Black British (30 page)

“And remember,” he continued, “You are not unique. History is littered with people who were driven out of their homeland for one reason or another – religious persecution, poor economic conditions, politics, war. In our case we are lucky. We recognise it's the end of an era, we are left over from a previous society and we choose to leave. It might be a loaded choice but nevertheless it is our choice. So stop feeling sorry for yourself. You're a jolly sight luckier than most.”

His remorseless logic made me afraid I'd disgrace myself with tears but my father, sensing my anguish, changed his tack. “The important thing to remember is that you are lucky, your Goan heritage is a happy one, of friendship and music, song and dance. Don't give yourself airs and graces about that either. Your distant ancestors were horny-handed sons of the soil who climbed out of manual labour to give us a better life. You come from hardy stock. You'll have to cope. You'll have no choice.”

Having made this pronouncement his manner reverted to matter of fact. “But you cannot stay in Kanpur. If you do, you'll be a living sacrifice to the glories of yesteryear.”

CHAPTER 19

BOOBY TRAPS

Packing up the house had been an onerous task that Lily and I had found exciting even though we knew our safety was compromised, particularly by the fan room. With all the additions and subtractions to the house by past generations, the home we inhabited was an eccentric building that was heaven for adventurous, growing girls but a burden of responsibility for our parents.

In the early 1900s the advent of electricity necessitated the addition of an extra room to our summer bedroom. It was small and purpose built, with one external wall containing a circular hole large enough to accommodate an induction fan. Since the fan had four blades, each measuring about forty-six centimetres in length, the opening was also large enough for a grown man to hunch over and climb through. Beyond the fan a cement
houdh
formed the shell of a water tank. A wire framework covered with grass matting called
kus kus
made up the roof and extended the
houdh
's walls.

The function was sophisticated and based on evaporative
cooling principles. Had the induction fan been left to its own devices, it would have blown in a hot, dehydrating wind, worse than the blast from a furnace. Instead, water from the
houdh
was pumped over the
kus kus
matting, keeping it constantly wet and giving us delightfully cool and fragrant fresh air. We knew we lived in paradise.

Once the monsoon broke the induction fan became obsolete for that year. With much ceremony the fan was dismantled, cleaned, oiled and stored until the following year when once again it was called on to save our lives. When the
kus kus
matting was removed, the
houdh
emptied and scrubbed, the hole in the wall, an unintended entrance, became glaringly apparent.

In order to block off entry to all and sundry, whether it be of the two- or four-legged variety, or the type that slithers on its belly, a plank of polished wood was placed against the pseudo-portal and held in place by two large and heavy cabin trunks, each measuring one square metre and filled with all sorts of odds and ends. These we laid one on top of the other, completely covering the fatal spot.

Packing up our home meant the cabin trunks were called upon to perform their original duty, leaving a gaping space behind, an obvious entry portal.

With Uncle Hugh gone we were particularly vulnerable. He had a reputation as a crack shot in spite of his advanced years, and that kept a certain horde away. He also commanded enormous respect in the district so local people looked out for him. Without him we were insecure and frightened. Our other safeguard, my beloved Reg, was also permanently asleep under the laburnums.

“We can't leave it like that.” Lily sighed. We had propped a thick mattress against the plank of wood that closed off the gap and knew it would keep the cold at bay but not an intruder of any kind. Another solution was required. Being young adults, primed to share responsibility, we knew it was up to us to invent an inspired remedy. This wasn't time for trivia.

Famous last words. The remedy came from trivia. Initially, Lily was set for analysis.

“What's the worst thing that can happen?” she started before I cut in sharply and sarcastically.

“We could get murdered in our beds! That's what can happen.”

Rape, sexual assault, violation of a woman's body were torture and crimes we had never heard of in our gently cocooned lives. Even jokes that could be construed as risqué or close to the limit of propriety were never repeated in our presence.

“What we need is an alarm that alerts us to the
dacoits
so we have at least a fighting chance.”

We looked at each other helplessly. I might as well have said
we need to fly to the moon
because an alarm simply wasn't available. Lily returned to being analytical. “What's the next best…” and we both shouted with glee, “Booby traps of course!”

That set us thinking.

“Remember that Laurel and Hardy cine we saw, where they use thumbtacks to immobilise the baddies?” I asked Lily. In the film the
goondhas
are barefoot, they break down a door and charge in, only to step heavily on sharp thumbtacks. The pain completely incapacitates them so that all they can do is
hop around madly or fall over.

We surveyed our handiwork doubtfully. Both of us had the same thought that neither wanted to voice. Up-ended thumbtacks didn't seem much of a defence. And then, like a good penny, a brilliant idea dropped into both our minds.

Traditional Indian cooking uses fine tin pots called
dekshis
, covered by equally thin lids referred to as
dukhners
. This structure promotes the even distribution of heat. Every kitchen has a plentiful supply of different size
dekshis
accompanied by a corresponding size
dukhner
.

For the first time in history, perhaps the only time, our
dukhners
found a new role. Bolting the doors between the fan room and our summer bedroom we jammed a row of
dukhners
into the crack between the doors and the framework.

Our hysterical laughter was in response to both the noise and our ingenuity as we slowly, gently pulled the door open and created an unqualified
cra-s-s-s-sh
as a wave of metal hit the hard mosaic floor. It was enough to frighten the living daylights out of any hardened criminal.

But our trials were incomplete. We were pulling the doors open from the summer bedroom rather than pushing them open from the fan room, from where we would expect the intruder to originate.

“We need to see if it works from the other side,” I said innocently to Lily. “Do you want to try it?”

My sweet, gentle,
trusting
sister did just that.

It took me a second to shoot the bolt home and skedaddle. Sometimes, for no tangible reason, sixteen-year-olds revert to ridiculously childish behaviour in spite of the stunning
brilliance they have just displayed.

A week before we were due to leave, my mother straightened up from packing the final portmanteau and pronounced with relief, “Thank goodness that's done. I've been having nightmares that we wouldn't be ready to hand over to the nuns on Saturday.”

My father, Lily and I had no such misgivings. We had seen our mother in action many times before and respected her planning capabilities. But the fun and excitement of so much activity was wearing off and the stark reality of actually leaving was setting in.

“Just think,” said Lily that night as we sat huddled under our
rizis
, “this time next week it'll all be over. We'll be in the train.” The future beckoned us with bewitching fingers, exciting possibilities, and at the same time our hearts were heavy with a sense of irreparable loss. Neither of us voiced what we were both thinking.
This time last month Uncle Hugh was with us
.

The rooms were forlorn and deserted. With the disposal of generations of personal belongings we were now unable to remember what had gone where or to whom. All that was evident were empty shelves gathering dust that some other hands would remove, faded patches on paintwork where pictures had hung, in the same spot, on the same wall for all of our lives. Soon other people's pictures would hang there.

The silence hung heavy in empty rooms, magnified in intensity by our movements that resonated off bare walls. Unconsciously we spoke in hushed voices, like you do when someone is dying, as indeed the life that we knew was dying around us.

The whole house had taken on the atmosphere of an unloved, deserted being, “whose lights have fled, whose garlands dead” and all but us departed. Reproach leapt out from every corner and guilt added to our burden. We were forsaking our refuge, our haven, our dear, dear friend.

At breakfast the next morning, our mother said, “Right! All the clearing and packing is done, we are organised for the last-minute things so today we take a break. Lily and I will bake a cake and we'll have high tea in the winter garden.” Her unspoken words hung in the air.
This is the last Sunday we will ever spend in the home where we belong, where our psyche is deeply embedded in the seasons and the soil
.

Feasting was usually kept to special occasions like Christmas, Easter and birthdays so that afternoon, replete with our unusual bounty, we relaxed back to enjoy the last of the warm, gentle sun.

“I'll nip over and see Claude.” My father prepared to walk the half hour or so to his brother's house.

“I'll come.” Sixteen-year-old girls are irrepressible, but a look from my mother changed my mind quick smart. After he'd left she explained.

“Your father needs time with his brother. They are both hurting like hell at the moment, so leave them alone.” Her unusual use of the mild expletive reminded me that though I had a lot to lose, my father had more.

He hadn't been gone for more than ten minutes when a stealthy movement caught my peripheral vision. “Mummy,” I called softly, “there's a man standing at the
houdh
. I don't know what he's doing.”

Before my words could register, this stranger leapt on his bicycle and raced back the way he had come, past the car standing in the porch and up the driveway to the public road.

No one moved. We were stunned. We were bemused. We were the whole dictionary of words that mean dumbfounded. My mother's facial expression was a study in incredulity.
Did what I think happen, actually happen?

It took a few moments before we rushed to crowd around the
houdh
that stood on the edge of the rose garden alongside the driveway and was about six metres from where we had been siting. Nothing appeared to be different. The man hadn't urinated in the standing water or desecrated it in any way, as we were expecting.

“He probably just wanted a drink,” my mother started to say, and then we saw.

A complete stranger, in broad daylight, had the audacity to enter our private compound, cycle 90 metres up the driveway, unscrew the brass tap from the
houdh
and pocket it, plug the flow of water with a piece of wood and take off at the speed of knots.

The horror of his boldness frightened us. “Thank God your father wasn't at home,” were my mother's first words. She knew there was still a vestige of respect left for older women which prompted a singular thief to grab his loot and make off. Had a man been present, the bandit might have felt more inclined to be aggressive and instigate violence.

“Thank God it wasn't worse,” were her second remark, knowing it could have been a gang and they could have come armed with knives and other sharp tools. There was simply nothing we could do to prevent such an attack or to protect ourselves. We were sitting ducks.

The incident hardly warranted discussion. There was
nothing to say. If it was the difference between a man feeding his family for a few months compared to us having a brass tap, we all knew which one we preferred. Besides, it was also an example of what we'd been expecting all our lives. And it served a definite purpose. It validated our decision to leave.

That night my father remarked, “I'm glad the house is going to the nuns. I wouldn't want it to be razed to make way for multi-storey flats. It's a dear old place and such a beautiful building.”

Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder. My ancestral home was unique, with a mind of its own, but one thing it never was, and that was beautiful – in any sense of the word.

“People can't afford to live in these mausoleums anymore and I'm glad some jumped-up nouveau riche hasn't acquired it with tainted funds and blood money. It'll fulfil its destiny and through the years house lots of noisy, laughing, happy children from the streets. They'll have a home and a future. A fitting bequest from my lovely daughters.” His expression was total love tinged with sadness.

We were all glad the house was to become an orphanage to be run by an order of Indian Catholic nuns. Everyone knew that our father would never partake in the counter currency that beset the country and that his honesty precluded those “jumped-up nouveau riche” from acceding to our heritage. Lily and I valued this above diamonds and gold. It was our true, treasured inheritance.