The young man standing next to her looked at me. He was dressed up in a tie and shiny black shoes; his hair was slick and spiky.
‘Did your head office not tell you we are closed for refurb?’
I winced. ‘No office, sir. I do private hire. I checked the website.’
‘Tcha,’ he clicked his tongue and frowned as though I was a fly-by-night cowboy taking advantage of a glitch in cyberspace to prey on innocents from abroad and therefore should be squashed as a matter of civic duty. He turned back to the others. ‘I am very sorry. But if you come back next month, everything will be top class. Hot buffet, à la carte, acupuncture clinic, WiFi. Everything.’
‘What about the building?’ Mr Colin asked.
‘Sir? Building the port is a big project. Phase 1, phase 2, phase 3. That will take more than one month more, but everything is on schedule.’
‘I mean this building.’
‘Oh, you mean the rest house building. This, you know, is very old. So my company has come with some big plans to modernize. Also in phases. That is the method now. Phase 1 is to knock that part down and put state-of-the-art bedrooms: climate control, rain-showers, triple X adult TV, you know. Full works. Then phase 2 is to go up. Build up.’ He beamed. ‘Up and up. We will have it nice and modern. Phase 3, we don’t even know yet.’
‘You can’t,’ Miss Susila cried. ‘This is a historic building.’
The young man looked puzzled. ‘It is very old, madam. It is not fit for purpose any more. It belongs to the British times, no?’
‘Leonard Woolf was here.’
‘Yes, yes. I know. They have his picture framed in the office. Famous man, no? Those days. Author of The Village in the Jungle. We had to study that book in school. We know all about him.’
‘He writes about this house. It is an important place.’
‘But, madam, that is a novel. All made up.’
‘He would have sat just there. Look, I have his diary.’
‘But this is not his house. The AGA bungalow was down the road. He only visited here for a bit of this and that. Anyway, madam, he is not here any more, no?’ He gestured towards the veranda. ‘What to do? We need to modernize for tomorrow’s visitors, not yesterday’s tiffin-tuckers.’
Miss Susila went limp. She looked close to tears. ‘Even the tsunami didn’t destroy it.’
‘Nothing will be destroyed, madam. In fact, there is a plan to commemorate him in a real village in the jungle. Good, no? The Great Love Village.’
‘What?’ Mr Colin raised his long eyebrows. An involuntary prayer ruffled his temple.
‘Buddhist Foundation project.’
‘Sounds like some leftover hippie thing.’
‘No. No. Love is what we need. Not all you need. Tzu Chi people designed the village, not the Beatles. Very major project. Relocation point for the people who lost everything in the tsunami. So, everything we have to start again. What else to do? In this country, you have to pick yourself up. Otherwise you get forgotten, no?’
I noticed Miss Susila’s fists were clenched tight now. Her arms were growing rigid as though she was trying to straighten up. She was struggling to control her voice. ‘So, all this will go?’
‘Not go, madam. Renovate. Beyond recognition and very much better. You will like it, I can guarantee. Mr Woolf would love it, if he came back.’
‘He is not coming back. He is dead.’
‘I know. I know. But we will have ships down in the new harbour, and planes landing, one after another like in Heathrow, at the airport over that side. We will have visitors from all over the world. Real tourists. Indian, Chinese, Arab. And they will come back again and again, if we have the right standard, no? Not some olden-day thing.’
Miss Susila gasped, and then wordlessly turned away. Her shoulders were bunched, her tight denims drawn even tighter around her slim hips. She started towards the edge of the garden. The cliff drop.
Mr Colin took out a handkerchief and shook it. ‘Can we get a cool drink and a sandwich at least?’
‘Chicken sandwich? With tomato and mayonnaise?’ The young man smiled, eager as ever.
‘Yes, chicken would be good. No mayonnaise. Can you bring it soon?’
The smile froze. ‘No, sir. Sorry, I cannot get you chicken, or anything for that matter. Not soon, not even tomorrow. The kitchen is closed. Cookie has gone to Kataragama for the refurb. No staff now. Nothing to do, no? I am only here for a catch-up with the manager but he called to say he had a puncture on the way.’ He turned to me. ‘Where are you taking them for tonight? What hotel?’
‘We go to Tangalle,’ I said.
‘So, then no problem. You take them to the Hilltop Café for a bite. It’s on the way. They can provide a good lunch. Even sandwiches, chicken or cheese. I think madam is hungry, no?’ He smiled comfortingly.
Mr Colin had gone to her and was holding her shoulders. She shook in his arms, and sniffed. He found a tissue in his pocket and gave it to her.
‘She was very excited about coming here,’ I said to the manager. ‘Talking all the time about that book.’
‘Why look in some old book when you can see the future happening right here, before your eyes?’ He leant forward, more like a conspirator than a hotel manager. ‘Nona tikak pissu, neda?’
I was taken aback. He shouldn’t talk like that about any visitor. We are a hospitable people. She wasn’t mad. She was just upset about the change. I told him, he was the one who was off the rails. Stupid of me, as no doubt the future will bring me face-to-face with him again in some other tourist stop, and he, like all small-minded gaffers, would be offended and hold the grudge until his hand bled. But I couldn’t let him get away with talking like that. ‘No, sir. You are the one mixed up. Looking ahead but gear in reverse.’
Mr Colin called out to me. ‘I think we better go, Vasantha.’
*
The Hilltop Café was situated at a bit of a height but in no way was it in as dramatic a position as the rest house. To call that bump on the road a hill was an exaggeration that even a politician would not resort to. There might have been a view of the sea once, but that was now obscured by a mound of earth from the excavations in the port. Luckily, the slope behind the open shed, dotted with the dark leaves of overgrown low-country tea bushes, gave some pastoral relief. Here and there fingers of encroaching jungle curled in, studded with violet flowers.
Miss Susila was still upset and so, while Mr Colin tended to her, I organized some mutton rolls and cheese pastries for them.
‘Some black coffee, please,’ Mr Colin called out. ‘She needs some black coffee. That’s the main thing.’
They sat opposite each other and waited with their arms straight out on the table like splints and holding each other’s hands as if to steady themselves against another tide of misfortune. Together perhaps there is a chance. But what can you do alone?
While I was adding the coffee to the order, a man of very mature years came out of the back and shuffled slowly towards them. He had a large mellow face and a silvery semi-retired dome of a head. His nose and his lips looked eager as though they were features that had bloomed later than the frailer frame of his body. He stopped at the table, slightly stooped, swaying in the silent slow air discoloured by the ceiling fan. Then he cleared his throat and asked Mr Colin, ‘Are you from England?’
‘Yes,’ Mr Colin conceded, sharp and uncharacteristically short, clearly not in the mood for more local interaction.
‘Where in England?’
‘London,’ Mr Colin snapped.
‘Very good.’ The old man breathed a sigh of relief. He moved his head forward and tilted it up, like some prehistoric bird hoping to take flight. He picked a newspaper clipping out of his breast pocket and slowly unfolded it. He smoothed it out on the table. ‘I think, sir, you can help me then.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Mr Colin said, trying hard to be curt but not impolite. He knew how to keep his purse closed.
The old man looked at him a
s though he was a child. ‘But you don’t know what I am asking.’
‘I know.’
‘My name is Abeysinghe. Rex Abeysinghe. I have never been to London.’
Mr Colin could not be completely uncivil. ‘Colin Stonebrook.’
‘From London north? Or south?’
‘North.’
‘Excellent. Then you are indeed the person I very much need.’ Mr Abeysinghe smiled absently to himself. ‘You see, the problem I have is the Northern Line.’
Mr Colin was caught off guard. He looked at him in surprise. Hooked. ‘What?’
‘The clue, four across, is “concerns men rotting differently under GMT star always after Islamic breakfast”. Two words, ten and eight ending with T. But what is an Islamic breakfast in London today?’
‘How do you get Northern Line?’ Mr Colin asked, with a quietening glance at his wife.
‘GMT must be a line in London. Under the star therefore is the Northern Line underground, no?’
Mr Colin tipped his head to one side. ‘May I see?’
Mr Abeysinghe pushed the clipping across. ‘I thought the train to Paris, with that business of the veil in France, might have a connection, but the T is in the wrong place. No chance for Eurostar. Or the move from Waterloo to St Pancras.’
Mr Colin studied the clipping. ‘This is from a British paper?’
‘My cousin sends me a batch every month. He collects them and posts them. The solution to this one will come next week.’
Miss Susila had withdrawn into a shell, her hands hidden under the table, but her husband, clearly intrigued, toyed with a butter knife. Suddenly, his face lit up. ‘Station to station. Yes. You are right to go continental but it is not croissant. The second word “after” must be a crescent.’
‘The anagram then is in the first three words, not two?’
‘Exactly.’ Mr Colin tapped the table with the butt of the knife. ‘Mornington Crescent.’
The old man was delighted. ‘Oh, I say. Very good, sir. Very good. That, I believe, is the station that is always the answer, is it not?’ He licked the sharpened end of his pencil and filled in the line of blank boxes. ‘The moment I saw your face, I knew I should ask you.’
‘Glad I could help. Islamic, huh. That’s sailing close to the edge, isn’t it? Turkish might have been safer but I suppose any place can blow up now. Which paper is it?’
‘I can tell the setter, but not the paper. My cousin cuts it to the minimum, so I have never known. Airmail, you know. Every gram is critical, given the price of stamps nowadays.’ He showed a tiny space between finger and thumb where a penny might drop. ‘In any case I’d rather not know which oligarch I need to thank for my mental stimulation. But tell me, sir, what brings you to these parts? So far from Mornington Crescent?’
‘My wife has an interest in this area.’
Mr Abeysinghe turned to her, panting at the exertion. ‘Family, madam? Political?’
‘No,’ she stiffened another notch in her spine, clearly unwilling to be drawn into a pointless conversation.
Mr Colin, however, seemed to have found something to connect with in the old man. ‘Woolf,’ he said. ‘We are interested in Leonard Woolf. You know of him, no doubt.’
Mr Abeysinghe put away his pencil and puzzle. A smile widened like a wave across his face. ‘This time, I can be the one who helps you, Mr Stonebrook. I know all about Leonard Woolf. I even met him when he came back to Ceylon in 1960.’
Miss Susila stared at him in disbelief. A fly flew past her and she didn’t even notice. ‘No.’
‘It is true, madam. No humbug. I met him and we spoke for a long time that afternoon. You see, my father had worked in the katcheri with him here in Hambantota, back in 1908, when Mr Woolf came as Assistant Government Agent. On promotion from Jaffna, I believe, or perhaps Kandy. At any rate, Mr Woolf remembered him, you know. A fine memory and a fine gentleman. He wanted to know about my father. Sadly, although my father learnt a great deal from Mr Woolf, he did not learn the secret of a long life. He passed away in 1952. But he was very fond of Mr Woolf. He admired him greatly.’
‘He spoke about Leonard Woolf?’
‘Oh, yes, madam. He was determined to pass on the wisdom of Mr Woolf to me. It had a most profound effect. His book, which my father directed me to, again and again, gave me my love of literature. From the village in the jungle to the lighthouse, you might say. And his training gave me my profession. I became an accountant.’
Both Mr Colin and Miss Susila were spellbound. ‘Was your father certified?’ Mr Colin asked.
‘No, sir. He was a clerk. Very reliable. In those early years of administration, Mr Woolf had a highly developed sense of economy and of public service. Two things he impressed upon my father. One was the requirement to respond to the ordinary man’s need for justice immediately. Any inquiry at the Assistant Government Agent’s office, any problem raised, had to be responded to on the day itself. “No pending tray, was his motto,” my father used to say. No waiting for tomorrow. It is a lesson our modern bureaucracy has completely forgotten.’
‘Unfortunately, that is very true all over the world,’ Mr Colin said. ‘Especially in England these days.’
‘The second, and this I now believe I misunderstood in my youth, and to my cost. Or perhaps I understood it but only at the lowest level of interpretation, rather than at its most profound.’
A waiter brought the plate of deep-fried rolls, patties, and crisp cheese straws that I had ordered and placed them in the centre of the table. ‘Tomato ketchup, sir?’ he asked Mr Colin.
‘Yes, yes,’ he replied quickly to pack him off.
‘I am sorry,’ Mr Abeysinghe said, taking a step back. ‘I am interrupting your lunch. Forgive me. At my age, my enthusiasms often outstrip my manners.’
‘No, no. Please sit down. Join us. Have a mutton roll?’
‘Do go on.’ Miss Susila was doe-eyed.
‘The second?’ Mr Colin asked. ‘What was the second lesson?’
‘Well, to finish the point, one must understand Mr Woolf was very meticulous with the details of daily life. My father said he had the admirable habit of noting down every recordable fact, you understand? From the number of limes on the lime bush in his garden to the cost of every provision in the household. Not just sugar and flour, but every onion and puppadom. I don’t know how his wife, Virginia, managed with him in bohemian Bloomsbury. He was most particular about expenditure and income and documented everything. Not a cent would go unaccounted in his house here. And therefore you can imagine how scrupulously he maintained the records of tax and revenue. Private money should not be wasted unwittingly, he would say, but public money should not be misused unwittingly, or wittingly.’
I edged in a bit closer. I was beginning to warm to this mysterious English Woolf-man. There were lessons here for us all, but Mr Colin did not seem to really get it.
‘You say you misunderstood? What do you mean?’ he asked.
Mr Abeysinghe turned out his hands as though he was chucking notes in the air. ‘I thought an accountant would do justice to those principles, but you see at that level you are only adjusting columns in a ledger.’
‘Is that not fundamental?’
‘Perhaps. But you know, these days numbers have become complete fictions. How do you write a trillion in a double-entry ledger and still make it meaningful in a world where an ordinary man must do with less than ten dollars a day? Even Mr Woolf would find it difficult not to let his mind wander.’
‘Have a pattie, at least?’ Mr Colin nudged the plate.
‘Thank you, but I have intruded far too long. I shall be on my way. But I wonder, sir, madam—Might I ask you one more favour? Might you have some books you would be willing to part with before you go? You see, I have started a little library here. I am an accountant with a library. A community library. I try to collect any books that visitors might have finished with and wish to leave behind. Tourists often have better things to take back than the books tha
t they brought to read by the pool. Unless they have gone electronic and consume their reading in the new tablet form, they need to divest themselves and we can help in that. It would be nice to find what Mr Woolf would call literature or history, but we need books, no matter what. Self-help, Crime, Thrillers.’
Mr Colin looked at his wife. ‘Perhaps the Woolf books would be ideal?’
‘What? Crime?’ She started.
‘Your books, madam? If you are finished with them, maybe you can donate?’
‘My books? These?’ She pulled her London book-bag close.
Mr Abeysinghe’s mouth flapped like a dog’s. ‘I am by necessity having a very eclectic collection. Last month, it was the most extraordinary female erotica from Australia. But everything has a place, in my view.’
‘Impossible. I cannot leave these.’
Her husband pursed his lips thoughtfully. ‘It might be a very appropriate gesture given the heritage. We can get them replaced, my dear, when we get back.’
‘No.’ She zipped up her bag. ‘No. These are mine. You can send some others, Colin, when we go back home.’
‘Home?’ Mr Colin stopped himself from saying something else.
The old man raised a hand in surrender. ‘I understand, madam. One must keep one’s favourites close. No matter. Nobody reads here anyway. The whole idea of mine is foolish and ridiculous. What they will be wanting in this town is coffee and tarts. Not books, especially not ones that might tell us of what might have been. The culture we revel in now is the culture of impunity.’
‘We will send you some books from London.’ Mr Colin pulled out a smartphone. ‘Give me your address.’
‘No, sir. Shipping these days is a waste of money. Even to send a crossword from England costs more than a lunch packet here. I can see that from the postage my cousin pays. I feel guilty enough as it is every month. I try to keep an account, but I know I will never be able to repay him. Forget the books, sir. They are only words, after all. My foolish fantasy. Castles in the air. Isn’t that what they say? We have more serious things to occupy us. We have the whole world going mad to contend with here. If anyone does want to read, well, they can write something themselves, can’t they?’
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