“AREN’T THEY a lovely couple?”
“Yes. She’s got such a wonderful pink skin, hasn’t she?”
“Yah. Like one of those porcelain statues.”
“She’s really beautiful, isn’t she, Phil?”
“Yah. Like her mother.”
“Not just her mother. Takanashi’s got that clear fair skin too, Phil.”
“Yah …”
“Pity about that scar on his face, isn’t it?”
“He’s lucky to be alive, Vicky.”
“Yeah, I know. You’ve told me that story umpteen times.”
“And you’ve forgotten it umpteen times.”
“The perfect bride! God, she would be a perfect Virgin Mary in a Nativity play. That beautiful white face of pure innocence.”
“For Chrissake, Vicky, you get so bloody carried away. This is bloody nineteen seventy. Don’t go on about all that virginity stuff. They’ve probably been …”
“Yah, Phil. I cry at weddings.”
“Oh, Vicky!”
Philippa lifted her chin, threw her grey head back and laughed a loud uncouth laugh.
Philippa didn’t care a damn.
At 56, single, stamped spinster by her society, she was absolutely sure, piggishly cocksure of herself, certain that she had all human nature taped – and they could all get stuffed if they objected to her ways. She used the new expressions. She would have said it with a four-letter word if Vicky could have taken it.
Vicky, who in her youth was the wild one, the rebel!
She put her hand on Vicky’s dried, wrinkled forearm, and laughed on.
“Vicky …”
Vicky smiled at Philippa and was about to say something when a gruff voice cut in from behind them.
“If it’s a dirty one, I’ve heard it.”
Vicky and Philippa turned their necks round uncomfortably to look, although both had guessed who he might be.
“Uncle Ramalho. Hi,” Philippa said.
“Good evening, Uncle,” Vicky wished him with a smile.
“For heaven’s sake, don’t uncle me. Not at your age, Vicky.”
He growled a soft laugh.
“Doctor Rosario …” Vicky mumbled.
“That’s better. When two old maids call me uncle, I know I’m getting on.”
“Not old maids, please. Dignified mature ladies, if you don’t mind,” Philippa interrupted.
Ramalho growled his soft laugh again. A wide grin all over his puffy face, his mouth pink against his shiny black-brown complexion. His hair gleaming white. He shifted his flabby body, clutching his cane. At seventy-three he was fat, wobbly, grey, but still with a thick shock of hair, and bursting with life, flamboyant, eating like a horse, though not drinking as much as he used to, and always laughing, the twinkle of a lusty young buck in his eyes. Philippa had said to him at Antonio’s birthday party five years ago, with the whisky wild in her, “Uncle Rama, you’re really a fire rooster by the Chinese birth signs!” and he had snapped back with a body-quaking laugh, “Don’t be crude, girl. I’m not a hot cock.”
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Ramalho said.
“Sit down, Uncle,” Philippa said.
“Thank you. I won’t. It’s such a job getting up, you know.”
“Yah, I was jus’ sayin’ to Phil how lovely she is …”
“And so is he,” Philippa cut in sharply.
“Yes, yes, yes. Of course. He’s a Rosario,” Ramalho grunted.
“Oh God!” Vicky responded at once with her head thrown back in mock disgust. “All sticking together …”
“Blood, my dear, is thicker than alcohol.”
“You’re talking of the Rosarios.”
Ramalho laughed again.
Philippa switched to a sentimental, serious tone.
“I never ever thought that I would be at my nephew’s wedding, Uncle.”
“Your nephew! My grandnephew! Or whatever you call the blighter. It’s medical science, girl. Keeps us old fogies going.”
“And monkey glands,” Vicky added, giggling.
“Watch your mouth, sweetheart,” Ramalho said.
“Yeah,” Philippa added without a moment’s hesitation. “You shouldn’t say things like that in front of Uncle Ramalho. The fellow’s still …”
“Flabby but virile.” Ramalho laughed at his own interruption.
“Ready, willing …” Vicky started with the words of the old song but Philippa broke in with “… and doubtfully able.”
“Hey. This is all too much for me. I’d better be off before I get seduced.”
Philippa laughed, “By a woman in her late sixties.”
“Phil! How could you …”
“Philippa,” Ramalho said as he adjusted his body position to move away, “come round sometime and see my new tiger skin.”
“New? Surely you’re not still …”
“No. No. Do you remember I gave the Yang di-Pertuan Besar a skin many years ago?”
“Yah. The one you shot near Rembau, right?”
“That’s the bugger. Well, the old bloke’s son remembered that it was I who gave it to his father and when he died he whispered to me at the funeral … the lying-in-state, I mean … I mean Mahmud, the son … well, he said he’d send it to the house. Return it to me. The palace was jam-packed with hunting trophies anyway. So he sent it to me. Real beauty, she is.”
“Yah. I will, someday.”
“Cheerio, girls!”
“Girls …” Vicky giggled softly.
They were silent for a minute after he walked away.
“They’re a lovely couple, aren’t they?” Vicky said, to break the silence.
“You said that already, Vicky,” Philippa mumbled without expression.
Vicky looked at her. She was not going to let Philippa upset her tonight. Let it lie.
“The thing is, they fit each other,” Philippa said.
“Yah …”
“I mean, personality-wise. He’s a Virgo and she’s a Gemini.”
“What about the Chinese signs?”
“He’s a rat. She’s a tiger.”
“Hoi, Tessie!” Vicky called out to a middle-aged woman walking past them.
“Vicky! Haven’t seen you for ages and ages,” Tessie said as she came up to Vicky and Philippa. “Hello, Philippa.”
Tessie Perera stood in front of them, radiant, flushed with alcohol, smiling, her pale blue dress clinging to her body.
“Gee, you look good,” Vicky said.
“Stunning, girl. Quite geravishing, as one of my students once wrote in his composition. Probably mixed it with ‘geram’.” She didn’t have to explain it meant sexy, desirable in Malay.
Tessie grinned and opened her mouth to say something, but Vicky started, “What’s the secret?”
“Good clean living,” Tessie smiled impishly.
“And lots of good sex,” Philippa added.
“Shush!” Vicky turned to Philippa.
Tessie grinned. “Vegetables and cooling foods.”
“Poppycock!” Philippa snapped.
“How’s Gus?” Vicky asked, trying to change the subject.
“Fighting fit. Didn’t you see the blighter leading the conga just now?”
“Who was that girl in green behind him? The one with the reddish hair?” Philippa asked.
“Dunno and don’t care, Phil,” Tessie replied with an artificial smile on her face, looking straight into Philippa’s eyes.
“That was the Leicester girl. Connie Tate’s daughter,” Vicky offered.
Tessie could see that Philippa was being her usual caustic self, testing. Always testing, probing. Like a witch. Bitch.
They talked of the Leicesters and Tessie’s children and Bertha Rodrigues’s goal on the hockey field last Saturday.
“The woman’s still playing?”
“Yeah. Not as fast as she used to. Plays centre half now.”
“God! She must be forty if she’s a day,” Philippa said.
Tessie liked Philippa in a way. Charming old bitch was how she referred to her when she and Gus discussed Philippa’s latest shocking behaviour. Gus always made grunts of disapproval at the word bitch. It was one of the many standard responses they used with each other, in a sort of ritual after years of marriage. But she liked her better when they talked to each other alone. Not in front of other people like gossiping Vicky Viera.
Tessie made an excuse and left them.
“What did you say their Chinese signs were?” Vicky asked Philippa as Tessie walked away.
“Tiger and rat. She’s the tiger,” Philippa answered.
“Tigers eat rats …”
“Yeah, but the Chinese horoscopes of tiger and rat fit.”
“Come to think of it, she’ll eat him up, I reckon.”
“You mean dominate him.”
“Yah.”
“She’ll dominate him as a Gemini will dominate a Virgo. That’s what counts,” Philippa said.
“Then they don’t fit?”
“No, no, Vicky. Eurasian women must dominate their men,” Philippa said with a grin.
Vicky laughed.
Philippa pressed on to clarify her point. “These flamboyant men of ours must be held in check, Vicky. That’s the only way.”
“Oh Philippa,” Vicky cut in. “Can’t you lay off it tonight?”
“OK, OK … but I must tell you how they fit.”
“Mmmmm,” Vicky muttered, resigned.
“You see the Virgo man that Ignatius is … err … is so tolerant of his woman’s flirtations. Or his woman’s changing moods. And the Gemini woman is a two-faced thing.”
“Two-faced?”
“No. That’s not quite right. Two personalities. Gemini is the twins, remember?”
“So there’s two of her?”
“Yah. Two moods. Always.”
“But what about the tiger that she is?”
“That’s only secondary.”
Vicky turned to Philippa with interest in her eyes, “You mean the Chinese signs are less important?”
“Yah. Definitely.”
Vicky looked blank. She was thinking of the first time she met Keh, when he told her she was a rabbit; a sexy thing. And how he had told her that rabbits were intelligent, friendly, loyal, prudent, … Come to think of it he never said any bad things about rabbits. And the beggar had lied to her he was a tiger. She smiled. That he was, in a way.
Philippa was talking when Vicky’s mind returned to the wedding hall.
“… been working on it for years. The Chinese signs depend on the position of Jupiter in the skies. Jupiter stays in the same position relative to the earth for about a year. And Saturn …”
“Saturn?” Vicky asked, her mind still entangled with romantic memories of Keh.
“Yah. Saturn takes thirty years to go round the earth. Jupiter takes twelve years. … I mean, round the sun …”
“I’m lost, Phil.”
“Look. It’s like this.” Philippa put her hands up in front of her to hold Vicky’s attention as she used to when she stood in front of her class. Vicky sat back. She knew when Philippa was like this it was no use trying to change the subject. If they discovered a new star and called it a bulldozer, that would be Phil’s star.
“Jupiter takes twelve years to go round the earth. One year, one position. Well, almost. So one year, one animal sign. Right?”
Vicky nodded.
“The Chinese also have other elements. There are water rats, earth dogs, fire tigers and all that. Five elements in all.”
“Yah. I remember Keh said I was a water rabbit, whatever that means.”
“… as I was trying to say … I believe the Chinese elements depend on the position of Saturn. Saturn takes thirty years to go round the earth. Supposing Jupiter and Saturn started off in the same position relative to the earth. Thirty years later Saturn will be back in the starting position. Jupiter would have done two and a half revolutions round the earth. But sixty years later they will be back in the same starting point together.”
Vicky frowned with concentration.
Philippa continued, “So the Chinese cycle is sixty years. Five times twelve. Five elements. Twelve animal signs.”
“Yah. That fits their sixty-year cycle. But what’s it got to do with the Chinese animal years being weaker than …” Vicky started to say.
“If they depend on Jupiter, they are weaker. Because the western zodiac system depends on the position of the sun. You’ve heard them called the sun signs, haven’t you?”
“Uh-uh.”
“The sun is so much bigger than Jupiter. Its influence must be so much stronger.”
“… but the Chinese signs still mean something …” Vicky’s voice trailed off, her heart clinging to the nice furry rabbit Keh had said she was.
“Yes, they do. But in a lesser way.”
Philippa raised her right hand with the palm open and brought it down sharply in a gesture that looked as if she were chopping into a tree with an axe. It was her standard finale for the punch-line when she used to stand there grasping the reins of forty little minds, leading them to the end, the proof. The QED.
“One year for the sun signs. Twelve years for the Chinese animals. Times five years for the Chinese elements. Sixty years.”
Philippa’s eyes locked onto Vicky’s.
“Six decades, Vicky. Six decades.”
_______
*Um is ‘one’ in Portuguese.