A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [159]
On herself Shama spent little. Unable to buy the best and, like all the Tulsi sisters, having only contempt for the second-rate in cloth and jewellery, she bought nothing at all and made do with the gifts of cloth she received every Christmas from Mrs Tulsi. Her bodices became patched on the breasts and under the arms; and the more Mr Biswas complained the more she patched. But though her indifference to clothes seemed at times almost like inverted pride, she did not wholly lose her concern for appearances. At Hanuman House a wedding invitation to Mrs Tulsi was meant for her daughters as well; and one large gift, invariably part of the Tulsi Store stock, went from the House. But now Shama got invitations in her own right and during the Hindu wedding season she borrowed deeply from the rent money, committing herself to almost inextricable entanglement with her accounts, to buy presents, usually water-sets.
‘Forget it this time,’ Mr Biswas said. ‘They must be so used by now to seeing you with a water-set in your hand that I am sure they would believe that you did carry one.’
‘I know what I am doing,’ Shama said. ‘My children are going to be married one day too.’
‘And when they give back all the water-sets poor Savi wouldn’t be able to walk, for all the glasses and jugs. If they remember, that is. At least leave it for a few more years.’
But weddings and funerals had become important to Shama. From weddings she returned tired, heavy-lidded and hoarse after the night-long singing, to find a house in confusion: Savi in tears, the kitchen in disorder, Mr Biswas complaining about his indigestion. Pleased at the wedding, the gift that did not disgrace her, the singing, the return home, Shama would say, ‘Well, as the saying goes, you never miss the water till the well runs dry.’
And for the following day or two, when she held Mr Biswas and the children absolutely in her power, she would be very gloomy; and it was at these times that she said, ‘I tell you, if it wasn’t for the children –’
And Mr Biswas would sing, ‘Going to buy that gold brooch for you, girl!’
As important as weddings and funerals were to Shama, holiday visits became to the children. They went first of all to Hanuman House. But with every succeeding visit they felt more like strangers. Alliances were harder to take up again. There were new jokes, new games, new stories, new subjects of conversation. Too much had to be explained, and Anand and Savi and Myna often ended by remaining together. As soon as they went back to Port of Spain this unity disappeared. Savi returned to bullying Myna; Anand defended Myna; Savi beat Anand; Anand hit back; and Savi complained.
‘What!’ Mr Biswas said. ‘Hitting your sister! Shama, you see the sort of effect one little trip to the monkey house does have on your children?’
It was a two-fold attack, for the children preferred visiting Mr Biswas’s relations. These relations had come as a revelation. Not only were they an untapped source of generosity; Savi and Anand had also felt up to then that Mr Biswas, like all the fathers at Hanuman House, had come from nothing, and the only people who had a proper family were the Tulsis. It was pleasant and novel, too, for Savi and Anand and Myna to find themselves flattered and cajoled and bribed. At Hanuman House they were three children among many; at Ajodha’s there were no other children. And Ajodha was rich, as they could tell by the house he was building. He offered them money and was absurdly delighted that they should know its value sufficiently well to take it. Anand got an extra six cents for reading That Body of Yours; it would have been worth it for the praise alone. They were feted at Pratap’s; Bipti was embarrassingly devoted and their cousins were shy and admiring and kind. At Prasad’s they were again the only children and lived in