Mosquito by Roma Tearne Read Free Book Online Page B

some slivers of paint in her fingernails. Today they were of a different colour. However hard she scrubbed her hands there was still some paint left, thought Theo amused. The day righted itself. The soft smell of colour still clung to her and seemed to Theo sweeter than all the scent of the frangipani blossoms. The picture was nearly finished, she told him, and she wanted to do another one. She needed one more sketch of him. Would Theo be able to sit still, please? He hid his amusement, noticing she had become a little bossy. Her notebook of drawings had grown and she wanted to use them in one more painting. She wanted to paint Theo in his dining room with its foxed mirrors, its beautiful water glasses, its jugs. She wanted to paint him surrounded by mirror-reflected light. Light that moved, she said. This was what interested her, not the trussed chicken. And no, she did not want him to sneak a look at the portrait, she added, laughing at him.
    ‘You can see it soon,’ she promised, as though he was the child. ‘When it’s finished.’
    For now, she told Theo, he could look at her sketchbook instead. Once again she gave him the fragmented stories she had collected. And again they fell from the pages in a jumble of images.
    ‘Look,’ she said laughing, ‘my uncle!’
    She stood too close, confusing him, making him want to touch her hair. Their conversations were a running stitch across her notebook, holding together all that he could not say.
    ‘There’s no one at home,’ she volunteered. ‘Jim has gone to Colombo with his teacher and Amma is visiting a friend. So I’m all on my own.’
    She did not say it, but it was clear she was free to do what she pleased. How can I encourage her to defy her mother in this way? wondered Theo.
    ‘Jim has to get all the documents he needs to leave.’ Her brother’s departure was never far from her thoughts.
    ‘Doesn’t he want to wait?’ asked Theo. ‘Doesn’t he want to be sure he has passed the exam first?’
    But, Nulani told him, Jim was certain. His teacher too believed he would pass the examination and be awarded the British Council scholarship. Such certainty, thought Theo, raising an eyebrow. He said nothing, watching as the thought of Jim’s certain departure darted and fluttered across her face.
    ‘He wants to leave Sri Lanka by October,’ Nulani said. She dared not think what that would mean for her.
    For the moment, though, with the absence of her family, something, some unspecified tension seemed to ease up. She would stay late and the mornings were fresh and unhampered by the heat. The days stretched deliciously before them, slipping into an invisible rhythm of its own. By now Theo had become used to her presence, and he worked steadily on his manuscript, distracted only occasionally. Perhaps, he thought, Anna had been right. She had always insisted they needed a child to give purpose to their lives. A child was an anchor. It brought with it the kind of love that settles one, she used to say. When she had died Theo had remembered this, thinking, too, how useless a child would have been when all he wanted had been her. Now he wondered if Anna, wise, lovely Anna, had been right after all.

3
    T HERE WERE FLEETS OF ENORMOUS ORANGE MOTHS in Sumaner House where Vikram lived. Moths and antique dust that piled up in small hills behind the coloured-glass doors. The beetles had drilled holes in the fretwork of the frames and sawdust had gathered in small mounds on the ground. It was a useless house really, everything was broken or badly mended, everything was covered in fine sea sand, caked in old sweat and unhappiness. Objectively, it might have made a better relic than a house, but relics were plentiful and houses of this size not easily found. The fact was Sumaner House was huge. Once it must have been splendid. Once, rich Dutch people would have lived in it and crossed the Indian Ocean in big sailing ships, carrying spices and ivory and gold back to their home.