Kalpana's Dream (5 page)
But her mother had been determined. ‘Why waste the gift of cleverness?’ she’d asked the uncles. ‘Why turn your back on what is given?’ She’d set her lips and narrowed her eyes at them, and one by one, the uncles had given in.
Usha changed tack. ‘Does Priya know you’re coming?’
‘We wrote to her last week, ’ said Sumati.
Last week! Usha glanced at the date on the ticket, scarcely ten days away. ‘They won’t get it on time! Letters take three weeks, sometimes even four! I’ll have to phone! I’ll have to phone right away!’
Sumati clapped her hands. ‘Shoosh!’ she ordered. ‘Shoosh now! Stop this fussing, forget this phoning and be off with you to bed. Tomorrow will do for that; we have no phone anyway.’
‘But–’
‘To bed at once. You look very bad, Usha. All wrinkled and worn out, older than my own mother even, when she was ninety years. This is what fussing will do for you!’ She clapped her hands again. ‘Off you go, now!’
Usha went. Why was it, she asked herself, that whenever she came back here, she felt small as a child again? She didn’t go to bed though; she drew the line at that. Why should she do what Sumati said? She was a grown woman, not a four-year-old. She was a grandmother, a teacher, Headmistress of St Ursula’s Ladies College! She would go to the post office and ring her daughter’s family from there.
Clutching her handbag, Usha crept down the passage and out through the back door. She crossed the courtyard and reached the big iron gates beside the road. There she stopped. The gates were old and squeaky; to open them would bring sharp-eared Sumati running from the house to scold her all over again. There was a gap in the hedge further down; Usha knew it from her girlhood when she’d crept out at night to stand like a lovesick fool outside Hardev Bhari’s house. Hardev Bhari! Usha tossed her head. What an idiot she’d been! Worse than her own Year Tens, who were giving such trouble at St Ursula’s, throwing notes to the boys of St Leo’s, turning their hair green, attempting to dye it in fashionable Western colours.
Usha found the gap, though it seemed somewhat smaller than she remembered. Overgrown, thought Usha, as she struggled through. Or was it she who was overgrown? ‘Must go on a diet, ’ she muttered, as she set off towards the town.
The students at St Ursula’s Ladies College, even the green-haired ones, would have been surprised to see their distinguished headmistress hobbling down that dusty country road. Her smart Delhi suit was badly rumpled, the blouse hanging out of the skirt. On her feet she wore Sumati’s cracked old leather sandals, because in her hurry Usha hadn’t been able to remember where she’d put her shoes.
She hadn’t remembered the time either. The post office was shut; it was ten o’clock at night. No light shone in the windows of the postmaster’s house, but Usha battered grimly on the door. She’d hobbled all this way in the dark, her feet were killing her, the soles of Sumati’s sandals seemed to be fastened on with nails. She was making that call to Priya! Priya’s family had to know! Usha checked her watch again and did a rapid calculation. Ten o’clock here, so in Sydney it would be late afternoon, it would be about half-past four.
‘Who was that?’ the postman’s wife asked as he stumbled back to bed.
‘The one from Delhi. Kalpana’s child.’
‘The school teacher?’
‘That’s the one.’ He pulled the cotton quilt up to his chin. ‘Always in a hurry, always rush, rush, rush.’
‘Who was that?’ asked Ignatius, as Priya came back from answering the phone. It was half past three in the morning, the very middle of the night. Back in India, Usha had counted the time difference backwards instead of forwards. ‘It’s not Mrs Oliver’s baby coming early, is it?’
‘No, ’ said Priya.
‘Or Mr Crombie’s kidney stone?’
Priya shook her head.
‘Or–’ he grinned at her, ‘old Mrs Pepperel’s indigestion?’
‘None of those, ’ answered Priya.
‘Then who?’
‘Mum.’ Priya’s eyes were round with amazement. ‘Guess what? Nani’s coming! Nani’s coming here!’
Neema’s dad burst out with the news at breakfast. ‘We’ve got a surprise for you!’
Neema looked up from her bacon and eggs. ‘A surprise?’
‘A really big one!’ Her dad’s face was glowing; he nudged at her mother’s arm. ‘Go on, Priya. You tell her, it’s your family, after all.’
‘Nani’s coming, ’ said Neema’s mum.
Neema gave a small startled jump in her chair. ‘
Gran
?’
Oh no! Not Gran again. Gran was so
bossy
! She couldn’t stop being a headmistress for a single minute, not even when she was on holiday. Every moment she was at it: asking questions about school, going through your folders and your homework exercises, frowning and sighing out loud. She’d find Ms Dallimore’s essay and want to know why Neema hadn’t even made a start.
‘But – but she was only here in July!’
Neema’s mum tried to hide a smile. ‘Not your gran. Nani.’
‘Nani?’
‘Your great-grandmother, ’ said Dad. ‘Mum’s gran. Or, if you like, your gran’s mum.’ His eyes shone beneath their sandy lashes; he loved anything to do with families.
Because he never had one when he was little, Neema realised suddenly: no mum or dad, or aunts and uncles and cousins, no-one at all except Sister Josephine and her little band of nuns, and the other orphans at the children’s home. Perhaps that was why he loved her and Mum so much, so specially, loved even stern headmistress Gran. And now this other person, Nani.
‘Remember when we went to Nani’s place?’ he asked her. ‘That little town beside the river? Remember the buffalos?’
Neema shook her head. No matter how many times she told him, Dad never quite believed that she didn’t remember a thing about their trip to India, when she was only three. The trip to family, she thought.
‘And how we used to sleep out on the roof at night, because it was so hot?’ Her dad’s voice became very soft and tender. ‘And go down to the river after tea? Remember the river, Neema?’
She didn’t, of course. Not the river, anyway. But deep down in her memory, something began to stir. Neema screwed her eyes up, concentrating, and a picture of two old ladies floated slowly into her mind. Two old ladies standing side by side. ‘I think I do remember something, ’ she said slowly, ‘only it might be a dream, because there’s two old ladies, one in a white sari, and one in – a sort of rainbow one. A really bright rainbow.’
Her mum and dad began to laugh.
‘What’s the matter? What’s so funny?’
‘You’re remembering Nani – she’s the one in the white sari, but you’re also remembering Sumati, for sure.’
‘Who’s Sumati?’ asked Neema, bewildered.
‘Your Nani’s friend. She always wears very bright saris – as a kind of celebration, ever since her husband ran away to be a Holy Man.’
‘Huh?’
‘Great swirls of colour, ’ grinned Dad. ‘Riots of it! Pink and orange and purple and black and green–’ ‘Violent colours, ’ murmured Neema’s mum.
But Priya wished Sumati was coming too, so Nani would have someone to keep her company. Priya would take time off from her work at the university, of course, but what would she and Nani do all day?
‘What will we
do
with her?’ she asked aloud.
‘Do with her?’ Neema’s dad sounded puzzled.
‘How will we, sort of, entertain her, while she’s here? Find things for her to do?’
‘There’s lots of things, ’ said Neema eagerly. ‘We can take her to the beach–’
‘That’s just what I mean. We can’t go there, she’d be shocked.’
‘Shocked?’
‘Yes! All those skimpy swimsuits, and those, um, courting couples–’ ‘Oh.’ Neema’s dad went pink. ‘Well, there’s always the river; we can have a barbecue.’
‘No we can’t; she’s a vegetarian, remember? We can’t even walk by the river, the whole place smells of roasting meat! And that’s another thing – we’ll all have to be vegetarians while Nani’s here.’
‘Fine with me, ’ said Dad. ‘We can be vegetarians, can’t we, Neema?’
‘Sure.’ Neema forked up a thick slice of bacon from her plate.
‘How does Nani spend her time when she’s at home?’ asked Dad. ‘What does she like to do?’
Priya cast her mind back to those childhood holidays she’d spent at Nani’s house. Oh, how she’d hated that place! It was so hot, always, the sun blazing from the fierce blue sky, and there was nothing to do – not unless you wanted to walk by the river, or along the dusty paths through the fields. She could hardly believe her own clever headmistress mother had grown up in such a place.
But how had Nani and Sumati spent their time? Little images rose up in her mind: the bazaar in the early morning; baskets of vegetables, the old ladies’ long fingers testing the freshness of
bhindi
and
brinjal
and bitter gourd; the shady courtyard of the house, the two of them hunched over trays of rice and lentils, cleaning, sifting, cleaning again; the dark little kitchen shack, the smell of charcoal . . .
‘She cooks, ’ said Priya.
Neema’s dad looked round their own bright kitchen. ‘Plenty of room to cook here.’
‘Yes, but–’ Priya frowned. Obviously he didn’t remember Nani’s cooking, the cooking she’d learned from Sumati, and Sumati had learned from her old grandmother in that village in the hills. Priya shuddered at the thought of it:
rotis
you could sole your boots with, vegetables boiled in oil . . .
‘But what?’
‘Oh, nothing, ’ answered Priya. They would soon find out. ‘Nani doesn’t speak any English, remember. And you two don’t speak a word of Hindi.’
‘But
you
do.’
Priya flushed. ‘You know what Mum said about my Hindi last time she was here. She said I’d picked up such an awful accent she could hardly understand me.’
That was just like Gran, thought Neema. Always criticising.
‘She said it sounded like a different language altogether, a really awful one, that should be called Hindian, or Australi.’
‘Oh well, your mother’s a little–’
‘Bossy, ’ finished Neema.
‘But if she can’t make out my Hindi, then how will Nani?’
‘Look, don’t worry, ’ said Neema’s dad cheerfully. ‘We’ll manage. Everything will be fine, you’ll see.’ He smiled delightedly at his wife and daughter. ‘She’s your grandmother, and Neema’s
great
-grandmother, Nani’s–’ his voice lingered lovingly on the last word, ‘family.’
‘My nani’s coming to visit us from India, ’ Neema told Kate as they walked down the corridor to Mr Crombie’s history lesson.
‘Your gran?’ replied Kate, a little startled. ‘But she was only here last winter.’
Kate was afraid of Neema’s gran: she looked at you so sternly. She looked at you as if she was about to ask you to spell the kind of word you’d never heard before, which only ever appeared in tiny print, in the deepest pages of the dictionary.
Neema giggled. ‘No, not Gran. Nani is
Mum’s
gran; she’s my great-grandmother.’
‘Your great-grandmother!’ Kate had never met a great-grandmother before. ‘What’s she like?’
Neema shook her head. ‘I don’t remember. But she wouldn’t be all headmistressy like Gran. Mum says Nani never even went to school.’
‘Half her luck, ’ sighed Kate.
What would Nani be like? wondered Neema. Already Mum had prepared a room for her, the spare bedroom down the hall from Neema’s. She’d bought a new doona for the bed, and new curtains for the big window that overlooked the street and their front yard. In less than a week, Nani would be here.
Outside the library, Ivy Stevenson and her boyfriend Danny Moss were making plans for their evening. ‘Eight o’clock?’ asked Danny.
Ivy nodded.
‘Meet you on the corner of her street, then. And remember to wear dark clothes.’
‘Right, ’ said Ivy, and then she nudged his arm. ‘Look! There she is!’
Ms Dallimore was walking across the courtyard. Her step was light and brisk, her eyes sparkled, her pale face held the glow of great enthusiasm. Last night her dear companion, Vladimir, had given her the most marvellous topic for a senior essay:
The World, the Flesh, and the Devi
l. Her Year Tens had been getting a little sluggish lately, and Ms Dallimore could hardly wait to try it out on them.
‘She’s getting paler, ’ whispered Ivy.
‘Paler and paler, ’ responded Danny.
It was like a little song, a chant, that echoed everywhere around the school.
