A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [266]
‘A strong little house, though,’ Mr Biswas said, looking at it from the old man’s verandah. And he saw how the old man’s breadfruit tree framed the house to advantage, how elegant the lattice work looked through the bleedingheart vine, its lack of finish unimportant at this distance. But he noticed how pronounced the crack was that spread from the brick wall in the verandah. And it was only then that he noticed how many of the celotex panels had fallen from the eaves; and even as he looked bats flew in and out. ‘Strong little house. That is the main thing.’
The old man continued to talk, no hint of argument in his voice. ‘And those pillars at the four corners. Anybody else woulda make them of concrete. You know what he make them of? Just those clay bricks. Hollow inside.’
Mr Biswas could not hide his alarm and the old man smiled benevolently, pleased to see his information having such an effect.
‘The man was a joke, man,’ he went on. ‘As I say, it was like a hobby to him. Picking up window frames here and there, from the American base and where not. Picking up a door here and another one there and bringing them here. A real disgrace. I don’t know how the City Council pass the place.’
‘I don’t suppose,’ Mr Biswas said, ‘that the City Council woulda pass it if it wasn’t strong.’
The old man paid no attention. ‘A spec’lator, that’s what he was. A real spec’lator. This ain’t the first house he built like this, you know. He build two-three in Belmont, one in Woodbrook, this one, and right now he building one in Morvant. Building it and living in it at the same time.’ The old man rocked and chuckled. ‘But he get stick with this one.’
‘He live in it a long time,’ Mr Biswas said.
‘Couldn’t get anybody to buy it. Is a good little site, mark you. But he was asking too much. Four five.’
‘Four five!’
‘If you please. And look. Look at that little house down the road.’ He pointed to a new neat bungalow, which Mr Biswas, with his newly acquired eye for carpentry, had recognized as of good design and workmanship. ‘Small, but very nice. That sell this year for four five.’
A Tuttle boy, the writer, came unexpectedly to the house one afternoon, talked of this and that and then, casually, as if delivering a message he had forgotten, said that his parents were going to call that evening, because Mrs Tuttle wanted to ask Shama’s advice about something.
Rapidly, they made ready. The floor was polished and walking on it was forbidden. Curtains were rearranged, and the morris suite and the glass cabinet and the bookcase pushed into new positions. The curtains masked the staircase; the bookcase and the glass cabinet hid part of the lattice work, which was also draped with curtains. The door that couldn’t close was left wide open and curtains hung over the doorway. The door that couldn’t open was left shut; and a curtain hung over that. The windows that couldn’t close were left open and curtains hung over them as well. And when the Tuttles came they were greeted by an enclosed, shining, softly-lit house, the morris chairs and the small palm in the brass pot reflecting on the polished floor. Shama seated them on the morris chairs, left them to marvel in silence for a minute or so, and, as cosily as the old queen herself, made tea in the kitchen and offered that and biscuits.
And the Tuttles were taken in! Shama could tell from the hardening of Mrs Tuttle’s expression into one of outrage and self-pity, from the nervous little chuckles of W. C. Tuttle who sat with a mixture of Eastern and Western elegance on his morris chair, rubbing one hand over the ankle that rested on his left knee, twirling the long hairs in his nose with the other hand.
Mrs Tuttle said to Myna, who had amputated the torch-bearer’s torchbearing arm, ‘Hello, Myna girl. You forget your aunt these days. I don’t suppose you want to come round to my old house after this.’
Myna smiled, as though Mrs Tuttle had hit on an embarrassing truth.
Mrs Tuttle said to Shama in Hindi, ‘Well, it is old. But it is full of room.’ She pressed