grey blood, it looked like. It was so alive, the rain, that I laughed out loud. Tom stood by my side watching it, forcefully cursing the deluge. He knew it might be making a hames of his shelter, over in the big-leaved trees.
I looked at him. Though his eyes are hooded and nearly hidden, yet out through the folds of skin shine two slivers of emerald. I don’t know how sad he is, but I do know that he is sad. He has been extraordinarily kind, I was thinking. He is a dependable, decent man. There was goodness in him, yes, there was something of God in him. He is just a local man I employ to clean and see to the house, that’s one way of looking at it. But. Something about Tom Quaye’s care and loyalty, even if words like care and loyalty might usually suggest servility, is entrancing. He is like a big lump of medicine to me.
‘Do you know, Tom, when this weather blows over, in a few weeks, you know, we might make that trip north.’
He turned his face to me, not on the same wavelength.
‘What trip, major?’ he said.
‘We might make a run up on the Indian to see, you know, that wife of yours, and the two children.’
This was a possibility that had obviously never occurred to him. Perhaps he didn’t even like the sound of it.
‘To Titikope, major?
‘Yes, or you could just take the motorcycle, if you preferred.’
‘No, I – I think this is one good idea.’
‘Well, we can wait till the rains are done, and then make a plan. By the time these rains have finished we’ll be stir-crazy, I’ll be bound. We’ll need a jaunt of some description. Unless you wanted to go alone as I say.’
‘No, no, not alone, major,’ said Tom.
‘We can share the driving,’ I said.
Tom looked at me as closely as I had looked at him. His green eyes just stared at me. I was beginning to twitch with embarrassment. Then slowly, like the very rumble of the distant thunder outside, he started to laugh. He pointed his right hand at me, wagging it, making absolutely sure I got the joke. I got the joke. I laughed and laughed with him, under the enormous rain.
Chapter Twelve
Soon enough I was home. I had missed the birth by a few weeks. I came in the door and found Mai waiting for me in the narrow hall, one hand supporting herself against the wine-coloured wall. Her body was bent a little sideways, and I had to draw her into my arms to get a proper hold of her. I was concerned that the birth had weakened her so. But I could sense her enormous relief. She cried, and patted my chest. Such a moment of love that seemed. Then she brought me into the parlour to see Maggie. There is no experience in the world to match seeing your first child, for the first time. She was a little lost face in a nest of tiny blankets.
Mai on her own return had cut quite the figure in Sligo, my mother said, walking along Wine Street or O’Connell Street, crossing Grattan Bridge with her firm stride, going in and out of the fancier shops, drinking tea in the Café Cairo with all its hissing boilers and small-voiced maids, the fashionable ladies of Sligo arranged among the tables like the fabulous beasts of some impossible watering hole – in her Gibraltar coat, and the monkey swaying minutely on her shoulder. There was nothing else but Mai now in the talk of my mother. She thought her a rare person.
Yes, Mam cherished her. I wonder now if she didn’t also invest Mai with some residual idea of her own real mother, whom she would never speak about. The spectre of illegitimacy kept her silent in her torment. But perhaps in Mam’s mind her mother had been just such as Mai, tall, a touch theatrical, in well-chosen furs and dresses. Certainly, when I saw them together on the street, you couldn’t help seeing, as I said, due to their very different heights, a mother and child.
But my mother, not being in any way a stupid woman, also picked up other signals from Mai. For twenty years and more she had stitched pinafores and smocks for the women in the
I looked at him. Though his eyes are hooded and nearly hidden, yet out through the folds of skin shine two slivers of emerald. I don’t know how sad he is, but I do know that he is sad. He has been extraordinarily kind, I was thinking. He is a dependable, decent man. There was goodness in him, yes, there was something of God in him. He is just a local man I employ to clean and see to the house, that’s one way of looking at it. But. Something about Tom Quaye’s care and loyalty, even if words like care and loyalty might usually suggest servility, is entrancing. He is like a big lump of medicine to me.
‘Do you know, Tom, when this weather blows over, in a few weeks, you know, we might make that trip north.’
He turned his face to me, not on the same wavelength.
‘What trip, major?’ he said.
‘We might make a run up on the Indian to see, you know, that wife of yours, and the two children.’
This was a possibility that had obviously never occurred to him. Perhaps he didn’t even like the sound of it.
‘To Titikope, major?
‘Yes, or you could just take the motorcycle, if you preferred.’
‘No, I – I think this is one good idea.’
‘Well, we can wait till the rains are done, and then make a plan. By the time these rains have finished we’ll be stir-crazy, I’ll be bound. We’ll need a jaunt of some description. Unless you wanted to go alone as I say.’
‘No, no, not alone, major,’ said Tom.
‘We can share the driving,’ I said.
Tom looked at me as closely as I had looked at him. His green eyes just stared at me. I was beginning to twitch with embarrassment. Then slowly, like the very rumble of the distant thunder outside, he started to laugh. He pointed his right hand at me, wagging it, making absolutely sure I got the joke. I got the joke. I laughed and laughed with him, under the enormous rain.
Chapter Twelve
Soon enough I was home. I had missed the birth by a few weeks. I came in the door and found Mai waiting for me in the narrow hall, one hand supporting herself against the wine-coloured wall. Her body was bent a little sideways, and I had to draw her into my arms to get a proper hold of her. I was concerned that the birth had weakened her so. But I could sense her enormous relief. She cried, and patted my chest. Such a moment of love that seemed. Then she brought me into the parlour to see Maggie. There is no experience in the world to match seeing your first child, for the first time. She was a little lost face in a nest of tiny blankets.
Mai on her own return had cut quite the figure in Sligo, my mother said, walking along Wine Street or O’Connell Street, crossing Grattan Bridge with her firm stride, going in and out of the fancier shops, drinking tea in the Café Cairo with all its hissing boilers and small-voiced maids, the fashionable ladies of Sligo arranged among the tables like the fabulous beasts of some impossible watering hole – in her Gibraltar coat, and the monkey swaying minutely on her shoulder. There was nothing else but Mai now in the talk of my mother. She thought her a rare person.
Yes, Mam cherished her. I wonder now if she didn’t also invest Mai with some residual idea of her own real mother, whom she would never speak about. The spectre of illegitimacy kept her silent in her torment. But perhaps in Mam’s mind her mother had been just such as Mai, tall, a touch theatrical, in well-chosen furs and dresses. Certainly, when I saw them together on the street, you couldn’t help seeing, as I said, due to their very different heights, a mother and child.
But my mother, not being in any way a stupid woman, also picked up other signals from Mai. For twenty years and more she had stitched pinafores and smocks for the women in the
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