The Legend of Pradeep Mathew (29 page)

Just before the skinhead leader could break his cue over Mathew’s head, the dark, stocky man smashed a glass jug into his face. As if it had been choreographed, Mathew began laying punches and kicks into the crouching leader. ‘He looked like an ant hammering a horse,’ laughs Charith. Two more jugs collided with skull as the dark, stocky man made quick work of the bouncer. The other two skinheads backed away. One of them tripped over a pool table on his way out.

Larry held back Pradeep, who was kicking the fallen skinhead. Both skinheads had stopped moving.

The dark, stocky man looked around. ‘Everyone all right?’ No one answered. He stared at Pradeep. ‘Leave here now.’ He then followed his own advice.

Larry drove Pradeep to the A&E, while the girls and Charith speculated as to who the dark man could have been. There were rumours that the West Australia Tamil Association harboured Tiger gunmen. Could this be one such sleeper? Could he be a neo-Nazi-hunting vigilante hired by the Mayor of Perth? Or was he just a drunk who landed a few lucky punches?

Pradeep had a hairline fracture in his index finger and a bruised rib. He removed his bandages as soon as he returned to the hotel. The next day his finger swelled up as he was called for the disciplinary hearing. He explained that his finger was injured taking the catch off David Boon. He blamed his conduct in the interview on being exhausted by the tour. Management decided to drop the matter, but a few players stored it away for future use.

On the day of the New Year’s party, not only were the girls vying for the beauty crown, but also for the attentions of Mr Mathew. Roshani, Bronwyn and even the Miss Sri Lanka were seen speaking to him and playing with their hair.

‘I remember, fellow was like a mouse,’ exclaims Ravi de Mel. ‘Suddenly, on this Australia tour, he is the ladies’ man. Bugger didn’t even play a single game. Even Aravinda, after scoring four centuries, wasn’t as popular.’

‘It was at the Perth New Year’s party that I first noticed him,’ says Serala de Alwis over the phone. ‘He had a real I-don’t-care-what-you-think-about-me look. He was awkward and clumsy, but there was something there.’ Serala was a hotel exec and girlfriend of the vice captain.

The dancing round and the catwalk round had seen the exit of both Miss Sri Lanka and Miss Working Girl, much to the delight of a Sri Lankan expat crowd filled with drunk uncles and catty aunties. Everyone agreed that it was the question round that clinched it. ‘If you were to win the prize, a trip to anywhere in the world, where would you go?’

Kahatuduwa Twin 1: ‘Rio, for the carnival! Because I’m born to party!’ (Applause.)

Serala de Alwis: ‘Africa, ‘cos it’s wild and wonderful. Just like me!’ (Cheers.)

Bronwyn Jones: ‘That would have to be Bali. ‘Cos I love lying on a golden beach with nothing on!’ (Hoots. Shouts of ‘Keeyada darling?’)

Victoria the Bomb: ‘Chile. ‘Cos I’m hot!’ (Applause and cheers.)

Natalie the Singer: ‘Japan. Because that is where my boyfriend is.’ (Boos. Shouts referring to Japanese manhood.)

Kahatuduwa Twin 2: ‘I also like Rio. But since Nanga said that, I’ll say somewhere different, like … Brazil.’ (Laughter. Hoots.)

Penny who Ravi de Mel banged: ‘Sri Lanka, mate. You guys are cool!’ (Huge applause. ‘Suddhi sucking up!’)

Some skinny Lankan girl who spoke with a French accent: ‘I would sell the ticket and give the money to the poor.’ (Catcalls. ‘Ado! This is not Miss World!’)

The judges were a starlet from a TV soap called
Neighbours,
the Sri Lankan cricket captain and the FLC who, referring to an LBW decision in the Boxing Day test, said, ‘One would say that there’s no doubt that there’s a lot of doubt about that.’ And the president of the United Sri Lanka Association, Mr Upali Manu. The shout of ‘Ado Manu, give Sri Lanka its first win!’ echoed across the auditorium and was greeted with laughter.

The last contestant was indeed one of our girls. This girl had done reasonably well in the dance and catwalk rounds, by wearing a red Spanish dress that pushed out her breasts and unveiled her legs. It was good, but probably not good enough to compete with the models and the foreign nudists. But her reply for the question round did more than bridge that gap.

‘I wouldn’t go too far at all. Melbourne, Australia.’ (Boos. Hoots. Jeers.)

‘Hold on, hold on. Let me finish. 1992. The MCG. World Cup final. Australia vs Sri Lanka. And Sri Lanka … kicks … Australia’s … ASS!’

The applause and shrieks drowned out the DJ. It was slightly louder when Roshani Junkeer was given second runner-up and when Penny Something won first runner-up. And twice as loud when they announced the winner.

‘May we all be at the MCG when Sri Lanka beats Australia,’ said a slightly inebriated FLC. ‘The USLA New Year Queen is Miss Shirali Fernando from Perth!’

Charith was in disbelief. ‘Shirali was my friend. But she wasn’t the sexiest there. But guess what happened then. I couldn’t believe when I saw.’

‘She was on Pradeep’s lap with her crown and her sash,’ says Uvais Amalean. ‘A minute later they were smooching.’

‘What happened to Larry?’ Charith asked Roshani. Roshani shrugged and walked off in the direction of the Minister’s son.

‘Pradeep and I were both dropped after that tour,’ says Charith.

Shirali used her winning ticket to return to Sri Lanka, to work as an investment consultant at Sampath National Bank and to be with her new boyfriend. ‘I only helped that bugger get that bitch,’ says Innocent Emmanuel Kugarajah, the man you are yet to meet. ‘I am the one who put them together.’

Get together they did. And together they stayed. They were together three years later when, contrary to the 1989 USLA Queen’s predictions, both Sri Lanka and Australia were knocked out in the first round of the ‘92 World Cup. There was no Melbourne Cricket Ground final between these countries. The kicking of the ass would have to wait four more years.

*  *  *

Jack Iverson, the 1950s Aussie spinner, bent his middle finger as if he were flicking a leech off the ball. He held the ball with his elongated index and ring and flicked it at the batsman, the ball spinning in whichever direction his thumb pointed.

The GenCY, team manager during Sri Lanka’s ’87 World Cup campaign, shared a photograph of Iverson’s unusual grip with Pradeep. Mathew also began to bowl with a carrom-flicking motion.

While Jack Iverson is remembered as a genuine mystery bowler by the likes of Benaud and Bradman, the GenCY failed to tell young Mathew that despite a few 6-wicket hauls in his first few outings, Iverson was soon worked out by batsmen. His fragile temperament kept him out of test cricket and led to his suicide in 1973.

Mathew tried the carrom flick vs England, Pakistan and the West Indies, and while the trajectory was torpedo-like, the bounce low and the turn sharp, Mathew’s directional control was abysmal. Of the nine balls that made it to the pitch, all were adjudged wides.

He was warned by the umpire of turning the game into a farce after the mid-wicket ball against Pakistan. And was taken out of the attack against England by the team captain for using that ‘bloody carom bullshit’.

Ari’s office room and mine are roughly the same size. Mine is shaped like a D, his an imperfect square. Mine overlooks flowerpots and parapet walls, his looks over de Saram Road. Unlike his balcony, mine has no sea view. But every Sunday and poya holiday we get treated to a neighbourhood cricket match along our car-less street.

Sons of bloody bitches vs bastards from the seashore. I am sick of the taste of this thambili which I am supposed to sip. I cannot endure this saccharine spittle. Dear God. For the love of God. If you designed the liver, if you designed pain, I hate you. Are you the one who makes me shiver and sweat? This creature buried in my bowels. Is that you? I don’t know why I’m talking to you. You don’t even exist.

Breathe.

We watch through the grille as the youngest Marzooq boy bowls at pace to one of the boys from the beach. Our stretch of de Saram Road is wide and car-free; the Mount Lavinia Hotel traffic gets diverted at the S-bend.

‘That boy chucks. Street cricket is ruining his technique.’

‘What are you saying?’ pounces Ari. ‘Street cricket is our grassroots, it must be nurtured, treasured.’ He shouts through the window. ‘Well bowled, Tariq!’

He turns to me. ‘I have a theory. A hunch.’ Ari is not wearing the raincoat, but he is using the bulto voice.

‘About?’

‘Shirali Fernando, girlfriend of Mathew. She is either his wife or they have broken up. She is either here or abroad.’

‘Superb theory. She is either alive or dead?’

On the street the beach boy thwacks the ball over the bowler’s head. A catch is fumbled, a run-out attempted, a non-striker doubling as umpire shakes his head. There is shouting.

Ari continues stating the obvious. ‘She will hold the key to where Mathew is. Why he disappeared.’

‘This is your hunch?’

Ari has many theories and hunches about the way things are and how they should be. And 90 per cent of them are excrement.

Ari believes, for example, that if Mr BenevolentDictator had stayed alive, there would be no homeless people. I disagree.

‘I was in Gampaha in ’89,’ I say, frowning at the memory of young corpses swinging from burning tyres. ‘I don’t think he was very benevolent.’

‘But he achieved goals. People like winners, regardless of how evil they are. I bet even if a tyrant ended this damn war, we’d praise him as a hero.’

‘Our people will never sort this out. Maybe the Americans can help us get rid of the LTTE. If only we had oil here.’

‘Are you mad, Wije? Don’t talk like an utter buffoon.’

‘If the world has to have a class monitor, better America than Russia or China.’

‘You don’t know what crap you are talking. America are the worst devils. They have colonised our minds. Next they will colonise our stomachs. What if they colonise our sports?’

‘Ah?’

‘What if they take over everything and turn cricket into baseball, rugby into American football, replace hoppers with hamburgers?’

‘I think you are the man talking the crap.’

My theories are less crass and less alarmist. But I believe them to be true. It takes three generations for a curse to be lifted and for the sins of a nation to be erased. If we are the generation that soiled this country, the mess should be cleaned up and sins forgiven by the time Garfield’s children are voting age.

I believe the history of the world can be explained by climate. Year-round sunshine makes you want to sit under trees or dance in loincloths. Bitter winters make you want to invent heaters and guns and sail to warmer climes and scalp natives. The comfortable get docile, the uncomfortable get busy. Which is why, after centuries of European dominance, the pendulum has started to swing towards overpopulated Asia.

Ari strolls away from the window. His room is as dusty and overpopulated with junk as mine. But unlike mine, his is ordered into shelves, cabinets and stacks.

‘So what’s this hunch?’

‘My hunch is based on observation and deduction.’

‘Seduction? At your age?’ Best to match idiocy with silliness.

Ari flips out a school monitor’s textbook covered in brown paper. He flips the pages. ‘I know who Shirali Fernando is.’

‘Splendid. Shall we call her over for thambili?’

‘What we know about Shirali is she was plump and pretty. When did Charith say they broke up?’

Around ’94.’

‘Unmarried women tend to lose weight in their thirties. So let us drop the plump bit.’

He flips a few more pages. The Bogart accent has disappeared. ‘Harini Diyabalanage, friend and one-time confidante, mentioned migration to Australia. Possible marriage. Or that she was, I quote, “working for the Cricket Board”.’

‘I don’t remember her saying that.’

‘You were too busy flirting with her.’

‘You were letting her kids choo on your floor.’

Ari has the grace to smile. For a loudmouth, he has a grace that is enviable. His first wife Norma, mother of Rochelle, Michelle, Stephanie and Melissa, was killed by a wayward bus in 1978. He managed the family for three years, even missed the 1980 Royal–Thomian for the first time in five decades to take little Stephanie for an athletics meet in Kandana. The reason, Ari believes, why Thora didn’t win that year.

In ’81, he dealt with the fallout when he brought home holy Manouri, held the stable together amid fights and screaming matches, and became a father again at fifty-three. Great man, good friend, terrible detective.