A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [108]
‘And a drawingroom.’
Mr Maclean added another square of the same size. To this he added half a square and said, ‘And a gallery.’
‘That’s it. Nothing too fancy for me. Small and neat.’
‘You want a door from the gallery to the front bedroom. A wood door. And you want another door to the drawingroom. With coloured glass panes.’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘One side of the gallery you want board up. For the front you would like some fancy rails. You want a nice concrete step with a banister in front.’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘For the front bedroom you want glass windows, and if you get the money you going to paint them white. The back windows could be pure board. And you want a plain wood staircase at the back, with no banister or anything like that. The kitchen you going to build yourself, somewhere in the yard.’
‘Exactly.’
‘That’s a nice little house you have there. A lot of people would like it. It going to cost you about two hundred and fifty, three hundred dollars. Labour, you know –’ He looked at Mr Biswas and slowly rubbed a bare foot over the drawing on the ground. ‘I don’t know. I busy these days.’ He pointed to the unfinished wheel in the shed.
A hen cackled, proclaiming an egg.
‘Georgie! Is the Leghorn.’
There was a tremendous squawking and flapping among the poultry.
Mr Maclean said, ‘Is a lucky thing. Otherwise she was going straight in the pot.’
‘We not bound and ’bliged to build the whole thing right away,’ Mr Biswas said. ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know.’
‘So they say. But Rome get build. Anyway, as soon as I get some time I going to come and we could look at the site. You have a site?’
‘Yes, yes, man. Have a site.’
‘Well, in about two-three days then.’
He came early that afternoon, in hat, shoes and an ironed shirt, and they went to look at the site.
‘Is a real little bower,’ Mr Biswas said.
‘Is a sloping site!’ Mr Maclean said in surprise and almost with pleasure. ‘You really have to have high pillars.’
‘High on one side, low on the other. It could practically be a style. And then I was thinking about a little path down to the road here. Steps. In the ground itself. Garden on both sides. Roses. Exora. Oleanders. Bougainvillaea and poinsettia. And some Queen of Flowers. And a neat little bamboo bridge to the road.’
‘It sound nice.’
‘I was thinking. About the house. It would be nice to have concrete pillars. Not naked though. I don’t think that does look nice. Plastered and smooth.’
‘I know what you mean. You think you could give me about a hundred and fifty dollars just to start off with?’
Mr Biswas hesitated.
‘You mustn’t think I want to meddle in your private affairs. I just wanting to know how much you want to spend right away.’
Mr Biswas walked away from Mr Maclean, among the bushes on the damp site, the weeds and the nettles. ‘About a hundred,’ he said. ‘But at the end of the month I could give you a little bit more.’
‘A hundred.’
‘All right?’
‘Yes, is all right. For a start.’
They went through the weeds and over the leaf-choked gutter to the narrow gravelly road.
‘Every month we build a little,’ Mr Biswas said. ‘Little by little.’
‘Yes, little by little.’ Mr Maclean wasn’t animated, but some of his wariness had gone; he even sounded encouraging. ‘I will have to get some labour. Helluva thing these days, getting good labour.’ He spoke the word with relish.
And the word pleased Mr Biswas too. ‘Yes, you must get labour,’ he said, suppressing his astonishment that there were people who depended on Mr Maclean for a living.
‘But you better get a few more cents quick.’ Mr Maclean said, almost friendly now. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t get any concrete pillars.’
‘Must have concrete pillars.’
‘Then all the house you going to build will be a row of concrete pillars with nothing on top of them.’ They walked on.
‘A row of coal barrels,’ Mr Biswas said.
Mr Maclean didn’t intrude.
‘Just send me a coal barrel. Yes,