in the background, not knowing what to do next.
Sunil had no idea of the tensions around him. The family behaved impeccably, plying him with petits fours (where, he wondered fleetingly, did they get them?) and tea, served in exquisite white bone-china cups, and love cake on beautiful, green Hartley china plates. Alicia played the piano for him and Jasper watched the proceedings silently, gimlet-eyed and newly awake from his afternoon nap.
The conversation became general. Grace and Aloysius were charming hosts. All those house parties, those weekend tennis events had not taken place for nothing. Even Jacob became cautiously friendly, talking to Sunil about his work exporting tea. Sunil was interested in everything. Aloysius told him about the tea estates that had once belonged to Grace while Thornton showed him some of his poems. But this last proved to be too much for Christopher. Taking the cats with him, he disappeared.
‘Thank God, sister!’ shouted Jasper, who loathed the cats.
Sunil was enchanted all over again. How could he not be? Jasper alone was a force to be reckoned with.
‘Have you ever played poker, Sunil?’ asked Aloysius.
‘Oh no, please, no!’ exclaimed Grace. But she was laughing.
‘Wait, wait,’ Thornton cried. ‘Let’s all play. Come on, Jacob, you too!’
The evening meandered on. The card table was brought out; ice-cold palmyra toddy in etched Venetian glasses appeared as if from nowhere; and, with the unexpected arrival of the aunts, Coco and Valerie, the family launched into a game of Ajoutha. It was a magical starlit evening, effortlessly filled with the possibilities of youth. Alicia was persuaded to play the piano again, this time for Sunil’s friend Ranjith Pieris who arrived just before dinner was served out on the veranda. Sunil could not remember another time as wonderful as this.
‘You know, I have Ranjith to thank for meeting you,’ he told them, beginning slowly to relax, feeling some inexplicable emotion glowing within him each time his eyes alighted on Alicia. For it had been Ranjith, he told them, shyly, who had bought the tickets for the Conservatoire recital. It had been Ranjith who, persuading Sunil to accompany him, had sent him reluctantly out into this bright looking-glass world of elegance, from which there would be no going back.
The wedding was set for December when it would be cooler. The invisible forces of karma worked with effortless ease. Gladness filled the air. Sunil was a Buddhist, but in the face of Alicia’s happiness, no one cared much. For Alicia was radiant. Everyone remarked on the change in her. Her career was taking off. Having given two more concert performances in Colombo she was invited to take part in a radio series in the New Year.
‘After that, who knows?’ said the Director of the Conservatoire. ‘An international tour perhaps? Grace, your daughter is an extraordinary girl.’
‘Let’s get the wedding over with first, for goodness’ sake!’ begged Grace. The world seemed to be spinning madly with so many things happening at once.
‘Yes, yes,’ agreed Aloysius joyously, helping himself to the whisky the bridegroom-to-be had just brought him.
The marriage was arranged for the last day in the year, a Poya day, a night of the full moon. An auspicious sign, a good omen.
‘Come along, everyone,’ cried Aloysius with gusto, ‘let’s drink to the wedding of the year!’
It was the first proper whisky he had drunk in months. It was clear he was going to get on with his future son-in-law like a house on fire.
‘What we need is a small windfall,’ he added with a small gleam in his eyes. ‘A little poker might do the trick, what d’you think, darl? Huh?’
Grace ignored him. She was still ignoring him, when, four weeks later the windfall turned out to be in the form of a broken arm.
‘Don’t worry,’ Aloysius told her, finding it hugely funny. ‘It’s only August after all. By Christmas I will be out of the sling!’
Grace had other things on her mind.
‘Father Giovanni wants the bride and groom to attend matrimonial classes together,’ announced Frieda, who was in charge of helping her mother on all such matters. Frieda was to be the bridesmaid. ‘Otherwise, there can’t be a church wedding, he told me.’
‘Hindu bastard!’ screeched Jasper, not following the story very well. He was feeling the heat.
‘Be quiet, Jasper,’ said Grace absent-mindedly.
‘Bastard!’ said Jasper sourly.
‘That bird should be shot. He’s a social embarrassment. I’ll do it, if you like, darl,’ offered Aloysius, whose right hand was still capable of pulling a trigger. ‘This is entirely Christopher’s doing, you know. God knows what he’ll come out with when the guests start arriving.’
But naturally everyone protested and Jasper was spared yet again.
Meanwhile, in all this commotion, no one noticed Thornton’s frequent mealtime absences. Jacob, the usual guardian of all the siblings, was preoccupied. In just over a year’s time he hoped to secure a passage on one of the Italian ocean liners that crossed and recrossed the seas to England. He told no one of this plan which had been fermenting quietly for years. His sister’s wedding, his brother’s whereabouts, these things had increasingly become less important to Jacob. If he noticed his family at all these days, it was from a great distance, their chatter muffled by the sound of the ocean, that heartbeat of all his hopes. So Jacob, the sharpest of them all, the one who noticed everything, failed to notice that Thornton was often absent. Which left Thornton free to do just about whatever he wanted. At last that wonderful smile was paying off. These days, his dark curly hair shone glossily and his large eyes were limpid pools of iridescent light. Such was his laughter when he was home, planting a kiss on his mother’s head, tweaking his sister’s hair, deferential towards his father, that nobody really registered those times when he was not. Except Jasper that is. Jasper was always saying crossly, ‘You’re late!’
‘I know,’ laughed Thornton, coming in with great energy, sitting down at the piano, playing the snatch of jazz he had heard only moments before as he walked up to the house. ‘I’ve been looking for a new mynah bird, old thing!’
‘Oh Thornton!’ exclaimed Alicia, rushing in. Being in love made her rush. ‘You are so clever. I wish I could play by ear.’
Thornton laughed, delighted. The piano under his fingers took on the swagger of the dance floor. He would be playing at his sister’s wedding.
‘Will you play “Maybe” and “An American in Paris” at the reception?’ begged Alicia, her arms around his neck, hugging him.
‘Yes,’ said Thornton. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’
And he laughed again with the sheer joy of it all, pushing his hat down over his eyes, sticking a cigarette in the side of his mouth Bogart-style, foot pressed down on the loud pedal, until he deafened them all with the vibrations. Alicia, because she was happy, assumed naturally that his happiness was due to her. Naturally, being in love, what else could she assume? But Thornton was filled with an exuberance, a secret glow that was nothing whatsoever to do with the sunshine outside, or his sister. It was a tingling feeling that made him belt out ‘As Time Goes By’ one minute, and ‘Maple Leaf Rag’ the next.
The house was almost continuously filled with activity, music pouring out of its every window. Love was in the air. Even the stifling heat of the dry season could not dispel it. Everyone was completely wrapped up with this, the first marriage in the family. The visitors’ list grew daily. Relatives from across the island, from Australia, and from as far away as Canada were coming.
‘We mustn’t forget Anslem, you know,’ said Aloysius. ‘Oh, and that fellow, what’s his name, darl, you know, the chap from the hill station?’
‘Harrison?’ asked Grace. ‘Yes. He’s on my list. What about Dr Davidson and his wife?’
‘Don’t