Return to Mandalay (14 page)

She stood by the stove and waited for the coffee to brew. She could have still changed her mind, of course; she didn’t have to go. But she didn’t. She told herself Eva would change
her
mind, but she hadn’t. Once Eva had taken her GCSEs and it became clear that she was staying in Dorset whatever her mother did, then Rosemary had married Alec and moved to Copenhagen.

‘It’s not so far,’ Alec had reassured her. ‘We can come back for weekends as often as you like.’

And they had, at first. Rosemary had even wondered if they had more chance of rediscovering some mother and daughter bond if she was away. But that hadn’t happened either. Wishful thinking, she supposed.

The coffee began to percolate and Rosemary put some
milk on to heat. She had to face it. As every year went by, she and Eva had become more and more estranged. Until it seemed to be too late.

*

By the time Alec came in from work, Rosemary had made a decision.

When they’d first moved here, she’d looked for a job as a legal secretary; that was what she knew, but the system was very different in Denmark and instead, she’d surprised herself by taking a part-time job in a local bookshop. She often used to drift in there to pick up copies of paperbacks and she had got to know the owner. But after a while, he admitted that he couldn’t afford to keep her on, and so she left, feeling slightly guilty.

Alec had suggested that she take a break from the workplace. He earned more than enough for the both of them, he reminded her. She’d had a hard life working full time as a single parent, losing her husband so young. ‘I want to spoil you a little,’ he’d said. ‘I want you to relax and take a rest. Have some me-time.’

And so she had. Over the years she’d got involved with various voluntary organisations: Stroke Awareness, in memory of Nick; Copenhagen Youth Project Support for disadvantaged kids and the Library Foundation. It took time and energy, but gave Rosemary a sense of self-worth. She was doing something. But now …

‘I’m going back home for a while,’ she told Alec. She
poured him out a bourbon with ice so that she wouldn’t have to look at him as she said it.

She felt him exhale. ‘Home?’ And she heard the desolation in his voice.

‘I need to see them both,’ she said. She handed him the drink. Eva was in Burma but she would be back in a couple of weeks.

He downed it in one, never taking his eyes from her face. ‘And America?’

‘I don’t know, Alec.’ How much time did her father have left? She needed to make her peace with him.

‘You don’t know about me?’ he asked her. He took off his glasses and rubbed his tired eyes. It made him seem so vulnerable somehow. ‘Or you don’t know about America?’

Rosemary didn’t reply. She closed her eyes. All she knew for sure, at this moment in time, was that she must go back to where she had begun.

‘But that is only part of the story.’ Maya took a deep and shuddering breath that seemed to come from the core of her tiny body.

Immediately, her grandson Ramon laid a gentle hand on hers. He spoke softly in Burmese, all his anger seeming to have evaporated. Eva was surprised at his tenderness. This was a different side to the man, one she hadn’t expected, and she was glad that Maya had him there to look after her.

But as he turned to Eva, his gaze hardened. ‘My grandmother, she is tired,’ he said. ‘She must rest.’

‘Of course.’ Though Eva was aching to know the rest of the story. She had hoped to discover the heart of the Burmese tales from her childhood, the force behind them that seemed to have been absorbed into her very being. And she hadn’t been disappointed. This story of Maya’s was of routs and British imperialism, of precious jewels and royal shenanigans going right back to the final Burmese dynasty. Did her grandfather know all this? If not, Eva couldn’t wait to tell him. Though he would be devastated to hear that the other chinthe had been stolen. She looked again at the photographs on the wall. ‘The King and Queen?’ she asked.

Maya nodded. ‘Thibaw and Supayalat,’ she said. ‘And that is the Lion Throne.’

Eva got up to take a closer look. Unless she was very much mistaken, the throne was made entirely of gold. She looked at the other photograph. It was of an elderly woman sitting very upright in her chair, her eyes fixed with a great sense of stillness on the camera taking the picture.

‘My grandmother, Suu Kyi,’ Maya murmured. ‘Servant-girl to the Queen. She told me the story when she gave me the two chinthes.’ She turned to speak to her grandson in Burmese.

‘She says I should take you to the National Kandawgyi Gardens for sunset,’ he said. ‘It is two-hundred-and-forty acres of botanical gardens and forest reserves. It is very beautiful there. Meanwhile, she will rest.’

‘There’s really no need for you to do that,’ Eva said stiffly, since he hardly seemed enamoured at the prospect. And that was an awful lot of acres. ‘I don’t expect you to organise my sightseeing for me.’ This came out more harshly than she’d intended and she noted the flicker of surprise and what might have been amusement cross his features.

‘It has been decided.’ He bowed his head. ‘Then we will return here for dinner.’

‘I see.’ They seemed to have all her movements planned. Her first instinct was to refuse, to make her own arrangements. For a moment she thought of her mother’s remarriage and the decision she’d made to stay in Dorset. Was that the reason they had grown apart? It would have meant leaving all
her friends and her beloved grandfather. She couldn’t do it, hadn’t wanted to do it. Not even for the mother she had lost so many years before.

But this was Burma. Eva must respect their hospitality. She would be gracious and hopefully she’d then hear the rest of the story. ‘That sounds lovely,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

Maya beamed and rose to her feet. ‘Ramon will look after you,’ she said.

Eva glanced across at him doubtfully. But as Maya clasped Eva’s hands in hers, she felt again the intensity of the old lady’s emotion. ‘I will see you in a few hours,’ she said. She looked deep into her eyes, and Eva felt the potency of her gaze, her spirituality, she supposed. And she could imagine her as a young woman, as her grandfather must first have seen her. She could perfectly understand how they had come to fall in love.

*

On the drive to Kandawgyi Gardens, Ramon provided her with water and fruit magicked up by one of the girls in the house. Eva longed to ask about them all, find out who was who, but Ramon kept up a polite, detailed and impersonal commentary on Pyin Oo Lwin and their surroundings as he drove smoothly and confidently along the leafy roads, and so she didn’t get the chance. He was clearly just doing his duty. And to find out anything more personal, she’d have to wait till later.

‘When did Burma become known as Myanmar?’ she asked him as he turned the car into the sweeping entrance to the gardens. ‘Was it part of the move forward, of independence?’

‘1989,’ he said. ‘Though it is more of a return to our cultural roots. It was the name originally given to our country by Marco Polo. It dates from the thirteenth century. Before that …’ He raised a dark eyebrow. ‘It is more complicated.’

Eva could well imagine. She had read something of the Indian and Cambodian tribes, the influx of early Thai and Tibetan people on the country. And later there were Britain, China and Japan, all getting in on the act. Even now, the hill tribes were separate and independent and there was much infighting. Which all explained the eclectic mix of races and nationalities on the streets of Myanmar. And some of the troubles that the country had been through, she supposed.

Eva looked around her as they drove towards the parking area. On the one hand, the planting was very British: pansies, petunias and roses arranged in neat rectangular beds. But on the other hand, the vast, rolling landscape of the park had retained its oriental feel, with bamboo thickets, palm trees and red pagodas.

Ramon pulled up in a parking bay and they got out of the car. He was only an inch or two taller than her, Eva realised, as they stood side by side for a moment, his body lean with not an ounce of spare fat. And he had an air of self-possession about him that intrigued her. Was he as calm and collected as he seemed? Or was he just good at pretending? She sensed he didn’t want to be here, sensed he resented her intrusion into their lives. And yet …

‘The pagodas house many collections,’ he informed her, as he strode towards the lake. ‘We will see the orchids. There
are three hundred different varieties. And all collected from Myanmar forests.’

Goodness. She followed more slowly, not wanting to be hurried.

The orchids were stunning, row upon row of every stock and colour imaginable, each one with a glorious scent of honey. Eva took lots of photos, even managing to snatch a shot of Ramon bending to examine a vivid purple flower with an appreciative look in his eyes. He clearly enjoyed the beauty of nature. He glanced up at her though with a glower of irritation.

‘You don’t like the British very much, do you?’ she asked him at last. Unless it was just her. Elsewhere, any mention of being English had created huge excitement among the Burmese. They immediately asked a multitude of questions about London, blithely assuming that anyone British must live there, and, rather bizarrely, premiership football, over which they became as animated as they did at any mention of ‘our lady’, Aung San Suu Kyi.

Ramon shot her an unfathomable look from under his dark brows. ‘That is not so,’ he said. He squared his shoulders. ‘My father was English, of course.’

‘Of course.’ She looked at his face, the fullness of his lips, the unexpected green of his eyes. She’d thought as much. And she noted the tense he had used.
Was
. Well, she knew how that felt. ‘Your father …?’ She trod carefully.

‘Is dead.’ He swung down the next path and, again, Eva had to hurry to catch up with him. He was so … well, blunt.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘What happened to him?’

He was ahead of her and so she couldn’t see his expression. ‘He was a strong man.’ His voice was bitter. ‘But he died very suddenly. A massive heart attack, they said.’

‘I see.’ He was clearly very upset and she felt the impulse to reach out to him, but he was walking much too fast and she didn’t think he’d appreciate it somehow.

They had left the orchids and now were heading back towards the lake, passing flower beds of petunias and yellow phlox. The scent of blackcurrant and freshly mown grass seemed to waft on the air. Very British, Eva thought. And as for Ramon’s father, a strong man he might have been, but, unlike her own father, he was living in a country only a few steps away from being regarded as third world, one which had not yet benefited from advances in medical technology. Not only did it lack good hospitals but there was extreme poverty and hardship. Thanks to Western sanctions. Thanks to the repressive government. But hopefully, things were now changing.

‘My father died when I was young as well,’ she told him as they walked under the thicket of stripy bamboo.

He paused and stared at her, a sudden compassion in his eyes. ‘I am sorry,’ he said.

So was Eva. She had always wondered what it would be like to have a father who took you out bicycling in summer or tobogganing in the snow. Who was always available with a listening ear or a hug, or a lift back home when you’d stayed out late. She was lucky though, she’d had her grandfather.
Without him … Well, she couldn’t think about where she would be without him.

‘What about your mother?’ she asked Ramon. Maya’s daughter. They had reached the wooden bridge and at last he slowed and stood looking down into the water. She followed his gaze. Brightly spotted koi carp were meandering through the gentle ripples, every so often coming to the surface, mouths gaping open for food. Eva looked back at him. He seemed miles away. And he still hadn’t answered her question.

‘She died two years ago,’ he said at last. ‘She had leukaemia. It was a great sadness to us all.’

This time Eva touched his arm in a gesture of condolence. So he had lost his mother too … She thought of her own mother, just as lost in her own way. And now, by coming here, had she damaged their relationship still further? Or could she somehow find a way to become close to her again?

‘Was your mother Maya’s eldest daughter?’ Eva asked gently. Maya must have married after the war, sometime after Lawrence had left the country. Had she known that Lawrence wasn’t coming back?

But Ramon was eying her rather strangely. ‘My mother was the only child my grandparents had,’ he said at last.

And she had married Ramon’s father. Like her mother before her, she had fallen in love with an Englishman. As if, Eva thought, it were in the genes. It was ironic. So the British had stayed, as it were, in the family, despite the fact that Lawrence had left them.

In the distance, Eva saw a pair of black swans with red beaks make their graceful way from the other side of the lake, gliding effortlessly side by side. A thought came randomly into her head. Wasn’t it swans who mated for life? It hadn’t been like that for Lawrence and Maya though, had it?

‘You want the truth?’ Ramon suddenly swung around to face her.

She jumped. ‘Well, yes.’

‘The truth is that I envy you,’ he said.

‘Me?’

‘I envy the British and all you Westerners.’ He turned away to stare back at the lake. His slick, dark hair hung in a wing across his forehead and he flicked it roughly back with his fingers.

‘For what?’ Although she could guess.

‘For your freedom,’ he said. ‘It is so easy for you to come and go. To Europe, to America, to Asia. To trade, to speak your mind, to follow your beliefs.’

‘But things are changing here,’ Eva said gently. She was aware how hard it had been. The restrictions, the endless bureaucracy, the lack of civil and human rights. And she could only imagine what it must have been like to grow up in Myanmar with constant fear, intimidation and poverty.

‘It is a slow process.’ He met her gaze. ‘And sometimes much slower than our government would have people believe.’ He led the way from the bridge and back to the main path, easing off the pace, walking now in a more leisurely rhythm.