The Match

by Romesh Gunesekera

  Brendan turned to Sunny and Hector who were watching him. ‘These buggers say we must have tea inside. I’ll put my clothes on and join you.’

  ‘This place has not changed in years,’ Hector said to Sunny. ‘Not a bit.’

  ‘I like that.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I do too. But a young fellow like you, surely, you desire change? That’s the world now, isn’t it? Quick, fast, adaptable. I see it in Time magazine. These innovators, change agents, they are all young characters. Always under the age of forty.’

  Sunny shrugged. ‘It feels to me like everything changes too fast.’

  ‘How? What do you mean?’ He was challenging Sunny, just as he used to in Urdaneta when Sunny was fourteen and he was in his forties.

  ‘Like Manila. It has all gone. There is nothing for me there. And there is nothing for me here, it seems now. Maybe, one day, there will be nothing for me in London either.’

  Hector shook his head. ‘I am not so sure. Things are not quite so easily lost, Sunny, except for money. Bits of paper. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn’t have stayed in Manila, like your father did. He really was the smart one. You remember that sparkling little Rosa?’

  Brendan came in from the terrace and called out to the manager hovering by the dining room. ‘Those changing rooms are infested with bloody mosquitoes, you know.’

  ‘Sir, it is too windy outside for them, so they have to go in there.’

  Brendan rolled his eyes in exasperation and sat down. ‘Where is Lillie? No bathing beauty? What, Hector?’

  ‘She is not used to travelling. She needs to rest. Meditate, you know.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Like I said, perfect place for it. So, what about tea?’ Brendan looked around for someone to pour it. The waiter hobbled over to the table and lifted the tea cosy. ‘I will pour, sir?’

  ‘What happened to your foot?’

  ‘Fell, sir. Outside. The tomato sandwich.’ He waved the tea cosy at the windswept terrace. ‘Went too fast by.’

  ‘Never mind. Put the milk first. You have milk?’

  The waiter replaced the tea cosy, picked up the milk jug, checked it, poured a few drops into each cup and then proceeded with the tea and tea strainer. It was riveting. They all watched in silence, waiting for the hand to shake, the tea to spill, the foundations to crack.

  Brendan lit another cigarette and watched until the last drop was safely poured.

  ‘Now, then. What is the programme here? Are those elephants still roaming about? Will they come down to the tank in the evening?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir. If you go in by the Forestry Department access road, you can see them. They will all come.’

  ‘Now?’

  The manager checked his watch. ‘Oh, now is very good, sir. Before dark and tigers, et cetera, et cetera.’

  ‘And you will have a good dinner for us tonight. You have prepared?’

  ‘Yes, sir. We are very prepared.’ He spoke in a rush, anxious to please. ‘We have chicken-in-basket, potato chips, and for the alternative – pride pish.’

  Brendan banged his forehead with the heel of his palm. ‘Good God, man, have you no proper pud?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Food? Dammit . . . Proper food instead of your children’s menu and fried bloody fish. What about some stringhoppers? Any pol-kiri-badung? Game?’

  ‘Oh, oh, oh. Local food? Can do, sir. Very good, sir. We can do.’

  Brendan turned to Hector. ‘You and the wife are eating, I take it? Or you want kankun, or pea soup, or something like that.’

  Hector smiled and said that this week they were prepared to eat anything.

  ‘Good, good.’ Brendan glanced at Sunny. ‘You have any peculiarities of the diet? You want the tourist menu?’

  Sunny said Brendan’s choice was perfect.

  ‘Excellent. So, we will look for these damn elephants and come back ravenous.’

  Lillie didn’t join the safari; she’d had enough physical transportation for one day.

  ‘No problem,’ Brendan said. ‘Let us go forth, just the three of us.’ He sent the driver off to find a tracker.

  Despite all his earlier protestations, once they entered the jungle Sunny could feel an excitement that was not to do with the calculation of aperture and depth of field, not to do with light and colour, creativity and perspective, but entirely to do with being in the right place at the right time. He looked at Hector and wondered if he had the same feeling.

  Sunny wished he had Mikey with him, that they were taking a step together into the unknown. Making this place their own. Instead it was Hector and him; Hector the older man, but Sunny the father. Both out of kilter.

  ‘Mehen, mehen.’ The tracker gestured to the left. The driver swung the wheel and the jeep bumped on to another track. Soon the hushed trees gave way and they were out in the open. The water in the huge tank had retreated, leaving a kind of alluvial plane around it. The evening sun was mellow; the sky enormous and forgiving, with the blue seeping up from the surface of the lake to soften it. The grass at the water’s edge was young, as green as new rice. This was a place where the air itself moved with a sense of belonging.

  The tracker grabbed the driver’s shoulder and rose in his seat. ‘Ali, ali.’

  The vehicle stopped. Two elephants at the edge of the jungle about three hundred yards ahead jostled each other and ambled out into the open. They were heading for the water.

  ‘We have to get closer,’ Brendan hissed. ‘Close up.’

  The driver looked at the tracker, then at Brendan; he edged the vehicle forward. The elephants took no notice.

  ‘Come, Sunny.’ Brendan opened the door.

  ‘Sir . . .’ The tracker protested.

  ‘Pah, the wind is blowing our way. Come. You know what they say? If it is no good, it is only because you were not close enough.’

  ‘Wait.’ Hector held Sunny’s arm. ‘What the hell is he on about?’

  ‘Photographer’s saying . . .’

  ‘Damn foolish. Don’t go.’

  Brendan was already waddling towards the animals. Sunny followed him. He swapped cameras, keeping the Nikon with the telephoto nestling in his shoulder bag within easy reach and used the Voigtländer to take a few shots. Brendan’s arms moved up to his face. Sunny heard a click. A moment later a shrill trumpeting erupted behind them. He turned around and saw a bull elephant with its trunk raised, baring a single white tusk. The elephant stamped and pawed the ground.

  ‘Quick, back.’ Brendan headed for the jeep

  There was another shrill trumpeting; the elephant charged as if to cut him off from the vehicle. The jeep jerked into life and started moving.

  The elephant veered off and trotted back into position. He stamped the ground again. The jeep revved up, climbing over some broken branches. Hector had the door open and Sunny jumped in. Brendan clambered in front and they shot off as the elephant made another charge.

  ‘There’s a whole herd,’ Hector bellowed. ‘Look behind the fellow.’ About fifteen other animals had emerged from the trees. ‘Brendan you are a madman.’

  While waiting for dinner that evening, out on the terrace, Brendan opened a bottle of arrack. Hector declined at first; then changed his mind. ‘After that fright, maybe I could do with something.’

  ‘Good man.’ Brendan poured him a shot. ‘You are on the road, anyway. Surely it is allowed?’

  Lillie pulled her sari close around her and gave Sunny a look of contempt. ‘You went to take their picture, and they chased you off?’

  Brendan told a story of once bringing a group of Dutch photographers to the same hotel. ‘Two days and not even a dung ball to show.’

  ‘They stayed here?’ Hector asked.

  ‘I don’t think they will ever come back. You see, two of the party had severe food poisoning. Cricket is more likely to tempt them back than wildlife.’

  ‘They ate here?’

  ‘Different management, old chap. Not to worry. This fellow was trained at the Oberoi.’


  Dinner, when it came, was fine. By then Brendan had knocked back half the bottle of arrack and was holding forth on everything from hotel management to elephantiasis. Hector goaded him every now and again with a lightly barbed remark, while Lillie stayed on autopilot, feeding the body and freeing the soul. She finished her plate of stringhoppers and green pigeon curry and said she must catch up on her sleep. She didn’t wait for the crème caramel, donating to Sunny her share as though it might make up for any lingering neglect from her earlier stint of unwelcome parenting.

  ‘Are you really a major?’ Sunny asked Brendan. ‘The manager called you Major Amarasinghe.’

  Brendan took another gulp of arrack and studied the horticultural patterns on his bush shirt for a while. ‘The Service went badly downhill, you know. Vendettas. Politics. Bad business. So I resigned. But sometimes you need a bit of rank to get things done. Usually I keep the uniform out of sight. Been a bit of a liability lately.’ He went on to lecture them on the merits and demerits of international hotel management versus military incompetence and then, halfway through his dessert, came to an abrupt halt. ‘Time for bed,’ he announced. ‘Crack of dawn, on the trail?’

  The next morning they did another run around the tank, but saw only water buffalo and a couple of painted storks.

  In the remaining few days in Colombo, Sunny went into manic overdrive. He rushed about collecting brass plates, oil lamps, batik prints, wooden toys, curry powder, books, postcards, anything that might help him recreate the richness of the place for Mikey, and also for Clara; to give them an idea of what he had seen. He hired Piyasena to run him around and took loads of pictures – snapshots, pure and simple. Pictures of buildings, cars, birds. Kids playing cricket in alleyways and wastelands, between tin cans and clothes lines, on streets and on the beach.

  Overcoming his earlier reservations, he went to the Colombo cemetery too. Piyasena collared a doddery old watchman to help locate Sunny’s mother’s grave. It took about half an hour in the blazing heat to find it: an ordinary gravestone with an ordinary name, Irene Margaret Fernando, and a set of dates that surprised Sunny. He had never considered how much of a life she’d had before he had begun his own. He realized then how little he knew of her. Her true life, that incredible arc from birth to death, was lost to him. He had had only a glimpse of her. Then she had gone. Standing before her grave, Sunny felt oddly distant. He was hot and thirsty. His feet ached. Piyasena was the one who murmured, ‘Amma,’ and crouched down to clear the weeds. Before they left, Sunny took a picture, but his heart was not in it. The light was all wrong.

  On his last night he went back to Hector and Lillie. He wanted to talk to Hector. ‘I didn’t really find my world,’ he said. ‘I even went to Amma’s grave.’

  ‘Maybe you are looking in the wrong place. Like I said to you before, Sunny, you have to choose the right time and the right place.’

  At the airport, Piyasena asked him for his address in London. ‘For my cousin, sir.’ He was looking ahead to the day when the boy would come with the Sri Lankan team to play England. ‘Next century,’ he added. He knew how to build on hope.

  ‘Two weeks in hell, while you were up yourself in paradise.’ Clara slammed the door.

  It was an exaggeration, of course. Sunny knew her hell was simply a mad boss. She’d had to work overtime the last week and had missed her evening class and a gallery outing with Alex. Her plan to get on to an Easter course had been scuppered. Mikey had had to stay with friends on three occasions. Not that he seemed too displeased about that. Mikey was still at an age when he could look pleased without loss of face. Sunny could still hold him, lift him, hug him – just.

  ‘I saw elephants,’ he told the boy. ‘An elephant charged me.’ He gave his rendition of an elephant’s flourish and an abbreviated account of the safari.

  Mikey’s face glowed. ‘Cool.’

  But somehow he never got around to looking at the pictures Sunny had taken of wild elephants or kids playing cricket; growing up was all-consuming. The next birthday was only days ahead. Time was short.

  Although he was still in primary school, Mikey was speeding towards a world that would soon eclipse his father’s. Acceleration was everywhere, except in the realm of words, as he grew into a state of teenage inarticulacy. There seemed nothing Sunny could do about the ever-widening gap. Was that perhaps what his mother had seen, and his father? A gulf from which they believed they could only retreat?

  ‘Gumbo is finished,’ Clara announced one day. ‘He put all his money in that dud bank that’s crashed. He’s done for.’ She got a job at the Rondell Foundation. The hours were longer and it was full-time, but she got better perks, including proper study leave.

  ‘You’ll do the art course?’

  ‘No, that’s on the back burner. Alex’s thing is fine for now. I want to do a professional qualification instead. Management accounting, maybe?’

  The pay was good, but not enough to make up for Sunny’s shortcomings. The Footsie tumbled, his money shrank and the cubby-hole shop began to sink. He did nothing about it. After the trip to Sri Lanka, a kind of paralysis grew over him that was in direct proportion to the increasing need for action. Perhaps it was visiting the cemetery in Colombo that had done it.

  Whisky began to offer some consolation, a semblance of control; he could be sure he knew what was going on between sips, even if at no other time. The familiarity of repetitive worries and a shrinking boundary lightened the load. Clara became barely visible in the semi-darkness. Mikey blossomed but Sunny missed everything except his daily tipple. He even missed the first news of the big explosion in Colombo.

  It was the week that Clara had gone on Alex’s four-day art tour of Italy. Sunny had his hands full with Mikey and a deteriorating business plan. It was only a remark made when he collected Mikey after a music lesson that alerted him. A parent of another budding musician said, ‘Terrible news, isn’t it?’ She mentioned suicide bombers in Sri Lanka. The pictures of the devastation were on TV, briefly, and in the newspapers the next day: short reports of a small city shrouded in smoke. Scores of office workers, insurance clerks, peons, street vendors had been killed and injured in the huge blast; the Central Bank, Ceylinco and several other buildings leading up to the old clock tower destroyed. But soon news had moved on, quick to forget small tropical islands in trouble.

  He called Hector in Colombo; Lillie answered. ‘Thank God, he is alive. He was due to go to the bank in the afternoon . . . But Brendan was not so lucky. He was just passing by, walked right into it . . .’ The carnage, the destruction, the instant reconfiguration of the city and their world was too much for Hector. Lillie said he was in a deep depression.

  ‘He sits in his chair and mumbles that the landmarks have disappeared. He isn’t himself. Colombo is not the same.’ Brendan had been his friend; the Central Bank, a kind of home. Life before 31 January 1996 was for him a ruptured dream.

  Six weeks later Sri Lanka won the World Cup in cricket for the first time. The country was jubilant and the cricketers became national heroes. But did that make a real difference? Sunny didn’t think so. He knew things did not balance quite so easily, no matter how drunk you got.

  The crunch came for Sunny two years later, after Mikey had settled into his local secondary school. The music department offered options in the history of the Hammond organ and psychedelic guitar lessons. Jimi Hendrix had been transcribed. Mikey got into keyboards and practised variations of chromatic scales which Sunny remembered his mother’s pupils playing. ‘You should be proud of him carrying on the tradition.’ Clara tried to soothe him but she had no idea what it did to his head. She had already completed Part 1 of her management accounting exams and was being encouraged by the persistent Alex to think again of art school.

  The shop seemed to have become almost invisible. Sometimes days would go by without a single customer; the only person to come in would be the postman, or someone looking for a spare camcorder battery. Photography had taken a dive. After Princess
Di’s death, Sunny reckoned no one really wanted to be seen with a camera. Taking pictures was no longer done; paparazzi was a swear word even among news editors.

  On the way back home one evening, Sunny stopped at the supermarket for a special-offer whisky deal and some pretzels that lately had regained a hold on him. The woman in front of him at the checkout dropped her lottery ticket and Sunny picked it up for her.

  ‘Oh, thank you.’ She looked at him with pale wide eyes, enlarged by soft contacts and curled lashes clotted with mascara. ‘Aren’t you Mikey’s father?’ She spoke as though she was on camera, barely moving her thin, glossed-up lips.

  ‘Yes. Mikey.’ Sunny was struck by how his identity had shifted from son to father.

  ‘My daughter is in his class.’ She smiled as though this made them conspirators. ‘I saw you with him at parents’ evening.’

  ‘Right, yes. Homework.’

  ‘My daughter says he is very good in the band.’

  ‘Band?’ It was news to him.

  ‘It’s perhaps because you play. Or his mother?’

  ‘My mother’s dead.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ She lowered her eyes as though there might be some comfort she could offer.

  Sunny wished her luck with the lottery. Then realized he had confused Clara with his mother. His head hurt. He needed a jackpot too. He didn’t know what to do about the lease. The shop was doomed. To continue was impossible. To think was impossible, with or without a drink.

  In the end, he gave up the business. He brought the last few old cameras back into the house and stored them up in the loft along with his mother’s portrait, the old cardboard suitcases from Manila and a fleet of Pampers boxes stuffed with baby toys and useless clothes. A gleeful gay couple from Margate who had acquired the adjoining premises took over the lease and swiftly turned the whole thing into yet another hairdressers’ salon. They called it Snip-Snap and gave Sunny and Clara vouchers for free cuts for a year. ‘We can do matching highlights.’

  Clara was not amused. ‘What are you going to do with yourself now?’

  ‘Take some time out.’