The Legend of Pradeep Mathew (41 page)

How many matches?

After ’92, all of them. Not that he didn’t let me down.

He let you down?

I would lose money and threaten to break his fingers.

Did you?

Mad? We are not barbarians like the Indians. There they threaten the players’ children. He was my thambi. Like a little brother. If he had stayed I would’ve got him into the World Cup squad. He would have been a superstar. I still can. He’s only thirty-four.

Now with Murali, no chance.

Anything is possible. How do you think Murali is still playing?

You haven’t seen Mathew since you were … since you moved here?

I called after the father died. Said he didn’t need my money. I told him Tamils should stick together. He didn’t care.

The papers say you are dead.

That’s how you gain residence in Chelvanayagam Road.

That’s what this street is called? Don’t make me laugh.

This house is named Janathamangalam. Number 56/19. The great man himself stayed here.

So this is a jail?

Oh no. Jails are places where they don’t let you watch cricket.

Really?

Unless you have contacts. I watched every match of the 1995 New Zealand tour from the Welikada Prison, but I’m special. Pradeepan didn’t play a single game.

That friend I told you about …

The foreigner?

Yes. Could you do one other small thing for him?

It is the last I would see of Kuga or Emmanuel or Rajah or whoever he has decided to be. Ari, worried sick about Jonny, is too preoccupied to accuse me of making things up when I report the conversation with Kuga.

I call up my old journo acquaintances looking for reassurance. Rajpal Senanayake of the
Times
has never heard of Kuga, neither has Sonali Sirimanne, the
Leader
writer who exposed former President Mr Benevolent Dictator’s dealings with underworld thug Soththi Upali. Rajeeve Ayub of
Virakesari
remembers a man called Emmanuel who ran casinos in Mutwal. Only Dalton Athas, a young war reporter, remembers the name I.E. Kugarajah from a list of Colombo-based LTTE collaborators.

I reopen the letter I am to deliver to the phantom I am chasing. It is a computer printout in the style of Kuga’s other notes and made about as much sense.

Danila calls up, skips small talk and asks why we were kicked out of the funeral. ‘Are you working for Kugarajah?’

‘We’re not.’

There is hesitation.

‘One day, ’92 or ’93, I think. Pradeep wanted me to pick him up from hospital. He had a broken finger and a black eye. It wasn’t a cricket injury.’

‘That’s when he was out for an entire season?’

‘He wouldn’t tell me how he got it.’

‘So?’

‘He stayed in bed for weeks. Complained of headaches. In his sleep he would say this name.’

I notice Ari coming down my driveway huffing with intent. ‘Danila, can I call you back?’

‘When I asked him he said Kuga was the reason he wanted to leave Sri Lankan cricket.’

‘Why?’

‘Be careful, Uncle. These are dangerous people.’

She cuts the line right when Ari enters my room panting.

‘Let’s go. Jonny’s being moved.’

The Aussies claim ownership of the flipper, invented by Clarrie Grimmet in the 1930s. Ari and I do not dispute this. Grimmet snapped his fingers along the ball’s axis and made it skid off the pitch, keep low and, more often than not, connect with the wicket.

Mathew upped the ante by developing a ball that skidded and changed direction. He used it against tailenders in the 1989 Australia series and picked up 3 wickets. Walking back after a skidding googly toppled his bails, pace bowler Merv Rackemann spat in the direction of the bowler, ‘You been sticking your dick into the seam, mate?’

Mathew dismissed Rackemann, Alderman and Lawson with googly flippers in Melbourne in 1989. Ari believes it is probable that somewhere in the grounds Shane Warne witnessed this feat and spent the next few years attempting to emulate it. That therefore it is correct to say that Pradeep Mathew indirectly revived the flipper.

I reply that if three tailenders fall in the outback and there is no one to hear them, then no sound is made. And to attempt to convince an audience ten years later that such a sound existed is an exercise in foolishness.

The drive to the Hokandara Remand Camp in Ari’s Capri takes over three hours. We get lost several times. After Kadawatha, the roads pass through paddy fields and bewildering wilderness. The road itself is cruel, inflicting torture on the Capri’s creaking chassis. After three weeks in Welikada Maximum Security, Jonny has been moved to this prison camp reserved for the aged, the infirm and the white collar. I wonder how kind they are to the white skin.

We listen to the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, SLBC, and do not speak. It is the only station the Capri will pick up and Ari prefers it that way. This afternoon, a middle-aged lady is talking about Duke Ellington’s visit to Colombo. As we enter through a barbed wire fence, a rare bootleg of the Duke’s performance at the Galle Face Hotel crackles through Ari’s tiny speaker.

The place looks like a rundown retirement home. It is not an unpleasant place, but it is eerie. The gravel that crunches under our tyres is brick coloured and stretches through checkpoints towards the open camp. A red dryness hangs in the air we breathe. The mini-fan clipped to the top of the rearview mirror is powerless to prevent our shirts from sticking to our backs.

Policemen walk dogs along the barbed wire while stray cats pick at abandoned rubbish bags outside. We have to show our identity cards to four different policemen with clipboards before we are allowed to park. Prisoners wear white shirts and shorts, and are herded from one asbestos building to another. It looks like a village school, but is as noisy as several construction sites. Beyond the vegetable fields, we see an empty quarry.

A guard with a rifle leads us into a visitors’ hall. The room is empty except for a long wooden table and an assortment of metal chairs. Here we sit and wait.

He wears a white shirt and white shorts and limps in on crutches. He has strawberry patches on his arms and has lost a visible amount of weight. He coughs as he is seated at the other end of the table. There are no handcuffs to remove.

‘Can I have a cigarette?’ His voice is coloured by the phlegm in his throat; his face is colourless.

‘Are you OK, Jonny?’ asks Ari.

‘Welikada was worse than Bangkok. But this place looks all right.’

‘What happened?’ I ask, pointing at the crutches.

Jonny looks away. ‘Six to a cell. You know how much I love company. They put me with the drug addicts, not with the psychos, thank God. One of them tried it. Told him he wasn’t my type. He wouldn’t listen. I broke his nose. He broke my hip. I heal easily though.’

Two guards gaze out at the permanent summer sky; the one with the gun watches me.

‘This is a bizarre place. They’ve got everything. They make things out of coconuts over that way; here they’re making soaps, over there leather goods. They’ve got welding, masonry, carpentry. Pity they don’t get me to work.’

‘How come?’

‘I shouldn’t be here. This is a place for good behaviour prisoners. I haven’t even been sentenced.’

‘How’s the case?’

‘The work I have to do is sit in the TV room and look after the TV.’

We both laugh. ‘Perfect job for you.’

‘Thought my lawyer pulled some strings, but he’s a useless fucking twat. It’s a strange TV. Got this laser disc player.’

I silently thank Kuga, wherever he may be.

‘Laser disc?’ asks Ari.

‘Laser disc, my friend. State-of-the-art model. Doesn’t have cable though.’

He talks about Newcastle United and how they’ve sacked coach Kenny Dalglish and replaced him with Dutch hero Ruud Gullit.

‘Last season we were thirteenth. Two seasons ago we come second and now this. Bloody Scotsmen can never coach Geordies.’

‘And Dutchmen can?’

‘Let’s see. New season.
Tabula rasa.’

He asks me how the writing and the not-drinking is going. I tell him I may have stumbled on the most amazing cricket story ever not told. Ari tells him about the midget’s spools, I keep the Kuga story to myself. Jonny smiles and chain-smokes.

‘Basically, if the High Commission pulls out, I’m screwed. I could get twenty years.’

‘Will the High Commission pull out?’

He tells us he spent six weeks in Thailand before the High Commission lifted a finger. It has now been three months.

‘That time it was possession of marijuana. They treated it as a misdemeanour. This time …’

He begins shivering, his mouth inverts like a stroke victim’s, and he breaks into a sob. The guards look away, the man with the gun keeps his eyes on me. ‘Ten more minutes,’ he says.

‘Ari. Adolf and Eva’s last meal. We discussed this.’

‘Jonny, are you mad? We’ll win the case.’

‘I can’t wait that long. You said you knew how to get it.’

‘You can live here. This isn’t a bad place.’

‘They could send me to Welikada and throw away the key. I’m too old for this crap.’

Ari shakes his head. Jonny wipes his eyes and straightens up.

‘I didn’t do what they said I did. You know that.’

‘We know,’ I say.

‘You don’t. But I’m telling you. I didn’t.’

‘We know. We know,’ I say, somewhat helplessly.

‘The locals don’t like suddhas building palaces in this paradise.’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘I admit. There are bad foreigners. Who sleep with children. Who give visas for sexual favours. Who bring guns and drugs here. But that’s not me. Well … maybe the drugs.’

We both laugh, it is better than crying.

‘I was helping the country. That’s why I built my homes. This land is beautiful, but you fuckers will destroy it.’

We remain silent.

‘When I clashed with the hunters in Udawalawe, the police advised me to leave the area. Me! Not them. Everywhere you go in this country, there are hunters. Can’t believe I lasted here this long.’

‘We will prove you’re innocent.’

‘Ari, mate. I sleep with boys. And sodomy is a crime here, so if they want to get me, they can.’

‘They’re not going to get you,’ I say, not looking at Ari.

‘I don’t do fourteen-year-olds. Whoever says so is a liar.’

‘So we’ll fight it.’

‘What are you going to do? Write to the papers?’ Jonny sneers. ‘You may think this place is fine, but I’m not spending another month here.’

I pull a paper out of my pocket. ‘Here. I brought you a present.’

For the first time that afternoon Jonny laughs his raucous, head-thrown-back laugh. It is glorious to see. He hands the paper to Ari, who joins in the chuckles.

‘Saqlain Mushtaq Mohammad Asif Iqbal Sikander Bakht. That’s seven. I believe we have a new champion,’ I say.

‘I feel like Gary Sobers after Lara got 375,’ says drama queen Ari, the former Seamless Paki champ.

The guard grabs the paper and inspects it. ‘Visit over,’ he says.

‘There’s one fucker around here that I will kill,’ says Jonny through gritted teeth. He pushes the guard, who raises his baton. Ari uses his schoolmaster voice and calms proceedings. ‘Putha, put that away. Let us say goodbye to our friend.’

We are too far down the table to even shake his hand.

‘We will get you out of here, Jonny,’ says Ari.

‘Chin up, Jonny. You need to be fit for when Shearer and sexy football win Toon the league.’

He laughs and nods and pushes an envelope across the table. ‘I don’t trust these cunts. Will you post this for me? It’s for me Mam.’

‘What about brothers or sisters?’ asks Ari.

The guards put on the cuffs and lead him away.

‘They can all get fucked,’ he shouts. ‘Ari. Adolf and Eva. You promised.’

We drive back without speaking. Then we get stuck in traffic in Kiribathgoda.

‘You know Newcastle is fifteenth in the league,’ I say. ‘They might even get relegated.’

‘You been following them?’

‘Ever since he got arrested.’

‘Me too.’

‘What’s Adolf and Eva?’

‘You know. You were there.’

‘Was I drunk?’

‘Probably.’

‘I can’t remember.’

Ari puts on the radio and curses the traffic.

‘It’s what the LTTE wear around their necks. And I’m not getting it for him.’

The drunken conversation returns to me. Something about agreeing to euthanise each other if the case ever arose. But I don’t remember cyanide ever being discussed.

‘This is breaking news. Yesterday’s bomb blast in Fort Station is now officially Sri Lanka’s worst terrorist attack since the 1995 Central Bank bombing.’

I try to turn up the radio and the knob comes off in my hand.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ shouts Ari, who grabs it from me and replaces it. The volume jumps several hundred decibels.