Rupees Appease

Rupees Appease

‘Wait here. Don’t go away!’ I said for the second time that morning, but in a much more commanding way on this occasion as it was crucial that I didn’t lose him. I had a wrong to right, and had he wandered off it would have been virtually impossible to trace Kavinda in such a great bustling city, the home of so many homeless people.

As I raced up the ship’s gangway and two flights of stairs to the deck on which my cabin was located, I could see him standing on the quay, still wobbling his head from side to side, a gesture that natives of the Indian sub-continent (and Bulgaria) tend to use when they mean yes. Once inside I frantically searched the drawers of my desk and the pockets of my scattered clothes before finding the assortment of grubby local banknotes that amounted in value to a lot less than the bulky appearance of the bundle suggested.

The outer note in the wad of cash was a one hundred. Enough rupees to do the trick, I thought, as I made my way back down to the quayside where he sat completely alone with his bottle of Sri Lankan tea almost empty and his mug of Scottish tea untouched.

Apologising profusely for the anxiety I surely must have caused, I handed him the cash. His eyes widened like those of a mongoose about to pounce on a cobra. With his hands held together in a praying gesture, he bowed from the waist half a dozen times, repeating ‘Thank you, sir! Thank you, sir!’ with each dip of his painfully malnourished upper torso. He had three days’ pay in his hand so he was happy but I think I was just as happy as I’d managed to avoid causing a disaster within this poor man’s family.

I shook the hand he offered me and turned to walk back towards the ship to begin work. Being so new to this job I was very nervous about everything that went on and already late for my stint accompanying the Third Mate on cargo watch, so I was in a mad rush to get away. I probably showed impatience as Kavinda tugged at the sleeve of my shirt to hold me back. With a puzzled expression on his face he had a question for me.

‘But what work must I do for you, sir? You gave me very many rupees and I have done nothing. I must do service for you to deserve this money.’

I had no idea what to say. Unprepared for this, it was difficult to think straight. I had to get to work because I could see the Captain watching me from an upper deck. He held a can of Australian lager in his hand. A ‘livener’ was the word in merchant seafarers’ jargon for that first alcoholic drink of the day, taken to bring body and mind back into alignment, but no one I’d ever known before had been in need of such a thing so soon after daybreak as our Old Man. For him, having a breakfast time bevvy was akin to the warming up exercises of an athlete lining up to take part in an Olympic event. Despite his state of semi-inebriation, I was sure he would have made a mental note of my late arrival on deck and that repercussions were likely.

In a flash I blurted out, ‘Meet me here tomorrow morning at five thirty. And call me Terry!’

‘Yes, sir! Thank you, sir!’ was Kavinda’s response as we parted.

Nobody seemed to have noticed that I’d missed breakfast. Nobody cared that I’d been on the wharf hobnobbing with the natives. The Captain had probably seen two of me hobnobbing to two natives. The Third Mate asked sarcastically if I was enjoying the cruise when I turned up fifteen minutes late to assist him. An older me would have told him that there’d been a signal failure at Clapham Junction but the terrified me just got on with watching the dockworkers coming close to killing themselves with swaying weighty rusting metal suction pipes suspended by worn cables from a dockside gantry. Diesel engines grunted, groaned and spat out a new awful smell for us to contend with. Conveyor belts that had been carrying wheat to the flour mill since a few weeks after Redcoats had invaded the island rattled, screeched, smoked and spilt morsels of precious poverty relief cargo into the dining areas of the fat black rodents that sat up on their hind legs as they waited patiently on the road below. They wouldn’t have looked out of place if they’d had table napkins tucked into their collars.   

The day went by as expected. We all got covered in the wheat dust that stuck to our clothes and the sweat on the exposed areas of our bodies and limbs. Mosquitos suckled from us more corpuscles than would have been seen if an NHS Blood Transfusion Service van had rolled up. Its complimentary cups of tea and custard creams might possibly have made up for our discomfort, we dreamed. At four o’clock the sky turned black, forked lightning flashed spectacularly in every direction and the heavens opened. This happened every afternoon but the might and beauty of nature working to extremes was always such that I couldn’t take my eyes away from it. Discharging was suspended while the rain washed away much of the mess and temporarily reduced the oppressive humidity and heat. Having taken shelter under an awning we were still covered in shit when the hydraulically operated cargo hold covers rolled open again thirty minutes later. There followed a fifteen-minute episode of steam rising from the hot metal deck after which everything was clean and dry again, except me and the Third Mate in our sweaty work clothes.

On the quayside, any grain fallen from the overhead machinery that hadn’t been devoured by rats didn’t dry out so quickly. It’s moist consistency and the scent of decay that it gave off served as an invitation to afternoon tea for the huge cockroaches. Although nocturnal creatures, they couldn’t resist such an early treat. I never knew the real name for their species but merchant seafarers would usually refer to them as Bombay Hardbacks, which sounded like the name of an American football team to me. I could just imagine the headline in the sports pages of the Colombo Gazette: Bombay Hardbacks outclass Tamil Tigers to win Super Bowl. But the use of such an epithet was unlikely as these guzzling insects were far more intimidating than any Quarter Back could ever be, and there were dozens of them. They were entertaining to watch though… from a distance.

While we’d been waiting for the storm to subside and work to recommence, I wondered what Kavinda would have been doing. If I’d been in his position, I probably would have sat with a cold beer and a few spicy snacks in front of the television all afternoon, but it was improbable that he could even imagine idling away his time like that. Was he doing some sort of manual work somewhere else? Was his one hundred rupee note safe? It didn’t take long to convince myself that the answer to both of these questions was yes. And would he keep his date with me the next day? I really hoped he would because I had the second part of my grand plan to put into action. It was a crafty scheme from which both he and I would benefit.

Image:

I saved twelve rupees just in case I ever found myself in Colombo again with a flag that needed hoisting. My own photo of my own money.

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Taking Tea - Kavinda and Me

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When Life Gives You Flags

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