The Flower Boy

by Karen Roberts

  When the final bell rang, Rose-Lizzie quietly began gathering her books together, close to tears because of Chandi’s absence and now this strange unkind behavior from her classmates.

  Rose-Lizzie had always been a popular girl because she was friendly and interesting. She was fun to be around because she always knew so many things and invented so many new games. It was Rose-Lizzie who had taught the class to play éllé, shown them how to imitate the calls of various birds and first introduced them to cloud games, where you had to watch the white scuddy clouds and try and find shapes in them.

  “Elizabeth.”

  At first, Mrs. Wilson’s voice didn’t penetrate the thick layer of hurt that surrounded her.

  “Elizabeth.” The sharpness of the tone caught Rose-Lizzie by surprise. She dropped two of the books she’d been holding, causing a few of the stragglers to snigger.

  “Yes, Mrs. Wilson,” she said, flushing deeply.

  “Would you stay back a few minutes? I want a word with you.” Usually, requests of this kind were accompanied by ingratiating smiles, because they usually involved some help or a donation from wealthy Glencairn.

  Today, however, there was no smile, ingratiating or otherwise. Just drawn-together eyebrows and pursed lips.

  She obediently sat and waited. A few children tried to linger, hoping to hear whatever it was that Mrs. Wilson had to say, but one frown from her sent them speedily on their way. Finally the classroom was empty except for the two of them.

  “Elizabeth, I have been hearing things,” Mrs. Wilson said gravely.

  “Things?” Rose-Lizzie’s confusion increased by the moment. Today was a nightmare and apparently it wasn’t time to wake up yet.

  “About your association with a native boy.”

  “Assocation?” she echoed dimly.

  “Yes, association,” snapped Mrs. Wilson, beginning to lose her temper. She knew Elizabeth to be a precocious child and didn’t doubt for a minute that this confusion was only an act to annoy her. “The children have been telling me that you told them your best friend was a native boy. Your servant’s son,” she stated, wrinkling her thin nose in disgust.

  “Chandi,” said Rose-Lizzie slowly, finally beginning to understand.

  “Whatever his name is. I am shocked that your father allows this friendship. If what you’ve been saying is true,” she said.

  Rose-Lizzie flushed beet red now, her temper rising. Untruths were not part of her makeup, not even small ones, and she was deeply offended by the implication.

  “Of course it’s true,” she said coldly. “I don’t tell lies.”

  “Well, more the shame,” Mrs. Wilson said grimly. “What you do at home is your business, but I will thank you not to mention it in my classroom. I don’t want the other children spoiled or to have other parents complaining.”

  Rose-Lizzie stared at her. “I’ve done nothing wrong,” she declared steadily, “But if you think so, I’ll be happy to bring my father here so you can talk to him yourself.” Her blue eyes remained fixed on Mrs. Wilson’s suddenly shifty ones.

  “No, no, that won’t be necessary,” she said hastily, aware that she was being thrown a gauntlet and unwilling to pick it up. Glencairn was important and John Buckwater was generous to the school. “Now we’ll just forget all of this and continue as we did before. If your father thinks it’s all right, then I’m sure he’s right, dear,” she said, and began gathering her papers together.

  This conversation hadn’t gone at all the way she had planned it, and she saw a hasty retreat as her only safe option. She straightened up and found Rose-Lizzie still looking at her. “That’s all, dear,” she said, smiling weakly.

  Rose-Lizzie turned and walked out without another word.

  Outside, a little knot of children waited for her, hoping to see tearstains and possibly even a few stripes from a ruler. Instead they saw her marching out with her head held high, and they took a few steps backward.

  She stopped in front of them. “You’re all a bunch of stupid snobs and you deserve each other,” she said witheringly to them, and walked away.

  They stood and stared after her.

  Halfway back to the bungalow, the tears came. They were tears of rage that fell so hard they blurred her vision. She sank down on the banks of the oya and wept at the hypocrisy and the injustice of it all.

  Her logic told her that she was not wrong and that they were small-minded snobs, but her tears were also for herself. She cursed herself for being stupid enough to tell them about Chandi, because they didn’t deserve to know.

  Now she wept because she had missed him, because he had gone without telling her, because she was so lonely.

  When her tears were finally spent, she cupped her hands like Chandi had shown her, collected water in them and splashed it over her hot face. Then she drank some, throwing her head back to let it slide soothingly down her throat, which was scratchy from crying.

  SHE WEPT AGAIN as she told her father about what had happened, and he smoothed her hair back gently and thought savagely how happy he would be if he never saw one of those snotty-nosed brats again.

  He murmured comforting words while he planned a fate far worse than death for Mrs. Wilson. He tenderly wiped her face and vowed never to give the school another penny for as long as it stood.

  She lifted her tear-streaked face up to him. “Daddy, why are people like that? They were so awful.”

  “I don’t know, pumpkin,” he replied gravely. “I wish I did. But remember something: no one is better or lesser because they have more money or less, or because they’re black or white. What makes us better or lesser is what’s in here,” pointing to his heart, “and here,” pointing to his head.

  She looked unsmilingly at him. “You should have seen their faces when I said he was Premawathi’s son,” she said, her eyes clouding at the memory.

  He grimaced. “I can imagine,” he said wryly.

  “Daddy, Premawathi is so good,” she said. “Why did they act as if she were some kind of—of bad person?”

  “Darling,” he said, “Premawathi is a good woman and Chandi is a good boy. He is far better behaved than some of those spoiled children in your school. So ignore them. Ignore them all. I have.” He muttered the last to himself, but she heard.

  “Why? Did they say something to you too?” she asked.

  He smiled with an effort. “No, of course not,” he said reassuringly. “Would anyone say anything bad to your big strong daddy?” he growled, trying to tease her out of her depression.

  It worked, for she giggled. “No they wouldn’t, would they,” she said and nestled comfortably into his chest.

  But everything had changed. School was not the same anymore, and although the incident had made Rose-Lizzie famous and therefore desirable as a friend once again, she kept her distance. The teachers were cloyingly sweet and irritatingly ingratiating.

  But Rose-Lizzie had a formidable memory. And so did John.

  The cash contributions he made regularly to the school stopped abruptly and, although he intended resuming them in the future, he also fully intended to let them sweat a little.

  Rose-Lizzie never told Chandi about the incident at school.

  ALL THIS HADN’T affected Anne, who was now fifteen and rapidly nearing the age when she would have to go back to England to continue her studies. While she liked learning, she was loath to leave her father and Glencairn, for she knew that when she returned to England, it would be to live with her mother.

  Jonathan had come to visit once a few years ago, and had looked unhappy and withdrawn. Even Rose-Lizzie failed to charm him as she used to when she was younger.

  Jonathan seemed to dislike England but didn’t fit into Glencairn either, and had slouched around the house and gardens, seeming to prefer his own company to that of his sisters. He spurned all his father’s attempts to build some kind of a relationship with him, to take him hunting and hiking, and rejected all offers of friendship.

  The relief they
all felt when he finally left was very similar to that which was felt when Elsie went.

  In the first year following Elsie’s departure, a letter came once a month addressed to the Misses Buckwater. The pale pink envelope with its scalloped edge and dainty rounded handwriting would be grubby and sweat-stained from the postman’s hands, but inside it smelled faintly of lavender, or was it roses? The letters were perfunctory, and usually inquired after their health, hoped they were doing well in school, had breathless accounts of how wonderful England was, and ended with love and kisses from their darling mama.

  They dutifully replied and told her they were well and doing fine in school and how wonderful Glencairn was, and ended with love from her daughters.

  After about a year, the letters got shorter, and the time between their arrivals longer, and eventually they stopped altogether.

  Neither Anne nor Rose-Lizzie missed them, since they had never actually looked forward to them in the first place.

  Now, as the possibility of returning to England reared its ugly head, Anne concentrated on making herself indispensable to her father, rotating menus, organizing staff Christmas parties and visiting the factory every so often to speak with the female pickers and hear their problems. Like Rose-Lizzie, she spoke passable Sinhalese, but unlike Rose-Lizzie, she also spoke passable Tamil.

  Even though she was not yet sixteen, she was a kind and gracious mistress, and was liked and respected by the estate staff. Already, Premawathi and the rest of the bungalow staff called her Podi Nona, little lady, and looked to her to resolve the household problems that cropped up every now and then.

  Anne had already broached the subject of a private tutor to John, who had initially dismissed the idea, because it was too expensive and also because good private tutors were rare. After repeated entreaties, he had promised to consider it.

  John personally didn’t like the idea of having a stranger living at Glencairn, but the thought of Anne returning to England, living with Elsie and perhaps becoming like her was even less palatable.

  Three months before Anne was due to sit for her final examination, John placed an advertisement in both the local Colombo papers and also in the London papers for a qualified British private tutor. It said candidates had to be prepared to reside at a “bungalow in the mountains” and spoke about the “salubrious climate” of Nuwara Eliya. Personally, John didn’t think anyone from England would want to come out to Ceylon, but for Anne’s sake, he was determined to make it sound as attractive as possible.

  To his surprise, he received no fewer than seven answers, two from Colombo and five from England. Of these, five were immediately dismissed because they were female. The last thing John wanted at Glencairn was a British schoolmarm reminding him of his p’s and q’s, making them all eat greens and lording it over Glencairn.

  That left the two men. One was teaching in a private British school in Colombo, so John made arrangements for Sally Mortimer, with whom he’d kept in touch, to interview him. The other candidate was in London, which was a bit of a problem, but John got in touch with friends there and asked them to see him and let him know what they thought.

  Anne waited in a fever of anxiety, confiding to Rose-Lizzie, who in turn confided in Chandi, that she hoped one of them would be hired and that he would be nice and kind and patient with her.

  While Chandi longed to go to England, he could thoroughly understand Anne’s reluctance to go home and hoped she wouldn’t have to. If he had had a mother like the Sudu Nona, he doubted whether he would have gone either.

  SINCE HE HAD come back from Deniyaya, he had kept careful watch over his mother’s moods and her trips down the corridor, but nothing out of the ordinary had happened. She seemed to have got back to her old self, although she grew more distant with Disneris.

  Chandi had heard them arguing once because she had wanted to send money home to her parents and Disneris had suggested they first try and save some money for themselves before they helped other people.

  “They are not other people!” she had protested angrily. “They are my parents!”

  Chandi had crouched behind their room door and listened. In the end, Disneris agreed and Premawathi calmed down and everything was fine, but the arguments became more frequent.

  These days, Premawathi lost her temper all the time.

  Since Chandi himself was also one of the main causes of trouble between them, he couldn’t fault her for it, for he too frequently got impatient with his father, although he couldn’t say anything.

  Since his views on the subject of Chandi and Rose-Lizzie made no difference to Premawathi or Chandi, Disneris had developed an unreasonable dislike of Rose-Lizzie, although he was scrupulously polite to her. He blamed her for the vague impertinence Chandi showed him, for Chandi’s bad report cards and for Premawathi’s bad temper.

  Premawathi also had other things on her mind these days. Having seen Leela daily, she hadn’t realized that she had grown up and was of a marriageable age.

  Now she fretted about finding a suitable husband for her.

  Premawathi wanted her married and settled down, if necessary away from Glencairn. She wondered how to set about finding a husband for Leela, and wondered whom to ask for help. Premawathi had long accepted that she herself was not very good when it came to choosing husbands.

  There had been almost no contact between John and Premawathi since she had come back from Deniyaya. The distance wasn’t through choice or by design. It was simply because every time she had thought of going and speaking to him, or taking his cup of tea in herself, Chandi materialized next to her.

  At first she thought it was coincidence, but then she realized that Chandi was watching her. Covertly and casually, but he was still watching. She immediately wondered if he had seen anything, but knew that was impossible, for he had not even been in the house that evening. Still, she was afraid.

  After a week or so of her watching him watching her, she was forced to admit that he knew something. He had either overheard her speaking with John or just felt something to be not quite right. Which it wasn’t, she admitted to herself.

  Then one day, while Chandi and Rangi were both at school and Leela was doing the laundry by the well, she met John. She had been dusting the dining room after Appuhamy had finished when John strode in. It was the middle of the day and his arrival was completely unexpected. He was taken aback too, for at first he just looked at her as she stood frozen, her duster lifted in midair, her raised arm revealing a nice expanse of brown midriff.

  He recovered first. “Why are you dusting?” he asked.

  She looked hunted. “Just,” she muttered.

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Just?”

  “Well, you know Appuhamy is quite old now and his eyesight isn’t what it used to be—”

  “And he asked you to do it for him,” he finished.

  “No!” she exclaimed, forgetting her initial confusion. “No, please don’t tell him you saw me,” she said. “He’d be so upset and hurt. He couldn’t bear to think he wasn’t doing his job properly. You know how he is . . .” she finished lamely.

  John was smiling. “Yes. I do know,” he said wryly. “But he should know that I wouldn’t dismiss him after all these years just because he doesn’t dust as well as he used to!”

  She smiled too. “He wouldn’t believe you even if you told him. And he’s too proud to stay if he thinks you don’t need him. And he’s so afraid he’ll lose his job and have nowhere to go,” she finished sadly.

  His smile grew gentle. “Premawathi, Premawathi,” he said, shaking his head. “One day you’ll realize that you can’t look after everyone, you know. Appuhamy is old enough to take care of himself, I think.”

  Her smile reappeared. “When you reach a certain age, you become old enough to have someone take care of you again,” she said.

  He laughed. “Don’t you have enough problems of your own?” he asked teasingly.

  “Oh yes,” she replied laughing. “Two male and two
female.”

  He studied her laughing face. It had been so long since he had seen the dimple in her cheek. Too long, he told himself.

  Her own laughter faltered and died. She looked back at him, her eyes wary once more, the dimple smoothing out again.

  Then Appuhamy coughed and they sprang apart, although they had been no less than three feet away from each other anyway.

  Appuhamy peered around myopically. “My duster,” he quavered. “I must have left it here.”

  “Here it is,” Premawathi said immediately, handing it to him. “I found it and was just bringing it to you.” She looked at John and a glimmer of a smile passed between them.

  Appuhamy still stood there. “Sudu Mahattaya, what brings you home at this unusual time?” he asked formally.

  John blinked. “What? Oh yes. I was told that that scoundrel Krishna had been seen hanging around the factory. I was wondering if he had been here,” he said.

  Premawathi was still. “Krishna?” she asked.

  John looked hard at her. “Yes,” he said. “Have you seen him?”

  “No,” she said hastily. “But what’s he doing here?”

  “That’s what I’d like to find out,” John said grimly. “Well, I’d better be getting back. Keep an eye on the place, Appuhamy,” he said.

  Appuhamy tried to stand straight and square his shoulders, with little success. “Yes sir!” he said, and all but saluted.

  JUST THREE DAYS after the dining room encounter, Premawathi and Leela were bathing at the well when she saw a flash of white behind the kumbuk tree. Leaving Leela looking after her in bewilderment, she picked up a big stick and marched over to the tree. There was no one there.

  She searched the immediate vicinity but saw no sign of him. She came back to the well muttering under her breath.

  “What happened, Amma? Where did you go?” Leela asked.

  “I thought I saw that rotter Krishna standing behind the kumbuk tree,” she said grimly.

  “But he doesn’t work here anymore, remember?” Leela said, wondering if her mother was finally getting senile.