Crazy Times with Uncle Ken Read online

  ‘Do you like it?’ she’d ask, after I’d taken a few mouthfuls.

  ‘Yes, Gran.’

  ‘Sweet enough.’

  ‘Yes, Gran.’

  ‘Not too sweet.’

  ‘No, Gran.’

  ‘Would you like some more?’

  ‘Yes, please, Gran.’

  ‘Well, finish it off.’

  ‘If you say so, Gran.’

  Roast duck. This was one of Granny’s specials. The first time I had roast duck at Granny’s place, Uncle Ken was there too.

  He’d just lost a job as a railway guard, and had come to stay with Granny until he could find another job. He always stayed as long as he could, only moving on when Granny offered to get him a job as an assistant master in Padre Lal’s Academy for Small Boys. Uncle Ken couldn’t stand small boys. They made him nervous, he said. I made him nervous too, but there was only one of me, and there was always Granny to protect him. At Padre Lal’s, there were over a hundred small boys.

  Although Uncle Ken had a tremendous appetite, and ate just as much as I did, he never praised Granny’s dishes. I think this is why I was annoyed with him at times, and why sometimes I enjoyed making him feel nervous.

  Uncle Ken looked down at the roast duck, his glasses slipping down to the edge of his nose.

  ‘Hm … Duck again?’

  ‘What do you mean, duck again? You haven’t had duck since you were here last month,’ retorted Granny.

  ‘That’s what I mean,’ said Uncle Ken. ‘Somehow, one expects more variety from you.’

  All the same, he took two large helpings and ate most of the stuffing before I could get at it. I took my revenge by emptying all the apple sauce on to my plate. Uncle Ken knew I loved the stuffing; and I knew he was crazy about Granny’s apple sauce. So we were even.

  ‘When are you joining your parents?’ he asked hopefully, over the jam tart.

  ‘I may not go to them this year,’ I said. ‘When are you getting another job, Uncle?’

  ‘Oh, I’m thinking of taking rest for a couple of months.’

  I enjoyed helping Granny and Ayah with the washing up. While we were at work, Uncle Ken would take a siesta on the veranda or switch on the radio to listen to dance music. Glenn Miller and his swing band was all the rage then.

  ‘And how do you like your Uncle Ken?’ asked Granny one day, as she emptied the bones from his plate into the dog’s bowl.

  ‘I wish he was someone else’s uncle,’ I said.

  ‘He’s not so bad, really. Just eccentric.’

  ‘What’s eccentric?’

  ‘Oh, just a little crazy.’

  ‘At least Crazy runs round the house,’ I said. ‘I’ve never seen Uncle Ken running.’

  But I did one day.

  Mohan and I were playing marbles in the shade of the mango grove when we were taken aback by the sight of Uncle Ken charging across the compound, pursued by a swarm of bees. He’d been smoking a cigar under a silk-cotton tree, and the fumes had disturbed the wild bees in their hive, directly above him. Uncle Ken fled indoors and leapt into a tub of cold water. He had received a few stings and decided to remain in bed for three days. Ayah took his meals to him on a tray.

  ‘I didn’t know Uncle Ken could run so fast,’ I said later that day.

  ‘It’s nature’s way of compensating,’ said Granny.

  ‘What’s compensating?’

  ‘Making up for things … Now at least Uncle Ken knows that he can run. Isn’t that wonderful?’

  Whenever Granny made vanilla or chocolate fudge, she gave me some to take to Mohan, the gardener’s son. It was no use taking him roast duck or curried chicken because in his house no one ate meat. But Mohan liked sweets—Indian sweets, which were made with lots of milk and lots of sugar, as well as Granny’s home-made English sweets.

  We would climb into the branches of the jackfruit tree and eat fudge or peppermints or sticky toffee. We couldn’t eat the jackfruit, except when it was cooked as a vegetable or made into a pickle. But the tree itself was wonderful for climbing. And some wonderful creatures lived in it—squirrels and fruit bats and a pair of green parrots. The squirrels were friendly and soon got into the habit of eating from our hands. They, too, were fond of chocolate fudge. One young squirrel would even explore my pockets to see if I was keeping anything from him.

  Mohan and I could climb almost any tree in the garden, and if Granny was looking for us, she’d call from the front veranda and then from the back veranda and then from the pantry at the side of the house and, finally, from the bathroom window on the other side of the house. There were trees on all sides and it was impossible to tell which one we were in, until we answered her call. Sometimes Crazy would give us away by barking beneath our tree.

  When there was fruit to be picked, Mohan did the picking. The mangoes and litchis came into season during the summer, when I was away at boarding school, so I couldn’t help with the fruit gathering. The papayas were in season during the winter, but you don’t climb papaya trees; they are too slender and wobbly. You knock the papayas down with a long pole.

  Mohan also helped Granny with the pickling. She was justly famous for her pickles. Green mangoes, pickled in oil, were always popular. So was her hot lime pickle. And she was equally good at pickling turnips, carrots, cauliflowers, chillies and other fruits and vegetables. She could pickle almost anything, from a nasturtium seed to a jackfruit. Uncle Ken didn’t care for pickles, so I was always urging Granny to make more of them.

  My own preference was for sweet chutneys and sauces, but I ate pickles too, even the very hot ones.

  One winter, when Granny’s funds were low, Mohan and I went from house to house, selling pickles for her.

  In spite of all the people and pets she fed, Granny wasn’t rich. The house had come to her from Grandfather, but there wasn’t much money in the bank. The mango crop brought in a fair amount every year, and there was a small pension from the Railways (Grandfather had been one of the pioneers who’d helped bring the railway line to Dehra at the turn of the century), but there was no other income. And now that I come to think of it, all those wonderful meals consisted only of the one course, followed by a sweet dish. It was Granny’s cooking that turned a modest meal into a feast.

  I wasn’t ashamed to sell pickles for Granny. It was great fun. Mohan and I armed ourselves with baskets filled with pickle bottles, then set off to cover all the houses in our area.

  Major Wilkie, across the road, was our first customer. He had a red beard and bright blue eyes and was almost always good-humoured.

  ‘And what have you got there, young Bond?’ he asked.

  ‘Pickle, sir.’

  ‘Pickles! Have you been making them?’

  ‘No, sir, they’re my grandmother’s. We’re selling them, so we can buy a turkey for Christmas.’

  ‘Mrs Clerke’s pickles, eh? Well, I’m glad mine is the first house on your way, because I’m sure that basket will soon be empty. There is no one who can make a pickle like your grandmother, son. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, she’s god’s gift to a world that’s terribly short of good cooks. My wife’s gone shopping, so I can talk quite freely, you see … What have you got this time? Stuffed chillies, I trust. She knows they’re my favourite. I shall be deeply wounded if there are not stuffed chillies in the basket.’

  There were, in fact, three bottles of stuffed red chillies in the basket, and Major Wilkie took all of them.

  Our next call was at Miss Kellner’s house. Miss Kellner couldn’t eat hot food, so it was no use offering her pickles. But she bought a bottle of preserved ginger. And she gave me a little prayer book. Whenever I went to see her, she gave me a new prayer book. Soon I had quite a collection of prayer books. What was I to do with them? Finally, Uncle Ken took them off me, and sold them back to Miss Kellner.

  Further down the road, Dr Dutt, who was in charge of the hospital, bought several bottles of lime pickles, saying it was good for his liver. And Mr Hari, wh
o owned a garage at the end of the road and sold all the latest cars, bought two bottles of pickled onions and begged us to bring him another two the following month.

  By the time we got home, the basket would usually be empty and Granny richer by twenty or thirty rupees—enough, in those days, for a turkey.

  ‘It’s high time you found a job,’ said Granny to Uncle Ken one day.

  ‘There are no jobs in Dehra,’ complained Uncle Ken.

  ‘How can you tell? You’ve never looked for one. And anyway, you don’t have to stay here forever. Your sister Emily is headmistress of a school in Lucknow. You could go to her. She said before that she was ready to put you in charge of a dormitory.’

  ‘Bah!’ said Uncle Ken. ‘Honestly, you don’t expect me to look after a dormitory seething with forty or fifty demented small boys?’

  ‘What’s demented?’ I asked.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Uncle Ken.

  ‘It means crazy,’ said Granny.

  ‘So many words mean crazy,’ I complained. ‘Why don’t we just say crazy. We have a crazy dog, and now Uncle Ken is crazy too.’

  Uncle Ken clipped me over my ear, and Granny said, ‘Your uncle isn’t crazy, so don’t be disrespectful. He’s just lazy.’

  ‘And eccentric,’ I said. ‘I heard he was eccentric.’

  ‘Who said I was eccentric?’ demanded Uncle Ken.

  ‘Miss Leslie,’ I lied. I knew Uncle Ken was fond of Miss Leslie, who ran a beauty parlour in Dehra’s smart shopping centre, Astley Hall.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ said Uncle Ken. ‘Anyway, when did you see Miss Leslie?’

  ‘We sold her a bottle of mint chutney last week. I told her you liked mint chutney. But she said she’d bought it for Mr Brown who’s taking her to the pictures tomorrow.’

  ‘Eat well, but don’t overeat,’ Granny used to tell me. ‘Good food is a gift from god, and like any other gift, it can be misused.’

  She’d made a list of kitchen proverbs and pinned it to the pantry door—not so high that I couldn’t read it, either.

  These were some of the proverbs:

  Light suppers make long lives.

  Better a small fish than an empty dish.

  There is skill in all things, even in making porridge.

  Eating and drinking should not keep men from thinking.

  Dry bread at home is better than roast meat abroad.

  A good dinner sharpens the wit and softens the heart.

  Let not your tongue cut your throat.

  Uncle Ken does nothing

  To our surprise, Uncle Ken got a part-time job as a guide, showing tourist the ‘sights’ around Dehra.

  There was an old fort near the river bed; and a seventeenth-century temple; and a jail where Pandit Nehru had spent some time as a political prisoner; and, about ten miles into the foothills, the hot sulphur springs.

  Uncle Ken told us he was taking a party of six American tourists, husbands and wives, to the sulphur springs. Granny was pleased. Uncle Ken was busy at last! She gave him a hamper filled with ham sandwiches, home-made biscuits and a dozen oranges—ample provision for a day’s outing.

  The sulphur springs were only ten miles from Dehra, but we didn’t see Uncle Ken for three days.

  He was a sight when he got back. His clothes were dusty and torn; his cheeks were sunken; and the little bald patch on top of his head had been burnt a bright red.

  ‘What have you been doing to yourself?’ asked Granny.

  Uncle Ken sank into the armchair on the veranda. ‘I’m starving, Mother. Give me something to eat.’

  ‘What happened to the food you took with you?’

  ‘There were seven of us, and it was all finished on the first day.’

  ‘Well, it was only supposed to last a day. You said you were going to the sulphur springs.’

  ‘Yes, that’s where we were going,’ said Uncle Ken. ‘But we never reached them. We got lost in the hills.’

  ‘How could you possibly have got lost in the hills? You had only to walk straight along the river bed and up the valley … You ought to know, you were the guide and you’d been there before, when your father was alive.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Uncle Ken, looking crestfallen. ‘But I forgot the way. That is, I forgot the valley. I mean, I took them up the wrong valley. And I kept thinking the springs would be at the same river, but it wasn’t the same river … So we kept walking, until we were in the hills, and then I looked down and saw we’d come up the wrong valley. We had to spend the night under the stars. It was very, very cold. And next day I thought we’d come back a quicker way, through Mussoorie, but we took the wrong path and reached Kempti instead … And then we walked down to the motor road and caught a bus.’

  I helped Granny put Uncle Ken to bed, and then helped her make him a strengthening onion soup. I took him the soup on a tray, and he made a face while drinking it and then asked for more. He was in bed for two days, while Ayah and I took turns taking him his meals. He wasn’t a bit grateful.

  When Uncle Ken complained he was losing his hair and that his bald patch was increasing in size, Granny looked up her book of old recipes and said there was one for baldness which Grandfather had used with great success. It consisted of a lotion made with gherkins soaked in brandy. Uncle Ken said he’d try it.

  Granny soaked some gherkins in brandy for a week, then gave the bottle to Uncle Ken with instructions to rub a little into his scalp mornings and evenings.

  Next day, when she looked into his room, she found only gherkins in the bottle. Uncle Ken had drunk all the brandy.

  Uncle Ken liked to whistle.

  Hands in his pockets, nothing to do, he would stroll about the house, around the garden, up and down the road, whistling feebly to himself.

  It was always the same whistle, tuneless to everyone except my uncle.

  ‘What are you whistling today, Uncle Ken?’ I’d ask.

  ‘“Ol’ Man River”. Don’t you recognize it?’

  And the next time around he’d be whistling the same notes, and I’d say, ‘Still whistling “Ol’ Man River”, Uncle?’

  ‘No, I’m not. This is “Danny Boy”. Can’t you tell the difference?’

  And he’d slouch off, whistling tunelessly.

  Sometimes it irritated Granny.

  ‘Can’t you stop whistling, Ken? It gets on my nerves. Why don’t you try singing for a change?’

  ‘I can’t. It’s “The Blue Danube”; there aren’t any words,’ and he’d waltz around the kitchen, whistling.

  ‘Well, you can do your whistling and waltzing on the veranda,’ Granny would say. ‘I won’t have it in the kitchen. It spoils the food.’

  When Uncle Ken had a bad tooth removed by our dentist, Dr Kapadia, we thought his whistling would stop. But it only became louder and shriller.

  One day, while he was strolling along the road, hands in his pockets, doing nothing, whistling very loudly, a girl on a bicycle passed him. She stopped suddenly, got off the bicycle, and blocked his way.

  ‘If you whistle at me every time I pass, Kenneth Clerke,’ she said, ‘I’ll wallop you!’

  Uncle Ken went red in the face. ‘I wasn’t whistling at you,’ he said.

  ‘Well, I don’t see anyone else on the road.’

  ‘I was whistling “God Save the King”. Don’t you recognize it?’

  Uncle Ken on the job

  ‘We’ll have to do something about Uncle Ken,’ said Granny to the world at large.

  I was in the kitchen with her, shelling peas and popping a few into my mouth now and then. Suzie, the Siamese cat, sat on the sideboard, patiently watching Granny prepare an Irish stew. Suzie liked Irish stew.

  ‘It’s not that I mind him staying,’ said Granny, ‘and I don’t want any money from him, either. But it isn’t healthy for a young man to remain idle for so long.’

  ‘Is Uncle Ken a young man, Gran?’

  ‘He’s thirty. Everyone says he’ll improve as he grows up.’

&nb
sp; ‘He could go and live with Aunt Mabel.’

  ‘He does go and live with Aunt Mabel. He also lives with Aunt Emily and Aunt Beryl. That’s his trouble—he has too many doting sisters ready to put him up and put up with him … Their husbands are all quite well off and can afford to have him now and then. So our Ken spends three months with Mabel, three months with Beryl, three months with me. That way he gets through the year as everyone’s guest and doesn’t have to worry about making a living.’

  ‘He’s lucky in a way,’ I said.

  ‘His luck won’t last forever. Already Mabel is talking of going to New Zealand. And once India is free—in just a year or two from now—Emily and Beryl will probably go off to England, because their husbands are in the army and all the British officers will be leaving.’

  ‘Can’t Uncle Ken follow them to England?’

  ‘He knows he’ll have to start working if he goes there. When your aunts find they have to manage without servants, they won’t be ready to keep Ken for long periods. In any case, who’s going to pay his fare to England or New Zealand?’

  ‘If he can’t go, he’ll stay here with you, Granny. You’ll be here, won’t you?’

  ‘Not forever. Only while I live.’

  ‘You won’t go to England?’

  ‘No, I’ve grown up here. I’m like the trees. I’ve taken root, I won’t be going away—not until, like an old tree, I’m without any more leaves … You’ll go, though, when you are bigger. You’ll probably finish your schooling abroad.’

  ‘I’d rather finish it here. I want to spend all my holidays with you. If I go away, who’ll look after you when you grow old?’

  ‘I’m old already. Over sixty.’

  ‘Is that very old? It’s only a little older than Uncle Ken. And how will you look after him when you’re really old?’

  ‘He can look after himself if he tries. And it’s time he started. It’s time he took a job.’

  I pondered over the problem. I could think of nothing that would suit Uncle Ken—or rather, I could think of no one who would find him suitable. It was Ayah who made a suggestion.