hooting a warning to all the children who played on the line. And here we are, thought Alice with another surge of delight, forgetting about babies, for the very best moment of the day was approaching. There in the distance, still only a speck, was the station and the hill where later she would fly her kite. And somewhere amongst the little clutch of white buildings facing the sea was her grandparents’ house. Sunlight touched the rooftops. They were drawing closer. Below her the sea broke through the trees, coming into view once more, startlingly close and full of noise. With a shiver of excitement Alice turned to her mother, but Sita had closed her eyes and was breathing heavily, her mouth slightly open, faint beads of perspiration on her brow. The train was slowing down again; the carriage was almost empty. Alice looked worriedly at her mother, wanting to wake her.
‘Will Aunty May be there too?’ she asked carefully, in perfect Singhalese.
Bee Fonseka stood in the shadows waiting for the train. Beside him were potted ferns and two ornamental rubber plants that grew out of a hole in the ground. The afternoon was bathed in an intense luminescent light. It fell in low, late slants but because of the breeze gave no hint of its strength. Bee waited, watching, as the turquoise blue Sea Serpent emerged through the thick bank of coconut and plantain trees. He was wearing a pair of trousers that matched his whitening hair. Several people, recognising him, raised their hats and he bowed in acknowledgement but made no move to speak to any of them. There had been no rain for months and the air smelled of salty batter, frying fish and suduru, white cumin seed. He had left the house almost half an hour ago. The train had been delayed and Kamala, he knew, would be getting anxious. He had left her fussing over the food, putting the finishing touches to the birthday cake, while the servant woman brought in piles of bread and juggery Enough to feed an army, Bee had observed wryly. The servant had placed a tall jug of freshly squeezed lime juice on the teapoy and draped a heavily beaded cover over it. Then she had gone to pound the spices in preparation for Alice’s favourite evening meal of rice and curry cooked in plantain leaves. How anyone would be able to eat anything after the mountain of cakes and biscuits and patties, Bee had no idea. Normally he would have walked to the station to meet them but because of Sita’s condition he had taken the car. Then, as he had been about to leave, Kamala had caught sight of his hands, black from the etching inks he had been using.
‘For goodness’ sake, clean that ink off before you go to the station!’ she had grumbled.
Bee grunted, ignoring her, wishing he had left sooner.
‘How can you go to meet them with hands like that?’
‘I don’t have to clean my hands for Alice,’ he said vaguely. ‘She’s an artist too, she’ll understand.’
‘Well, think about your daughter at least,’ Kamala said, but he had gone. The car door slammed and the next moment he was driving out through the front gate and towards the station.
Now he waited impatiently thinking of the child and the present he had for her, wondering if she would like it. He knew that Sita, although tired, would insist on getting back home to Stanley. At the thought of his son-in-law, Bee’s jaw tightened.
Fourteen years ago his eldest daughter had married in secrecy. Bee had not even known of Stanley’s existence until then. Sita had travelled to Colombo one morning, pretending she was visiting a school friend, returning a week later a married woman. At first Bee had been too furious to speak. He had no prejudices against the Tamils. Indeed, the few Tamil families that lived near him were courteous and intelligent. They were large, close-knit families who worked hard and mostly did very well at the local school. Still, it was impossible to deny the change that was sweeping across the country. Life would not be easy for Sita. Rumours of violence in the north, in Jaffna and the eastern part of the island were rife. If they were correct, then it would only be a matter of time before prejudice spread down south. None of them, least of all Sita, would be able to predict how things might go. Worried and deeply hurt that she had not trusted him enough to tell him about Stanley, Bee had withdrawn into silence.
When they had finally met, he had found the relationship genuinely puzzling. What was the attraction? he asked Kamala. Kamala had no idea either. Night after night they lay awake discussing their eldest daughter, getting no closer to the truth, for Stanley was a strange, uncommunicative man. Nothing the family could do, not even May’s winsome ways, had succeeded in drawing him out or dispersed the coldness that was, they felt, part of his character. Sita, the daughter who had been the closest to Bee as a child, now seemed uncomfortable in her father’s presence.
On their first visit to the Sea House the couple had stayed only for the evening. Sita had hardly spoken. It had been an awkward distressing event and the little information they did glean was unsatisfactory. Stanley worked in an office in Colombo. He was a stenographer, he told Bee, working at a firm that imported fruit from abroad.
‘Why do we need fruit from the British?’ Bee had asked, forgetting to hold his tongue. ‘Haven’t we enough wonderful fruit of our own?’
His wife and daughters had frowned disapprovingly. But Stanley hadn’t seemed to mind.
‘Apples,’ he had said. ‘The British living here miss having things from their homeland. So we get apples for them. After all, we should encourage them to stay. It’s better for the country, safer for the Tamils, anyway.’
Bee made no comment. He took out his pipe and tapped it against his chair. Then he lit it.
‘I want to go to England one day,’ Stanley had confided a little later on.
He was eating the cake his new mother-in-law had baked hastily. There had been no time to make an auspicious dish for the bride and groom; this was all she could offer. The servant woman standing in the doorway, waiting for a glimpse of the eldest daughter, shook her head sadly. This was not the way in which a Singhalese bride returned home. It was a bad omen. The bride and groom should have been given many gifts. Jewellery, for instance, a garland of flowers, a blessing at the temple. The bride should have entered her old home wearing a red sari, to be met by her sister and fed milk rice. And before all of this, right at the very beginning, the servant woman believed, before the wedding date had even been set, the couple’s horoscope should have been drawn up. But none of these things had been done. It was very, very bad. As far as the servant woman could see, shame had descended like a cloud of sea-blown sand on this family. Sita had brought it to the house, trailing her karma carelessly behind her, fully aware but indifferent to the ways in which things worked in this small costal town. The servant felt it was a wanton disgrace.
‘I want us to go to the UK,’ Stanley had said, taking Sita’s hand in his.
Watching him, Kamala had become afraid. She thought he sounded a boastful man.
After we have children, of course,’ Stanley continued. ‘This bloody place is no good for children to grow up in. Everything is denied to us Tamils. Education, good jobs, decent housing—everything. The bastard Singhalese are trying to strangle us.’
His voice had risen and he had clenched his fists.
‘Stanley!’ Sita had murmured, shaking her head.
Bee had seen with a certain savage amusement that at least his daughter had not quite forgotten her manners.
‘Does your family know you’ve got married?’ he had asked his new son-in-law finally, ignoring his wife’s look of unease.
What did Kamala think? That he too was going to behave badly?
‘Yes, yes. I’ve just told my mother. We’ll be visiting her after we leave here,’ Stanley said dismissively, lighting a cigarette without
