5

FOUR RED CACTUS FLOWERS BLOOMED on the window ledge in the annexe in Havelock Road. For months Sita had wanted them to flower.

‘There’s no point taking them with us,’ she told Alice.

Alice picked one anyway; then she went outside. The ginger cat from next door came up and rubbed itself against her legs.

‘I’ll be coming back, Roger,’ she told the cat.

Picking him up, she buried her face in his fur listening to the thunderous purrs, but the cat leapt fastidiously from her arms into the jungle of next-door’s garden and disappeared. Alice narrowed her eyes until they were slits, trying to turn them into cat’s eyes. Roger would be here tomorrow and the day after that, while she would be far away at the Sea House. She didn’t like the annexe; it was coated in rain-damp sorrow, dead feelings and useless hope. Nothing had come to much here. Not her mother’s baby or the landlord to mend the hole in the roof. And now they were leaving. The morning tightened like a rubber band around her throat. The lime tree under which she had played for as long as she could remember, squeezing out lime juice into her toy teapot, stood impassively. The sky was becoming overcast again and rain threatened. Sita emerged carrying the suitcase and, almost instantly, as if they had been hiding behind the jasmine fence, one or two of the neighbours, all Singhalese, came out to say good-bye. They kissed first Sita and then Alice. Mrs Pereira gave Alice a round of juggery wrapped in a palm leaf. It had been tied with twine. And Mrs Mehdi gave Sita a packet of tea from the estate where her relatives worked.

‘We’re not going to England yet,’ Alice said. No one took any notice of her.

‘Well, don’t forget about us,’ Mrs Pereira said, her head rocking from side to side. ‘Anay! Remember you’re still a Singhalese, child!’

The women stood on the pavement under the plantain tree, holding up their umbrellas, waving until the rickshaw turned the corner and Havelock Road was no more.

‘Thank God that’s over!’ Sita said in English, sitting back in the comforting darkness. ‘Two-faced bitches! Here, give me that juggery. We’ll give it to a beggar. I don’t want to eat anything that comes from that filthy house.’

Alice snuggled into the mysterious space within the rickshaw. Their seat smelled of incense and other hot rainy-day smells. The downpour began again in earnest, beating a tattoo on the canvas roof as the rickshaw man ran barefooted across the puddles. Through the slits in the flaps, they saw glimpses of roadside life speeding by. Piles of pink and yellow flowers wrapped in shiny tin-foil shrines flashed past in a dream while mango skins and cow-dung swam in the dirty water that over-flowed the sides of the roads. Sita remained silent all the way to the railway station. May’s homecoming sari was neatly wrapped in her suitcase, along with the silk for the jacket Kamala would make when they reached the Sea House.

The sea had been disturbed by a storm last night and now there were giant waves, high and foamy. Once on the train, Alice began counting aloud until Sita told her to stop.

‘Dada is on this sea, Alice,’ she said. ‘I hope he isn’t being seasick.’

Silenced, Alice belatedly remembered her father. It was strange to think of him on this very same sea. She felt neither sad nor glad, but she knew she had to be very careful with her mother this morning. Yesterday, returning from the jetty, Sita had not been able to stop crying. Bee had tried to persuade them to come back to the Sea House with him that night, but Sita had been adamant; they would spend one last night in the annexe and leave in the morning by train. In the end, Bee, understanding that Sita needed a night alone, had piled all their belongings into the car and driven reluctantly away. When Alice had woken in the night wanting a drink she had found the house unusually quiet. Already her parents’ quarrels were a thing of the past. She wondered if her mother was lonely without them.

The train was slowing down. A man on a bicycle sped along the road that ran between the railway line and the beach. Alice could see his face rigid with concentration as he raced the train. His face seemed familiar. They were approaching the level crossing. The barrier was coming down. Alice leaned out of the window and saw a white van speeding behind the bicycle. It hadn’t been there a moment ago.

‘Don’t put your head out,’ Sita said automatically.

Sita was staring straight ahead. The last time I did this journey I still had the baby, she thought, dully.

The strip of beach that ran along beside the track was completely deserted. The rain had stopped and left behind a curious, ethereal light. It hung over the horizon with mute softness. As the train clanked and creaked to a standstill, in the silence that followed, the roar of the waves was suddenly very loud and close by. Crisp sea-smells filled the carriage and they heard voices, faintly at first but then becoming more insistent. The train lurched slightly and went no further. Alice, ignoring her mother, craned her neck out of the window. Other people had begun to look out too. There were voices were coming from some point beyond their sightline. An argument was taking place. The ticket collector appeared on the track, gesticulating furiously. Then with a sharp squeak of the brakes the train began to move backwards before it stopped again. Everyone in the carriage groaned and looked at their watches. What was the delay?

‘I have an appointment in an hour,’ the man opposite them said to no one in particular. He spoke in Singhalese. He wore a smart tropical suit and kept brushing imaginary dust off it. ‘Now I’ll be late.’

An elderly Tamil woman shuffled into the compartment and sat down. She produced a dirty plantain leaf tied up in a parcel which she proceeded to undo. The parcel was full of rice and the old woman began eating with her fingers, licking them clean after each mouthful. Alice stared at her with interest. The woman cleared her throat of phlegm and belched so loudly that Alice giggled, but Sita turned away in distaste and nudged her to do likewise. Then a few people began complaining loudly about the delay. The man opposite stood up impatiently and climbed down from the train. Alice saw him walking on the gravel towards the ticket collector. The guard joined them and very soon there was a whole group clustered together out on the track.

‘What on earth is going on?’ asked one of the passengers impatiently.

The old woman finished her rice and tucked her plantain leaf between the sides of the seats. Some uneaten rice fell to the floor. She stared at it fixedly, then she licked her lips and wiped her nose on the corner of her sari. Everyone in the carriage looked away politely.

‘Look, Mama,’ Alice said excitedly. ‘Police!’

Two police cars had driven up and stopped beside the level crossing, their lights revolving pointlessly. The group around the ticket collector and the guard had grown by now and there was a lot of excited talk.

‘What the hell is happening, men?’

The suited man returned to his seat.

‘Body on the line,’ he said shortly, mopping his brow.

It was getting hot. The carriage gave a collective, weary sigh and resigned itself for the inevitable delay.

‘What the devil, men! There’s a body on the line every day. Why can’t they find a more convenient place to do away with themselves? Stop inconveniencing others!’

‘Some Tamil, I expect,’ the man in the suit said, opening the window a little more. Ambulance on its way. Won’t be long now before we move. The guard said they’d make up time.’

‘Don’t believe a word these guards say. They’re all liars.’

The suited man opened his newspaper, ignoring everyone. Almost instantly they heard the sound of the ambulance siren and moments later it appeared in view.

‘Sit down, Alice,’ Sita said in a low voice. And don’t stare.’

Most of the passengers had by now moved to a window facing the sea. The Tamil woman belched again and stood up.

‘They kill Tamils,’ she said loudly in hesitant Singhalese. Everyone ignored her; Sita moved closer to Alice.

‘Have you packed your history book?’ she asked.

Alice nodded.

‘What’s happening?’ she whispered back in English.

Sita frowned warningly. The suited man was watching them slyly over the top of his newspaper. At last the train appeared to be disengaging itself. It moved backwards a fraction. Then it began to edge slowly, inch by inch, along the line. Alice saw the ambulancemen at either end of a stretcher. A white sheet was draped over it. The train was moving more smoothly now. It passed the giant cacti that grew all along this stretch of coast. It passed a few coconut trees, bent towards the ground. The passengers crowding around the window moved away and suddenly they had a complete view of the sea and the road; clear of the rain, very empty, with the sand, wide and smooth. And as the train gathered speed, moving swiftly onwards, she caught sight of a soldier, his gun cocked and ready, standing beside the mangled wheels of a bicycle. He looked very young, no more than a boy. An army jeep had pulled up beside the police car as the policeman in his white uniform raised his arm and waved them on. The train rattled along and at the same instant Alice saw, with a thrill, in the soft, beautiful light beyond them, the gentle curve of the line that was taking them to the white houses rising steeply above Mount Lavinia Bay.

Bee was waiting at the station. Because it was Saturday the ticket office was closed and the station was quiet. Such had been the force of the rain that it had swept on to the platform, flooding it completely. The seats in the waiting room, the cinema posters on the platform wall and the plant pots with their mother-in-law’s tongues swam in water. A particularly large squall had even knocked against the overhead light and broken the bulb. The station sweeper was clearing it up. The station master, who had been on the telephone moments earlier, came out when he saw Bee.

‘There’s been a delay further up the line,’ he told those waiting on the platform. ‘I’ve been talking to the guard. They’ll be about ten minutes late.’

‘What happened, Gihan?’ Bee asked, going towards him.

He took his pipe out of his pocket and lit it with some difficulty.

‘Not sure,’ Gihan said loudly, shrugging.

Then, because it was Bee, he dropped his defensive air and lowered his voice.

‘I believe the army got on the train at Weltham Point. Who knows why!’

He raised his hands and let them fall to show his helplessness in the matter.

‘Did you hear about the incident yesterday at Morotowa?’

Bee shook his head and looked at the station master sharply. I don’t listen to gossip, his look said. He had known Gihan Ranasingha since they had both been boys. In those days Gihan had been the only child in the school on a scholarship and while the other boys in the school had tended to look down on him, Bee had made a point of becoming his friend. Years later, after they had grown up and Bee had returned to Mount Lavinia with his new bride to take up the post of headmaster, they had met again. By then Gihan Ranasingha was married with four children of his own.

‘How are you?’ Gihan asked now. He was looking at his feet and spoke casually. ‘Haven’t seen you for a while. How’s Kamala? I heard the wedding was cancelled.’

‘Not cancelled,’ Bee said shortly. ‘We’ve just put it back a bit, to give Sita a chance to recover.’

Gihan nodded.

‘Yes, yes, of course. I understand. It must be an auspicious time, of course.’

‘No,’ Bee frowned. ‘I told you, we’ve simply postponed it until Sita is stronger. A matter of a few weeks.’

‘Of course, of course,’ Gihan said soothingly, smiling at his old friend.

The whole town knew about May’s wedding and that it was being delayed. Once again, because of Sita.

Bee continued puffing on his pipe in silence. He did not return the smile. For some time a certain coolness had existed between the two of them. It was not obvious to anyone else. They still spoke whenever they met, Gihan still asked after Kamala and May. Outwardly, nothing had changed since they had been boys playing cricket together against the English. But Gihan never mentioned Sita, and Bee had lost the easy trustful air he once had. These days he never accepted, as he once would have, the invitations to share a glass of arrack while waiting for a train that was delayed.

Gihan looked thoughtful.

‘How long is the little one with you? She won’t be leaving for some time, I hope?’

He had only a vague idea of Alice’s age.

‘No.’

‘Oh good, good,’ Gihan nodded, not really listening, rubbing his hands together.

All this rain had made him feel cold. Who would want to go to the UK? he thought, shuddering.

‘Bring them over if she gets bored,’ he said, unable to stop himself. ‘Indira would like to see the child.’

Indira was his wife.

‘Come for lunch, men,’ he hesitated. ‘With your daughter, too, if she likes.’

He couldn’t bring himself to say Sita’s name, but he couldn’t stop his affection for Bee, either.

‘Indira was saying only the other day she hadn’t seen anything of you for ages, huh.’

Bee was too tall for Gihan to reach his shoulder, so he patted his arm instead. Bee smiled faintly. They both knew he would not take the offer up, but it didn’t stop Gihan from issuing invitations as easily as tickets or Bee from appearing to accept. Neither of them, thought Bee sadly, were able to put a halt to this futile ritual.

When Sita had eloped and the news first spread across the community, Gihan had not been able to keep quiet.

‘How could this have happened to the poor man!’ he had fumed the day he heard. And after that he had made the mistake of telling Bee what he thought.

‘What a disgrace!’ he had said before he could stop himself. ‘Such a terrible thing to do. And she’s the eldest too!’

At the time, Gihan had advised Bee to disinherit the girl.

‘She’s made her bed, men,’ he had shouted, his heart going out to Bee, thinking it would be better if the community knew what his friend’s feelings really were. ‘Better all round,’ he had advised. ‘You should make a stand. For your own sake, men. And for Kamala and the other girl’

Bee had stared at him disbelievingly.

‘You have the younger one to think of,’ Gihan had said, oblivious to the signs. ‘She’ll never find a husband otherwise.’

Subsequently, having learnt the cost of his tactlessness, Gihan kept silent, but by then the damage had been done. With time, Bee appeared to weather the storm. But he changed, became more withdrawn, less visible, and, after that first moment, although he always listened politely, he took no notice of anything Gihan said. Very soon the whole town saw Bee walking openly on the beach with the girl and her Tamil husband. Gihan had shaken his head at the foolishness of it, but then the child had been born. For a while it seemed everyone would forget Sita’s disgrace. Things might have recovered had Sita not lost the second child.

‘Anay, she’s bad news,’ Indira told Gihan, fuelling her husband’s dislike. ‘You shouldn’t see her face first thing in the morning. It will only bring bad luck!’

Gihan didn’t know what to believe.

‘You know what people are saying, don’t you?’ Indira insisted. ‘That Tamil grandmother must have put a spell on the baby. She didn’t want another Singhalese bastard, I suppose.’

It wasn’t as far-fetched as all that. Everyone knew the Tamils were unnatural, crazy people, Indira told her husband, shaking her head knowingly. Gihan, listening with a slight feeling of revulsion, agreed, but then he had seen Bee in the distance walking on the beach, and the look of him, the loneliness that exuded from him, the slowness of his pace, as opposed to his usual brisk step, had filled Gihan’s heart with pity. How much could the poor man bear? So Gihan had gone out on to the track and shouted to Bee, but the wind had whipped away his voice and the waves had drowned his words. After that, every time he saw Bee waiting for the four o’clock Colombo express and the arrival of his granddaughter, Gihan made a point of talking to him.

Standing on the platform, waiting for the delayed train, Bee inclined his head by way of thanks for yet another useless invitation.

‘We’ll have to see what the women are planning,’ he said lightly.

‘Of course, of course. A wedding is women’s business, after all!’ Gihan said, wagging his head understandingly.

A cream butterfly flew out through the open window of one of the compartments as though it had been waiting to alight from the train. It sailed between the wrought-iron fretwork in the roof and out through the barrier. Five Singhalese solders stepped out of the guard’s carriage and walked briskly towards Gihan Ranasingha. They were followed by a small flock of people. Bee saw Sita walking slowly along the platform and hurried towards her. Her suitcase was feather light but she carried it as though it were a lead weight. Alice leapt out from behind her and the afternoon shifted focus, becoming brighter and full of purpose. The sun came out simultaneously as they went towards the car. Gihan had disappeared into his office with the soldiers and closed the door.

‘What’s going on?’ Bee asked, inclining his head towards the train as it slid out of the station. ‘Gihan’s just been giving me the party line.’

They told him about the accident and the mangled remains of the bicycle.

‘That was no accident,’ Bee said quietly, shepherding them out to the car. ‘But I’m glad you’re here, at last.’

The air was fresh off the sea as the car wound its way up the hill towards the house. Bougainvillea flashed past them again, hibiscus flowers lined walls and arches as Sita leaned back in her seat and half closed her eyes. There was an unusual brilliance today that she remembered from her youth. A feeling of sorrow cut the light as though it were butter. She had forgotten how peaceful it was here, how much she loved the place and how soon she would be leaving it behind. Alice’s voice, talking non-stop to her grandfather, came to Sita from a long, bright distance. She heard the waves as they rolled and fell. This stretch of the journey was so much a part of her that she had no need to fully open her eyes. She knew every inch of the road by heart and had lost count of all the times her father had picked her up from the station. Coming back from boarding school in Colombo for the holidays, returning from a visit to her friend Girlie’s house in Cinnamon Gardens. Successful Girlie, making the proverbial good marriage to a member of the newly formed cabinet, and at whose society wedding Sita had stood as bridesmaid, smiling for the photographer. Looking, by all accounts, prettier than the bride. Yes! thought Sita, life held many possibilities once. The car was slowing down. Alice had fallen silent and, opening her eyes, Sita saw Bee bending over her with grave tenderness. She had not seen such a look on him for a long time. How grey he is, she thought fleetingly, her heart reaching out to touch a long-forgotten emotion. Smiling very slightly, she got out of the car.

‘Sorry, I must have dozed off,’ she murmured.

‘They’ve just announced a curfew on the radio,’ Kamala greeted them. ‘There’s been an incident at Morotowa.’

‘We saw it,’ Sita nodded.

Her mother too, now she was so near to leaving her forever, came into a clearer focus. She was tired, more tired than she could say, but how good it was to come home.

‘What sort of incident?’

‘Must be the man on the bicycle,’ Alice told them calmly. ‘I saw him racing the train. He looked scared.’

They turned to look at her.

‘You saw the man?’ Sita said. ‘Why didn’t you say?’

‘I didn’t know they were going to kill him, did I?’ Alice said, glad to be noticed. ‘I thought he would escape. He was a Tamil.’

No one spoke.

‘How d’you know?’ demanded Sita sharply.

‘Ssh! Ssh! Don’t shout at the child,’ Kamala said.

‘Because he looked Tamil,’ Alice told them matter-of-factly.

What was the matter with her mother? Had she forgotten the Tamils were hated?

‘So much for innocence,’ Bee remarked.

‘Anay!’ Kamala cried.

The child had been robbed of her childhood. Every day that passed brought yet another reason for her being taken away.

‘Let’s have some tea,’ Bee said. ‘Now they are here at last!’

He surveyed the room with satisfaction. No one spoke. A known quantity of days stretched before them.

In her room, Alice unpacked her book of drawings and brought them out to Bee.

‘Look, here’s Mrs Maradana,’ she said, finding the page, grinning at him.

Bee burst out laughing. Alice had drawn a picture of her Singhalese teacher using the new Biro pen Bee had bought for her. Biro pens were all the rage at the moment. She had, with a few vigorous, confident lines, captured something of the spirit of the woman. Staring at it, Bee thought, This is good; this must be developed. It is a talent that will hold her in good stead. I shall not see the end of it, he thought, but at least I see what she has brought into this life. Maybe I have even contributed to it.

‘This is very, very, good, Alice,’ he said aloud. ‘Keep drawing, look as hard as you can at everything.’

Memories were all he could give her. No matter how far she travelled, no matter if she never returned, still her memories would last forever. He tapped his pipe and re-lit it, half listening to her voice chattering on. He was not a man who frequented the temple, but Buddhism remained part of his life. Whatever good thing a man did, he believed, would return to bless him. Or haunt him; depending on the way he lived. Yes, he thought, Stanley would send for them soon enough but just for a brief moment, on the first of these last remaining evenings, as he watched the setting sun, listening to the child’s happy talk Bee was comforted.

A routine of sorts slowly established itself. For Alice, mornings meant the beach. Bee took her for a swim or a bike ride. Sometimes, when he was not out with the fishing boats, Janake came for her, and occasionally even Esther visited. In the afternoons, after her nap, she was allowed to visit Bee in his studio when he let her loose on his paints. They worked together in companionable silence. As it was term time, May was still working. The wedding was now to take place in June and in the evenings the talk was mainly about the preparations for it. Namil was often present and, were it not for the fact that Sita’s mental state was no better and that they were counting the days, things might have been pleasant enough. Sita’s lethargy was a constant reminder of the borrowed time they lived on. Having detached herself from everyone, she spent long hours in her room, often having her meals brought to her. All attempts to draw her out proved useless. Nearly two weeks passed in this way.

On one such night when the house slept and the moon appeared a milky blue in the phosphorescent sky, Kamala sat sewing alone. The darkness had drawn its sea-misty wings over the beach and the waves exploded in clouds of spray. Regardless of everything the house turned over and sunk deeper into sleep. Bee was still working in his studio. Kamala put away her sewing. She folded the jacket she had sewn for Sita and rubbed one hand over the other. The blue sapphire in the ring Bee had given her years ago shone in the pinprick of light. Both her children were briefly under the same roof again. Watching the moon disappearing from view, aware these nights were numbered, she felt the impending loss hover a hair’s breadth away. All of this, she thought, surveying the silent room, appears to last forever but will vanish in a moment. She imagined her daughters, her girls, running in and out of the open house, laughing, teasing each other, fighting too, as if they were a pair of boys. Clearly she saw it, as though it had been yesterday. Living for so long in this way they had mistaken ‘so long’ for ‘forever’. Ah! but time has flown while they grew, thought Kamala, feeling the year turn over, dry as a leaf. Bee was depressed and would not admit it. Twisting the rings on her finger, Kamala’s thoughts went round in circles. From the day it had broken open, her love for him had never faltered. On the night that he had returned from the port he had sat smoking his pipe on the verandah. May had been out walking with Namil. The house had been silent. Packing away her sewing, Kamala had come to stand beside Bee. She had stood without speaking for so long that in the end she thought he didn’t realise she was there. But in the end he held out his hand without turning round and made her sit beside him, his eyes moving towards her like a star in the darkness.

‘I was thinking today, they have taken after you,’ he said softly. ‘You are very beautiful’

In all these years the tenderness had never left his voice. Kamala looked down at her hands, smiling in the darkness, remembering his words. The house slept as though it were an animal, as though it were well fed and at peace, tucked away on its perch above the bay, surrounded by rustling coconut trees. Moonlight shredded the water into small fragments. The rain had died down and the air was full of the sharp smell of seaweed, while the sea, moving on its seabed, sighed too, peaceful like the house. It was a sea she loved, almost on the equator, a width away from India, furthest of all from Antarctica. Somewhere out beyond the reef, currents swirled darkly and fish as black as night swam, but here within the bay all remained safe. A thousand years of coral splendour protected their bay, keeping it safe for bathers and fishermen alike. But into this quietness Kamala heard the faint sound of drumming further inland. It was coming from the town. The only discordant note, it had gone on and on since the curfew and was now part of the background noises of the night, slipping in with the whirl of insects and the slap of water. The servant woman, who knew of these things, had told Kamala there was a sick man in one of the villages. The drummers were hoping to drum the devil out of his body. They wanted to drum it out of town, but they had been working all night and still nothing had happened. That was how hard it was to remove the devil once he had taken hold, the servant woman said. Maybe by dawn the sick man would be cured. Maybe not. Either way there would be an offering left for the gods by morning. Kamala went to bed. It would be hours before Bee finished work in the studio.

A thin light shone under the door that led into Bee’s studio. It flickered faintly. Every now and then a shadow passed over the crack as if someone inside the room was walking around. It was what Alice noticed first when she awoke and went outside. On these occasional night forays, her grandfather’s studio was the first place she thought of. Tonight something had woken her; she moved swiftly, her small bare feet silent on the cool gravel, wanting to find Bee and tell him about it. Voices drifted towards her, then stopped. Straining, she listened. A bullfrog croaked and dark shapes fluttered past her face, making her duck and lose her balance. She fell against a flowerpot and froze. It was like the last time, she thought, in sudden panic, not knowing whether to run back to the house. The voices had stopped. Nothing moved. Then the door opened and she saw a pair of familiar feet, the edges of a white sarong.

‘Well, well. Now that’s a surprise, I must say,’ her grandfather said, his voice an odd mixture of sharp anxiety and relief.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ Alice said, looking beyond him wonderingly into the studio.

‘So it would appear,’ Bee said wryly. ‘How unfortunate!’

He was standing in the doorway, blocking the view. It wasn’t like the last time, she decided, searching his face with relief, although she had a distinct feeling he didn’t want her there.

Alice,’ he was saying, ‘this won’t do. D’you know what the time is? You should go back to bed. I was going to wake you up very early to go to the beach.’

‘But I’m not tired,’ Alice began, and then she too stopped.

Someone else stood behind her grandfather. Alice stared. The man’s face was familiar.

‘Hello,’ the man said.

He smiled tiredly.

‘I know you,’ said Alice, puzzled.

Bee sighed.

‘You better come in,’ he said resignedly.

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the man apologised.

He shrugged his shoulders.

‘She’s just a child. It will do no harm.’

‘No,’ Alice announced, shaking her head. ‘That’s what everyone thinks. But I’m not.’

Bee raised his eyebrows. This quiet certainty was new.

Alice,’ he began, eyeing her.

Then he made up his mind.

‘Okay, come in, come in, quickly.’

He pushed her gently into the room and shut and locked the door. She was startled to see his studio so transformed. Bee had closed up his etching press and all his colours and rags had been pushed hastily to one side of the shelf. A small camp bed had been opened up against one of the walls and there was a bowl of water stained dark crimson on the floor beside it. Someone had torn a bed sheet into strips. Her grandfather had turned off the electric light and instead two candles burned on the table. Alice looked around her, astonished. The man had rolled his trousers up and there was a bandage on his leg. She could see blood seeping out through it.

Alice,’ her grandfather said again.

He was watching her.

‘You say you’re not a child. So I’m trusting you with my secret. You must not breathe a word of any of this, you understand?’

He had never spoken to her so seriously before. Not even when he had taught her to mix his precious pigments. Alice nodded. She pushed the hair out of her eyes; all sleep had fled from them. Bee looked grim.

‘This is Kunal,’ he said reluctantly. ‘He’s been shot in the leg by the army and he’s hiding here until morning. I’m going to have to get Dr Mutumuruna to come over and look at his leg, but I can’t leave until the curfew is over. It’s too dangerous.’

He paused.

‘Kunal is staying here for the moment. No one knows about this, Alice. No one. Kunal will be taken by the army and killed if they find out. Do you understand?’

Alice nodded. The seriousness of his words had rendered her speechless.

Kunal was sitting on the camp bed. He wasn’t looking at them any more. His head was bent.

‘He’s lost a lot of blood,’ Bee muttered. ‘I’m going to have to get hold of the doctor as soon as it’s light.’

He was talking to himself. Alice looked at him. She was concentrating so hard that her head hurt with the effort. She swallowed quickly.

‘Yes,’ she said clearly. ‘I understand.’

Bee did not seem to hear. He opened the cupboard that held his inks and took out a bottle of whisky. Then he washed a tumbler and poured the whisky into it. Next he held the glass up to the light. It was golden like a wasp’s sting.

‘Kunal used to be one of my staff at the boys’ school,’ he said.

Alice gasped.

‘Were you on a bicycle recently? Near the level crossing,’ she asked.

Kunal finished the whisky in one gulp and shook his head. Alice saw his eyes were bloodshot with weeping.

‘No,’ he said.

He paused, struggling. When he spoke again his chin wobbled in a way Alice fully understood.

‘No. That was my friend. You were probably the last one to see him alive.’

And then he began to weep.

At dawn Bee went out to get the doctor. Alice could not be persuaded to leave Kunal. She sat cross-legged and stubborn on the ground beside him.

‘I’m not sleepy,’ she told Bee, again with quiet certainty. ‘Don’t worry’

Again Bee hesitated.

All right,’ he said finally.

If he were going, he would have to leave now.

‘I won’t wake your grandmother just yet. Lock the door after me. I’ll be gone about twenty minutes.’

Alice nodded, silent with concentration. Kunal seemed to have dozed off, head slumped against the wall. He hadn’t moved since drinking the whisky. The empty bottle stood on the floor. Alice stared at him. The edges of his trousers were frayed and she noticed his shoes were old and broken. She could see his feet peeping out. She sat very still. After what felt like a long time, Kunal opened his eyes blearily and saw her.

‘You’re still here,’ he said faintly.

‘Grandpa won’t be long,’ Alice whispered. ‘I’m looking after you until he gets back. Don’t worry. You’re safe here.’

Kunal smiled vaguely.

‘I know.’

He struggled to sit up and Alice went over and adjusted the cushion behind his head.

‘Bee told me your father has gone to England.’

Yes. But I don’t want to go.’

Kunal nodded, agreeing.

‘To leave your country is terrible, Alice,’ he said. ‘Your country is such a part of you. It’s in your skin, your eyes, your hair, all of you. You are Ceylon, you know. And whenever someone from this place leaves, a little bit of it leaves with them and is lost forever. If too many people leave Ceylon, it will become another sort of place entirely.’

Alice narrowed her eyes. Kunal was shaking and she noticed there were beads of perspiration on his forehead. The bandage on his leg had become redder. She wondered what she should do.

‘But some of us don’t have any choices,’ Kunal continued, after a pause. ‘I had another friend who was about to go to the UK when they killed him. So now all that is left of my family is his son Janake and my sister. Maybe he too will go to England one day’

‘Janake?’ Alice asked.

She was astonished.

‘He’s my friend!’ she said. ‘He lives in the next village with his mother. How do you know him?’

Kunal’s face twitched slightly.

‘His father’s brother was married to my sister. One day some thugs came and killed my sister and then went looking for Janake’s father.’

‘Did they kill Janake’s father too?’ Alice asked, breathlessly.

Kunal nodded.

‘Janake won’t talk about his father.’

‘Janake was only about six when it happened. His father was hiding his brother, my sister’s husband, after my sister was killed. But then they came and found him. They took both of them, Janake’s father and his brother, out on to the beach.’

‘They killed them?’ Alice asked.

Kunal nodded. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you all this. But it’s the way this country has become. One of them or one of us, that’s what it has come to,’ he said.

‘I got caned in my Singhalese lesson,’ Alice said. ‘That’s why I’m not going back to school’

‘I know. Your grandfather told me. He was very upset. I know what happened to your mother too.’

Alice wriggled. She did not want to discuss her mother.

‘When you go to the UK you will have a better chance in life. That’s all any of us want in the end. A chance to breathe the air around us, to live our lives freely, without fear. There are too many dead here to haunt us.’

He appeared to have forgotten Alice, whose velvet dark eyes were fixed steadily on him.

‘I’m coming back,’ Alice said into the silence. ‘When I’m sixteen. After I’ve made some friends and finished my studies, I’m coming back. I’m going to live here and look after my grandparents.’

Kunal nodded. He looked as though he might start crying again.

‘You must return if you can,’ he said finally. ‘If everyone who leaves comes back, there might be some hope. A country needs its young if this madness is to be stopped.’

The candles were almost out and through the papered-up window they saw a little daylight seeping in.

‘For people like me, there is very little hope left. It’s too late, really,’ Kunal whispered.

He stared at his bandaged leg.

‘Alice in Wonderland,’ he said at last. ‘Who gave you this name? I don’t know how much you understand, but your grandfather is a very fine man. He’s a wonderful painter, too. And he tells me you show signs of becoming an artist. Is that right?’

She nodded, frowning. Words spun round in her head. No one believes me, she wanted to say. But I’m coming back.

Kunal had dozed off. The candles blew out, the light outside had become insistent. Alice too closed her eyes. She had no idea how long she sat like this before the door opened very quietly and her grandfather came in. The doctor was behind him. And close behind the doctor, with an expression of annoyance on her face, was a bleary-eyed Kamala.

‘Hello, Putha,’ the doctor said. ‘Have you been looking after my patient?’

Alice smiled faintly. She was tired.

‘Bed,’ Kamala told her firmly, glowering at Bee.

The look said plainly, I’ll talk to you later.

‘I don’t know what your grandfather was thinking about. Come on.’

She took hold of Alice’s hand, ignoring her protests.

‘Could I have some warm water, please, Kamala?’ the doctor asked.

Her grandfather had got another bottle of whisky out of his cupboard and was pouring some into the glass. He was looking very serious again and Alice could not catch his eye.

‘Come back, Alice,’ Kunal called softly. ‘Come back to Wonderland one day.’

The last thing she saw was the doctor, his head bent in concentration, rolling his shirtsleeves up. And then her grandmother hurried her out into the astonishing early-morning sunlight. It was as though the night had not occurred at all, such was the blueness of the air. The sun touched her cheeks warmly and a crumpled tissue-paper moon glided across the sky. She yawned. She was hungry too, but her grandmother’s face told her there was no chance of food at the moment. She knew it would have to be bed first.

After the doctor had removed the bullet from Kunal’s leg, Kamala made up the small room in the annexe and had him moved there. The annexe had been newly whitewashed in readiness for the bride and groom, who were to live in it until their new house was ready. The wedding was still weeks away and the doctor thought it a good idea for Kunal to remain in the annexe for the moment. Everyone who knew the Fonsekas knew Bee had a studio in the garden. If someone wanted to search the house, the studio would be the obvious place to look first. Bee and the doctor moved Kunal in silence. He was dizzy with the loss of too much blood and protested weakly, saying he did not want to be moved. He was, he told them, ashamed to be the first occupant of the bride’s new home. But there was little choice. The army might decide at any moment to patrol the beach. It was already late, the risks were enormous and the doctor needed to get back to his surgery. He would return later, he promised.

‘No need to phone,’ he said, giving Bee a meaningful look; and then he hurried out into the light through the footpath in the coconut grove.

Bee walked with him for some of the way. A brief storm the night before had shaken the two mango trees that stood at the bottom of the garden. Spoiled fruit lay everywhere. The green sickly scent of their skins filled the air. Battalions of ants were already feasting on the yellow flesh exposed by the fall. The doctor kicked a mango over and stepped on another, flattening it with his shoes as he hurried.

‘What’s the plan?’ he asked.

‘Jaffna?’

The doctor made a face.

‘Tricky.’

They walked on in exhausted silence.

‘He should be fine until tomorrow. Any problem, send for me up at the house. Don’t come to the surgery. I think it’s being watched.’

‘Dias Harris has contacts. As soon as he is recovered enough, I’ll drive him there.’

The doctor shook his head in disgust. He pressed his lips together into a thin line.

‘This place is full of the worst kind of thugs, men. There’s a lot of people hell-bent on destruction.’

He was silent again. A branch crackled underfoot and a small bat flew swiftly past.

‘How’s Sita?’ he asked, after a moment. ‘I noticed she came in when we were cleaning Kunal up.’

‘Everything has gone inwards, Sam,’ Bee mumbled. ‘She won’t talk, not to me, anyway. It all remains, festering. Perhaps it will get better when they go.’

He spoke without conviction, hopelessly.

‘When do they leave?’

‘Three months minus one week.’

The doctor glanced sharply at Bee.

‘What about you? How will you deal with all that?’

‘Same way as you,’ Bee said grimly. ‘Doing what we’re doing now. Helping those poor buggers that we can.’

They walked on. The sky had become a brilliant, parrot blue. Behind them the sea threw up a gentle breeze, cooling the air. At the end of the coconut grove, Bee paused.

‘See you,’ the doctor said. ‘I’ll bring the Anti-Par Kamala wanted for the child. We can’t have her getting worms just as they are leaving! I’ll bring it tomorrow.’

Bee nodded and raised a hand.

Then he turned and slipped through the trees, disappearing the way he had come, hurrying soundlessly down the hill.

When he got back to the house, he went looking for Kamala.

‘I’m going into town this morning,’ he said. ‘I won’t be long. Where is everyone?’

Kamala put her finger to her lips. She was still a little cross with Bee.

Alice is asleep and May has gone to work.’

She looked over her shoulder in the direction of Sita’s room and lowered her voice.

‘I think she’s gone back to bed, too. Honestly,’ she added, ‘why didn’t you tell me there was catch?’

It was the word they used whenever they hid someone. There had been no one to hide for months.

‘I didn’t want to worry you.’

‘Hah! Why do you want to go to town, then? That worries me!’

‘I want to show my face a little. I’ll be back soon.’

In the town Bee found that the army had set up posts everywhere and were carrying out random identity checks. The outdoor fish and vegetable market was closed and Main Street was subdued. Bee went over to Talliman’s and bought some arrack. The shopkeeper serving him raised his eyebrows. He knew Mr Fonseka as the man who only drank the best whisky.

‘I haven’t been to the Colombo shop for a while,’ Bee explained.

The shopkeeper nodded. He knew all about Sita’s baby. He thought Mr Fonseka looked worn out.

‘With these curfews, it’s become impossible to travel and be back in time for nightfall, sir,’ he agreed.

Life was very difficult these days. The shopkeeper looked with pity at Bee. No doubt Mr Fonseka was still grieving over his daughter’s miscarriage. Did he know about the shooting in the town? Bee shook his head and asked for an ounce of tobacco.

‘Well, the army had a tip-off about some Tamils,’ the shopkeeper told him, leaning confidently over the counter. ‘Anay! One of them was a ring-leader behind those bombings in Colombo, you know. All those poor innocent people! He was responsible for killing them. There’s a rumour the army caught one of the group and shot him dead close to the railway line. But there’s another dog at large. They wounded him on Wednesday, so hopefully he won’t go far. It won’t be long before he’s caught too. They should all go back to Jaffna,’ he said. ‘Best for everyone, no?’

Bee paid for his arrack and his pipe tobacco.

‘How long are the army staying, d’you think?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know, sir. Probably until they find the last man. Although I think he’s escaped. Surely they would have caught him by now, if he were still in the town. This is not a big place.’

Bee nodded and picked up his purchases.

‘Don’t worry, as soon as they’ve gone, the curfew will be lifted and you’ll be able to go to Colombo for the whisky!’ the shopkeeper laughed, his face brightening.

By the time Alice woke again the sun was high in the sky and Kunal had plotted her horoscope on a thin sheet of cake paper the servant had brought for him. When he was younger he had been renowned for his accuracy at drawing up these charts. It had been a lucrative sideline, providing extra cash in addition to his teaching. He had not drawn a horoscope for a long time. Now an inability to sleep coupled with gratitude made him want to do it for this child. Kunal had barely known either of Bee’s daughters. Occasionally, in the past, when he called at the house he had come across them, going about their business, preoccupied with their own lives; but after he had left for Colombo twelve years ago, he had not seen them again. When he heard the rumours that Sita had married a Tamil man he alone had been unsurprised. Sita had always been the idealist in the family. Like her father, Kunal had thought. Even in the early days when she had been young Kunal had had the feeling that Sita’s life would not be easy. She had been a beautiful girl then, but stubborn in a quiet Singhala way. People had thought her shy. Only Kunal had sensed a determination underlying everything she did. Now that she and the child were leaving, Kunal was aware of another anguish in the house. So he asked Kamala to tell him Alice’s birth hour in order to plot her future, in the hope of giving them a little comfort. But when he had drawn up the horoscope he was no further forward. Alice was a gentle loving child, he told Kamala, who smiled and nodded in acknowledgement. She liked eating meat. The servant woman sneaked in to listen, nodding her approval. This horoscope should have been plotted long ago. She would grow into a beautiful woman, Kunal told them. And marry young. All this he could see. But he was puzzled by some obstruction, a blockage that presented itself with no clear explanation. Perhaps it was his calculations that were wrong, but the child would not use her strengths in the way she should. Perhaps it was the fever he was running, thought Kunal, confused, for he could not see clearly beyond this opaqueness.

‘Never mind,’ Kamala said quickly.

She felt guilty. Bee hated horoscopes, but, she comforted herself, if Kunal thought Alice would marry early, nothing much could go wrong. She would not be alone in a strange country.

The servant went to fetch some coriander tea. Kunal’s eyes were shining too brightly for Kamala’s liking. Hearing footsteps, she hastily put the horoscope into the pocket of her housecoat. But it was Alice and not Bee who came in.

‘I’ll look after him,’ she told her grandmother. ‘Mama wants to talk to you.’

‘Only a few minutes,’ Kamala said warningly. ‘You mustn’t wear him out.’

‘Little missy,’ the servant asked, smiling, ‘come, I’ll bathe you.’

‘Not yet,’ Alice said firmly.

She sat gingerly on the edge of Kunal’s bed. She wanted to talk to him about last night, which, in the light of day, had taken on the aspect of a dream. Last night Alice had felt different. As she had waited for her grandfather to return, she had felt that what she was doing might make up for the terrible thing she had wished on the baby. No one had ever trusted her in this way before; no one had relied on her. Kunal, slumped beside the bowl of blood, had made a powerful impression on her. She wanted to ask him about his friend and about his sister and her husband, Janake’s uncle. Janake was the one friend she had who was always kind to her. It had not occurred to her that he too might have had bad things in his life. It had not occurred to her because Janake was always laughing, always happy. Janake’s life, now she thought about it, was charmed and quite unlike her own. She wanted to talk to Kunal and find out how it was Janake was always happy.

‘I don’t go there too often,’ Kunal said faintly. ‘I don’t want to cause the boy and his mother any more trouble than they’ve already had to endure. You know Janake’s clever; he should be at school. Since his father was killed he’s been going out with the fishermen, doing odd jobs, helping his mother. It’s a great shame, but the locals have spread all sorts of rumours about his father. All because my sister came from Jaffna. So stupid!’

Alice was surprised. She hadn’t taken much notice of Janake’s home before. He was simply her friend who always lived near the Sea House and sometimes played with her. That was all.

‘Your grandfather has been very good to that family. He’s the only one who takes any notice of them. He doesn’t care what people think, you see, Alice. Your grandpa Bee is like that; he helps everyone. Now he’s going to get me to Jaffna somehow.’

‘What will you do in Jaffna?’

‘I’ll be amongst my own people,’ Kunal said softly. After all, it is my spiritual home. And home is always where we want to be in the end. There is nothing to beat it.’

His voice tailed off. He had closed his eyes. Alice waited. Hoping he might go on, wanting to know more about Jaffna, but Kunal had dozed off. The servant woman, hovering anxiously outside the door, beckoned to her to come out. She disapproved of Kunal sleeping in the room that had been meant for the bride. It was an ill omen to put this broken man in it. But as always, no one took her advice.

Dinner that night was later than usual. They were all present, even Sita. The servant had been wrapping wedding cake all day, for Ceylon wedding cake needed to mature for at least a month before it was ready to be served. Only after that did she make her special mulligatawny for Kunal. When May returned from school Bee took her aside. She had left too early for him to tell her the full story. Did she mind that Kunal was sleeping in the annexe? May did not mind. While they were eating the doctor arrived, by the back door.

‘Don’t get up,’ he said, when Kamala tried to clear a space for him. ‘No, no, thank you, I’ve eaten. I’ll just take a look at the patient.’

He smiled, looking around at their anxious faces.

‘It’s like the old days,’ he said. ‘Seeing you all together.’

And he went in to see Kunal.

After he dressed the wound and had given Kunal something for the fever, the doctor paused. He had a slight suspicion that an infection had set in.

‘I’ll know by tomorrow,’ he told Bee privately. ‘Give him plenty of liquids, but no more whisky.’

From the expression on the doctor’s face, Kamala suspected that things were serious. The wedding was uppermost in her mind. What if Kunal were to become really ill? How could they have guests with a fugitive in the house?

‘We’ll worry about that when it happens,’ Bee told her impatiently.

‘He’ll have to leave,’ Kamala warned. ‘He can’t stay here if that happens.’

‘There’s plenty of time,’ Bee told her calmly. ‘He’ll be on his way to Jaffna by then, you’ll see. Stop worrying.’

Kamala was annoyed. Throughout their married life she had accepted all her husband’s causes. Some of them had led to complications, some even flirted with danger. She had always supported Bee, but this time was different; this time she was putting her foot down. She was determined that May should have a decent wedding.

‘I’m very sorry for him,’ she told her husband firmly, ‘but he must be gone by her wedding day’

Bee opened his mouth to argue and then he stopped. Through the half-opened door of Kunal’s room they could both hear voices. Bee raised an eyebrow enquiringly. Kamala shook her head in warning. Sita was talking to Kunal.

Sita had been in her room all day. She had slept for most of it and then Alice had woken her for dinner.

‘I don’t want any. Tell Granny I’ll eat later.’

‘Why don’t you get up?’ Alice had asked, and when Sita remained silent she had gone on to tell her mother that Kunal was in the annexe next door. Sita hadn’t cared. She had gathered from something her mother had said when she had visited her that there was a fugitive in the house. It did not surprise Sita. Her father was always doing crazy things.

‘He’s sick,’ Alice said, looking solemn.

Sita glanced at her daughter. The child needed her hair cutting. Her fringe had grown over her eyes again.

‘Tell Granny to cut your fringe,’ she said listlessly.

‘Mama, will you?’

Sita ignored her daughter’s forlorn tone of voice.

‘Will you?’

‘I’m too exhausted,’ she said, ignoring the desire to cry. Ask Granny’

And she turned her face to the wall, willing Alice to leave. Pushing her guilt away, she waited. She must have dozed off again because when she woke it was to the sound of voices in the annexe. Alice had left the room and the sky was now a deep dusky blue. Soon it would be dark. Suddenly she heard an unearthly scream. Sita sat bolt upright in bed. She broke out into a cold sweat. The sound triggered something terrible within her. It was in this way that she too had screamed. Only in my case, thought Sita wildly, it was in the middle of the night and I was alone. Opening the door, she listened. The house was silent. She was about to close the bedroom door when Kunal screamed again. Sita burst into tears and ran out into the garden. She felt as though her heart would explode.

Standing under the mango tree she rubbed her face, trying to make sense of her tears. For the two weeks since her return home she had felt, without caring very much, her parents’ concern for her. Colombo and Stanley’s departure had receded from her thoughts. All she felt was the constant bottomless pit of tiredness. Nothing else. Since she no longer had to get up each morning to take Alice to school, it was easier to stay in bed, letting the hours run on unnoticed. Each day her sojourn in the bedroom had become longer. Each day she blotted out her parents’ anxious looks, staring out to sea, reflecting on the direction her life had taken. May left early every morning for school. Then in the evenings when she had finished her marking Namil usually visited and Sita was forced to listen to their voices, like small sleepy birds, emerging from the garden. Unable to bear this either, she retreated even further into her shell. Today had been no different. But now the scream had jolted her. For the first time in weeks, standing in the garden, out of sight from her parents, she heard the faint beating of her own heart. Wiping her face with the edge of her sari she cautiously made her way back into the house and headed towards the annexe. She could hear her father on the front verandah, talking to the doctor. Hardly aware of what she did, she opened the door of Kunal’s room and went in.

Kunal had been silent all day, drifting in and out of consciousness. Apart from the brief conversation with Alice that morning, he had not registered anyone. Bee had visited him and sat for an hour and Kamala had brought him food and washed his face several times, but he had not noticed. The doctor, examining his wound, had woken in him a storm of pain. The doctor had tried talking to him but he had no idea what was said. When his door opened for the second time he thought he recognised Bee.

‘Can I have some water?’ he asked in Singhalese.

When he had finished drinking he turned towards the light from the window, his eyes disorientated by the fever.

‘You have been so good to me, Headmaster,’ he said in English. ‘I’m afraid of being in your way. I shall leave for Jaffna in the morning.’

In spite of herself, Sita was shocked. This man was very sick. Sweat was pouring down his face and his eyes were bloodshot. She took the towel beside the bed and wiped his face. She pushed his hair back. Then she lifted him up a little and held a glass of water to his lips, noticing how they stayed pressed against the glass so that he might feel its lingering coolness. When he lay down again she saw the wetness remaining on his cracked dry lips.

‘I’ve been talking to your granddaughter,’ Kunal said. ‘She is a child with an uncommon sensitivity’

He spoke in Tamil. Only in Tamil did he have the ability to express those things dear to him. A lifetime of learning what was expected of him, English, Singhalese, could not do for him what his mother tongue did. Love, he thought, sorrow, every emotion learnt at his mother’s knees could only be expressed in Tamil. It was the language of his heart. Sita felt her eyes fill with tears. She understood Tamil.

‘I am Sita,’ she said hoarsely. ‘Do you remember me?’

An immense darkness had descended. The canopy of stars, acquiescent and soft, were beginning to puncture the sky. Somewhere out of sight the sea breathed heavily and the room filled up with its echoes. He was looking at her now, without surprise.

‘Sita!’ he said. ‘The beautiful Sita! Of course I remember you. Today I saw you in her face,’ he said quietly. ‘You know, perhaps at this moment it isn’t much, just a small pin-prick of light, she is so young, but wait…’

He fell silent, again. It had begun to rain, long fingers drumming on the roof, drowning the moon in the sea.

But after all, what does my suffering amount to? thought Sita. Given the thousands of Tamils who are suffering daily.

‘Not any more,’ she told him, her face twisting into a smile. ‘Those days are over. It must have been my karma.’

The rain continued, lightly.

‘You mustn’t worry’ Kunal continued, still in Tamil, as though they had been talking for hours. ‘All of it will grow in her, you will grow within her as she matures. I saw it. Today’

He did not talk of the other things he had seen, the obstructions that would get in the way of a simple life.

‘She will go far, far,’ he told Sita, certain. ‘Wait and see.’

‘My baby…‘ Sita began, but she could not go on.

Kunal had closed his eyes. When they stayed closed for a sufficient time, Sita tiptoed out.

By Saturday morning Kunal’s condition was no better. Bee, Kamala and Sita, much to everyone’s surprise, had taken turns sitting up with him all of Friday night. The doctor arrived, dodging the curfew to look at the leg with what seemed to be a detached air of melancholy. Kunal moaned softly, thrashing about on the bed. He wanted the bandage off. It was too tight. He was too hot; he could not get comfortable. The doctor touched the swollen leg gently. The bandage was caked with blood again. Then without warning and with unexpected force, he ripped the gauze off. Sita, standing beside Kunal, holding his hand, saw the flesh rise savagely up, refusing to be parted from the bandage, clinging for a moment before abruptly letting go of it. She saw it break open again, freshly. Then she saw blood gush out. Kunal screamed and Sita felt a wave of horror and nausea wash over her. The doctor placed the stinging antiseptic swab down on the leg and Kunal cried out. The servant woman appeared with fresh water and the doctor began to clean the wound. When he had finished, he gave Kunal a shot of painkiller. Then the doctor went outside to talk to Bee, leaving Sita to instruct the servant woman on the clearing up.

When it was done and Kunal had begun to drift back to sleep, Sita too went outside. It was very early. May and Alice were still sleeping.

‘What can I do to help?’ Sita asked quietly.

She was standing against the door and looked very pale. Startled, Bee and the doctor turned round. They had not seen her standing in the shadows.

‘Sit with him,’ the doctor said quickly, before Bee could speak. ‘Stop him thrashing about. I’m afraid for the leg,’ he told them in a low voice. ‘I’m afraid of gangrene.’

Kamala, coming out with a pot of tea in her hand, gasped.

‘Ayio! No!’

The doctor nodded grimly. He knew that the next twenty-four hours would decide things one way or the other and that it was no use contemplating the hospital.

‘Wait,’ he told them. ‘Just a little. Don’t worry, yet. I’ll be back this evening. Give him some cothemalli if he wakes. He must drink plenty of fluids.’

‘I’ll make some now,’ Sita said.

She tightened the belt of her housecoat and headed for the kitchen. Kamala looked after her daughter, astonished. The doctor nodded.

‘Good,’ he agreed heartily.

‘Tell Alice when she wakes I’ll take her to the beach,’ Bee told Kamala abruptly. Then he escorted the doctor out of the house.

In the kitchen Sita watched the cothemalli tea bubble up. The light outside was achingly beautiful and the sea was flooded with it. When the tea was ready she went in to Kunal who now lay in a transparent sac of pain. Heat was radiating from him. Sita sat down, letting him sip the tea, quietly waiting until his confused delirium subsided a little. She understood everything about this hot crumpled bed of pain. Kunal’s face looked grey and exhausted as he dipped in and out of consciousness. She did not know how long she sat with him. Now and again she stood up and, in the defused light coming in through the shutters, wiped his face. He was handsome. She remembered him only slightly from her younger days, even though she must have seen him quite often. It interested her to see that looking down on a person’s face was different from looking at them on eye level. All his vulnerability fell open like the pages of a book when she stood over him. Had she appeared this way to the nurse on that night? she wondered. All morning, sitting with the coriander tea, waiting for Kunal to sip it, Sita went over the events of her own night of suffering with a calm detachment she had not possessed before. At some point she slipped out into the kitchen to fetch some freshly squeezed orange juice. When she returned his eyes were open and he was staring at her through a thick gauze of pain.

‘You are not very old,’ Kunal mumbled suddenly.

Sita held the glass of liquid to his lips.

‘What happened to you can only happen to a woman who is still young. Do you know that? Your husband is young; you are still strong. There will be a life beyond this tragedy; perhaps even beyond this island. Don’t let this hurt get in your way. They will have won if that happens.’

Sita stared at him. No one had dared to talk to her in this way. Kunal was looking up at her with eyes that burned with a fever, and yet he was smiling. Then slowly, haltingly, hardly aware of doing so, she told him how it was for her, with the love for her dead child trapped within her, inescapably. How day by day, moment by moment, she kept trying to save the child, remove it from harm’s way. And how each time she failed, it became important that she try again. Because maybe, on another occasion, she might succeed. It had become an enactment, she told Kunal, like the ritual of washing her hands before eating. Something she no longer thought about or had any control over. She continued talking to Kunal in this way even though he had gone back to sleep. Speaking quickly as if she needed to get the words out before she was interrupted, before her mother or her father or even the servant woman came in, Sita found she could not stop. For she was certain now that she would never speak of these things to another living person again.

Kunal dipped in and out of consciousness for most of that day and the next. The doctor came and went. He spoke to them in whispers. Two men had been arrested in the town and then released again.

The army were doing a house-to-house search further up the hill. They would have to be ready to hide Kunal in the coconut grove. It would be a gamble, but it was better than them being caught harbouring a Tamil. Bee’s jaw was tight with anger.

‘Oh my God!’ Kamala cried. ‘What shall we do?’

‘There is nothing else you can do,’ the doctor said. ‘Not with all your family in the house. But don’t panic yet. It might not come to that.’

On Monday while Sita was sitting with Kunal once more, Bee took Alice to the village beyond the town. It was a place he often visited in order to paint. The view of the sea was unexpected and lovely here, fringed by coconut palms and with only a few picturesque fishermen’s huts in sight. The doctor had told them to be as normal as they could. So he took his painting things and Alice took her bicycle.

‘We’ll be gone about an hour,’ he told Kamala.

It was late afternoon. The sun had moved some way across the sky. There had been torrential rain earlier that had ceased as abruptly as it had started and now the air was filled with a pearly glow. They walked across the beach on the unmarked sand, both unusually silent, preoccupied with their own thoughts. Bee bent down and picked a small piece of transparent aquamarine sea glass that had caught his eye; pebble-shaped, smoothened by the sea.

‘Look,’ he said, giving it to Alice, ‘all its edges have vanished.’

Alice held the glass up to the light and the horizon showed through it in a dark line. She put it in the pocket of her dress and they walked on. As they approached the hamlet they passed a pile of beach debris. Dead fish and rotting driftwood and old rags, piled into a mound, ready to burn. And beside it, on the sand, a breadfruit lay open; its innards like vomit on the sand. A little further on they passed a roadside shrine and then the huts came into view.

‘Can I wait here with Janake?’ Alice asked.

A group of children, including Janake, were playing beside the three large rocks. They were the same children she had seen on her birthday from her grandparents’ garden.

‘I shan’t be long,’ Bee said. ‘I just want to talk to Janake’s mother.’

The late-afternoon sun drenched the water with discs of light and the rocks appeared starkly defined against the sky. Such was the complexity and confusion of Alice’s thoughts that she barely noticed the children had turned and were looking at her. She could not see, as Bee might have done, had he glanced up from his conversation, that she stood on the brink of an important discovery. That the difference between herself and the group of children playing in the water was slowly becoming clearer. Standing beside the beach debris, with its coconut husks and its rotten fruit, with the smell of sea and weeds all around, Alice watched the little group and in particular Janake as they played. Here they were again, lithely jumping in and out of the shallows, as Janake’s mother listened to news of her relative. And here was Janake, looking his usual happy self. A chisel of loneliness shot through her. She watched for a moment longer, taking in a scene that was vanishing even as she looked, and was saddened without knowing quite why. Janake suddenly looked up. Detaching himself from the group with a shout of welcome, he ran towards her.

‘You’ve come to join us? We’re catching the small crabs.’

She stared. Since Jennifer had stopped being her friend no other child except Janake had wanted to know her. Esther Harris did not count. Esther was almost a grown-up. Eagerly, Alice kicked off her sandals as Janake grabbed her hand tightly. He was bigger than her, thin and wiry, and burnt by the constant exposure to the sun.

‘Quickly, before the next wave.’

The children had found a group of crabs nestling in a hollowed-out bowl of sand close to the rocks. Every time a wave crashed against the rocks, the bowl got larger and the crabs tried harder to scramble up on to the beach.

‘Where’ve you been?’ Janake shouted above the roar of the sea.

‘I’ve been busy,’ Alice said, not knowing how much to tell him.

Janake grinned as though he knew all about it.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Get in the water.’

The children were picking up the crabs and putting them into a bucket, but when the bucket became full Janake ordered them to throw the crabs back into the sea. He spoke in Singhalese and was clearly the group leader. After some time the other children grew bored and wandered off. Janake turned to Alice as another wave hit him. The water had soaked his hair and beads of sea-spray shone on his bare chest. He stopped in mid-laugh.

‘I wish you weren’t going overseas,’ he shouted abruptly.

‘I don’t want to,’ Alice shouted back. ‘I hate England.’

She realised she had said something she meant. Janake was looking at her with the strangest expression on his face.

‘Don’t go,’ he said, above the roar of the ocean.

‘There’s nothing here for us,’ she cried, sounding like her mother.

He said no more and the waves washed and swirled around their feet.

‘It’s your aunt’s wedding soon, isn’t it?’ he said finally.

‘Yes.’

Janake nodded. He would be going with the fishermen to catch the fish.

‘Will you come back?’ he asked after a moment.

‘I want to,’ Alice said, realising all in a rush, with a closing up of the gap in her knowledge, that what she wanted did not always happen.

She had the strangest feeling of standing at the edge of a beach that dropped steeply a hundred fathoms. But Janake was nodding again. He produced a small penknife from his pocket and showed it to her.

‘In that case,’ he said, ‘you must carve your name on the rocks. Over there—’ he pointed, grinning at her, his good mood restored.

His teeth gleamed white. Overhead the seagulls were screaming.

‘Let’s walk there, it’s not deep. I’ll help you. Then you will come back. Because ifs a magic trick!’