The Flower Boy Read Free Page B

safe, too, for unlike some other planters, John didn’t force his attentions on them. There were no light-skinned, blue-eyed children on Glencairn other than those given to him by his English wife.
    He went around the factory every morning and then set out on his daily inspection of the plantation. He was a remote but familiar figure in his crisp white bush shirt and starched khaki shorts, ivory-handled walking stick in one hand, and his bad-tempered dog, Buster, on a leash in the other.
    He didn’t bark like Buster.
    He just didn’t say very much.
    In comparison, the Sudu Nona talked a lot. No one knew her name and she knew no one’s name. Those who had seen her said she was beautiful, like an angel, with delicate white skin and long golden hair that she wore in a knot at the top of her head. Those who had heard her speak said she sounded like a Pentecostal magpie, speaking in tongues.
    She didn’t like Ceylon, didn’t like having to move herself and her family from England to this strange, untamed place full of unfamiliar people and smells. She did, however, like the role of lady of the manor and the small army of servants that was hers to command if she wished, which she didn’t.
    She left it to Chandi’s mother, Premawathi, to run the place, and spent her days drifting aimlessly through the manicured gardens, reading three-month-old British magazines and drinking the excellent tea her husband’s factory produced.
    And since Jonathan, her only son, had been sent away to an English boarding school last year, she seemed to have lost interest in even these few pursuits, preferring to sit around and mope.
    He was only ten, far too young, in her opinion, to leave his darling mother.
    At seven, her daughter Anne wore the slightly condescending air of a child who knew she was more intelligent than her mother. Which in fact she was.
    Anne adored her father, and emerged from her room only if he was around. She went to the little school reserved exclusively for British children, and returned home to her room and books.
    At mealtimes, she ate and talked sparingly, showing signs of animation only when directly addressed by her father.
    It wasn’t that she didn’t love her mother. She just didn’t seem to have too much in common with her.
    Since the lady of the house had become pregnant, it seemed that the entire house was expecting. She was querulous and complained incessantly, because this pregnancy had come as an unpleasant surprise.
    She had Jonathan and Anne, one of each gender, which had been quite adequate. Now she felt cheated by Mother Nature and couldn’t help wondering why she, of all the women in the world, had been chosen to bear once again the task of perpetuating the human race, which she didn’t much care for anyway.
    So they lived side by side, John Buckwater’s little family in the main bungalow, and the little family of staff in a small set of rooms off the kitchen.
    Although the family was scrupulously polite to the help, there existed a yawning chasm between them. The family had never had servants in England. Most of the servants had never worked for white people before. Neither knew quite how to treat the other, and however hard they tried, they never seemed to get it right.
    And so the relationship, if it was even that, stumbled on dotted with misunderstandings, reprimands and sullen silences. It was colored by gratitude and servility on one side and almost impossibly high expectations on the other.
    WHEN JOHN BUCKWATER had first arrived in Ceylon some three years ago, it had been to a vast bungalow, a fully equipped tea factory and a thriving tea plantation.
    He had spent a few months out in India some years before, but hadn’t really stayed long enough to learn very much. In India, he had visited friends in the governor’s office and vaguely considered taking up a job there. This was his first shot at being a tea planter.
    Other than Appuhamy,