The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q (26 page)

Without a word, Rika got out of the car and slammed the door, her only way of protest. Through the gate, up the stairs to the front door. Granny had given her a key; she turned it in the lock, the door opened. A minute later she flung herself on to her bed and sobbed as if her very soul had turned to water, and tonight was the very last deluge.

S
he had read all
about heartbreak. She’d imagined it, a hundred times. Heartbreak was a lovely word, a beautiful metaphor, a cliché, because of course the heart didn’t really
break.
It continued to beat as steadily and reliably as ever before. That was the irony of it all: that there was no actual physical reflection; that the utter devastation inside her did not somehow blow up her body, the way it did the soul. A heart was not just a physical organ. It was the centre of the soul, its very core, and nothing could describe hers better than the word
shattered.
She wept into her pillow all night long and the next morning even Daddy noticed the redness of her eyes and the blankness of her gaze.

Thank goodness for the twins. They’d been their usual rambunctious selves all weekend, and today, at breakfast, they were still up to it. The latest thing was that new ditty that was making the rounds at all the school:

Ting-a-ling-a-ling!

School-call-in!

Teacher-panty-tie-with-string!

The twins, of course, took the sing-song chant to one more level, feeling, if they could, for the panties-band though the dresses of girls and snapping them to see if they were ‘tied with string’, and getting slapped for their trouble, and running away giggling. Rika, who wore jeans outside of school, they thankfully left alone. Now, she was grateful for the twins’ attention-seeking gambits, however annoying. What with Granny telling them off and Daddy hiding behind the Sunday
Graphic
and Mummy in her study typing up a report – you could hear the furious rattle of her typewriter all over the house – she could wallow in her heartbreak as much as she wanted.

The only one who noticed her utter desolation now was Marion, who, sitting next to her, squeezed her hand under the table and gave her a quizzical look. ‘What’s the matter?’ Marion mouthed, but Rika only shrugged. Marion would never be a true confidante. At thirteen, Marion could hardly be expected to understand; her empathy was of a more general kind, in keeping with Marion's fundamental character. Marion had the rare gift of being truly
good
without being
goody-goody
; a huge difference.
Good
came from within; it was an inherent disposition, perhaps the way all people were
supposed
to be, and that’s why such people were so attractive, whereas
goody-goody
was imposed form without; an adhering to arbitrary rules, together with the smugness of superiority and priggishness towards those less virtuous. Marion was the former. She quite simply empathised automatically; she was like a radio whose receiver picked up and tuned in to the feelings and moods of those around her, and her response was always one of support.

‘Are you having a bad day?’ she'd say in genuine sympathy to the glum-faced cashier at the shop counter, and the girl would immediately look up and meet Marion’s eyes and see the caring there and smile gratefully, and the two of them would exchange a few friendly words and that would be it. Marion just loved everyone, and everyone loved Marion, and Rika wished she had just a fraction of such sheer
lovability.

Instead, she was what she was: a tongue-tied alien who never knew what to say, a foot-in-mouth outsider who fell hook, line and sinker for the little lures of flattery thrown out carelessly by the likes of Don DeSouza, the classic cliché playboy; the worst of it being that she had been warned, and she’d fallen anyway.

She could see it all so clearly now, having howled into her pillow all night long. And the trouble was, weeping didn’t make it go away. The heartbreak was still there, a real, visceral, physical pain. It hurt as much as if Don had taken a knife and ripped into her; a searing agony.

Marion’s solicitude was too much for her; another bout of despair swelled up within her so she scraped back her chair to flee; which finally drew attention to herself. Daddy, looking up from his newspaper, noticed the redness of her eyes and the general desolation painted all over her face.

‘What’s the matter, pet?’ he asked. ‘Had a bad night’s sleep?’

‘Ting-a-ling-a-ling! School-call-in! Rika-panty-tie-with-string!’
sang the twins.

‘Shut
up,
you two!’ exclaimed Marion, who could be firm when it came to defending others; all part of her niceness.

‘Are you all right, dear?’ said Granny. ‘You look tired – but you came home early – I waited up for you.’

‘No, I didn’t sleep well,’ Rika muttered. ‘Think I’ll go back to bed,’ and escaped.

Rika had recently moved into the Annex, the room that had once been her grandfather’s, and then her father’s before he married. Wood ants had hollowed several of the boards on the north wall of her own upstairs bedroom, and the entire wall of that side of the house was being replaced. The good thing was that she had her own little bathroom, and some privacy; it had become her own private realm, separate and special. Now, it was a place to mope and mourn. Back in her sanctuary, she placed a pile of the most sentimental records she could find on the gramophone, closed all the shutters, flung herself on to the bed, pulled the sheet up so that she was entirely covered, and curled herself up into a foetus to cry herself to sleep. Oh, the agony of it all! Oh, the chagrin!

She slept until after lunch. Mildred had left some food for her – cold chicken and cook-up rice – but her appetite had left her completely. Feeling somewhat better after her rest, the acute pain now reduced to a dull ache, she decided to see if Rajan was around. He was the only one she could bear right now. Rajan would understand. Or would he? Rika remembered now Rajan’s utter indifference to her excitement about Jag. He had shrugged the whole thing off and even pooh-poohed her excitement. But then:
‘I don’t want you to get hurt,’
he’d said, and now she
was
hurt. So Rajan was the shoulder to cry on. He would forgive her for having snubbed him somewhat the past week.

Yes, he was there, and as it was a Sunday, he wasn’t working, but reading; a book on chemistry, Rika noticed. Rajan was studying hard for that scholarship. He looked up when she appeared, and, unlike the day before, smiled in acknowledgment. He closed his book and put it aside.

‘You look glum!’ he said, as she drew nearer. ‘Date didn’t go well?’

‘Oh Rajan! It was a disaster! A complete catastrophe!’

Rajan patted the bench and she sat down beside him. The kindness in his eyes was an open invitation and so the whole story poured out; the lateness and the rudeness and the neglect and the baffle and the Sea Wall and the kiss and the groping and the Durex and the
finality
of it all.

‘It’s over before it ever began,’ she wept, ‘and I love him so much. I still love him and it’s all over!’

‘So you going to spend the rest of your life feeling sorry for yourself?’

‘Don’t! Just don’t be all superior and judgmental about it! You could at least
feel
my pain and share it and feel sorry for me!’

‘No,’ said Rajan. ‘I don’t feel sorry for you. Not at all!’

‘Well, I came here because I thought you
cared
and because I thought you’d help me but if that’s the way you feel …’

She got up to go, but Rajan grabbed her wrist and pulled her back.

‘Stop being silly! It wouldn’t help you if I did because all you’d do is keep on wallowing in your misery. How would that help you?’

‘Let me go!’ Rika shook her wrist but Rajan held fast. ‘You never took me seriously. You never even
cared
that I’m in love – you don’t even know what love is! You’re just into your philosophy and your maths and your bloody scholarship and you don’t care!’

She stamped and glared at him, no longer crying. He gazed back at her, then patted the bench beside him once more.

‘Sit down, Rika. I want to tell you something.’

She looked at him, dry-eyed now, for a moment, before obeying.

‘Well, what is it?’ The words were challenging, defiant. He was silent, as if willing himself to speak. Then he said:

‘I
do
know love. I
have
loved. Just as strongly as you … think you do.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. A few years ago. A girl from my village, near Charity in the Essequibo. We knew each other since we were kids, went to the same primary school. After my father died, my mother took me and my brothers and sister back to the country to live with her parents. So this girl and I – her name’s Fatima – we were really close friends until we were ten and then my mother brought me back to town to attend Queen’s College – I won a scholarship – and I lost touch with Fatima. My mum was working here and we didn’t go back up-country for years, because she had to be here all the time, to look after your grandparents.

‘And then we went back to visit
my
grandparents. We were both sixteen, Fatima and I, and – well, we fell in love. Of course, being from a Muslim family, she wasn’t allowed out much at all but somehow we managed to sneak out once or twice. Then her parents caught us and that was that. As a Muslim, marriage to me was out of the question – my mother wouldn’t have minded but the Husain’s were strict – no way they would let her marry a Hindu. Instead, they arranged a marriage for her with some rice farmer from the Corentyne and next thing I knew she was married and gone. I never saw her again. Never will.’

Their eyes met; his glistened with unshed tears and in them was such depth of feeling, such exposed pain, that Rika could not bear it for long; she looked away.

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. But Rajan was not finished.

‘Love doesn’t always find fulfilment,’ he said after a while. ‘And what I learned …what I discovered … is that even if it doesn’t, it’s worth it.’

She reached out, took his hand in silent sympathy. But he wasn’t finished.

‘I was only sixteen when I lost Fatima. Sixteen-year-olds can know love just as much as an adult. Better, because you’re pure and innocent and not yet wary of love and all the pain it can bring. That’s when we can love the truest. That’s what I think, anyway. And then you get hurt and you put a scab over the wound and start accumulating scabs and you end up as an adult with one huge hard scab over your heart. Don’t let that happen to you, Rika!’

She shrugged. ‘Well, at least now I know not to make a fool of myself again. I’ll be so careful now!’

‘See!’ said Rajan, grinning, ‘That’s exactly what I meant! The first scab!’

‘Thanks anyway … I do feel a bit better. Thanks for telling me your story.’

‘Hope it helps,’ said Rajan, and looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got to go now, help Mum get the old lady upstairs.

‘I’ll come too – say hello,’ said Rika.

‘You should visit her more often,’ said Rajan. ‘Even if she doesn’t recognise you.’

‘Yes. I know,’ said Rika now. ‘I’ll try. Don’t make me feel guilty!’

Rajan chuckled. ‘So you
do
feel guilty, do you?’

‘Of course I do!’

‘That’s a good sign,’ said Rajan. ‘Come on up.’

G
ran van Dam
– as the four of them called their maternal grandmother – was sitting in her usual place at the gallery window. This was where she’d spent her days for the last two years, ever since her husband died. She had aged considerably since that day when Rika had met her for the very first time. Possibly the death of her dear Albert had speeded up not only the ageing process, but the collapse of her mental faculties.

Rika had last visited her six months ago, with Marion and, at Granny’s insistence, the boys. It had been an awkward encounter; what can you say to an old woman who doesn’t know who you are, who simply looks right through you? Gran van Dam’s eyes saw nothing of real substance but reached out for that invisible never-to-return Albert. Once again, Rika had been put to shame by Marion, to whom the problem, real or imagined, of being totally transparent simply did not exist. Marion was just her usual caring self, conversing with Gran as if she understood every word and would reply in kind; even if she didn’t.

‘What’s the point? Why do we have to come? She doesn’t even know it’s us!’ the boys had complained, and Rika had not said, but thought the same. Marion had had the kindest reaction; Marion hoped she would soon be able to join him in heaven.

‘In other words, you want her to die soon!’ taunted one of the twins.

‘And that’s
mean
!’ jeered the other.

Put like that it did not seem so kind.

‘I want her to go heaven so she can be
happy
again with her husband!’ explained Marion with puckered brow. She was not used to being accused of meanness.

‘It’s still wanting her dead!’

Now, Rika walked up to her grandmother, stooped down and planted a kiss on the withered cheek. Gran van Dam grabbed her wrist and stared at her with unseeing eyes. ‘Albert! Albert! Albert!’ she croaked.

In alarm, Rika looked up at Rajan.

‘Does she think I’m him?’

Rajan shrugged. ‘She does that to everyone who comes near. Not to us any more – it seems we are too familiar. But everyone else.’

‘She didn’t do it last time.’

‘No. It’s getting worse. That’s why I said you should come more often.’

He stepped forward, bent down.

‘It’s Rika, Granny, your granddaughter! Come to visit! Let go of Rika now, Gran.’

He drew up a chair for Rika to sit on, and carefully pulled away the fingers, one by one. Rika stepped back gratefully, rubbing her wrist where the hand had gripped it like a tight bird’s claw. At last the old woman allowed it, and her hand dropped limp to her lap.

‘Just talk to her for a while. It’ll do her good.’

‘But she won’t understand a thing!’

‘At some level, I think she will. Just talk.’

‘But what shall I say?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Just talk. Speak to her as if she’s all there. There’s a part of her that will hear. I’m sure of it.’ Rajan turned and left her alone with Gran van Dam.

So Rika spoke. Speaking had never come easy to her; it all depended on the person she was speaking to. To her surprise, being with Gran van Dam loosened her tongue. She spoke to her of matters she told few people; most of all, she spoke of Jag and the error of his ways, and hers. Up to now she had only confided in Rajan. She took Gran’s hand – frail, soft and weightless – in hers, and stroked it as she spoke. Somehow, this gave her comfort. Almost from the moment she started to speak, Gran van Dam stopped calling for Albert. Was she really hearing? Listening, even? What went on behind those unseeing eyes? Rika talked on.