Health & the British Public

The NHS is about to be overhauled. The government wants it to save £20billion by 2015. What does this mean for us, the ordinary people in this country?  What does it mean for the women about to give birth and the young just entering the world? Our children, our grandchildren? And then there is that wonderful phrase 'the ageing population'. What of them? In the cuts ahead how many will fall victims to the government's plans?
The cross-party select committee has said there is
'too much emphasis so far on short-term cuts and 'salami-slicing', instead of re-thinking the way care is delivered.'
The health secretary Andrew Lansley isn't interested. He is a politician and for him, with his wealth and his private health care, the lives of others are not his personal concern.

I came, as a child to this country in the late 1960s, with a mother who had been all but murdered in the country that was our home. She had lost the baby that she carried to full term and a drunken doctor, in charge at the government hospital, had then tried to kill her off with a morphine overdose. She, my mother, arrived on these shores a broken woman, barely able to walk. The first thing we did, fearfully, was register with a GP. We had been told about a wonderful health service in the UK that delivered the same level of care to the whole population. My mother did not really believe this. In the third world country we had just left, good health was for the wealthy, only. But in Britain, so the story went, the rights of every human was respected. The young, the old, the sick, the elderly were all still people. And so, we registered with a doctor in south London.
What followed was astonishing and until the day she died, thirty years later, in St Thomas's hospital, London, this story was one she would repeat.
First she made an appointment that was processed quickly.
The doctor who saw her moved swiftly and with great kindness. She was whisked to a hospital where she was seen, talked to, attended to and subsequently given surgery.
Her wounds healed, she recovered in as far as it was possible.

She went back to that doctor to thank him. He became our family doctor. That is to say he knew us as a family. He understood the dynamics of our family because he had time to do so. Because he wasn't constrained by the '8 minute' rule of consultation that doctors are bound by, today. He had time to practice his considerable skill. He was not a man who was forced to manage his own budget or be an administrator as well. He was, in short, given the space to be efficient. Efficiency and time were not married together but rather quality was the thing that was valued. 

Now this wonderful service is being tampered with. It has already had holes knocked in it but what this current government is proposing is much worse. Health experts are lobbying but many of the population remain in the dark. As one health administrator told me recently,
'the rug is being pulled under everyone's feet, but it will be too late before the public realises.'
That's the plan of course! We will not understand the extent of the cuts until it's too late and until that moment when we need to use a service. It will be far too late by then, both for us and for the NHS itself.

For those of us who really love this country, who have spent their working lives here, who wish to put back some of the things that we have taken from it, the time has come for us to stand up for the wonderful service we have so lightly taken for granted. A service that offered an unknown woman the help she could not get any where else in the world.

But for how long?

   

A Final Story For The Western Sponsors Of The Galle Literary Festival. Extract from the Novel 'Brixton Beach'.

In another part of the island, in Colombo 10, a woman screams. It is an old familiar scream, primeval and ancient, travelling down the corridors of centuries. In this darkening hour, in this brief southern twilight, the woman screams are more urgently. A child wants to be born. Nothing can stop this need, this desire to exist. Nothing, not the Colombo express rushing past, nor the tissue-paper poya moon gliding  across the fine tropical sky. The child is coming before its time; its clothes, lovingly embroidered, are piled inside a shoe-box in the woman’s house. The clothes are small enough to make this possible. Blue; most of these fine lawn clothes are blue as the sky, for the woman is hoping for a son. She has already decided on a name. For months now she has been saying the name to herself in a whisper.

‘Ravi,’ she says, ‘Ravi.’

She speaks softly for fear of the evil eye. But now she is in pain, three weeks too early, and here in the government hospital. It is late. Too late to inform her mother. Or her sister. Her husband has been sent home, told to return in the morning. This is woman’s business, the nurse tells him.

‘Don’t worry,’ the nurse says. ‘Three weeks is only a little early. And Doctor will be here shortly.’

So the husband goes, the sounds of his wife’s whimpers resounding uneasily in his ears.

The doctor is drunk. His breath smells as he squints at the notes the nurse gives him.

‘What?’ he asks in high-pitched Singhalese. ‘You called me in just for this Tamil woman?’

‘She isn’t Tamil, sir,’ the nurse tells him. ‘Just the husband.’

‘Exactly!’ the doctor says, trying not to belch but without success. ‘That’s my point. Why should we help breed more Tamils? As if this country hasn’t enough already!’

Outside, the trees rustle in the slight breeze. Tonight is quiet, no drums, no police sirens, no sudden violence. A perfect night on which to be born.

‘All right,’ the doctor says, bored. ‘Take me to her.’

The woman lies groaning in a pool of sweat. Moonlight falls on the ripeness of her belly. Catching sight of the doctor, she begs him for something to relieve the pain. She speaks in perfect, old-fashioned Singhalese. The nurse bends and wipes her face and offers her a sip of water.

‘Give her some quinine,’ the doctor tells the nurse.

Then he examines the woman. Because he is drunk, because he has driven here in haste, leaving his dinner guests still at the table, he has forgotten his glasses. Roughly he inserts two fingers into her dilating uterus and the woman screams. The doctor tells her sharply to be quiet, and stepping back half loses his balance. The nurse glances at him, alarmed.

‘Sir?’ she asks tentatively.

The doctor does not know that this nurse is still a student. She should not be here alone, but the midwife has been called out on an emergency. The student nurse thinks this is an emergency too, but she doesn’t know what she could say. She is frightened. The doctor prods the woman, ignoring her screams, then, having satisfied himself that all is well, leans over the bed.

‘Do you understand English?’ he asks slowly.

It is important he does not slur his speech.

‘Yes,’ the woman says faintly, in Singhalese. ‘I do.’

‘Good. Then you will understand when I tell you these pains are perfectly normal. They are just called Braxton Hicks contractions. The baby will turn soon and then you’ll go into labour. It may take a few hours; you just have to be patient. Nothing to worry about. It’s a perfectly normal process. You Tamil women have been doing this for centuries!’

And he laughs, washing his hands.

‘The nurse will take care of you,’ he says, gesturing to the nurse to give the woman the quinine. ‘This will calm you down. I’ll be back later.’

The woman, feeling another contraction coming towards her in a wave, tries to ride it and begins to cry out again. The nurse holds her head and she drinks the quinine, the bitterness hardly registering on her. The doe-eyed nurse wipes her face again and follows the doctor out.

‘Don’t bother calling me. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. She’ll be fine till then,’ he says.

‘But, sir, I think it’s a breach,’ the nurse says tentatively.

She isn’t sure, of course, and doesn’t want to look foolish in front of this famous consultant.

‘Nonsense,’ the doctor tells her. ‘Do you think I don’t know a breach when I see one!’

Again he laughs peering at this pretty girl’s anxious face.

‘What’s a nice girl like you doing here?’ he asks.

He has a sudden urge to run his hand across her back and further down. He begins to imagine the places his hand might reach.

‘You should be in my nursing home,’ he says, a little unsteadily.

The nurse, her dark eyes made darker by tiredness, smiles a little.

‘We must see what we can do,’ promises the doctor, thinking how good it would be to have such a lovely face at his private clinic.

And then he goes out into the car park and towards his Mercedes, parked sleekly beside the stephanotis bush, back to his lighted house and his dinner guests.

The woman screams. She is pleading. The baby inside her struggles, it turns and turns again. In the darkness she sees her stomach heave and rise up in another wave. It turns into a shape too grotesque to be normal. The woman is petrified, she doesn’t recognise her own body. It has become something separate from her, dragging her along into an unknown place. She screams, not wanting to go.

‘Please, please,’ she cries.

Even as she watches, her stomach lurches in a landslide movement to one side of the bed. The nurse who has been holding her is terrified.

‘Wait, I’ll get someone,’ she says. ‘Wait, hold on.’

The young, sweet nurse is crying too in great gasping sobs of panic.

But the woman is past listening. Her cries have changed. They pierce the air, becoming something other than despair, sounding inhuman. They are the cries of an unseen child. The child she once used to be, the child inside her, maybe. In the darkness outside, jasmine flowers open, bursting their pouches of scent. Large spiders move haltingly amongst the leaves of the creepers that grow against the whitewashed wall. This is the tropics; insects and reptilian life flourish. A drum is beating in the distance, its regular beat out of step with the cries of the woman in the hospital bed. The spiders and the snakes move relentlessly through the long grass, deaf to the fact that she is pleading for her life now.

In the last hour, the darkest moment of the night, just before dawn breaks, a doctor hurries into the room. He is a different, younger doctor. He too is a Singhalese; a family man, a father. Capable of hiding his feelings under a mask of professionalism. The woman on the bed has bled so much she is only semi-conscious, and the doctor knows he has not got much time. The baby, the girl child, he knows, is already dead. Later he will fill out the death certificate. Still birth, he will write. And although no one will be watching, his hand will have the faintest tremor; his jaw will tighten imperceptibly with anger. That will be all. Later, in disgust, he will apply to leave his wretched country, unable to stomach what he has always known. For he, more than anyone, knows that life is cheap in this Third World paradise. It comes and goes like waves on its many beaches. But all of this will happens later. On this long, solitary night the doctor will do his job and deliver another dead child. He will see the baby’s soft downy hair as it comes out on his hands, as he lifts the body out of this woman. The woman, semi-conscious now, far beyond tears, has one last request.

‘Let me see her. Please, let me see her,’ she begs.

But the doctor, his face softened by pity, his heart filled with pain, shakes his head. The woman sees the compassion in his face in the growing light of the new day.

‘What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over,’ the doctor says.

It is his only mistake that night.

This extract from the novel Brixton Beach is based on a real event that occurred in 1963 when discrimination was already under way. It is dedicated to the memory of NMC a woman of great courage, whose story, discarded for many years, is told at last.


 The images used here are from the series 'Lest We Forget.' by the author of this blog

A Second Short Story For The Western Sponsors Of The Galle Literary Festival. The Birthday Party.

Afterwards, because he was in a hurry, he forgot to wash his hands. It was his grandmother’s ninetieth birthday. His father’s mother. The whole tribe would be there and his father had taken the day off.

            ‘Don’t be late, huh,’ he told his son.

Corporal Tosa Niyaka nodded. No, he wouldn’t be late.

            ‘I know you fellows have a lot of work clearing up the mess and all that but the Buddhist priests are coming, you know. I’d like you to be given a blessing.’

            ‘Anay, Putha,’ his mother said. ‘Please auh!’

Tosa Niyaka nodded into his cell phone.

            ‘Yes, yes. Don’t keep telling me. I’ll be on time.’

He was only twenty-seven but because of his parent’s influence he had managed to race up the dizzy heights of the army ladder. What use were parents unless they had influence? Tosa knew many people were jealous of his position.

He changed out of his uniform and took a shirt.

            ‘Not that one,’ his wife admonished. ‘Here, have this. It’s ironed.’

His wife, seven months pregnant, was at home now, having stopped working at that damn boutique. Tosa had worried that people would think he was unable to support her when in fact the truth was they were very comfortably off. But Mirabella had gone on and on about her independence and how she was not some bloody old housewife. Singhala girls were all like that these days. Even the really pretty ones. Singhala men had gotten soft in the head, thought Tosa Always giving into their wives and mothers and sisters.

            ‘I suppose you want me to come too?’ Mirabella asked

‘What? God, Bel, why can’t you behave like a proper girl?’

He felt a little hurt.

            ‘I come to all your parent’s parties, don’t I?’

            ‘Have you had a shower?’ Mirabella asked.

            ‘Yes,’ he lied.

            ‘I hate it when you come home from work and don’t shower.’

            ‘You know I shower at work,’ he protested and tried to give her a kiss.

But Mirabella ducked. And wrinkled her nose. This seventh month of pregnancy was hard for them both. Neither slept well for different reasons. Every time he tried anything on she pushed him away saying she was too hot, or too uncomfortable, or too tired. There was always a good excuse and he was an understanding man, but still.

            ‘I come to all your parent’s dos,’ he said again.

Mirabella shrugged. In the strained afternoon light she looked beautiful, her hair long and black, and sleek. Her mouth wide and generous. Her eyes shining with the good health given to her by the baby she carried. The child’s blessing. Tosa Niyaka stared. For a moment, the angle of the light and the billowing orange curtain played a trick on his eyes. His wife’s searingly pink sari cast a lovely shadow on her face.  She wore hardly any makeup.

            ‘Well?’ he asked, although the fight had gone out of him.

She always won, anyway.

            ‘Oh Tosa,’ Mirabella said. ‘Don’t! My mother gives fab parties. Your parent’s are too formal.’

            ‘Well that’s because of their position,’ he protested. ‘Obviously.’

He didn’t add, although the temptation was there, to say her family were just socialites, whereas his were serious people who were involved in much more serious matters. He didn’t want to because he had chosen her for her frivolity.

            ‘Anyway,’ Mirabella was saying, hardly listening to him, ‘I want to go to one of the talks at the festival. There’s this writer, huh, from the UK who I really, really admire.’

She flicked through her programme, frowning. He saw she had marked things out, that there was no chance she would change her mind, that this bloody festival would take precedence over his grandmother.

            ‘Look,’ she said, holding out the booklet. ‘See? He’s fantastic.’

Tosa peered suspiciously at the photograph of the writer. The man was about his age. But he was white. And a little podgy. As if he drank too much, or sat at a desk all day. While Tosa… well there was no comparison! Sighing he picked up the gift, carefully wrapped by Mirabella herself, and looked around for the car keys.

            ‘I’m taking the Merc, okay.’

            ‘What am I supposed to do then? Walk to the festival?’

            ‘Get Cha-cha to take you. You shouldn’t be driving in your condition.’

He hesitated, not wanting to alarm her.

            ‘In any case I’d rather you went in the bullet proof car.’

She looked up at him, then, startled.

            ‘Just as a precaution,’ Tosa said uneasily.

            ‘But…’

            ‘It’s all right. I’m only being careful. Given your condition, given my job. Nothing to worry about. Let me do the worrying, okay.’

Privately he thought he ought to have a word with his father. Fill him in. Just in case today's event leaked out. The foreigners had a certain holier-than-thou attitude. Even though they got up to all sorts, themselves. Better to be safe, he decided. He kissed his wife who wrinkled her nose again.

            ‘You sure you had that shower?’

God, she was becoming like his mother, he thought, grinning indulgently, as he manovered the car out of the close circuited drive and out into the open streets. Feral noises came to him faintly, moments before he switched on the air conditioning and turned on some pop music. Mirabel was a deepening mystery to him.

            ‘What no wife?’ his father asked, surprised.

            ‘Never mind,’ his mother said. ‘Not long now!’

Long enough for her to go to her literary event, thought Tosa with a sudden streak of resentment. But he said nothing just gave his grandmother her present and kissed her. His grandmother pinched his cheeks. It was a well known fact that this stern woman who castigated everyone, from her own six children down to the servants, had nevertheless a soft spot of her army grandson.

            ‘So? Wife and baby relaxing?’ she asked.

Tosa nodded. Only with his grandmother did he totally drop his guard. She understood him and he her. That was how it had always been.

            ‘And what have you been up to in the meantime, naughtyboy?’

Tosa grinned.

             

‘You look as if you need a good wash,’ his grandmother said shrewdly. ‘Why don’t you go upstairs and cool down? Then you can come and have a piece of cake with me.’

Still grinning, meekly, Tosa did as he was told.

In the shower, which was wonderfully cool, he closed his eyes. The water slid over him like a woman’s hand. He sighed. Outside, through the open window he could see the blur of tropical greenery. A crow cawed in hyphenated sound and he could hear the noise of a coconut being scraped. Suddenly with no warning an image flashed in front of his closed eyes.

 A hand. Hair, long and silky, a mouth wide open, the veins of a slender neck standing out.

            ‘Please!’ the girl was whispering. ‘Please. Spare me! Please, please…’

His own mouth clamped down on the words. His face obliterated the frightened eyes beneath him. He heard laughter.

            ‘Come on, men! Give it to her like her father!’

More laughter.

            ‘Go, go, go, son!’

Tosa Niyaka’s hard-on was overpowering him as he entered the woman amidst more laughter.

            ‘Whoa!’

            ‘Ay, ay, ay!’

A shadow fell over him as another pair of feet, also clad in army boots, straddled the girls head. A pair of flies was undone.

            ‘Come on Tosa get on with it.’

Tosa took his mouth away from the girl and she screamed. The scream was faint and sounded more like a sob.

            ‘Can’t you see she’s begging for it, men! Hurry up!’

He did. The girl’s thighs went limp. Her screaming had changed. The noise that came from her throat was soft. Like the breeze, soft like the sound of the sea. Her eyes, what he could see of them, were open, tearless. It reminded him of the dog his father had shot fearing rabbis. For a moment he hesitated but it was too late. He had only just time to reach his climax before someone else pushed him aside to take his place. He laughed and wiped his mouth. His hands carried a faint trace of some perfume and it crossed his mind that it came from the girl’s clothes when he had ripped them. The girl’s eyes were still staring at him, glassy as marbles. He heard a sound and turned. One of the soldiers was urinating on the girl’s hair. He had missed his aim and was laughing. Tosa Niyaka laughed too. Then he went outside for a smoke and some arak. The sun was in his eyes.

In the shower, without warning, Tosa wanted to rape the girl again. Of course it would not be possible. She was probably dead by now. 

            ‘Tosa,’ his aunt called, knocking on the bathroom door. ‘My God child how long are you going to be in there? They’re waiting for you to cut the love cake.’

They were laughing at him when he emerged.

            ‘He’s a clean baby!’ his mother said, giving him a kiss.

Then his grandmother cut the cake.

Under cover of the conversation his father spoke to him.

            ‘I hope everything is OK with you fellows, aha?’

            ‘Fine,’ said Tosa

He helped himself to a whisky and the servant, a Tamil woman, gave him some ice. Tosa stared at her and she looked away.

            ‘She’s new, isn’t she?’ he asked his father.

            ‘Yes, yes.’

            ‘Tamil?’

            ‘Of course! It’s part of policy now. Employ the buggers. Give them something to do, stop western criticism, that sort of thing.’

Tosa nodded.

            ‘Look, Tosa…’ his father said. ‘I’ve just had a phone call from the Chief. Is it true?’

            ‘Hmm, mmm.’

            ‘Raped?’

            ‘Hmm..mmm’

            ‘You too?’

            ‘Kind of..’

            ‘But not after she was dead, Putha? Before, I don’t mind, but not after?’

            ‘No of course not,’ Tosa said truthfully.

His father sighed.

            ‘Good, good.’

He helped himself to another drink.

            ‘Anay, you’ve had too much already’ Tosa’s mother said. ‘Think of your heart, Cha!’

            ‘Yes, yes. Last one!’

Then, just as the telephone rang, Tosa’s father had another thought.

            ‘Listen, Putha, if you did…you know…after…then make sure you disinfect your private parts thoroughly. Okay?’

The telephone call summoned Tosa to the hospital for the premature birth of his daughter. Two months early with serious doubts of her survival. The birthday party had come to an abrupt halt and both families had instantly decided to give alms to the Buddhist priests and pirith was already being chanted. Mirabel was drugged up and in shock. She blamed herself for trying to do too much and sitting on a hard chair at the talk given by the famous foreign writer. The doctor tried to reassure her this wasn’t the case. The placenta had simply given out.

Tosa approached the incubator with caution. The nurses had a soft look on her face. Not only was Tosa young and handsome, not only was this a terrible tragedy, but his father was a bloody big shot. The young nurse in charge, in her nervousness, mispronounced his name.

            ‘There she is Mr Tosser Niyaka,’ she said pointing to the incubator.

Tosa stared at his daughter through the glass. Tiny hands, tiny closed eyes, nose with tubes, feet. He frowned. Something was wrong but what was it? The baby made a slight movement, a barely discernable sound and he saw with a dawning horror that there was something wrong with her lips. They were folded and bent backwards, slit in three places. The lips weren’t bleeding. They had been just made that way. With a sharp intake of breath he covered his face with his hands and through the rising taste of vomit he smelt again the fragrance from earlier on that day.

The final story, dedicated to the Sponsors of the Galle Literary Festival, will be published tomorrow. 

The photographs used in this post are taken from an archive of found images of people no longer alive. 

A New Short Story For The Western Sponsors Of The Galle Literary Festival. The Blue Scarf. Pt. 2

The story so far...

It was cool on the beach. And empty. The fishermen had already gone leaving only the marks from their boats in a long unbroken line on the sand. We stood, half hidden by a coconut tree and stared out to sea. Stared at the thin blue line that signified eternity. I sensed without hearing that Kirthika was crying but I didn’t turn round. I knew what she was thinking.

That on this beach a girl was raped by the army. That on this beach a man was killed. That blood was spilt in our name and the names of all the people of this island.

That we loved this place. That nowhere else on earth would ever be home. Eyes, I thought, look your last.

Further up the coast a festival was in progress. The rich and the famous from western nations were in attendance. For a few brief days they too could stand looking at the horizon line. But they would never see what we saw in that moment. They could not love this land as passionately as we did. How could the tailorbird’s call signify anything special to them? For us it is the birdsong of childhood, heralding a lullaby at twilight, a mother’s hand stroking her son’s head. Part of a young girl’s dreams. No the tailorbird could not mean all this to the visitors on the island.

Kirthika was crying in earnest by now. From the corner of my eye I saw her, head bent, like a young girl. Like the girl from long ago, whose hand I had so insistantly asked for in marriage. We did not know then the things we know now.

            ‘We’d better go,’ I told her.

The sea moved restlessly and somewhere in the distance a train rushed past.

            ‘Come, Kiri,’ I said. ‘Come, come.’

And we went back to the house, our footprints in the sand. We were people who had seen too much and must therefore be killed.

Our son had wanted to drive us to the airport but I refused in case we were followed. He would have had to make the return journey back, alone. In my home it is a well known fact that people are killed in road ‘accidents’. Best to say our goodbyes in the house. And when it came to it we were strangely calm.

            ‘Please lie low,’ Kirthika told our son.

She spoke as if she was telling him his food was in the fridge. As if she would be back after her shift at the hospital. As if this was an ordinary day. Understanding this he joined in the charade.

            ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Ring when you get there.’

            ‘Don’t worry if it takes a little while. There might be a problem with the phone.’

He nodded.

            ‘And you mustn’t worry either,’ he told her, ‘I might be out of range. Don’t assume that anything…’

            ‘Yes,’ his mother and I said in unison.

There followed a pause as first his mother, and then I, embraced him. In all those years of loving him never once had we dreamed it would come to this; that we should leave our only child, defenceless and alone, in his own home.

            ‘We’ll get you out as soon as we can,’ I said. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

            ‘Of course, Papa. Of course. You don’t have to say it. I understand.’

We nodded. And then we went. Closing the beloved door for the very last time.

In the car going to the airport I didn’t tell Kirthika what I had done. She had too many other things to deal with. It was only later that I told her about the photographs in my suitcase. The ones I had taken when they raped the girl, when they decapitated the men, when they shot the aids worker. The secret photographs that I would smuggle out to the west and send around the world. But going to the airport I said nothing. Sitting in the front with the driver I listened only to the air rushing past. The fingernail moon followed us like a blessing. How bright it seemed. We passed a sign directing traffic to the festival that was taking place in Galle. I had been told that big banks were supporting the event; that money went where money exists. That life at the top was marvellous. 

We too lived life at the top once until I stooped to listen to other people’s stories, until the pity of what was happening was too much for us. When the phone call came issuing in the first death threat we were unprepared.

            ‘Maybe I should stop,’ I told Kirthika, belatedly. ‘They are stronger than we are.’

            ‘What use is the human heart if it cannot feel for others?’ Kirthika replied.

She despised violence. She was a woman who saved lives daily.

            ‘The most noble grace the gods can bestow on a man is the gift of empathy,’ she said.

In her presence I quaked. She is a wonderful woman, my wife.

             ‘Speak, memory!’ 

So I spoke. And now we were leaving. Oh hold still my heart.

That day, at the airport we went, numbed, through security. Foreign visitors moved about, talking quietly in English. The overhead address called out an endless list of flights. Dubai, Karachi, Singapore, Bangkok, Adelaide, Melbourne, Calgary. We listened mesmerised feeling small, defenceless. London, Rome, Paris, Frankfurt, the tannoy continued before coming to the name we dreaded hearing. Stockholm. The smiles of the Sri Lankan girls were for the foreigners, the rich, the famous; those born under a lucky star. Is this how the Jews had felt? When all in Germany turned their faces against them?

We were asked to take our shoes off, to hold our arms out, to be checked for sharp objects. The man who stared at our passport had an expressionless face. I still remember. Briefly I wondered what his life was like. Two women passengers went past swiftly. They were talking of all the wonderful things they hadn’t had time to see.

            ‘Never mind,’ one said. ‘We can always come again.’

We held out our boarding passes. I remembered how I had been someone important once, a man with a house, in the most beautiful place in the world. Once, people turned to me for help. Now as I stored our luggage in the overhead locker I told myself, I was nobody.

 And then, in hardly a moment, with thrust and push of engines, as our plane rose to meet the dawn moon, I held Kirthika’s hand tightly in mine. And it was she, my wife, who comforted me.

That had been four years ago. Four years of living in this foreign land. Four years of darkness, of intermittent word from our son, of constant worry over him. We grew old, Kirthika and I, belonging nowhere, talking to other refugees, haltingly, sketching our story, listening to theirs, knowing that language was not enough to express all we felt. Sometimes, in the dead of night, alone in bed, we would speak together in Tamil. It is only possible to speak of what is most precious in your mother tongue. A refugee from the Congo told us, a child hears the first words of love at a woman’s breast. So in those lonely moments together it was in Tamil that we spoke of our son. Of his forthcoming marriage.

            ‘She’s a fine girl, Papa. I love her.’

            ‘And does she love you too, son?’ his mother had asked.

            ‘Oh yes! And she sends her love to you, too!’

And then, later, after the wedding we could not attend, nine months later, another late night phone call.

            ‘It’s a boy!’

            ‘Healthy?’

            ‘Yes, yes.’

            ‘And his mother?’

            ‘All doing fine!’

            ‘Congratulations!’

He did not want to spoil the moment by telling us that the threats had begun again. That one of his colleagues had been mysteriously cut down on his way to work, that a Russian girl had been raped in the South and an innocent man working for the Red Cross had been shot defending her. What he told us instead was how the tailorbird had sung its lullaby to the newborn child.

            ‘Remember Mama,’ he said. ‘You told me how that bird sang when I was born!’ 

Sitting on the train this morning, staring at the bleak landscape these are the thoughts I had. Our son is flying out of a dawn, leaving paradise, joining the great migration of our century.

            ‘Will they be over France by now?’ Kirthika had asked.

            ‘No, no. Not yet. The Ukraine, perhaps.’

She nodded and went back to staring out of the window.

            ‘I meant to ask him to pack some milk rice,’ she murmured but then she gave me a quick apologetic look.

Old habits die hard, her look said. Kirthika misses many things. Her unspoken longings are so great that I can hardly bear them. She knows, as I do that our son, though safe at last, will not be happy. That his wife will be thinking of those she has had to leave behind. A mother, a father, a younger brother who is constantly harassed by the army. A younger sister who lives in fear. An older sister who was raped, simply because she was too beautiful not to be. So no; our son will not be happy. Our gain is his wife’s loss. 

At the airport we had gone to the arrivals lounge immediately and I bought a newspaper. When I handed over the change I saw my hand was shaking. Kirthika saw this too and decided to go off on her own for a bit. I sat down. That’s when I saw her trying on the scarf. It is six forty-five in the morning, now. The eighteenth of January. Four years, three months and seventeen days since we last saw our son. 

The palms of my hands are sweating. Kirthika is a long time at the coffee shop. The seconds hand on my watch moves jerkily. Six forty six. Their plane is due at any moment. Where is Kirthika, I think, irritated. I glance up at the arrivals board. Nothing there, of course.

            ‘I’m here,’ she says, suddenly from behind me.

To my amazement I see she has bought a scarf after all. It is bright blue, like the sea we left behind. Blue, for the little boy who is arriving.

            ‘I shall wear it for him,’ Kirthika says, casually. ‘Not everyday we have a grandchild visiting.’

I nod. I want to hug her, this brave, beautiful wife of mine.

            ‘It was reduced,’ she admits. ‘That’s why I bought it.’

Like our circumstances. I get my mobile phone out.

            ‘It’s charged up?’

            ‘Yes, yes.’

We wait. People come and are met. There are cries of welcome in Swedish. Lone men in grey suits walk hurriedly out to waiting taxies, a black man sweeps the floor, another stands holding up a sign. A family comes out, a mother, a father, two children. One of the children is crying and the father bends down and speaks to her. He catches my eye and smiles faintly then shrugs.

            ‘Long flight!’ he says, in Swedish.

I smile back just as the telephone rings.

            ‘Answer it, answer it,’ Kirthika says.

I press all the wrong buttons but then we connect and I hear my son’s voice.

            ‘Papa,’ he says, his voice tired. ‘We are here. Our connecting flight is in half an hour.’

            ‘Are you okay?’

            ‘We’re all fine. You know we can’t come out, don’t you?’

            ‘We know, don’t worry. We just wanted to…you know…be in the same building…oh here’s you mother…’

Kirthika is talking. I hear her tell our daughter-in-law she is wearing a new scarf in honour of the little boy. I hear her laugh, a high, tense laugh. I hear her ask our daughter-in-law if she is all right, and I hear her blow a kiss into the phone. Then she switches it off.

            ‘They have to hurry,’ she tells me, her eyes shining. ‘Or they’ll miss their connecting flight. But they’ll ring when they get to London.’

I nod once more. And in the train going back Kirthika tells me,

            ‘Annay, I heard the little one’s voice, faintly. Just like a small bird!’

A new story for the Western Sponsors will be published tomorrow to celebrate Day 2 of the Galle Literary Festival.
The photographs used in this and the earlier posts are from an archive of found images of people no longer alive. 

A New Short Story For The Western Sponsors Of The Galle Literary Festival. The Blue Scarf. Pt.1

Kirthika is in the shop. I can see her from where I’m sitting, picking up a scarf and looking at herself in the mirror. By the way she holds the thing up I know she isn’t interested in it. She puts the scarf down and picks up another. This one is a dirty sludgy brown, like the melting snow outside. I stare. Kirthika likes bright colours. She is a lone magpie in that respect. The brown scarf is a clear indication of her mood. The shop assistant must have sensed her lack of seriousness too because I see her walk towards Kirthika. I see Kirthika shake her head and imagine she would be smiling slightly. I look down at the newspaper I’m pretending to read and the words blur. I need an eye test, I think. When I look up again Kirthika has gone. I see her figure hurrying off in the direction of the coffee shop.

We are in the airport. We arrived at six. It isn’t an easy journey from where we live. First you take a bus to the town of Yur. Then you walk to the train station. Then you take the express train to the airport. This bit is the most comfortable part of the trip. It is warm, swift and allows you a little time to dream. The train today was empty. Kirthika and I sat staring out of the window at the frozen, flat landscape backlit by a dull bluish light. This is all the light we are permitted at this time of year although the snow sometimes gives a boost to it. There wasn’t much snow this morning, just a little rain melting and distorting the view from the train. Once or twice Kirkitha had run her hand across the window in order to see the name of the station we were passing. Otherwise she didn’t move. We did not talk. The plane we were due to meet was currently flying somewhere over the Pole.

Kirthika is wearing a sari I don’t remember having seen before. I first noticed it on the train and wondered if it was new. Where did she get the money from to buy it? My wife is a very careful woman where money is concerned. I can’t imagine her going out and buying clothes at this juncture. Perhaps my memory was failing and I had seen it but just can’t remember. In any case, I thought, staring out at the hard white landscape, where would she get a sari from, in this part of the world!

            ‘Why are you smiling?’ she asked.

I shook my head not knowing how to explain the irony of my thoughts.

            ‘Lillian will bring saris for you,’ I had said instead.

Lillian is our daughter-in-law. At this moment, if my calculations are right she will be staring down at a place unmarked on any map, sitting next to our son, holding onto the baby who would, hopefully, be asleep. The baby, our only grandson, is one year old. We have not met him yet. Sitting on the train I saw that Kirthika had the same thought. I saw it flit across her mind like a flash of blue light. Like lightening, gone as swiftly as it surfaced. Suppressed. Earthed. Kirthika has an expressive face. She can’t fool me. But all she said was,

            ‘I hope not. They have much more important things to bring in their luggage.’

Than a sari for the mother-in-law that Lillian has never met, she means.

It is four years since we last saw our son. A lot has happened in that time. For a start he met his future wife one month after we left. Perhaps it was grief that left him open to the possibilities of love. Our departure was brutal enough to make this happen. Until then no girl had really interested him. It was all work, until then.

Out train had passed the town of Aavig as I was thinking this, with its the small empty railway station. I caught a glimpse of a man walking a dog, a postman riding his bicycle, a truck. Behind the shorn trees there was a glint of a frozen river. And then we left the town and the church spires and the houses all huddled together. In summer this is a place of scenic beauty. Now it goes in a moment, swallowed up by the speed of the train.

When we left our home on the island it had been dawn with a light not dissimilar to this. Only it was hot, and there was a tropical breeze lifting thankfully off the sea. The moon, like a fingernail paring had been faintly in the sky watching us move softly, backwards and forwards from the house to the car. We had kept only one light on at the time for fear of alerting the neighbours. Or anyone in the pay of the army thugs. My throat had been dry, my mind alternating with thought of what I should not forget and other, irrelevant things. Even today, four years later I can reproduce that dry, uncrying feeling.

            ‘Where are the passports,’ Kirthika had murmured. ‘Have you got them?’

            ‘Yes, in my bag. In the folder.’ I murmured back.

Our son walked outside with one of the suitcases. The soft crunch of his feet on the gravel made me wince. Walking was dangerous. Talking was dangerous. A cigarette glowing could be the death of you. Four forty-five, I remember thinking. And that was when I had looked up at the sky and seen the fingernail of a moon. The catamarans would be coming in from the sea, the sarongs of the fishermen slapping against their legs, wet from the water; the air smelling sweetly of wind, the sand soft and unmarked, and empty. There were three boats that came in regularly to this little inlet. I knew all of them. I knew the names of the fishermen, I knew their wives. Kirthika, the local doctor, had been present when the babies were born. Two of them had been named after her. And now we were leaving.

            ‘Give me the other bag,’ Kirthika said. ‘I want to check something.’

            ‘Mama, you can’t take the goraka,’ our son told her. ‘They won’t let you and you don’t want to create a fuss at the airport.’

            ‘No,’ Kirthika agreed.

And she put the jar on the dining table. I stared at it. Normally she would not have given in so easily. Normally she would not have put anything on the table either, without so much as a mat under it. The dining table was made of soft satin wood and was her pride and joy. We had bought it many years before on an impulse. Everyone had advised us not to.

            ‘Satinwood marks easily,’ they said.

            ‘It’s too expensive,’ they said.

            ‘It is a sacred tree. Used for coffins. It brings its own bad luck with it,’ they had said.

            ‘The servants will ruin it,’ they said.

            ‘Don’t do it!’ Kirthika’s mother said.

But we did. Before I could stop myself I wondered, was this the reason we were having to leave, now. Nonsense walked the night, grinning at me, ghoulishly. I am a rational man, but still, I am capable of ridiculous moments.

Instead of packing my last bag I went into the kitchen and filled a clay jug with cold water. Then I watered the plants in my study. I was aware that my son was watching me, helplessly.

            ‘Papa,’ he said at last. ‘Don’t worry about the plants.’

But I was worried about them. They were my plants, still. They belonged here. And because of this, they were sacred. Like the fishermen, like the white bleached sand on the beach, soft as the hair of a newborn. Like the horizon line between sea and sky and the jasmine flowers that bloomed no matter what violent thing was going on across the veranda. It all belonged to this land. I put my hand out and touched the small statue of Lord Buddha that Kirthika had placed beside that of Lord Krishna. I could hear my heart beating. I thought it might be breaking.

            Have we time for a walk?’ Kirthika asked.

She had come up silently behind me and has seen me touch the statue. She refrained from comment. In the past she told me not to be an unbeliever. In the past I told her that Buddhism was not a religion but a philosophy. And anyway religion was a toy played with by people who were full of fear. These days neither of us have such conversations. That sort of discussion was an indulgence. Now both of us compress and fold our speech. Leaving many things unsaid. Now less is irrevocably more.

            ‘No,’ I said, finally.

            ‘Please,’ Kirthika asked. “I want one last walk.’

In all the years of our marriage I have never refused her anything.  

            ‘All right,’ I said.

            ‘Are you crazy?’ our son asked, his eyes wide.

I had heard my heart beating again and again had wondered if it would break. But the human heart is stronger than that, I think now, remembering.

            ‘Someone will see you,’ our son said. ‘Then all this will have been for nothing.’

His face was on the edge of grief.

            ‘All right then,’ his mother agreed but I had made up my mind.

It was our last chance. Our only moment. We would have to live off it forever.

            ‘Let’s go,’ I said, adding, for our son’s benefit, ‘ we’ll go out through the back. No one will see us.’

I didn’t wait for his reply but took Kirthika’s hand and we left through the back door.

Part 2. tomorrow.... 

Unimpressive. A Fairy Story For The Galle Literary Festival By Popular Demand.

The festival was in full swing. All the great writers from around the world were present, topping up their tan by the pool. Sorry I mean all the great white writers. The UK-returned natives were keen to stay out of the sun. Listen, you must understand, on this island paradise, the darker you were the harder it was to find a spouse and the more likely you were to be killed. It’s true. In Paradise the lighter shades of brown were what the natives loved. Why? Don’t ask me, perhaps it’s leftover from a slave mentality. So no, there weren’t any damnfool local fellows by the pool, turning black.

            S. S. Ranasingha was there, all flowing white robe and pale…ish brown skin. He was an island-born artist, for those of you who’ve never read the earlier story about him, and he had made some beautiful paintings of his island home floating in its own azure cesspit of violence. The paintings were in soft watercolours and they spoke of wistful things. I’ve no idea what these things might be, I’m just telling you what I’ve heard. SS was here with his wife Sue from Basingstoke and his daughter, Sallybaby. Sallybaby was no longer a baby of course but in paradise once a baby always a baby.  

Everyone from the extended family came to greet them at the swanking airport.

            ‘Smile, for God’s sake,’ Sue told her daughter.    

Sallybaby scowled. She was boiling hot. And angry. And seventeen. It had been a long flight. Everyone from school was at Toby’s eighteenth birthday party and where was she?    

            ‘Hello, Putha,’ someone said (perhaps it was an aunt).

Sallybaby’s scowl deepened. Any moment now her father’s accent would begin to change, go back to being more island-ish. Any moment now he would start waggling his head and talking on subjects about which he knew nothing. Telling it like it wasn’t, impressing the authorities, closing his eyes against reality as he spoke of art, and music and politics (British/European).  Boring, thought Sallybaby, sulkily. She wondered if there were any decent boys she might shag, who perhaps liked the kind of music she did. Unknown to her father Sallybaby was keen on people like Kelis and Queen Ifrica. In fact, and this was the tricky part, Sallybaby had a boyfriend who was black! He played in a band at the Brixton Jamm and wore dreadlocks.   

            ‘You sly minx,’ Sue said when she accidently found out while checking her daughter’s facebook page. ‘Your father will be livid!’

To Sallybaby’s surprise Sue had laughed.

            ‘Now what will your island grandmother do about arranging an Introduction?’

            ‘What kind of Introduction?’ Sallybaby asked, suspiciously.   

            ‘Your grandmother wants to find you a husband!’ Sue admitted, eyeing her daughter, waiting for the explosion.

It came soon enough; the explosion, I mean. Worse than a land mine going off in the North of paradise, making more noise than the army soldiers in the South as they raped the young girls from the Other Side.  

            ‘They can forget it!’ Sallybaby shouted. ‘I’m not marrying any island bloke. They’re all stupid.’

Honestly, what a generalisation! Don’t they give these kids an education in the UK?   Sue Ranasingha sighed. She had married her swarthy prince against her father’s wishes. This headstrong daughter of theirs was the result. Both sides blamed the other in a ‘situation normal’ kind of way.

‘She’s a damn throwback with British genes,’ SS’s father shouted in private, forgetting about his own behaviour with the servant woman.

             ‘What d’you expect?’ Sue’s Dad had sniffed. ‘I’ve always thought SS was a bloody funny name.’

Even after twenty years Sue’s Dad was still moaning about his son-in-law’s name. Christ, how long does it take to forget a war? Couldn’t he let bygones be bygones? 

            ‘Let’s just have a nice time,’ Sue told her babygirl. ‘It’s only for a fortnight and your Dad is exhibiting his art at the Festival.’

In the elder Ranasingha’s house, in the place with the number seven in the address, the servant woman was in shock. Everything had been going so well. The sex she’d been having with her employer had given her a hold over him. But now, with the return of his UK family, she knew he would stop visiting her quarters. It wouldn’t do.

The woman asked for a day off. She wanted to attend the next devil-dancing session. To get advice on how to get rid of undesirables. The devil-dancing session was around the time of the full moon; the next day, in fact.

‘Alleluia!’ cried the servant woman, forgetting she wasn’t a Christian.

You don’t know about these events, do you? Well stick to the beach, have fun, eat the curries, and go home. Don’t start messing with paradise charms.  These are the names given to the evil spells locals use on one another. Charming, innit? Haven’t you seen the roadside offerings? Do you think they’re put there as decoration? Out of a love of flowers? No stupid, these are offerings for the devil! You sun worshipers live on another planet.

Anyway the servant woman went off to cast her spell. Having forgotten she was Buddhist she felt capable of a little destruction. Jealousy was in the air, shining through the sunlight, Discrimination was the batsman and Ignorance the bowler. All was as usual then, here in paradise, with the war over and everything fine, fine, fine.

In the Festival tent Festival discussions rose in the hot air. Famine in Africa, Torture in South America, Terrorists in Afghanistan, Killer Whales in the Sea; these were the subjects that were debated. The Festival sponsors strutted about and got lots of exposure. The organisers played at blind-man’s bluff. And the tan-toppers drank a lot. I’m telling you, all was as it should be.

The foreign visitors liked the serious nature of the programme. England was in a mess; there were all sorts of problems with the NHS. Pensions were being cut, London had riot mobs and the police were having a dreadful time of it. So of course the foreigners were glad to take a break here on this perfect island. Wouldn’t you be?  

One or two people were a bit worried about security.

            ‘Did you hear a Russian girl was raped?’

            ‘No, no,’ SS told them, waggling his head. ‘That didn’t really happen! It was a play put on for the purpose of the Festival. It wasn’t the real thing!’

            ‘What about that Red Cross guy who was killed?’

            ‘That was in the play, too. Remember your Hamlet? The play’s the thing and all that…’

            ‘Oh okay,’ said the foreigners and off they went for a swim thinking, gosh, these people are incredibly friendly. They just smile and smile…. wasn’t there something like that in Hamlet, too?

In the tent the audience admired SS’s paintings. The one with the strutting peacock could have been sold several times over and the pastoral scenes of Britain were simply stunning. People started milling around him asking questions.

            ‘How long did it take you to paint it?’ was the usual one.

            ‘Could you look at one of my paintings, Sir?’ was another.

            ‘You have such a fine understanding of colour. Where did you learn it?’

An old man came up. He was wearing a sarong.

            ‘I say, they say the British are the best water colourists in the world but you’ve proved them wrong, hah!’

SS smiled. He went on smiling for two full minutes. Until a woman approached him. She was a funny colour, neither dark nor white with very long hair and a nasty sort of confidence.

            ‘Have you heard of Angelina Petipa?’ the woman asked.

            ‘No,’ lied SS.

            ‘She lives in the UK. And she’s a painter as well.’

            ‘Never heard of her,’ SS said, coldly.

            ‘She’s a friend of mine,’ the woman told him, bold as brass.

Of course SS knew of her. He wasn’t dumb. Angelina Petipa was a mixed race, half Tamil, half Singhalese bitch who banged on about ridiculous subjects like Injustice and Truth, and The War. According to big-mouth Ms Petipa there had been a few civilians taken away in white vans at some point. Still were according to her. Well, what d’you expect after a war?

‘You should look her up,’ the brassy woman continued. ‘She’s just had an exhibition at the Serpentine. It’s about the situation here.’

Situation, thought SS nastily. There is no situation in paradise. His head was beginning to ache.

              ‘The exhibition was called Stop The Human Abuse in Paradise,’ the woman persisted.  

            ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ SS muttered.

And off he went in search of Sue.  

            ‘These festivals always attract some undesirables,’ he said later that night.

 ‘I just want to go home,’ whined Sallybaby who was having diarrhoea from all the spicy food.

 ‘Oh shut up both of you,’ snapped Sue who was being bitten to death by mozzies and wanted to go home too.

The holiday was nearly over.

Meanwhile deep in a wood near Dondra, not far from where they used to hang men in the 1930s, the servant woman was busy. Empires had come and gone like passing ships with holes in them, but the servant woman and others like her had been doing this sort of thing for a thousand years. What was she doing? Why, making a crime-against-humanity charm. From the bones of two lizards and a chicken’s beak.