Bone China

They were all laughing now. The servant boy was grinning, and even Jacob was smiling.

‘But he’s wonderful,’ said Grace, laughing the most. ‘He’s a wonderful present!’

Later on she said, to Christopher’s intense joy: ‘I shall call him Jasper! And we’ll take him to our new life in Colombo.’

It was in this way that Grace de Silva dealt with their reduced family circumstance. Easily, without fuss, without a single word in public of reproach to her husband and with all the serene good manners that were the hallmark of her character. Aloysius breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever she felt, she would now keep to herself he knew. Outwardly, she would appear no different. And so, as the rumours of impending war on the island grew stronger, the house beside the lake with all its balconies and splendid rooms was emptied. Its furniture and chandeliers, its delicate bone china were packed away, and even as they watched, their beloved home was closed forever and given up to the British for their military efforts. In this way the de Silva family, cast out from the cradle where they had lived for so long, moved south to Colombo. To a white house with a sweeping veranda, close by the railway line where the humidity was very often oppressive, but where the sweet, soft sound of the Indian Ocean was never far away.

2

AUGUST WAS A DANGEROUS MONTH, when the heat, reaching unbearable proportions, created an oasis of stillness. Every flutter, every breeze, vanished, leaving an eerie calm. Nothing moved. Dogs stretched out on the dusty roads panting, too exhausted to move out of the shade, too parched to bark even. Dust lay tiredly on everything, on buildings, on the soles of the feet of the rickshaw men, on the sides of the old London double-decker buses. Disease scurried through the sun-crisped grass; some said there was typhoid in the south, others that the malaria season had begun. No one knew the truth. A pack of rabid dogs moved up the coast at a trot, and elsewhere in the crowds at Galle Face, baby-pink, raw-faced monkeys chattered and sometimes bit a passer-by. But this was August, when sanity was stretched to its limits.

Four years had vanished in the blink of an eye. Swallowed up beneath a peacock sky while the de Silvas grew and expanded into their new life by the sea. Five de Silva childhoods gone in a flash while the war still limped on unnoticed. It existed in places that were merely names on a map. Vichy, Paris, Dresden, Berlin, Vienna, London. But the hardships in these distant lands barely touched the fringes of the coral-ringed island. The war was a muffled drum, beating elsewhere and leaving the island largely untouched and unconcerned. Grace de Silva hurrying home after one of her trips to Colombo heard the familiar strains of piano music drifting through the long French windows that opened out into the garden. The music cascaded out onto the bougainvillea and was absorbed by it. As she slipped in through the front door, escaping the wall of blistering sunlight, the music rose and swelled and fell delicately. Jasper, the mynah bird who sat by the meshed window in the wide cool hallway, watched her beadily. He had grown enormously.

‘Hello,’ he greeted her. ‘Hello, men,’ and he shifted on his perch.

Grace, who had been trying to be quiet, giggled.

‘Good morning,’ continued Jasper severely. ‘Good morning, men.’

Having been silent and alone all day he found it difficult to stop talking. Grace looked away, suppressing a smile. She kicked off her shoes, ignoring him. Any attention, she knew, was likely to make him garrulous. She poured a glass of icy water from the fridge, gasping as she drank.

The sound of the piano drifted through the interior of the house. It travelled softly across the shuttered rooms and along the yellow stick of light that escaped through them. Alicia was playing the second movement of a Mozart sonata with startling tenderness in one so young. Grace stood listening, holding her breath, waiting as though hearing it for the first time. On and on and on played her eldest daughter in an unbroken dialogue with the music. The notes ran like quicksilver through her fingers. Grace closed her eyes. Her body ached sweetly. Without a doubt, she thought, distracted by the music, Alicia ought to be studying at the Conservatoire. But she knew discussing the financial implications of this with Aloysius was an impossibility. Better to give a monkey a ladder, thought Grace wryly. All she would do if she voiced her anxieties was provide him with an excuse to start his poker up again. No, she decided closing her eyes, I will have to find the money. There was still some of her legacy left that Aloysius knew nothing about. Grace had hoped to keep it for a rainy day. She frowned.

‘Perhaps I shall have to sell the land after all,’ she said out loud.

‘Yes,’ said Jasper as though he understood.

‘Do you think so?’ asked Grace absent-mindedly, forgetting for a moment who he was.

‘Hello, yes, yes, men,’ said Jasper imperiously, preening himself and ignoring Grace’s peal of laughter. Then he squawked flatly and turned his back on her.

Outside, the air was heavy with the smells of late afternoon. The servants were cleaning out the clay pots from lunch, laying them out in the sun to dry. The heat flattened the noises all around into slow hollow slaps as the convent clock struck the hour in a strange flat monotone. Grace paused in the darkened room listening to these unfamiliar southern noises, of crows cawing and bicycle bells. She listened to the lilting sound of the Beethoven study Alicia was now playing. It was interspersed with her husband’s drunken snores in the next room. While the steady ticking of the metronome drew and fused all of it, weaving this fleeting moment in time forever. Grace sighed with pleasure. In spite of the difficulty, her family had made the transition into their new life with ease. Their circumstances had been reduced, but they were happy. The freedom of the big city and the unbroken views of the sea had made up for a lot. She poured herself another glass of water.

Myrtle Cruz, hearing the front door, sat up in bed. She had been resting. The heat in Colombo was intolerable. She missed the cool greenness of the hill station where she had been a governess to the British family. She missed the order and calm of the English children she had taught.

‘This place is a madhouse,’ muttered Myrtle, switching off the fan and getting out of bed.

The English family had long gone. And this, thought Myrtle, this is my karma. She disliked her cousin Grace. It had happened long ago when they had been young, when Myrtle had first met the new estate manager at her uncle’s factory. He had been penniless but handsome and ambitious, often invited to dine at the House of Many Balconies. In those distant, halcyon days Myrtle had understood nothing of the world. She had fallen hopelessly in love with the young Aloysius, with his intelligence, and his good looks. It had been an act of transformation, blinding and total. Unthinkingly, assuming his friendliness meant he felt as she did, she had revealed her feelings. She had not known his interests lay elsewhere. All she had seen was her own compulsive need, her own desperation, so that throwing caution to the winds she had declared her passion. The shame was unbearable. Afterwards she felt it was the single worst thing she had ever done in her life. He had looked at her, first with horror, and then with embarrassment. Aloysius had had no idea she felt that way. He had been bewildered but kind. His kindness had been her greatest humiliation and later on, when she saw all those things he had left unsaid, she realised there had never really been a chance. The presence of the wantonly beautiful Grace in the house would have stopped anything. Her hopes had fallen like ashes of roses, at his feet. No amount of visits to the astrologer, no amount of prayers or offerings made at sacred shrines, had altered anything. Karma was karma, Myrtle had realised with bitterness. She fled her uncle’s house imagining they were all laughing at her. She had not come back for the wedding; she had not seen Grace for years after that. By the time she finally met them both again, Grace had other things on her mind. All their money had gone, frittered away. Oh the sweet irony of it! Her cousin was still as beautiful, but Myrtle could see she was no longer happy. Five children and a useless marriage, she had thought, with a small glint in her eye, that too was karma. How different life might have been for Aloysius had he married her instead. She would never have let him go to the dogs. She would have loved him.

Myrtle could hear Grace moving around the house. She glanced at the clock. Then she pulled out her diary.

Two fifteen, she wrote. This is the second time in a week! So where the devil has she been? She’s missed lunch; she’s had no breakfast and it’s three o’clock. The shops would have shut long ago. So where’s she been?

Myrtle paused, staring out at the plantain tree outside her window. Two bright sunbirds hovered briefly on a bush before disappearing from view.

There are several things that interest me, she continued, writing furiously. One, why does she have to work with the Irish nuns in Colombo? Why not work in the convent here, why take the train to Colombo all the time? The chauffeur drops her off at the station, he picks her up, she comes in and goes straight to bed. There is something very, very fishy going on. Two, what is this work she’s so involved in?

Myrtle knew it was useless asking the children. Frieda and Alicia had only the vaguest idea of what their mother did and the boys were never home, anyway. Is she some sort of spy for the British? She certainly knows plenty of them.

Myrtle stared at what she had written. Like mother like sons, she thought sourly. Then she closed her diary and went off to have a wash.

The truth about Grace was simpler. She had taken a lover. Well, why not? She was still young. Had she not been a good mother, a good wife too? Did she not deserve a little happiness, having remained with the husband who had squandered her inheritance? Well then, thought Grace, who could argue with that? Grace’s lover was called Vijay. He worked in Maya’s Silk Merchants in Pettah. One day, soon after the de Silvas had arrived in Colombo, she had gone over to buy her daughters some saris and he had served her. She had noticed him even then, a lean, handsome man probably in his mid thirties, but with the air of someone much older. A few weeks later she had returned for more silk. He had looked at her in the way that she was used to, in the way men had looked at her all her life, but without, she felt, the suggestiveness that usually accompanied such a look. His look had struck her forcefully. Vijay’s eyes had been soft and full of exhaustion and something, some long-forgotten emotion, had stirred within Grace. Years of neglect on Aloysius’s part had taken its toll. Suddenly, and without warning, she saw that she had grown indifferent without realising it. Her patience had been stretched for too long. Perhaps her marriage had simply reached its outer limits. Perhaps the end had come long ago. Once Aloysius had been her whole world. But no more. So that eventually, after what felt like a moment’s blinding desire, before she could consult her better judgement, say a prayer or argue with her conscience, she found she had given herself to Vijay.

On the first occasion it had happened with a swiftness that took them both by surprise. Grace had been ordering silk. Yards and yards of the stuff. For Frieda and for Alicia.

‘I have two daughters,’ she had told Vijay.

‘Then you will have to come back often,’ Vijay told her softly.

He had not smiled. She heard him as though from a great distance. On the second occasion he had brought out a roll of pale, flamingo-pink material, letting it flow through his hands, letting it stream to the floor.

‘See,’ he said. He could not take his eyes off her. ‘Feel it,’ he said. ‘This is pure cashmere.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed, feeling a constriction in her chest.

No one noticed. She saw, from this, they already talked a secret language. Her hand brushed the cloth and accidentally touched his. Something happened to her throat, something ancient and familiar, closing it up as though it were a flower. The shop had become stuffy in spite of the ceiling fan. She had felt she might faint. So that, stepping back, she pretended to look at other things while waiting for the room to clear. And afterwards, after she had bought her saris and given her address for them to be delivered, she had gone out into the blazing sun, only to hear a radio playing somewhere in the distance.

Love is the sweetest thing,

What else on earth could ever bring,

Such happiness to everything…

Even though she continued to walk on, she was struck by the silly coincidence of the words.

Love is the strangest thing…

I only hope that fate may bring

Love’s story to you.

Grace stood rooted to the spot listening. She was not a superstitious woman. Nor did she believe in fate, but she had left her umbrella in the shop. Turning round, as though there was no time to lose, as though he was calling her, as if she had promised him, she ran back. Like a young girl with foolish dreams in her eyes.

By now the shop was half shuttered. It was midday and the heat had spun a glistening, magical net around everything. The street was empty. Grace stopped abruptly. Why had she expected him still to be there? Perhaps, she thought in panic, it was a terrible mistake. He did not want her after all. Uncertain, feeling ridiculous, she looked around her and saw him standing silently in the doorway. Watching her. Relief exploded in her face. Desire rose like a multicoloured fountain. Happiness somersaulted across the sky. In that moment neither gave a thought to the dangers. Vijay simply waited in the shadows. It was beyond him to summon up a smile and Grace saw the time for smiling had not arrived. In spite of the heat she began to shiver, swaying slightly, mesmerised by his eyes.

‘Grace?’ he said.

He had walked towards her, something seemed to propel him, something he clearly had no control over. How did he know her name? Hearing his voice, Grace felt electric shocks travel through her. Vijay’s voice sounded threadbare, as if he had worn it out with too much longing. Like a bird that was parched; like an animal without hope. Seeing this Grace was overcome by sleepy paralysis. So, holding the heavy weight of her heart, with slow inevitability and leaden feet, she went towards him and placed her head against the length of his body. The door closed behind them. Softly, and with great care. Vijay was too frightened to speak. He rocked against her. Then he unravelled her, shedding her sari as though he were peeling ripe fruit, sinking into the moment, tasting her. A first sip of nectar that left him weakened and snared by his own desire. Slowly he removed the pins from her hair. It was as if he was detonating a bomb. His hands caught against her skin, caressing it, tricked into following a path of its own across her body. Digressing. Grace swallowed. She felt the untold disappointments of years loosen and become smooth and clear and very simple. Vijay kissed her. He kissed her neck and her ears. He pulled her gently towards him and somewhere in that moment, in the three or four seconds it took for this to happen, they crossed an invisible point of no return. The clock ticked on like a metronome. Grace waited. Soon he would kiss her in every conceivable place, in every possible way. Her eyes closed of their own accord. Her eyes seemed to have gone down deep into her body, to some watchful place of their own. She felt his ear against her navel as he listened to the hot shuddering sighs within her. He found a cleft of sweetness and felt the room spin. Then he wrapped himself around her in an ever tightening embrace as they rushed headlong into each other. Later on, exhausted, they slept, half lying, half sitting against each other and time stood still once again. She awoke to feel his mouth against her and then, hearing the beat of his heart marking time like a drum, she knew that he had begun to count the cost of what they had done. Prejudice, she saw, would march between them, like death. Uncompromising and grim. Everything and nothing had changed. She saw without surprise that there was little more she wanted in the world. As he began again, turning her over, feeling his way back into her, defiantly and with certainty she knew, no one would ever keep them apart. Afterwards, he was filled with remorse, so that sitting between the bales of turmeric-coloured silks, surrounded by the faint perfume of new cloth, she reached out and touched him. He was from another caste. To love beyond its boundaries was outside any remit he might have had. He understood too well the laws that must not be disobeyed. As did she. They stood in the darkness of the shop, cocooned by the silk and she read his thoughts for the first of many times. She felt the fear within him grow and solidify into a hard, dark, impenetrable thing. The death of a million silkworms surrounded them, stretched out into a myriad of colours. Grace was unrepentant; she felt as though a terrible fever had just passed her by and she was safe at last. Stroking the dips and slopes of his body, seeing only the smooth brownness of muscles, the long dark limbs, unashamed by his caste, or her class, she smiled. What could Vijay do after that? In the face of such a smile? He could hardly recognise his own hands let alone turn away. His hands belonged to her now. It was an unplanned passion, swift and carefree, carrying with it the last glow of youth.

Alicia was playing something new, something she had never played before. The notes floated hesitantly and with great clarity across the shuttered house. Vijay was a Tamil man and these days madness shadowed the Tamils. Luck was no longer on their side. Who knew what the future held. In the early days none of this had meant anything. She had gone on unthinkingly, acting on her instincts, a huge euphoria propelling her to his door. The sky had shouted her happiness. But no one heard. She had launched her delight into the air like a white paper kite. But no one saw. It was only lately that she had begun to think of the future.

This morning Maya’s Silk Merchants had been closed so Grace had visited Vijay in his lodgings instead. They were towards the east side of Colombo, which was why she had been late getting back. She smiled, remembering the moment, as it rose and fell to the sound of Alicia’s music.

‘I’ve just been listening to the radio,’ Aloysius said, coming in noiselessly, fresh from his afternoon nap. ‘You know, darl, it really is going to be quite bad for the Tamils when the British leave.’

Grace was startled. ‘Will they really leave, d’you think?’ she asked.

Aloysius might be a fool over money but when it came to the British, he was shrewd.

‘Of course they’ll go, and sooner than you think. I imagine there’ll be some sort of a backlash after that.’

Aloysius poured himself some water. He didn’t want to frighten Grace but rumours of a different kind of war were circulating. Sinhalese resentment grew daily, a resentment which would demand acknowledgement. Soon, they would be the majority, with unstoppable power over the Tamils. Grace shivered. Independence had begun to frighten her. Aloysius opened the shutters and stared out at the sea. He was sober. He did not like the feeling. It forced him to think of their uncertain future.

‘Is that Thornton, coming up the hill?’ he asked. ‘Good God, how can he ride his bicycle in this heat?’

Grace did not answer. She had just left Vijay’s small airless room, walking away from his rattan mattress back to her marble floors. Leaving some essential part of herself behind, carrying the sound of his voice home with her. Alicia was playing Schubert. Recently Grace had met a British officer she had known long ago as a young girl. There had been a time when she had thought she might have married him instead of Aloysius. Now she wanted to go to this man, to ask him if the British would really leave. Would there be an independent government at last? And did he think there would be civil war? But the price for such information was too high. The British, she decided, were best at arm’s length. For suddenly Grace was beginning to understand, painfully and with fear, just what might happen to her beloved country. Propelled by this late last love, she had wandered towards frontiers not normally reached by women of her class. She was walking a dangerous road. A secret door in her life had swung open. It could not now be easily closed.

‘Sweep the devils out, men,’ Aloysius said, handing his empty glass to the servant who had walked in, ‘and who knows what others will come in. The Sinhalese won’t stay marginalised forever.’

Alicia had stopped her practice; the metronome was no longer ticking.

‘I’m going to have a shower,’ Aloysius said, shaking his head. ‘Too much foreign rule is bound to tamper with the balance of this place.’ And he went out, bumping into Thornton who had just come in.

‘Ah! The wanderer returns!’ Grace heard him say.

Thornton de Silva was seventeen. In the years since they had left their old upcountry home, he had grown tall and very handsome while his smile remained incontestably beautiful. Colombo suited him. He loved its bustle and energy around him. He loved the noise. The British talked of a Japanese invasion, the navy was on constant alert, and the newspapers were full of depressing predictions. But what did Thornton care? Youth held unimaginable promise. Possibilities festooned his days like strings of coloured lights. Earlier this afternoon he had gone to meet his brother Jacob. The harbour had been a tangle of sounds; muffled horns, and shrill whistles, and waves that washed against the jetty. The air was an invisible ocean, salt-fresh and wet, with a breeze that seemed to throb in time to the sound of motor launches. Further along, in the entry-strictly-prohibited parts of the harbour, brass-buttoned British officers revved their jeeps, while stick-thin boys stepped out of rickshaws carrying native food for important personnel, balancing tiffin tins precariously on their heads. Thornton had brought Jacob his lunch. He had been wheeling his bicycle along the seafront watching the frenzy of activity when he had bumped into two English girls, one of whom he vaguely knew. She had called out to him and Thornton had smiled, a beacon of a smile, a searchlight of happiness, making the girl giggle. She was drinking a bright green limeade through a candy-striped straw. Thornton watched her lips wrap themselves around the straw. Then, regretfully, remembering that his brother was waiting for him, he had waved and moved on. But Jacob, when he met him, had been full of his usual gloom. Thornton sighed, only half listening.

‘Crown Rule,’ Jacob declared loftily, following some thread of his own, ‘my boss says it’s a privilege the Indian Empire doesn’t have. Which is why they are in such a mess!’

Thornton had not the faintest idea what his brother was talking about. The girl with the candy-striped straw filled his head.

‘Crown Rule is what keeps the elephants in the jungle and stops them trampling all over the parks.’

Jacob paused, considering his own words. It was true the parks were beautiful. And he could see, Crown Rule did keep the grass green with water sprinklers. It gave the island its economy of rubber and tea. So really, he decided, on balance, it was probably a good thing. Thornton remained silent. Personally he didn’t care if the elephants walked on the railway lines, or the grass all died, or the rubber trees dried up. He had no idea what went on in Jacob’s head.

‘Let’s go to the Skyline Hotel tonight,’ he had suggested instead. ‘There’s a jazz band I know playing there.’

‘I can’t,’ Jacob said shortly, ‘I’ve got overtime.’