But there was something else that was keeping me back—roots, the deep roots that stretched and snaked their way through the corridors and classrooms, through the acres beside the river. Behind the classrooms there is a wilderness that I love to gaze on. Tall old jak and breadfruit trees. Swarms of hornets had once clung to some of those inaccessible branches. Undisturbed they had clung and made their dark, thick honey in the great brown honeycombs, the close mesh of their cells thick with swarms. The roots of those great trees were buried deep in thick grass among the wild cannas and the disused, abandoned wells, their water gold-green and glittery with sun and scum …. But then suddenly the swarms had disappeared, no one knows where; though the wilderness was left undisturbed, the reptiles coiling within the maze of tall thumbasas.

No, I couldn’t remain in that milieu any longer. The trees of the flamboyant are bare of flowers, the wind blows, the rain falls, the leaves grow dark and dense. In the Clock Tower there are piles of old registers, birth certificates, group photographs, messages from Popes, addresses to principals, old record books with instructions for disciplinary action, all gathering dust in a corner. Crumbling fossils. I must get out before it is too late.

In one of the shops, my friend, who is the proprietress, comes up to me. ‘I have just what you like. Aren’t you going to buy something today? My sarees cost a little more because I go specially to Colombo to choose them. Have you found anything you like?’

‘Yes, there’s something … this red and black. It’s beautiful. But if I buy it what will we eat for the rest of the month?’ I turn away. ‘I’ll look for something on the pavement, in one of those little shops.’

My daughter and I walk past the grocery shops with their sacks of rice, chillies, onions, past the hotels, the booksellers, the antique shops. We rush shoulder to shoulder along the pedestrian crossing and onto the pavement jungle. There is a babble of voices, all calling their wares. The pavement shops overflow with yards and yards of Japanese polyesters, Swiss voiles, ponjees, shirtings, trouser lengths. People walk and talk and stop to buy. The pavements are too narrow to hold the crowds.