‘Pooh! Talking nonsense. Just trying to show off.’

  ‘You wait and see will you. Don’t come running to tell if anything happens. I don’t care. Let them catch and do anything. Then you’ll know what I said is true.’

  Sonnaboy strode up. ‘Come go. Had to bring to the other platform.’

  And long minutes later, after Diana had been taken to the Ladies and guard Francke had beamed and said, ‘So, holidays, eh? Here, put the bags in that corner,’ and Sonnaboy went to the big, seething locomotive, the stationmaster sounded his whistle and Francke blew his and waggled his green flag and they began to edge away.

  ‘Pukka driver your daddy,’ Francke said, ‘like a baby takes the engine. Not a jerk or anything. Only thing won’t reach till midnight. If sleepy or anything tell, right? I’ll put in a first class to have a nap.’

  ‘Uncle, this is KKS mail, no?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Don’t know if told Mummy to keep dinner, also.’

  Francke grinned. ‘You go and raid the kitchen. Anyway, at Maho have to wait for a crossing. Daddy will give you something to eat in the canteen.’

  And Daddy did, of course, and Beryl had sandwiches and tea and Carloboy gave her the purloined Roses and told how Ivor was stuck in the almirah and everybody laughed and the beds were ready. Outside an owl said ko-ko-kouee, ko-ko-kouee very plaintively and a big moon was doing business very low in the sky. Carloboy lay awake, face turned to the door leading to the balcony. The curtain moved lazily. It was hot and even the fan spun warm air against his face. He slipped to the cooler cement floor and lay there, sans shirt, waiting for his eyelids to shut out the world.

  Chapter Twelve

  Bertram de Sella was a railway Foreman Plate Layer and he lived in a small house in Kandy next to a girl’s school. It skulked behind a tall screen of wild hibiscus, facing the Peradeniya Road and in it lived Betram, his homely wife Agnes, their two sons Maurius and Quinny and three very attractive daughters Carmen, Maureen and Audrey. In distant Anuradhapura lived a bachelor relation who was also an F.P.L. and who was known throughout that sacred city as ‘Homo’ Direcksze.1

  ‘A bloody boy king,’ Sonnaboy would say, but Direcksze was accepted as one who, whatever his quirks ‘wouldn’t shit on his doorstep,’ which was the homespun way of saying that the man pursued his deviations on those outside the society he moved in and thus, could be trusted far enough. The family knew this too. However depraved the man was, he selected his victims from ruder circles—village boys, servant boys, the chance encounters of boys who came to holiday with friends and who would consider such brief encounters as more or less an occupational hazard of living away from home and something to be chalked up as a blur of unpleasant experience.

  Which was why Bertram had no fears about sending his children to holiday with Direcksze in Anuradhapura. For one thing, the girls would be very safe since Direcksze had no time for girls whatsoever. And the two boys of twelve and ten were never looked upon as objects of the man’s gratification. They were, after all, family.

  Carloboy, rising early and shooting downstairs to race into the garden and streak through the gate, stood, curious at the little band of people, sling bags on shoulders, carrying suitcases, coming in a noisy wave past the pilgrim’s rest. He grinned and said ‘Hullo’ and the boys grinned and Quinny said, ‘Where’s your shirt?’

  ‘Here,’ said Maureen, ‘Direcksze’s is number 42, no?’

  ‘You’re going there?’

  ‘Yes. You know the house?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll show you.’

  ‘You’re coming like that?’ Quinny asked.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Without the shirt even.’

  ‘So what’s the harm?’ He looked at Audrey, a beautiful eleven-year-old with a donkey fringe of dark hair and expressive eyes. The girl coloured visibly.

  ‘Came for the holidays?’ he asked unnecessarily.

  ‘Yes,’ said Maurius. ‘Damn, these bags are heavy.’

  Carloboy was moving as in a dream. ‘Here,’ he told Audrey, ‘I’ll take your bag,’ and he did and he caught the girl’s eye with the corner of his and she bent her head quickly. There was such a quicksilver quality about it all. Inside him, a rhapsody seemed to swell and keep bursting in ribbons of song. />
  ‘What’s your name?’ he breathed in the confusion of the welcome.

  ‘Audrey,’ she said.

  Carloboy put down her bag. ‘I’ll put a shirt and come,’ he said and she said, ‘yes,’ and he ran, oh how he ran, rushing indoors to look swiftly in the mirror, rush to the bathroom, wash, scrub and wonder why the heat of his exertions made the sweat bead out on his forehead even after he had washed. Sanity prevailed. He sat on the edge of the large cement tank, allowed himself a breather, then washed again, towelled and ran upstairs to change. Soon, in a light blue shirt and well-starched trousers, and even a pair of tennis shoes, he sauntered out while Beryl, quite overcome, demanded, ‘Where are you going, good trousers and all. Hoppers are still on the table.’

  Carloboy said, ‘I’ll eat a little later. Going up the road a little.’ He was wise enough to leave out mention of Direcksze. Despite all evidence to the contrary, railway town mothers did not encourage their sons paying the man visits. Beryl hmmmed and went indoors. ‘Started now, the dance,’ she muttered, ‘never thought of bringing leaves for the rabbits.’ But she was intrigued to see her son, a large gunny sack of leaves slung over his shoulder, lead in three strange children, through the house, past the rear veranda, into the yard where they sat among the rabbits and Carloboy took up a kicking bundle of black and white and gave it to a girl who held it close and stroked it between the ears and smiled sweetly.

  ‘From where did you get the gunny?’ Beryl asked, saying ‘hullo’ to the children.

  ‘From Direcksze’s. They have come to stay there for the holidays. We went and got leaves.’

  ‘Still you didn’t eat. There have extra hoppers also. All go and eat. You like that rabbit?’

  Audrey smiled. Carloboy blushed—yes, actually blushed, and Beryl noticed and said nothing. Yes, it would be a peaceful holiday, she hoped. Put a girl into a boy’s life and he will be on his best behaviour, or at least, he will try!

  Of course, the rest of the gang were quite furious. Benno was quick to condemn. ‘How the bugger? Won’t even come to go fishing or anything. Whole time in that house. Going with them. That day I asked where and telling going to show the place. What to show? Trees and thorns?’

  ‘An’ talking to that girl. Asked who and telling that’s not my business. Then asking if can give the pony to ride.’

  ‘You gave?’

  ‘Mad? Said can’t. For him to take and go. Next time will say want to teach those fellows to ride. Who are those fellows? Came from where?’

  ‘If you ask me, going behind that girl.’

  So the jilted boys tried to make Carloboy uncomfortable and there were catcalls from the protection of fences and things like ‘Hoo! Audrey!’ (somehow they had found out the girl’s name) and even more unkind remarks like, ‘You’re going to Homo’s house to give your back to him?’ and the tussles became frantic with fists, sticks, even the poles used to push water barrels being used.

  Within a week a goodly crop of lumps, bumps, bruises and contusions were spread pretty evenly among the juvenile male population with the cream reserved for the Berenger boy who had to have stitches in his foot because, in the hurly burly he had leaped aside and tread on a broken bottle. Audrey, bless her, recognized that a lot of the skirmishes were due to her hold on this boy. She smiled wisely and held his hand. ‘I love you also,’ she said simply and that was enough.

  Peace came eventually. Carloboy, although with no training to be any sort of diplomat, just went among the gang and said how. They scowled, each in his own way. ‘So what are you fellows doing?’

  ‘Nothing. You have other things to do, no?’

  ‘Yes. And one day I’m going to marry her. She also loves me. She told me. So what’s the harm?’

  The conversation became excited in nature. There was much ribbing and joshing but Carloboy was special now. He had a girl! ‘So what are you doing tomorrow?’ Benno asked.

  ‘Nothing. They are all going to Mihintale. Going by car. Will come in the evening.’

  ‘So you won’t go?’

  Asked me to come also but no room, men. All bundled up inside. But Homo said will take only Maurius and Quinny and Audrey and me to Kekirawa. Taking his gun also to shoot some korawakkas.2 Will give us also to shoot. Anyway I’m taking my airgun also and ‘pult.’

  ‘Nothing like the ‘pult, men. By the time taking aim and all we can kill two birds with the ‘pult.’

  Everyone agreed.

  ‘So come go to the Tissa Wewa tomorrow. Good time for fishing now.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Right? Everybody?’

  And all said right and all was right again which was a mercy since the ‘internecine warfare’ was getting on every railwayman’s nerves.

  It’s a peculiar thing about holidays. They begin with a yawn. Days are slow, each hour dawdling along like a slow moving ice-cream van. Half way through Time seems to wake up, does twenty push-ups and begins to canter. Carloboy, sobered in love and desperately dismissing all thoughts of parting, was pained deeply. Elder sisters Maureen and Carmen ribbed him, but gently, and seemed to accept that their little sister (who had grown up a year ago and had small rounded breasts) liked this boy and was happy in his company. Of course, they frowned when he said ‘bloody’ and ‘damn’ and said he spoke too many bad words, but Audrey must have seen more in him. Yes, she said, she loved him very much, and they walked to the banks of the Malwatte river and Carloboy said, ‘Let’s cross to the other side. The water is very low today,’ and slippers in hand they stepped into the chocolate-green water which had marzipan flecks of sun in its slow roll onwards.

  ‘My dress will get wet,’ Audrey squealed, ‘here, hold my slippers, ooh, it’s slippery on these rocks,’ and Carloboy, surefooted as a goat, caught her hand, then held her very close and they stood together, looking into each other’s eyes in the middle of the river.

  ‘I love you,’ he said simply and she dimpled and her dark eyelashes fell, screening her eyes. All she said was ‘yes’ but she allowed him to hold her and then gently touched his face. Her fingers brushed his lips and suddenly he had dropped the slippers and kissed her fingers and she whispered, ‘Always?’

  He put an arm around her. ‘What?’

  ‘Always you’ll love me?’

  He nodded and she made a soft sound, a dove-like murmur. ‘I love you also . . . always,’ and he kissed her cheek and then, for the first time, found his lips against a girl’s lips. It hadn’t been easy, he thought later, hugging himself in a dreamy daze. Her nose and his nose seemed to get in the way, but they kissed and kissed again and drank deep at each others lips and the water soaked the hem of her dress and the legs of his trousers. Far down the river two pairs of rubber slippers floated merrily away. They didn’t give this a thought, even when barefooted they roamed the banks, pausing ever so often to kiss, to touch each other, to seek out promises, and as they came together he felt her small breasts against him and he knew that he was hard too, and surely she could feel him against her. He was surprised and shy to notice the patch of wetness on his trousers. She saw and said nothing, then with the wisdom of the girl-woman gently took his hand.

  ‘No one has touched me like this before,’ she said. ‘Only you. Only you I’ll allow,’ and they lay together under a big tree, his hand nestled in her, and they kissed and kissed and they both wanted desperately to tell the world to stay still.

  They never came to the river again. Maureen, more mother-henny, declared that they should never have gone wading and losing slippers and all that sort of thing. Also, who asked them to go off alone like that? Maurius and Quinny were looking all over! And suddenly Time began a madcap gallop and it was devastating to learn that the de Sellas were returning to Kandy. Everything blurred into an awful sense of misery, of an ache that churned from the pit of the stomach to the chest and then probed the mind with spaghetti fingers. Carloboy went to the platform, hung at the carriage window, touching her fingers, willing her to stay. But she was going. A lo
ng journey, too. All the way to Polgahawela. Then change trains for Kandy. Her face, her dark hair, her bright eyes fixed on him. As the train moved out, he ran as far as the platform took him, and then her face looked out and a hand waved and he stood, watching, mixed in a whirl of empty wind. The face stayed out, grew smaller, more indistinct, a tiny brown-black dot. Carloboy stood. The train had gone and suddenly Anuradhapura was the loneliest, most desolate place on earth.

  He went home with a sense of deep dejection. His holiday, too, was coming to an end. ‘Come and see me,’ Audrey had pleaded, and he had promised, as blindly and as earnestly as all lovers do. In the veranda that evening there was much talk about the war. What did he care about war? He strolled past Direcksze’s bungalow, then went to the river—their river, where they had stood, locked in that first starry kiss. ‘I must go to Kandy,’ he muttered. An iguana slunk in the watergrass, its long tail twisting as it clumped in an ungainly fashion. He touched his pocket and thought, ‘Forgot to bring my ‘pult.’ It had to be true love! He had even forgotten his catapult!

  In many Burgher homes—and the homes of all other nationalities for that matter—the Americans were the heroes and America the custodian of the most terrible weapon of the age. Even with a sort of terrible lovesickness which swamped him, Carloboy was as agog at the war news, the war stories, as anyone else. The war comics flooding out of America were food and drink to thousands of starry-eyed boys who revelled in the exploits of that new breed of men who were the famous Carrier pilots and struck deadly blows at enemy bases after launching from aircraft carriers.

  ‘Big, men . . . mus’ be like football ground, no, the deck?’ Sonnaboy would say and driver Edema would whistle and say, ‘Such huge things how going in the sea even can’t think.’ After a bottle of arrack the carriers got bigger, naturally, and the fighter bombers they carried increased dramatically.

  There was much technical (and rapidly slurred) talk about Landing Signals Officers and the Hellcats and how they had their own private call signs and this worrisome business of ‘controlled’ crashes.