Bone China

by Roma Tearne

  ‘Prayma, who’s that woman dancing with Thornton?’ asked Grace again.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Prayma. ‘D’you know, Mabel?’

  ‘No,’ said Mabel. ‘I’ll ask Auntie Angel-Face.’

  Auntie Angel-Face didn’t know either. She was getting a little short-sighted, and deaf too if truth were known.

  ‘She was at the church,’ said one of the cousins.

  ‘Well, let’s ask him,’ said Auntie Angel-Face, boisterously.

  Grace would not do that. Her good manners would not allow herself the luxury of curiosity.

  ‘She’s white,’ said Auntie Angel-Face, in a neutral sort of way.

  ‘She’s very pretty,’ said Coco, uncertain.

  ‘So old,’ said the cousins.

  ‘Innocent!’ shrieked Auntie Angel-Face, being unable to stand the suspense any longer. ‘I want to talk to you. Come here.’

  Thornton was dancing with the So-Old-White-Woman. He was actually jiving. Rather well, so he thought.

  ‘Who,’ asked Auntie Angel-Face, ‘who is that?’ and she pointed a fat, nail-polished finger in the direction of the So-Old-White-Woman who was wriggling her hips and flapping her thighs together, and who suddenly took a leap into Thornton’s arms, her bright red court shoes sticking out on either side of his slim hips, her head lower than his crotch, a suspicion of knickers for those who were looking. Uncle Innocent’s eyes bulged out of his head. His jaw dropped. Cigar ash fell to his feet unnoticed. A slow, lascivious smile played on his lips. There were other changes too. He stood up straighter, cleared his throat of its customary phlegm, flicked imaginary ash off his shirt when in fact the ash was all over his shoes, and began to perspire heavily. Sensing an audience, Thornton turned, slowly, with a sensuous shake of his hips. The music stopped. He smiled broadly and walked towards them. Towards Uncle Innocent, Auntie Angel-Face, his cousins, his sister, towards his mother. He had been waiting for the right moment and here it was, presenting itself.

  ‘This is Hildegard,’ he beamed. ‘Mummy, Hildegard and I were married this morning!’

  ‘Hello, Mrs de Silva,’ said Hildegard, holding out her pretty hand, filling the awkwardness of the moment. ‘I am Hildegard.’ And then, as there didn’t seem to be much response, ‘May I call you Mother?’

  No one spoke. Thornton looked at his mother. He saw with some surprise that the expression on her face was not as he expected. Because his mother, Thornton realised somewhat belatedly, was looking at him, the Light of Her Life, her Boy Who Could Tilt the World With a Smile, in a way that did not bode well for the immediate future. Thornton hesitated. The famous smile faltered. His mother’s expression, he saw, would have to be dealt with.

  Married this morning? thought Grace, disbelievingly.

  ‘How old is she?’ asked Auntie Angel-Face, and Prayma and Mabel and Uncle Innocent, stalling for time. And that was even before the uproar from Aloysius and Jacob. Jacob had a field day, years of accumulated resentment were aired that night, and the next, and for many nights after. In fact, Jacob had such a time of it that for a while he stopped thinking about his plans for the UK. Such was the disruption caused by that night. Such was the drama.

  Only Christopher had no comment to make. It was debatable as to whether Christopher even knew what on earth was going on. He hovered on the periphery unnoticed. Alicia had tried dancing with him, the cousins had tried joking with him but Christopher would not be drawn. He had nothing to say. He wandered over to the servants’ quarters where the cook’s son was rolling betel and squatted down, belching loudly. Close by in the murunga tree Jasper kept watch.

  ‘Here comes another idiot,’ said Jasper.

  ‘Hello,’ said Christopher, rather unsteadily. ‘What are you drinking?’

  ‘Whisky, putha,’ said Jasper from the depth of the tree, getting it right for once.

  ‘Good idea,’ muttered Christopher. ‘That’s the best suggestion I’ve heard all day.’

  The servant boy offered him a bottle of arrack.

  ‘Listen!’ said Christopher, after he had taken a swig. He stabbed at the air and swayed towards the servant boy. ‘I’m going to overthrow this government.’

  The servant boy took the bottle back and Christopher glared at him.

  ‘It’s no laughing matter,’ he said loudly. ‘D’you hear me? You’re going to help me.’

  He belched and Jasper belched back, making him jump. Then he laughed, high-pitched and strained. The servant boy stopped rolling his betel and grinned. He pulled his sarong tighter and nodded his head.

  ‘Hello, Shiny?’ asked Jasper suddenly from above.

  Christopher collapsed in a fit of hysterics.

  ‘Jasper!’ he screeched. ‘Jasper, I’m trying to organise a coup and all you can do is talk about Shiny!’

  The servant boy laughed. He had never seen Master Christopher like this before.

  ‘Bastards!’ said Christopher, beginning to weep. The servant boy held out the bottle again, but Christopher, having curled himself up under the murunga tree, had suddenly fallen asleep. In his tightly clenched fists was a small Perspex brooch in the shape of a butterfly, the sort that was sold in the kadés that lined the seafront. The servant boy picked up the arrack and went inside, for he was certain he could hear shouting and crying on a very grand scale.

  He had known her for over a year. Her name was Hildegard Rosenstall and she had travelled to the island from the Indian subcontinent where she had been living for some years. She was beautiful. And she was twenty years older than Thornton. Grace, looking as though she were on a saline drip, had the facts fed slowly to her.

  ‘Now, Grace, take a deep breath. Slowly, breathe slowly,’ said Auntie Angel-Face. ‘Move away, everyone, she needs air!’

  Frieda was crying because, well, because she was at an emotional point in her life, what with one thing and another. She felt incredibly sad and awfully tragic although she was not sure why. She hated atmosphere and there was certainly an atmosphere surrounding Thornton, and Grace. And almost everyone else. So Frieda was crying, buckets and buckets of tears.

  ‘Will someone do something about Frieda, for God’s sake?’

  ‘Should we phone the newly-weds?’

  ‘Innocent, don’t just stand there!’

  ‘Quick, get some ice.’

  All was confusion.

  After the wedding night came the morning after. Understandably, no one had slept. The combination of alcohol and angst kept them all awake. All except Christopher who stayed in his stupor unnoticed until the early-morning rain woke him, making him stumble, dry-throated, into bed.

  ‘Poor boy,’ reported Jasper without making it clear which boy he meant. No one took any notice of him. No one took a swipe at him. Even Myrtle, his favourite, seemed incapable of paying him any attention.

  ‘Hello, Shiny,’ he muttered, flying back into the trees.

  Grace was still silent. Her anger was so great that it had rendered her speechless. The de Silva clan thought it was grief that robbed her of her voice. They had no idea that Grace had only two thoughts in her head. Should she kill Thornton? Or the Woman?

  Thornton smiled quite a bit in those early hours. Beautiful, limpid smiles, but it was not working. He turned his eyes into dark pools of passion and sorrow. But that didn’t work either. Jacob throbbed. He had turned into an engine of self-righteous speech. What on earth was it to do with him? wondered Thornton mildly. Not surprisingly Aloysius had reached for the bottle. This was a crisis. Uncle Innocent agreed, it was indeed a crisis. Uncle Innocent felt too many things, some of them to do with Hildegard herself, the hussy, but in the short term he felt he should show some solidarity with Aloysius and join him with the whisky and soda. The rest of them sided vociferously with Grace, whose beautiful teeth were clenched with rage.

  Dawn came slowly. Rose-washed, delicate light, scented with the softness of rain. The heat of the day was slow to reveal itself, simmering, building up to its usual crescendo. Inside the de Sil
vas’ house, outside on the veranda, and further back in the garden, however, the emotional temperature rose inexorably. Hildegard, her enormous eyes filling with tears, could stand it no longer. Thornton had begun to look like a little boy. He made her feel her age in ways hitherto unknown to her. There comes a time in a woman’s life when her age begins to mean a great deal to her, and sadly this time had arrived for Hildegard. What could she have done? Her skin was still supple; her hair had no hint of grey. She had no children. Who would have thought this could have become a problem? Was every woman on this wretched island expected to be a sacred cow? Hildegard, her slim childless figure belying her age, wondered what she had done. They all clearly thought, as she had begun to feel herself, that she had seduced Thornton, instead of the reality, which was the other way round. Hildegard, whose eyes kept filling up, unaware of the effect it was having on Uncle Innocent, decided it was time to leave. She looked at Thornton for support but there was a vacant spot where Thornton’s emotions should have been. So Hildegard left in a way that would be remembered afterwards, in silence and with dignified speed.

  Thornton hardly noticed. He was feeling a little confused. Confused and with the beginnings of a serious headache coming on. He wished Frieda would stop weeping. It was getting on his nerves. He wished his mother would unlock her teeth. It was affecting the power of his smile. As for his eldest brother, he wondered again, what on earth his problem was? Still, he yawned, he was almost too tired to think. He had been certain he was in love but now, well, he couldn’t be sure. His eyebrows shot up into a vulnerable position towards the top of his head. He felt tears of self-pity fill his eyes. Grace, noticing this, felt herself weaken. The family held their breath. And waited. It would be several days yet, but could the end be in sight?

  ‘Quick,’ said Auntie Angel-Face in command again. ‘Prayma, tell the cook to make some food. Poor Grace has had nothing to eat.’

  ‘It’s lunchtime already,’ noticed Mabel, surprised. ‘How the time has flown!’

  ‘I don’t think we should disturb the newly-weds, do you, Auntie Angel? Let them have a little peace to enjoy their honeymoon.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’

  ‘A telegram will only upset them,’ shouted Uncle Innocent, wondering if he should catch up with Hildegard and offer her a lift somewhere.

  Mabel took Frieda in hand and tried to staunch the tears, not in itself an easy operation, and Coco made some tea that no one drank. She had seen it done in the movies and thought she might try it herself. Jasper, feeling much better after a sleep, flew in and saw Myrtle more or less where he had last seen her.

  ‘Hello, sister,’ he greeted her cheerfully, whereupon Grace, to whom this was absolutely the last straw, arose majestically and hurled her slipper with such force and fury at him that she caught him by surprise, sending him squawking out of the window, knocking over Aloysius’s empty bottle of whisky in the process.

  It was midday. The heat had at last revealed its hand. The de Silva family, those that weren’t asleep, sat down to a desultory lunch. It was, they realised, somewhat with surprise, New Year’s Day.

  ‘Happy New Year!’ said Uncle Innocent, experimentally, seeing how the words sounded and how they all reacted to them. He was trying to keep any lustful thoughts of Hildegard to one side, in order not to cloud the issues at stake. But he kept forgetting what these were and all he could think of were those enormous blue eyes. Uncle Innocent was a sucker, as clearly Thornton had been, for blue eyes. All this passion, he thought feverishly, it was too much for him at his age. Besides, he was worried in case Auntie Angel-Face got wind of his thoughts. Grace was bad enough at the moment without Angel-Face at it too. He poured himself a glass of cold water, clear, cleansing, life-sustaining liquid that it was, and retired to his bed for an afternoon rest.

  9

  THE WINDS OF CHANGE COME SWIFTLY. Seldom is there warning. No darkening of the skies, no cockcrow. Instead, suddenly, there comes a stirring breeze, a spiralling dust cloud, a change in things forever. January was cooler. The rains still fell daily, soaking into the ground with the parched and insatiable lust of many months. The island could never seem to get enough wetness, never quite quench its thirst. It breathed in the rain then paused while the forests grew, waiting for the heat to continue.

  Grace, appearing to cope with the shock of Thornton’s escapade, headed for the church. The family held their breath.

  ‘My child,’ said Father Giovanni, ‘have they had carnal knowledge of each other?’

  ‘No, Father,’ said Grace carefully. ‘Not to my knowledge. My son is headstrong,’ she ventured. ‘He is deeply sorry. He wishes to confess.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I understand,’ murmured the priest, frowning. He mulled over the recent events. ‘Would you say this young man was led astray? That he was gullible? That the woman was a corrupting influence, perhaps?’

  Grace hesitated. Her anger with Thornton had not fully subsided. Where had she gone wrong? Should she have been firmer with him when he was a child? But he had been a wonderful child, thought Grace. She felt cornered.

  Father Giovanni considered her. She was a fine-looking woman. An admirable woman, with an unfortunate, useless husband. More importantly, Kollupitiya Cathedral was heavily subsidised by the de Silvas. Christmas and Alicia’s wedding had left a warm glow in the church. And there was little doubt: Grace had her fair share of troubles to bear. Looking at her face in the candlelight, he thought, The poor woman deserves a break.

  ‘Well, now,’ he said clearing his throat, making up his mind swiftly, ‘he always was a headstrong boy, was your Thornton.’ And he smiled at Grace. ‘Tell him to come and see me in the mornin’, will you?’ he said. ‘And we’ll see what we can do to settle the matter.’

  At home, the family held their breath, but they were confident. It was just a matter of time. Annulments came only from Rome and the Holy City worked in mysterious ways. It would not be hurried. There was nothing to do except wait. Twelfth night came and went. Myrtle noted the changes.

  January 15. Well they never do things by halves here. Naturally we had to have two weddings! When the Golden Boy delivered his trump card the expression on G’s face was so funny that I had to go out of the room because I was laughing so much. I had forgotten what a temper she has. Illness aside, she became her old self when it came to her darling son. A couple of pieces of her precious bone china went flying in the process. Aloysius tried restraint but there was no stopping G. I’m glad that everyone saw her true colours for once. Innocent looked as though he was having some sort of fit. He just stared and stared at the Woman! No one seems to know anything about this Hildegard, or where on earth Thornton found her. In some gutter somewhere no doubt, although why she wants to be married to him is a mystery to me. Can’t she see how stupid he is? Well, anyway, she’s not going to be Mrs de Silva for much longer by the looks of things. I knew Thornton was a fool but even I couldn’t have anticipated such behaviour. They’re all angry with him, even Jacob. If anything could kill G off it’s this. If Mr B’s horoscope is to be believed, there’s more to come!

  Grace appeared to have put aside her strange lethargy and depression. Uncle Innocent and Aloysius took to drowning their sorrows together, daily, Frieda was still crying intermittently despite all Mabel’s efforts, and the bridegroom appeared to be in a state of confusion. He needed time to take stock, to confess to Father Giovanni. Had he thought about it, Thornton might have seen the desperation of Hildegard’s love and the unsuitability of what he had done. But Thornton, as was becoming increasingly clear, had not been thinking clearly.

  Everyone was preoccupied, leaving them unprepared for the next gust of wind. Quietly, unnoticed by anyone, except Grace, Christopher made plans to leave. Silently, without fuss, he went about his preparations. There was nothing to keep him here. No one noticed because what was there to notice? Only his mother, talking to him at odd, snatched moments, understood.

  ‘What is there left for someone like me in
this place?’ he asked her bitterly.

  He would be leaving in a few weeks. His ticket to the UK had arrived. He had confessed his plans to her.

  ‘Things are getting worse here. I can’t take any more,’ he told his mother, flatly.

  Grace looked at the ticket. Colombo, Cairo, Genoa, Southampton. She handed him back his visa, his passport. He was exhausted by the effort of living. They both were.

  ‘There’s no justice of any sort,’ Christopher said. He spoke quietly. There was no sign of his usual anger. Perhaps disillusion was a quieter thing. ‘There’s nothing left. The government is terrible. Wealth and religion and endless corruption have ruined my life,’ he said. ‘No one either notices or cares.’

  His voice broke. Grace nodded silently. She could not deny any of it. She would not argue, even if she had the strength. Nevertheless, she asked him with infinite tenderness, ‘What will there be in England for you, Christopher? What comfort will you find there? Away from your own people?’

  ‘At least I’ll find justice there!’ he said. ‘They have laws. Laws that work. They’re English, aren’t they? Decent English people. They care about the poor. They care about their people.’

  She said no more after that. It broke her heart all over again. He is young, she thought, he has ideals. Who was she to question if he was right? She did not mention Kamala. There was no need to say her name. Kamala moved between them like a glimmer of light, in the untouchable layers of their conversation. Kamala and Vijay. The long years of her mothering stretched behind Grace. She could not have foreseen any of this. She could not have foreseen her pain. Finally, hesitantly, it was Christopher who spoke of Kamala.