A Suitable Boy(572)

‘Can I take him for a walk, Dada?’ said Tapan, who had just come down the steps from the verandah. Tapan was looking, as he had been ever since he had returned for the winter holidays, even more disoriented than he usually did after the long train journey.

‘Yes, of course. Keep him out of Pillow’s way… What’s the matter with you, Tapan? It’s been a fortnight since you returned, and you’re still looking miserable. I know you haven’t been calling Ma and Baba “Ma’am” and “Sir” for the past week –’

Tapan smiled.

‘– but you’re still keeping out of everyone’s way. Come and help me in the garden if you don’t know what to do with yourself, but don’t just sit in your room reading comics. Ma says she’s tried to talk to you but you say that nothing’s the matter, that you just want to leave school and never go back again. Well, why? What’s wrong with Jheel? I know you’ve had a few migraines these last few months, and they’re very painful, but that could happen anywhere –’

‘Nothing,’ said Tapan, rubbing his fist on Cuddles’ furry white head. ‘Bye, Dada. See you at lunch.’

Dipankar yawned. Meditation often had this effect on him. ‘So what if you’ve just got a bad report? Your last term’s report wasn’t much good either, and you weren’t behaving like this. You haven’t even spent a day with your Calcutta friends.’

‘Baba was very stern when he saw my report.’

Mr Justice Chatterji’s gentle reproof carried a great deal of weight with the boys in the family. With Meenakshi and Kuku, it was duck’s water.

Dipankar frowned. ‘Perhaps you should meditate a bit.’

A look of distaste spread across Tapan’s face. ‘I’m taking Cuddles for a walk,’ he said. ‘He looks restless.’

‘You’re talking to me,’ said Dipankar. ‘I’m not your Amit Da; you can’t fob me off with excuses.’

‘Sorry, Dada. Yes.’ Tapan tensed.

‘Come up to my room.’ Dipankar had once been a prefect at Jheel School, and at one level knew how to exercise authority – though now he did it in a sort of dreamy way.

‘All right.’

As they walked upstairs Dipankar said: ‘And even Bahadur’s favourite dishes don’t seem to please you. He was saying yesterday that you snapped at him. He’s an old servant.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Tapan really did look unhappy, and now that he was in Dipankar’s room, almost trapped.

The room itself contained no chairs, just a bed, a variety of mats (including Buddhist prayer-mats), and a large painting that Kuku had made of the swamps of the Sundarbans. The single bookshelf contained religious books, a few economics textbooks, and a red bamboo flute – which Dipankar, when the mood took him, played very untunefully and fervently.

‘Sit down on that mat,’ said Dipankar, indicating a square blue cloth mat with a purple and yellow circular design in the middle. ‘Now what is it? It’s something to do with school, I know, and it isn’t the report.’

‘It’s nothing,’ said Tapan, desperately. ‘Dada, why can’t I leave? I just don’t like it there. Why can’t I join St Xavier’s here in Calcutta, like Amit Da? He didn’t have to go to Jheel.’

‘Well, if you want –’ shrugged Dipankar.

He reflected that it was only after Amit was well-ensconced at St Xavier’s that some of Mr Justice Chatterji’s colleagues had recommended Jheel School to him – so strongly, in fact, that he had decided to send his second son there. Dipankar had enjoyed it, and had done better than his parents had expected; and Tapan had therefore followed.

‘When I told Ma I wanted to leave, she got annoyed and said that I should speak to Baba – and I just can’t speak to Baba. He’ll ask me for reasons. And there are no reasons. I just hate it, that’s all. That’s why I get those headaches. Apart from that, I’m not unfit, or anything.’

‘Is it that you miss home?’ asked Dipankar.

‘No – I mean, I don’t really –’ Tapan shook his head.

‘Has someone been trying to bully you?’

‘Please let me go, now, Dada. I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Well, if I let you go now you’ll never tell me. So what is it? Tapan, I want to help you, but you’ve got to tell me what happened. I promise I won’t tell anyone.’

He was distressed to notice that Tapan had started crying; and that now, enraged with himself, he was wiping away his tears and looking resentfully at his elder brother. To cry at thirteen was, he knew, a disgrace. Dipankar put his arm around his shoulder; it was angrily shrugged off. But slowly the story emerged, amid explosive outbursts, long silences, and furious sobs, and it was not a pleasant one, even to Dipankar, who had been to Jheel School years before, and was prepared for quite a lot.