Golden Afternoon

by M. M. Kaye

  ‘What a mess some of us make of our lives,’ said Bob. I remember pointing out rather tartly that, apart from the failure of his first marriage, he seemed to be doing all right! He agreed — and then startled me by asking what I’d say now, if he were to ask me the question that he would have asked years ago, if I hadn’t effectively stopped him by handing out that resounding smack in the face. Well, there was only one way to deal with that one, so I said soulfully: ‘Darling Bob! Don’t tempt me — here I am, with a foot in the thirties, and according to Mother firmly on the shelf. What do you suppose I’d say?’

  For a moment he looked so terrified that I burst out laughing, and presently he began to laugh too, and we sat there in the Mogul garden, shrieking our heads off. Because, of course, he hadn’t meant a word of it; he’d enjoyed half a dozen hectic affairs and one disastrous marriage since then, and had only been raking over dead coals for fun, in the firm conviction that there wasn’t a single spark left and that the answer would be a hasty: ‘Good heavens, no! Are you off your head?’ But reminded of my years and my spinster state, it had suddenly occurred to him that I might take up his offer in the spirit in which it had definitely not been meant, and then he really would be in the soup.

  As for me, it had not taken me long, after posting that snubbing letter, to realize that he was not going to reply to it, and that I had effectually put an end to my first adult love affair — or to decide that it couldn’t have been the real thing after all, because if it had been, surely I would have taken longer than a couple of weeks to get over it? I remember being rather ashamed of myself for not losing more sleep over the loss of Bob, and confiding in Bets that falling in love was a lot more complicated than one would think. How did one tell if it was the real thing or not? It was humiliating to discover that the thing I missed most during the weeks that followed the end of my first romance was the excitement of looking out for the postman and intercepting letters, and the writing and posting of replies in secret.

  Life was a lot more boring now that there was no undercover stuff of that sort, and thinking it over, I realized that if I had applied the du Maurier test I couldn’t possibly have said, ‘Make it three’ to Bob, and that in fact I had never paused to give that aspect of it a single thought. Odd. I decided that the next time I would remember to do so. If there was a next time, I remember wondering gloomily. It seemed unlikely, after the painful experience of the Residency Ball …

  Even now, after all these years, I cannot think of that occasion without cringing, and if it had been possible to have erased it from my memory I would have done so long ago and with alacrity. But alas! one’s memory (mine, anyway) decides for itself what it will retain or discard, and it has etched that hideous evening indelibly on the tablets of my mind.

  It must have been towards the end of April, because I remember that the trees in the gardens were wreathed in fairy-lights and the ground was dotted all over with little tables and sofas and chairs so that the hardier guests could sit out between dances — those who did needed a fur cape or a warm evening cloak. There was also a shamiama (marquee) somewhere or other in the grounds. The ball was, in effect, an opening shot that signalled the start of Kashmir’s social season, and everyone who had signed the Residency book was automatically invited. I don’t remember why Bets was not among them, and nor does she — (she thinks she must have been considered too young, or had a bad cold). But Mother and Tacklow and I attended: with disastrous results.

  I was new to Kashmir and its ‘regulars’ — the wives, families and girlfriends of men serving in India, who came up every year from all over the plains to escape the discomforts of the hot weather, and the influx of men on leave from the armed forces, the ICS or one of the big trading companies such as Burmah Shell, Ralli Brothers and Dunlop’s. And though I had attended a dance or two in Calcutta and several in Delhi, it had always been as one of a party that had dined together beforehand. Never once as a lone girl on my own, for my parents were no substitutes for partners. Tacklow, anyway, was a non-dancer. So I had no idea what I was in for until I arrived at the Residency, and found the hall and the ladies’ cloakroom and main staircase crowded with total strangers, all of whom seemed to be on Christian-name terms with each other. It was a daunting moment, and worse was to come.

  I had already met one or two girls of my own age during the past few weeks — the bank manager’s daughter, Meg Macnamara, the Jenn sisters, who were spending the summer in Kashmir, two ex-schoolfriends — Noreen Bott and Pat Mills — Leela Apcar and several others. But I could spot no face I knew among the chattering crowd of women in the cloakroom, where I left my imitation white mink cape (shaved rabbit) and was presented with a dance-programme before edging my way back to the equally crowded hall.

  Tacklow had been scooped in by Sir Evelyn Howell, the Resident, to play bridge, and I could see no sign of Mother, or anyone I knew, so I hung about, shifting uneasily from one foot to another and apologizing nervously whenever some hurrying fellow guest, burrowing through the crowd en route to the ballroom, happened to bump into me. Eventually, following the herd, I too found myself in the ballroom, where I spotted Mother foxtrotting gaily in the arms of our host, and looking as though she was having the time of her life.

  I did not, as yet, know any of the young men who attended that dance; and since all the older men were either playing bridge or dancing with their wives or the wives of their contemporaries, not a single name sullied the pristine surface of the little white and gold dance-programme that dangled from my wrist. However, there were still some vacant spaces on the window-seats and the sofas and chairs where the older women — mothers and non-dancing chaperones — could sit and gossip and watch the dancing; and, seeing an empty one next to an old family friend, Lady Maggie Skeen, I edged around the floor and sat down beside her, resigned to spending the rest of the evening wedged in among the dowagers. But it was not to be. Unfortunately, I was spotted by my hostess, who sailed across and demanded to know why I wasn’t dancing and where the rest of my party were. She looked horrified when I said I didn’t know anyone and hadn’t come with a party — only my father and mother — and, clasping my arm, said comfortingly: ‘Oh, you poor child! Well, we must introduce you at once to some nice young men! Now let me see —’

  The next ten to fifteen minutes were among the most shame-making in my life. I stood there, unable to leave because of that grip on my arm, while my well-meaning hostess used her free hand to grab every young man within reach and, having demanded his name if she didn’t happen to know it already, introduce him to me. And one after another each one of these hapless youths mumbled a polite acknowledgement, added hastily that they were so sorry that they couldn’t ask me for a dance but unfortunately their programmes were already full, and backed away, melting thankfully into the crowd. Not one of them was free to ask me for a dance, not even if they had wanted to! Well, what does a girl say in answer to that? I thought of so many things afterwards, but none occurred to me at the time, for my brain seemed to stop functioning. Why, I thought next day, hadn’t I sweetly said to those young men who claimed their programmes were full, ‘Oh, really? So’s mine! What a pity — well, some other day perhaps.’ Or made a joke of it and said something like ‘Lucky you!’ But all that was later. At the time I was too paralysed with shame and embarrassment to do anything but stand there with a sickly smile glued to my face, feeling like some unattractive slave on the block as a series of unwilling bidders, hauled relentlessly forward by Lady Howell, parroted the same phrases before backing thankfully away to join one of their girlfriends on the floor.

  I do not know how long that purgatory went on for. Probably not more than fifteen minutes at most, but to me it seemed like hours, and I remember literally praying God to let something — anything! — happen that would put a stop to this ghastly party; for a bad storm to blow up so that everyone who lived on a houseboat would have to rush back in case it got too rough on the lake for the shikarras* to paddle them home; or for a
bolt of lightning to strike the Residency and set it on fire, so that we’d all have to leave; or for me to trip over my feet and break an ankle (or even a leg if necessary). Anything that would let me get back to my own bed, pull the blankets over my head and hide from the whole lot of them.

  But God was obviously not prepared to bother His head over such matters that night. When one thinks of what He has to deal with, what with wars, rebellion, persecution and natural disasters cropping up all over the globe like measles every day, it surprises me that any prayers concerned with such very trivial and derisory matters — even such really frantic pleas as mine were that night — ever get answered at all. The truly astonishing thing is how many of them actually do.

  They didn’t that night. At long last my harassed hostess gave up the unequal struggle. The band started up again, immediately the floor was invaded by dancers, and, releasing my arm, she took a last hunted look around the fringes of the packed ballroom and, seeing no unattached male that she could unload me on to, shouted a few kind words above the music to the effect that she was sure that I’d soon find some partners, and left me to it.

  By now someone else had taken the chair next to Lady Maggie, and I could see no other vacant ones in the ballroom (which on a normal occasion was the dining-room), so I slid back into the hall and made a tour of the public rooms — walking briskly as though I was on some errand, in case anyone should guess that I had no one to dance with or talk to, and was hoping that someone would call out to me and ask me over to join their party. No one did, and I came back, with one of those awful, artificially carefree smiles fixed to my face. Finding that those couples who were not dancing were sitting in pairs, holding hands on the staircase, I beat a hasty retreat to the cloakroom, where I lurked for as long as I dared, under the sympathetic and far too knowing gaze of the ayah, who obviously did not believe a word of my headache story, and kept on patting my shoulder and telling me that it would pass — it would pass. She couldn’t have been kinder if she had been my own Punj-ayah, who had said the same thing to me so often in my childhood, and I would have given a good deal to have been able to weep on her comfortable shoulder, as I used to weep on Punj-ayah’s when things went wrong. But I did not dare to do so, because there were constant interruptions from other women guests, and for fear of smearing my newly acquired mascara all over my face.

  I have heard very young men complaining of the horrors of turning up at dances where everyone else appeared to know each other and they knew no one. But no male, of whatever age, can begin to understand the true horror of being a wallflower — particularly at a dance in the days when there were dance-programmes and it would have been social death to dance with another woman or go on to the floor and jig about by oneself. Any man, however young, has only himself to blame if he won’t ask a girl to dance merely because he doesn’t know her and she doesn’t appear to have a partner. But in my day no girl could go up to a boy and ask him to dance with her. She had to sit there and wait until some Lord of Creation condescended to come and ask her to dance with him. A partnerless male could always stand with his hands in his pockets, looking on at the dancers, and it would not occur to anyone to think, ‘Poor chap — he can’t get anyone to dance with him!’ On the contrary (if anyone thought about it at all), they would think he was hard to please, or was merely assessing the local talent to see if there was anyone there who looked worth getting to know. And in the last resort, the single male could always prop up the bar, without making any attempt to earn his keep as a guest, or attracting the least attention by doing so.

  But a partnerless girl in the same situation had no escape. She must sit, silent and upright among the dowagers and chaperones, pretending an interest in the couples gyrating past her on the dance floor, or retire at intervals to the ladies’ cloakroom where one could waste a certain amount of time pretending to repair one’s make-up or inventing a headache. I must have taken refuge in the cloakroom at least three or four times that night, and eventually, driven out by the embarrassment of being found lurking there yet again by an acquaintance who remembered seeing me there half an hour earlier, and exclaimed, ‘Hallo, you still here? Aren’t you feeling well? Oh, bad luck. Ask the ayah to get you some aspirin — Gosh, there’s the next dance starting, I must rush …’, I went out by a back door into the garden. Here, finding that one of the groups of chairs under the chenar trees on the front lawn was unoccupied, I huddled down in one and sat there in the moonlight, invisible in the speckled shadows of the chenar leaves, and wishing I was dead.

  The dances at Tollygunj and the Saturday Club, and all the picnics and parties in Calcutta, had done wonders for my self-esteem; and so had Bob Targett’s attentions in Delhi. But the experience of finding myself a wallflower and a social flop at my very first dance in Srinagar destroyed my newly acquired and still very fragile confidence in about fifteen minutes. I felt like a hermit crab who, having successfully crawled out of his original shell, can’t find another one in which to hide his extremely vulnerable self.

  For a time I huddled in my chair in the garden, listening to the music and laughter and the chattering voices, and soaking in self-pity. But eventually the cold drove me indoors, and once again I took refuge in the ladies’ cloakroom. I was there, pretending to powder my nose or touch up my lipstick, when the heavenly intervention I had been praying for arrived in the unlikely person of Mrs Wakefield, who came in to collect her evening cloak, explaining that her husband had to be getting home as they were due to make an early start for somewhere or other next morning. I grabbed at this lifebelt with feverish gratitude (knowing that her car would have to pass the gate of our house in order to get back to her own) and implored her to give me a lift home and drop me at our gates because I had a cracking headache — which by then was only too true — but did not want to drag my parents away, for Tacklow was pinned down in a bridge four, and Mother was enjoying herself.

  Mrs Wakefield said yes, of course she would, and as Mother was dancing with one of her old flames I scribbled a hasty note which I asked the abdar (butler) to deliver, saying that the Wakefields were taking me home, and left with enormous relief, vowing that I would never allow myself to be trapped into a similar position again. Never, never, never. Even if it meant never attending another dance. Back once more in my bedroom I burst into tears and wept my way into bed, convinced that I had reached life’s lowest ebb and that nothing that could happen to me in the future could be as bad as this. In which I was speedily proved wrong. For I was still awake and snivelling when shortly after midnight my parents returned. I had purposely left my light on so that they would know that I was awake and in dire need of sympathy and encouragement. I was so sorry for myself that I was sure that they would be even more sorry, and I confidently expected Mother to come running upstairs to inquire after the headache that had been my excuse for cadging a lift home from the Wakefields. I couldn’t wait to pour out my woes and weep on her sympathetic shoulder, and be petted and hugged and comforted, and assured that I would never have to endure such an ordeal again.

  Well, I was wrong. The worst part of that nightmare evening was to come, since far from being sympathetic, Mother was furious, and I found myself being given the talking-to of a lifetime. Worse still, Tacklow agreed with every word of it. I had behaved like a spoilt brat, shown no gratitude for my hostess’s kind efforts to find partners for me — she had done her best to do so, and it wasn’t her fault that we had arrived late and found all the available young men already booked for every dance. I had given her no help, but thrown up the sponge at once and spent the next couple of hours hiding in the cloakroom or the garden, instead of behaving sensibly and talking to the several people I did know — no, of course not the young ones, if they were on the dance floor. But there were plenty of older people whom I knew besides Lady Maggie and the Wakefields, and I could easily have sat down with them and made myself pleasant; and then perhaps one of the older men would have asked me to dance. I couldn’t expect to go to a
party of this type and spend the whole evening within my own age group, and it had been cowardly and silly, and very rude to my kind host and hostess, to cut and run in this childish fashion. The tirade ended with Mother snapping off the light and slamming the door shut behind her. Leaving me to pick up the pieces in the dark.

  I remember sitting there, stunned and shivering, with shock more than cold, though the fire in the archaic wood-burning stove in my bedroom had burned out long ago. It had never occurred to me that my parents could possibly see the whole horrible affair from any side but mine. Or even that there could be another side! I felt as though the bottom had fallen out of my world.

  Neither Bets nor I can remember where she was that night. We don’t think she can have been in the house, for surely I should have gone straight in to tell her the whole sad story as soon as I arrived back, and I know I didn’t. She could have been asleep and I might have decided against waking her. But I don’t remember Mother exactly lowering her voice during that distressing telling off. All I do know is that I didn’t tell Bets anything that night, but that she got the whole sad story next morning and gave me the hundred per cent support and sympathy that I had signally failed to get from my parents.