GIVE THEM GOOD, MEN!

 

(A totally fictitious short story)

 

By Rudy Otter

 

"Clive! Open the window! Close the door! Bring the tea! Mop the kitchen! Dust the furniture!"

 

In guttural tones, Olga barked her commands while she relaxed in her favourite easy chair. She looked a formidable figure; obese, with short dark hair, bulging black eyes and heavy legs, a startling contrast to Clive's small, skinny frame and timid demeanour.

 

Her sole aim was to keep Clive, a retired railway guard, "in his place". How much longer, he wondered, would Anglo-Indian men have to put up with their wives' domineering ways? After all this was 1957.

 

Yes, 1957!

 

Throughout their long marriage, it was a case of: "Yes dear, no dear, three bags full, dear!"

 

Back in India, when he came off line at Halvapani, exhausted, he had to attend to her needs first. He remembered one incident in particular.

 

"Clive!" she'd snarled. "Go next door and give Tom good! That terrible wife of his, singing loudly all day. Can't have my afternoon nap, men!"

 

Being deprived of her nap, which stretched from noon to six in the evenings, posed a serious problem as it made her more cantankerous than usual. An even bigger problem for Clive was the prospect of confronting the muscular ticket collector and his fiery little wife.

 

Clive slunk out of the house and hid behind the papaya tree for ten minutes, then returned bristling with indignation.

 

"You gave him good?" Olga demanded.

 

"I certainly did! Both of them!"

 

Olga snorted. "Thin mad thing. Doris Day, it appears. More like a wounded cat she sounds!"

 

Memories, memories, they kept dripping back, here in New Zealand where they had migrated after his retirement. They found it a beautiful country with a temperate climate and friendly people. Moreover, they were able to buy a nice bungalow in a district populated by migrant Anglo-Indian railway families from Joothipur, Chotasari, Kuttuputtu, Marosala, Chalobhai, Hathibad and Puriburra, as well as good old Halvapani.

 

On Sunday afternoons Olga would decide to visit friends or acquaintances, instructing Clive to keep his mouth shut and agree with everything she said. Each visit followed the same pattern. The wives would demonstrate their matriarchal power of the 1950s by running down their men folk in front of them.

 

One day Olga decided to look up their old Halvapani friends Karen and Fred. Former express driver Fred was Halvapani's biggest practical joker, making lizards out of plasticine and placing them on tables and chairs at the railway institute dances to frighten people.

 

This time there were no lizards, but the familiar twinkle in Fred's eyes persisted. Both men sat in silence as directed while their wives prattled on.

 

"Our men are fine as long as they keep their mouths shut," Olga remarked, staring at Clive. "One sly word and they'll get good from us."

 

Karen nodded, cackling.

 

The women reminisced about their life in India, the Anglo-Indians they knew back in Halvapani, the spicy food, exotic fruits, all the fun at the institute functions.

 

Olga spotted a stern-faced figurine on a slender stand in the corner. "Gift from your grandmother, wasn't it?" Karen nodded. "Replica of Queen Victoria it is, made from the most expensive bone china. Means so much to me I can't tell you." She looked adoringly at the fragile ornament, then snapped at Fred. "Bring more cushions! Pull this...push that...hurry up...what's wrong with you, men?"

 

Olga recalled how well her youngest brother Oliver had done in his Senior Cambridge exam at Batata High School in Sambalpur. "Oh, very good!" Karen said, prompting Fred to acknowledge the notable achievement.

 

Before he could respond, Clive interjected with an "Er..." but stopped when he saw Olga staring at him. He knew what that meant. "CHOOP! BUSS! YOU'VE SAID ENOUGH ALREADY!"

 

Olga mentioned her sister Grace who'd once wanted to become a nun. Clive opened his mouth again but Olga stared him into silence. Karen turned to her husband. "Fred! Bring coffee!"

 

He sprang up and hurried into the adjoining kitchen. From where Clive was sitting, he could see Fred preparing the coffee and placing the enormous cups on a tray which he brought out, and, according to Anglo-Indian henpecked rules, served his wife Karen first, then Olga.

 

Karen glared at him. "Array! Bring biscuits, men! What is this!"

 

"Okay, okay, sorry."

 

Fred quickly produced biscuits which he offered to Karen first, then Olga.

 

Clive watched him refill the electric kettle. He made two more cups, adding a startling ingredient - brandy! Clive could see him pouring generous gurgling amounts into both cups and felt grateful that Olga did not know what was happening as she forbade him from drinking because it might loosen his tongue and embarrass her.

 

Clive finished his brandied coffee, feeling a massive surge of courage. "Your shister Grace," he slurred at Olga, "wanting to become a nun. Don't make me laugh! Fooling all the drivers and guards behind the running room shed..."

 

"That's enough, Clive!" Olga bawled, her indignant stare having failed to silence him. He guffawed at her, a liberty previously unheard of.

 

"Grace," he chuckled, "may have looked all innocent in church every Sunday, kneeling with joined palms and all, but..." "Clive! Shut up!" Olga screamed. "You're mad! Like the rest of your kachra family!" Turning to their hosts, she pleaded: "Don't listen to him, men! Talking rubbish!"

 

Clive was enjoying his brandy-fuelled freedom which made Fred grin. "As for Oliver, never even took his Senior Cambridge..." "Shut up!" Olga yelled. "You...you good-for-nothing..."

 

"The thickest boy in his class, everyone said," Clive chortled. "I could say a lot more about her riff-raff family, all wasters." An enraged Olga declared: "We're off home! This fellow's gone one screw loose! I'll give him good later, wait and see."

 

Fred was now looking at Karen in a strange way. Her jaw dropped. "You're drunk!" she snapped. "Both of you! The coffee, must be! Oh no! Who said to put brandy in it, hah?" "Gave myshelf permishion," Fred burped. "Now ish my shurn to shay shumshing."

 

Karen screeched at him to keep quiet but her strident commands were met with a sneer as he proclaimed her family's secrets, one by one, in excruciating detail. "Shut your gob!" Karen thundered but Fred rambled on about her father and two sisters. "And as for your brother Vernon," he said, "he not only played the banjo with the institute band, he was once caught playing with..."

 

Karen's deafening screech obliterated the final devastating word he'd uttered. Furiously she hurled a cushion at him. He ducked and it collided with the Queen Victoria figurine, knocking it to the floor in a shower of fragments. She exploded, letting out a long and piercing howl that set the neighbour's dog barking.

 

"Now look what you've done!" she roared, trembling with rage. "God will punish you, you lowdown son of the devil! How dare you talk all this rubbish! My figurine, oh my figurine!"

 

He grinned. "Don't blame me! You threw the cushion!"

 

Clive took over and slurred at Olga. "Your eldest sister Tootsie used to borrow money from those big strapping Pathan fellows. From the Banias too, and those Bori tailor chaps." "Shut up! Shut up!" Olga bawled. The women exchanged murderous looks and then began sobbing into their handkerchiefs.

 

Clive looked at Fred and they made victorious thums-up signs.

 

Olga had had enough. She pecked Karen on the cheek and bustled out of the house, with Clive staggering in front of her, head held high.

 

A fortnight later both men, carrying heavy shopping bags, met in the street. They looked glumly at each other and recounted their depressing experiences. The women had reinforced their matriarchal control with a vengeance, coincidentally sentencing both men to enforced celibacy, a move they agreed that smacked of spiteful collusion.

 

Life for Clive and Fred had suddenly become unbearable. Together they resolved never to contemplate mounting another challenge. They'd learned their lesson, ba-ba. The hard way.

 

On the other hand, they reflected, by demonstrating their "enthusiastic subservience" instead, maybe their sentences stood a remote chance of being reduced, however slightly, at some time in the distant future?

 

They certainly hoped so. They desperately hoped so.

 

For now, it was back to normal. "Yes dear, no dear, three bags full, dear!"

 

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* First published in Anglos in the Wind, international quarterly magazine, in 2009.

 

** Rudy Otter is a retired Anglo-Indian journalist and columnist who now writes articles and short stories for our community's own magazines and websites. Contact: otterrp@yahoo.co.uk