Kalpana's Dream (12 page)
‘Oh, ’ said Molly.
‘I was an early developer, like you are, Molly. A couple more years and those other’ (Mrs Matthews was a very tactful person – she didn’t say ‘smaller’) ‘girls at school will have caught up with you, you’ll see.’
‘So I
did
wear those baby shoes? They’re really mine?’
‘Of course you did. Of course they are. Look!’ Mrs Matthews turned one of the little shoes over; there were tiny scuff marks on the sole. ‘That’s where you used to kick your little feet against the bottom of the pram.’
Little
feet. Molly’s blood grew warm again, the squeezed-up feeling faded from her heart. ‘Oh, ’ she breathed happily. ‘Oh.’ She could get on with her essay now.
She picked up her pen. And then she put it down again. She faltered. For years and years, since she’d become a big fat girl and thought she’d be one forever, Molly had believed those baby shoes showed her real true self: the thin, delicate Molly buried deep inside her.
It had been about size, she realised suddenly; that was all. Now for the first time she thought, ‘There’s more to me than size – much more.’
‘Ouf!’ Vladimir woke with a painful start. There was
light
in the room.
Beside him, propped against the pillows, Ms Dalli-more was reading.
‘Madeleine! The light!’
‘What? Oh, sorry, Vlad, I forgot.’ Ms Dallimore flicked off the slim pencil torch she kept beneath the doona.
‘What were you reading, my love?’ Vladimir twitched the skinny pamphlet from her fingers and scanned its shiny cover.
‘It’s wonderful how you do that, Vladimir, ’ said Ms Dallimore admiringly. ‘Read in the dark, I mean.’
‘A humble talent, but all my own, ’ said Vladimir modestly. ‘But what is this? This’ – Vladimir read out the title – ‘“
Find Happiness: Retrain
!” ’
‘I was thinking of leaving teaching, Vladimir, ’ said Ms Dallimore sadly.
‘Ah! Might one ask why?’
‘It’s so –
violent
. Oh, Vlad!’ The teacher’s voice grew tearful. ‘Mrs Drayner attacked me today.’
‘Mrs Drayner? This is the Indian lady in the colourful sari who stood next to our bed?’
‘No, Vlad, ’ said Ms Dallimore, with the patience acquired from her dealings with 7B. ‘That old woman in the awful sari was a dream. Mrs Drayner is real; she’s the chief cleaner at our school.’
‘So? She attacked, you say? For what?’
‘It’s the litter, Vladimir, ’ replied Ms Dallimore wearily. ‘The paper floating round the school. Some – well, quite a lot of it, is bits of that essay you suggested I set for 7B. Torn up, hardly begun – oh, Vladimir, those children simply haven’t learned to
fly
!’
‘Flying – ah!’ sighed Vladimir.
‘Perhaps I should have given them something simpler, to start off, something like “What I did in the Holidays”.’
‘Ah, holidays!’ cried Vladimir, tossing the pamphlet aside. ‘Madeleine, do you long for peace?’
Ms Dallimore thought of Mrs Drayner’s red plush hat, and the faces of 7B. ‘Oh, yes!’
Vladimir looked pleased. ‘We will go on our holiday then, very soon.’
‘To the mountains? The castle?’
‘Yes.’
‘Vladimir? What do you mean by castle, exactly? What kind of castle? Is it one of those huge hotels?’
Vladimir didn’t answer. His hooded eyes were closed.
Poor lamb, he’s tired out, thought Ms Dallimore.
My Dear Sumati
, wrote Kalpana.
At last I have bought our flying shoes. Air-pumped soles! Imagine,
Sumati, air in shoes! That is what it says on the box, and that is what it
feels like – not flying exactly, but as if you are walking on air. And in
the shop I saw the skateboards again, Sumati. I took one down and held
it, and turned the little wheels. So fast, so smooth–
Ticktock, ticktock, ticktock – Kalpana rose from the chair and went to the window: every night at ten the flying boy came by. This evening she watched his feet carefully as he stopped beside the gate: how they moved and turned. And when they had waved to each other, she watched how he started again. Then she went back to her letter.
I held the skateboard in my hand, I was about to place it on the floor and
try my foot on it – remember my dream, Sumati, about flying – flying
so fast a little way above the ground that I would open a small crack in
the world and see my Raj’s face again? Well, on a skateboard one would
be at exactly a hand’s height from the ground. So I was about to place
my foot on it, when along came Priya – you will guess the rest – all boss
boss boss and rush rush rush. So I put the skateboard back upon the shelf,
for now. But soon – some day soon, Sumati, I will learn to fly. And then,
when I come home, I will show you, too.
PS I am glad you have made friends with Lakshmi’s goat, and I
understand how you would wish to bring such a good friend home.
But – remember the bus driver, Sumati! Remember the fate of the sweet
potatoes!
‘Um, well, bye, ’ said Priya, standing awkwardly in the doorway, all dressed up in her beautiful green suit and soft silk blouse. She didn’t normally dress so grandly for a Friday seminar at the university, but today was a special occasion, the first time she’d been out on her own for weeks. She gave her daughter a swift, guilty kiss on the cheek. ‘I’ll be back by five.’
‘Promise, ’ demanded Neema.
‘Promise.’
‘Cross your heart.’
Priya’s slender fingers sketched a quick gesture across the silky blouse. ‘Okay?’
‘Okay, ’ said Neema gloomily. It wasn’t, though – Neema felt sure Mum would forget all about her and Nani the minute she reached the university.
Priya turned and hurried towards the grown-up safety of her car. Her heart was thudding with a hard swift beat, as it had on that afternoon many years ago when, after weeks of nagging, her mother had finally agreed to let Priya go roller-skating with her friends. She’d run down the street to the bus stop, afraid her mother would come hurrying after, calling, ‘Stop, Priya! Come back! I’ve changed my mind!’
Neema closed the front door. Now she was alone in the house with Nani. The door of the TV room was closed but music swelled through it, billowing down the hall: Indian music that made your heart ache and then sent it soaring up again. Nani was watching her film. That was all right then, wasn’t it? Nani didn’t really need anyone to watch it with her; Neema didn’t have to go in there . . .
‘Why don’t you ask Katie over?’ Dad had said this morning as he left for the surgery. ‘Then there’ll be two of you to keep Nani company.’
But Neema hadn’t seen Kate at school. They didn’t share classes on Friday morning, and when Neema reached the school gate, late from her music period, Kate had already gone home.
Neema went to the phone and dialled Kate’s number. ‘You only just caught me, love, ’ said Mrs Sullivan. ‘I’m off to work, I’ve got the afternoon shift today. And Kate’s not here, either.’
‘She isn’t?’
‘No. And I’ll tell you one thing, love, I’d much rather be going to work than where Kate’s gone, any old day.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘She’s taken Lucy to the zoo.’
‘
What
?’
‘Yes! You could have knocked me down with a feather when she told me.’
And knocked me down too, thought Neema, hanging up the phone. Kate taking Lucy to the zoo! Kate taking Lucy
anywhere
!
Though Kate
had
been acting strangely lately: finishing Ms Dallimore’s essay before anyone else had begun . . .
The essay! Neema’s was still upstairs, untouched. Having so much time to do it had simply made things worse: it gave you longer to worry, and keep on putting it off. Or to make a start, as Jessaline O’Harris had, then crumple the messy pages up and leave them lying around.
‘There has been a nasty increase in scattered paper, ’ Mrs Drayner had announced at the last assembly, ‘filthy pieces of’, she’d sniffed the word contemptuously, ‘work, barely begun, screwed up and chucked away.’
Wentworth High must be the only school in the world where the chief school cleaner made announcements at assembly, reflected Neema, but the truth was that all the teachers, even the headmaster, were afraid of Mrs Drayner. Neema had seen them stop mid-sentence when they saw her red plush hat bobbing past the windows of a classroom; they held their breath till she’d gone safely past.
Perhaps when the time came to hand the essay in, their English teacher might be gone, spirited away by Count Dracula in his big black car. But though Ms Dallimore was growing paler every day, Neema simply didn’t believe that story. Ms Dallimore couldn’t be the Bride of Dracula – she was a teacher, a sensible person, she’d notice if her boyfriend acted strangely, wouldn’t she?
No, Ms Dallimore wouldn’t vanish, so the essay simply had to be done. Neema glanced towards the door of the TV room – perhaps she could make a start on it now, then she wouldn’t have to watch that film with Nani. And if Nani came upstairs, she’d see at once that Neema was busy and – and go away.
Make a start on
what
, though? Ten minutes later, Neema threw down her pen and pushed her workbook away. How could you say who you were when you kept changing all the time? She felt a different person from the one she’d been before Nani had arrived. She felt older, like the girl her real name, Nirmolini, had conjured in her mind. Only she wasn’t kind and gracious as she’d imagined that girl to be. No, she was mean, she decided, thinking of Nani sitting alone in the TV room.
Yes,
mean
.
Neema got up from her chair and went slowly down the stairs.
The film was like the music, thought Neema; first joyful, then sad, then soaring back to happiness again. And it was
hours
long: hours of meetings and partings, laughter, dancing and tears. Now, at last, they’d reached Nani’s favourite scene, the one she liked to stop, rewind, and play again. A young girl sat alone on a wide verandah, gazing sadly across a garden at a line of blue mountains, capped with snow. A young man appeared in the doorway behind her; she turned and saw him, the music swelled . . .
It was really soppy, but despite herself, Neema liked it, too. She liked the way the boy looked at the girl, so tenderly and dreamily, as if she was the most perfect being who’d ever walked on earth. Would a boy ever gaze at her like that? Was it possible? A boy like – like Gull Oliver, she thought, and then, embarrassed with herself, pushed the thought away.
Nani pressed pause; the film froze on the young man’s face. Neema quailed as Nani began to talk to her in Hindi.
‘He is a little like my Raj, ’ Kalpana told her great-granddaughter. ‘In the way he looks at Rekha there, see? With that soft light in his eyes?’
The only word that Neema recognised was ‘Raj’, which she knew now was her great-grandfather’s name. Could it be that the boy in the film looked like him? Could that be what Nani wanted her to know?
Nani’s Hindi flooded on, and Neema wanted to say something back, even if Nani couldn’t understand her. ‘Um, ’ she began awkwardly. ‘You – you can see he really loves her.’
Nani’s face lit up, almost as if she’d understood what Neema had said.
Perhaps she had. Dad said Nani probably knew some English, that she’d have picked it up when Gran was a little girl at school.
‘Then why doesn’t she ever
speak
any?’ Neema had asked.
‘Perhaps she’s shy about it, ’ Dad had said. ‘Perhaps she thinks she’ll sound funny – to us, I mean.’
Nani wasn’t shy in Hindi though: her words flowed on, and Neema simply sat there, frozen, watching her great-grandmother’s face, the big dark brilliant eyes which flashed and sparkled as she talked, and then went soft and dreamy. And she found herself wishing something – not that Nani would go away, as she’d wished so many times, because it was all so embarrassing – but that she herself could understand her, even a little bit. She wanted to know what Nani was trying to tell her; she wanted to know about Nani, about her great-grandfather, and what it had been like growing up in India in the olden days.