is it?’ asked the servant boy, but Christopher had gone, unaware of the horrified expression on the cook’s face as she watched the cardboard box rocking on her kitchen floor.
Further down the valley Christopher’s older brothers waited on the steps of Greenwood College for the buggy to collect them. Jacob de Silva was worried. They had been told to leave their books before returning home. Although the real significance of the message had not fully dawned on him, the vague sense of unease and suspicion that was his constant companion grew stronger with each passing minute.
‘Why d’you think we have to go home?’ he asked Thornton.
‘I thought you said they hadn’t paid our school fees,’ Thornton replied. He was not really interested.
‘But why d’you think that is?’ insisted Jacob. ‘Why didn’t they pay them?’ Thornton did not care. He was only thirteen, the apple of his mother’s eyes, a dreamer, a chaser of the cream butterflies that invaded the valley at this time of year. Today merely signalled freedom for him.
‘Oh, who knows with grown-ups,’ he said. ‘Just think, tomorrow we’ll wake up in our own bedroom. We can go out onto the balcony and look at the garden and no one will mind. And we can have egg hoppers and mangoes for breakfast instead of toast and marmalade. So who cares!’ He laughed. ‘I’m glad we’re leaving. It’s so boring here. We can do what we want at home.’ A thought struck him. ‘I wonder if the girls have been sent back too?’
On their last holiday they had climbed down from the bedroom balcony very early one morning and crept through the mist, to the square where the nuns and the monkeys gathered beside the white Portuguese church. They had had breakfast with Father Jeremy who wheezed and coughed and offered them whisky, which they had drunk in one swift gulp. And afterwards they had staggered back home to bed. Thornton giggled at the memory.
Jacob watched him solemnly. He watched him run down the steps of Greenwood College, this privileged seat of learning for the sons of British government officials and the island’s elite, his laughter floating on the sunlight.
‘I want to stay here,’ he said softly, stubbornly, under his breath. ‘We can go home any time. But we can only learn things here.’
He frowned. He could see all the plans for his future beginning to fade. The headmaster had told him he could have gone to university had he stayed on at school and finished his studies. His Latin teacher had told him he might have done classics. Then his science teacher had told him that in his opinion Jacob could have gone to medical school. Jacob had kept these conversations to himself.
‘Oh, I can learn things anywhere,’ Thornton was saying airily. ‘I’m a poet, remember.’ He laughed again. ‘I’m so lucky,’ he said. And then, in the fleeting manner of sudden childhood insights, he thought, I’m glad I’m not the eldest.
‘Come on,’ he added kindly, sensing some invisible struggle, some unspoken battle going on between them. ‘Race you to the gate.’
But Jacob did not move. He stared morosely ahead of him, not speaking. Both boys wore the same ridiculous English public-school uniform, but whereas Thornton wore his with ease, already in possession of the looks that would mark him out for the rest of his life, Jacob simply looked hot and awkward. Again, he was aware of some difficulty, some comparison in his own mind, between himself and his brother. But what this was he could not say. Thornton’s voice drifted faintly towards him, but still Jacob did not move.
‘I can’t.’ His voice sounded strained. ‘You don’t understand. Someone must stay here to wait for the buggy.’
He was fifteen years old. He had been brought up to believe he was the inheritor of the tea plantations that rose steeply in tiers around him. The responsibilities of being the eldest child rested heavily on his small shoulders. As he stood watching his brother chasing the butterflies that slipped through the trees, he was suddenly aware of wanting to cry. Something inexplicable and infinitely precious seemed to be breaking inside him. Something he loved. And he could do nothing to stop it.
The buggy never arrived. After a while an older boy came out with a message.
‘Your parents have rung,’ the boy said. ‘Looks like you’re going to have to walk. They don’t have a buggy any more. Perhaps it’s been sold off to pay your father’s debtors,’ he grinned.
‘We have no debtors,’ muttered Jacob, but the boy had gone.
Eventually the brothers began to walk. Jacob walked slowly. The long fingers of sun shone pink and low in the sky as they left the driveway of Greenwood for the very last time. Rain had fallen earlier, dampening the ground on this ordinary afternoon, one so like the others, in their gentle upcountry childhood. The air across the valley was filled with the pungent scent of tea, rising steeply as far as the eye could see. In the distance the sound of the factory chute rattled on, endlessly processing, mixing and moving in time to the roar of the waterfall. The two boys wandered on, past the lake brimming with an abundance of water lilies, past clouds of cream butterflies, and through the height of the afternoon, their voices echoed far into the distance. Returning to their home nestling in the hills of Little England.
To his dismay, Christopher discovered the servant boy had been right. Jacob and Thornton were coming home. Alicia and Frieda, still stranded at the Carmelite Convent School, were waiting fruitlessly for another buggy to pick them up. In the end the priest, taking pity on them, drove them home and it was teatime before Grace was able to break the news to them all. The servant brought a butter cake and some Bora into the drawing room. She brought in small triangles of bread spread with butter and jaggery. And she brought in king coconut juice for the children and tea for Grace. The servant, knowing how upset Grace was, served it all on Grace’s favourite green Hartley china tea service. Alicia opened the beautiful old Bechstein piano and began to play Schubert. The others ate quietly. For a moment Grace was distracted. The mellow tone of this sonata was one she loved and Alicia’s light touch never failed to surprise her. She waited until the andante was over.
‘That was lovely,’ she said, putting her hand gently on her daughter’s shoulder. ‘It’s come along a lot since I last heard it.’
‘That’s because we’ve got a new piano teacher. She’s wonderful, Mummy!’ Alicia said. ‘She said I must be careful about the phrasing of this last section. Listen,’ and she played a few bars over again.
‘Yes, I see,’ Grace said. ‘Good! Now, I want to talk to all of you about something else. So could you leave the piano for a moment, darling?’
Five pairs of eyes watched her solemnly as she spoke.
‘We’re moving to Colombo,’ she told them slowly. ‘We’re going to live in our other house by the sea.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Because there’s going to be a war the British military needs this house, you see.’ There was a surprised pause.
Alicia was the first to speak. ‘What about the piano?’ she asked anxiously.
‘Oh, the piano will come with us, of course. Don’t worry, Alicia, nothing like that will change. I promise you.’
She smiled shakily. Jacob was watching her in stony silence. He had guessed correctly. The Greenwood days were over.
‘Myrtle will live with us,’ said Grace, carefully. ‘She’ll give you piano lessons, Alicia. And she’ll help in the house generally.’
No one spoke. Thornton helped himself to another piece of cake.
