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carpenters or pipe-baases who had done a shoddy job. When she began one of her tirades, my grandfather would creep away to his room. Occasionally, he gently protested at dinner, particularly after she had humiliated Sunil. She would hear him through and then say mildly but firmly (for she was often tranquil after a tirade), “But I am right about this, nah? I am always fair-thinking.”
    He was never able to deny that she had lost her temper for good reason. “But, dearest, is it necessary to be so fierce about it?”
    “Otherwise?” My grandmother would indicate for Rosalind to refill her husband’s plate. “I am, after all, a woman. Men, by their very nature, will always try to take advantage of me. If I am not strong with them, they will rob me. And,” a steeliness would enter her voice, “no one is going to shame me by taking advantage and then laugh behind my back, telling everyone I am some gullible, pathetic fool.”
    This always shut her husband up, and my mother would be aware, in that way of children, that something heavy and unspoken muffled the clink of her parents’ cutlery against their plates.
    When my grandmother passed my mother on the verandah while she was doing her homework, she would sometimes stop to say a few stiff words like, “Ah-ah, very good, doing your school work,” or, “Now, have you eaten properly today?” or, “That uniform is looking a bit worn. Ask Rosalind to take you to Mrs. Deutram’s to get some new ones made.” All this was said in a distant but pleasant tone, as if my mother was a servant’s child or a cousin’s daughter sent to board so she could go to a good Colombo school. And my mother was grateful for this lack of interest. She did not want to be noticed. All the love she needed, she got from Rosalind.
    What my mother remembered most about her father’s funeral was the novelty of my grandmother’s dry hand in hers as they stood watching the coffin slide into the roaring red of the crematorium furnace. The moment the doors closed behind it, my grandmother dropped her daughter’s hand as if unaware she had been holding it and walked away to greet important guests. Among those present, my mother had noticed a group of unknown women, some of them ancient. They were country folk in puffed-sleeve blouses and sarongs that were out of fashion in the city, where Colombo ladies wore the sari. Shehad thought they were servants because of their clothes, but also because her mother ignored them. Yet soon after these women had appeared at the cremation grounds, Sunil Maama and his wife had touched the older women’s feet as a sign of respect. One of the oldest, who was massive and square, had taken Sunil Maama’s arm for support as they stood watching the smoke whirl from the chimney.
    Rosalind led my mother away to sit on the marble steps of a nearby mausoleum and poured her some iced lime juice from a flask. “Who are those women?” my mother demanded.
    The ayah took her time replacing the lid on the flask. “They are your amma’s aunts and cousins.”
    My mother already knew that her grandparents were dead, but the news that she had other relatives on her mother’s side, not just Sunil Maama, was a shock. She turned to gawk at them, but Rosalind pulled her gently around by the chin. “The old lady who is leaning on Sunil Maama’s arm is his mother. Now drink your lime juice.”
    Back at the house, these relatives were sent to sit in the garden with the peons, lowly clerks and old servants who had come to pay their respects. My mother hid in a nearby araliya tree and watched how they leant over to whisper urgently about this insult, their faces prim with outrage. The older women chewed bulath leaves, their teeth and lips discoloured red, the wad like some living thing scurrying about in their cheeks. They wore elaborately carved circular brass chunam containers, like fob watches, attached to their hips by chains. The women would flip the lids open, scoop the white