CHAPTER 9

THE PERSIAN CARPET

The industry of Christmas didn’t stop with the cake. There was the annual spring cleaning to accomplish. The local people around us addressed this task as part of their religious festivals of Dhasera and Davali in October each year. Our turn came in December.

Everything in the house was moved, dusted and wiped over with a damp cloth. Mould that had pretended friendship during the first few days of the monsoons and lulled us into a false sense of security had subsequently invaded and now reigned supreme. It was annihilated. Ancient cobwebs grown stiff with dust so of no use to anyone, not even spiders, were ruthlessly sacked, and dog hair that during the year had evaded us by hiding behind furniture and in dark corners was summarily scooped up and disposed.

Though spring cleaning (in winter) was seen as a Christmas tradition its roots lay in practical necessity and was unrelated to anyone’s religion. After the heat and dust of summer and the invasion of fungi during the monsoons, a thorough clean ensured we weren’t enmeshed in dirt that added to itself over the years. It was a practical requirement reflected in social custom that was designed to keep us healthy. There are very good reasons why these tenets evolve.

It was also the time to move heavy rosewood furniture away from the ceiling fan in the centre of the drawing room and arrange armchairs around the open fireplace. This was no mean feat when the manual labourers involved were Lorraine, Lily and I with assistance from the family retainer – our old ayah.

Lorraine, ever the supervisor, took charge. “Lily and I are stronger than Lucy and ayah so Lucy come with me and ayah go with Lily. When I say ‘PUSH’ we all push.” Arranging our teams on opposite sides of the sofa we all pushed. And the sofa budged – not one inch!

“No, nooo,” screeched Lorraine. “We can’t all push. You’re meant to pull when we push.”

It says something favourable about the gentle, sweet sisters that we are, because neither Lily nor I advised Lorraine of her faulty instructions.

We tried again but at the last minute I was confused so stopped in the middle of a push-pull.

“Galoot! You Hefty, Heaving, Gorilling Galoot!” rent the air as Lorraine flung her own brand of strong language at her youngest sister. Ready to retaliate I stomped my foot, folded my arms across my chest and for good measure, also screwed up my face. I made sure my statement was understood. For a moment, as we assessed opposing armies, it became apparent that World War III was a preferable choice to spring cleaning.

However, at that moment expedience in the form of my mother entered the room and just by her presence influenced us to return to the task at hand. Singing in unison “push-pull / pull-push / swap-sides / get-it-right,” we managed to move the furniture onto the front verandah.

Cleaning the rooms was an art form, with each of us having a quarter of a room as our responsibility. In our hearts was the intention to speed-clean and win the unspoken competition of finishing first. Being the youngest and for a few years the shortest, I often needed help with the long-handled brooms to attack aerial cobwebs. But when I shot up and to my everlasting joy grew taller than my sisters, a potentially new winner was on the cards.

That it meant lending someone else a hand and therefore doing more than our fair share never persuaded any of us to slow down. Sibling rivalry is a dynamic force, probably more compelling than any other rivalry.

But there are some things three young girls cannot achieve. Lorraine, Lily and I glared at the Persian carpet rolled up in its case in the back verandah. We had just combined our strengths to move it and after a lot of grunting, achieved nothing. “Bloody arse.” Lorraine made sure only Lily and I could hear. “That damned carpet doesn’t get any lighter, does it! We’re going to have to admit defeat. AGAIN.”

My mother knew the carpet was too heavy for us so had already arranged for help from three stalwart jawans, who were young men related to our ayah. The hired hands were known to our parents and considered completely trustworthy but before they could enter the house Lorraine, Lily and I had to remove ourselves to the inner rooms. Though I knew it was for my own protection, I objected.

“This is so stu-uu-pid,” but when one is singular against many, especially in the face of unarguable logic, there is only one course of action – capitulation. I, having said my piece, vented my spleen, made a lot of noise and achieved absolutely nothing, meekly followed Lorraine and Lily to the back room, thereby ensuring that three young girls were unavailable to be ogled by potentially lusty men.

It was also considered dishonourable to expose young workers to a standard of living to which they could never aspire. So while we made ourselves scarce my mother ensured the men were fully occupied with no spare moment to case the premises. The task of moving the carpet was performed in one, swift, liquid movement.

Once the carpet was in place we fell to brushing it with soft-hair bristles bringing out the brilliant colours of peacock blue, reds, old gold and shades of green, all illustrating traditional Middle Eastern patterns.

“That circle of dusky pink was my lucky pot when I played Tiddlywinks with Daddy.” Loraine’s tone was dreamy. Lily and I knew exactly what she meant. Each one of us had played the child’s game with our father, using the carpet as “mat”, choosing a part of its design as our “pot” and raiding our mother’s button collection to find “winks”. We refined hand–eye co-ordination while our father taught us about the subtleties of colour and geometric shape that comprise Persian art.

“The rhomboid of turquoise is my favourite,” countered Lily but no one listened. No one believed her because each year she came up with a different choice. The intention of course, was to match her older sister, not to reminisce.

I said nothing. I knew what was coming and had no way of averting it. It was something that had happened when I was a tot, when I was too young to remember. But it was brought up year after year.

I felt both pairs of eyes on me. “We all know which one Lucy likes,” and though the words were innocent the attitude was meant to torment. It must be enormously satisfying to be able to ridicule your younger sister.

That’s the worst of being the youngest. Every awkward thing you do has the potential to be remembered and regurgitated at will. And usually is. On the other hand, your siblings can exhibit all kinds of embarrassing behaviour prior to your birth, before you can be witness and store it in your memory for future use.

The time I had disgraced myself on that carpet was when the Christmas fare was in full swing. Knowing full well that pestering my mother was pointless I had worked on my father instead. With the single-mindedness of a tiny person with an even tinier brain, I repeated with deadly monotony, only one more sweet, Daddy and just a few more nuts, pleeeease.

The result was predictable.

It truly wasn’t my fault. I was on a winning streak, having just shot five consecutive winks (buttons) home when the excitement got too much for me.

“Take careful aim,” my father encouraged. “If you win this one you’ll have a bullseye.” So I flicked my wink with all the force I could muster and instead of travelling towards my pot, it took off at a rate of knots, heading straight for my father’s right eye.

Rather than see stars, he brushed the button aside with more energy than skill, so it changed directions and flew halfway across the room. I grabbed a deep breath to support a yell of protest, but the extra abdominal pressure proved too much for a small stomach, particularly one that was already overburdened by Christmas goodies. To my eternal shame a disgusting mixture of you-don’t-want-to-know-what surged up onto that luxurious family heirloom, the only Persian carpet in Kanpur and probably the only one left in India.

Though, at the time, Persian carpets had a reputation for being the best in the world, were housed in august residences like Number 10 Downing Street and were prohibitively expensive for the majority of the world’s population, neither of my parents reproached me.

“This is your home,” my father said, “Not a showpiece. I ran across that carpet with muddy shoes when I was a boy.” We knew he remembered playing Tiddlywinks with his father on exactly the same carpet and, like us, remembered learning about colours, geometric shapes and improving hand–eye coordination.

“Possessions are subordinate to our wants, even to our whims,” was another of his favourite sayings, to which our mother always added, “We look after our things,” and fixing a stern eye on us added, “We don’t deliberately damage them, but neither do we worship at the altar of belongings.”

The quality of the carpet was such that without the aid of modern abrasive cleaning agents, with only old-fashioned soap, water and elbow grease, no stain was ever discernible. That didn’t stop ghoulish young girls, as young people are the world over, from looking for it.

“That’s where Lucy was sick,” was part of the tradition of laying the carpet every Christmas but it was more imagination than reality that pinpointed the spot.

Spring cleaning included changing the soft furnishings of the two front rooms. Lorraine would climb onto a tall stool to replace the lightweight curtains that allowed air to circulate during the hot summer months. Double drapes, one of self-coloured maroon, the other a cretonne pattern of deep pink and burgundy roses, were hung at all four door-ways of the drawing room and matched the cushion covers and antimacassars. The design was reflected on the pelmets, mantelpiece and cocktail cabinet, making the room warm, comfortable and comforting.

The dining room was interesting. Year in, year out, the long rectangular dining table sat in the middle of the room under the ceiling fan. My father’s position was at one end, my mother’s at the other, while Lorraine’s designated place was opposite Lily’s and mine. This “natural” order of seating never varied. The style of furnishings matched the drawing room in comfort but the fabric pattern for winter was leaves and vines in colours of burnt orange, earthy green and rich red-brown. As with the drawing room, the arrangement was echoed in the dinner and tea sets and stencilled onto pelmets, sideboard and dining table.

“No! You can’t have your chair backed in purple. Or lilac. Or mauve! Those aren’t autumn colours.” I was bewildered at my mother’s exasperation because my sisters and I had never experienced autumn so I wasn’t to know. The seasons in north India are traditionally recognised as summer, winter and the monsoons. Autumn was just a figment of our imagination, not a reality and the dining room furnishings we lived with year after year were evidence of the incongruity of our lifestyles.

The winter garden was another example. During the first week of November the early morning temperatures were cool enough to plant English cottage garden flowers. The manual labour was tremendous. Large beds were dug out to border the lawn, the soil was aerated and fertilised and as many plants as could be induced to survive were bedded down. Blocks of richly coloured annuals in every shade known to man vied with each other to grab our attention and together their splendour rivalled the Chelsea Flower Show.

In another life, another hemisphere, a different month but the same season, my mother surveyed the flowers which filled every vase in her home in celebration of Mother’s Day. “For some reason, chrysanthemums always remind me of Christmas,” she said idly, “I can’t think why.”

My response was equally lazy. “Funny you should say that. They remind me of Tuscan earthenware and I don’t know why. It’s not as though they come in that colour.” I caught her eye in shared empathy when recognition struck simultaneously for both of us and forever bound us in mutual memory.

“Try and get more paint on the flowerpot than on yourself,” my mother admonished, as it was always my task to use colourwash and freshen up the terracotta pots that housed chrysanthemums along the driveway. At the time we didn’t realise how deeply that little tableau would bury itself within our subconscious to be triggered at a much later date with the sight of that particular flower.

But it was the roses that were truly spectacular at Christmas time.

“You stink,” said Lily “PHOO,” she added and stuck her nose in the air, pinching her nostrils together with thumb and finger in what she presumed was an artistic gesture.

“I do not!” I attempted what dignity I could muster when telling a blatant lie. I had been helping my mother in the rose garden – not a job for the timid when there were 500 rose-bushes to prune and fertilise within a tight deadline.

“Abbae salae!” I swore silently, as I scratched myself yet again. Using language I had heard at school but with no idea of the meaning, I was smart enough to refrain from repeating the words in the presence of my parents. “These blinking things have vicious thorns.” Some euphemisms were acceptable.

But I couldn’t afford to complain because I knew the reward would be bountiful in six weeks when the rose garden blossomed with a profusion of colour and fragrance in time for Christmas day and the following two months. It was unnecessary to advise anyone to stop and smell the roses. If you breathed, the exotic, sensuous perfume filled your nostrils, your mind, your brain. Not breathing was never an option – it brought obvious consequences.

“We are incredibly lucky.” My father sighed with deep pleasure as he surveyed the riot of colour as far as his eye could see. “Other people have to drive miles and pay large sums of money to get into a garden like this and we have it on our doorstep. Year after year your mother excels.”

Though my father was a compassionate man, it never occurred to him to recognise that the hard physical labour of digging, fertilising and planting was provided by the mali. He simply took the existing order of things for granted. I, on the other hand, took everything for granted. Why wouldn’t I? In my young life, Christmas had always been accompanied by the trappings of opulent fare. It was beyond my comprehension that what I knew as “Christmas Cake”, a special treat that was only available once a year, could become commonplace, shop-bought, ordinary fruit cake; that Christmas sweets, with Turkish Delight being my favourite, would be mass-produced, available all year round, contain preservatives and drop in quality.