Golden Afternoon

by M. M. Kaye

  The landslip had swept away the outer half of the road, and with it the containing wall at its edge, and gangs of coolies were cutting back the fallen earth to try to clear a narrow track from what remained. Mother stopped the car, got out, and went forward to study the ground. Myself, I would have said it was impossible. Or at best, not worth the risk, for apart from the fact that liquid mud was still pouring steadily across that alarmingly narrow track, it was barely wide enough to take the car, and if it should skid even slightly, it would fall down that hideous drop below and into the river. But Mother thought she could do it. And she did. She made us all get out, Angie included, and went over alone, in bottom gear, with Kadera and several of the coolies holding on to any outstanding bits at the back of the car, in the faint hope of preventing it skidding off the road. Since there couldn’t have been more than three inches to spare between the wheels and the edge of that drop, I don’t know what good this could have done.

  Only when she had got safely across, and we could breathe again, did it occur to any of us that there was a price to pay for pulling off this scarifying achievement: we couldn’t go back. However bad the condition of the road ahead, we would have to go on, for apart from the near impossibility of turning round, it would mean having to repeat that bit of tightrope-walking in reverse! ‘And if I’d thought of that before,’ said Mother, ‘I would never have done it — not for all the tea in China!’ Yet, having pulled it off, there was nothing for it but to press on, which entailed repeating the same feat several more times. That was by no means the only or the worst bit, merely the first really bad bit.

  The next worst was when Mother was again taking the car at a snail-slow crawl across another 100-yard wide smear of fallen mountainside (though this time, thankfully, not with a fifty-foot drop on one side of it) when a look-out far up the hillside above us yelled a warning of falling rock, and the coolies scattered like rabbits in every direction as a rock the size of a minibus came bounding down the mountain, hitting the ground at intervals as it came. Fortunately it didn’t hit anyone, and missed the car by a large margin, which was just as well since Mother hadn’t heard the yells — she could never have got out in time anyway.

  There is no doubt at all that we should have listened those well-meaning people who had warned us to stay put until the situation improved a bit, and we paid for it by scaring ourselves silly. Still, we actually made it as far as Chinari, where the Dâk-bungalow managed to fit us in even though it was already full of travellers en route for the plains, who had also been held up by landslides and were not particularly cheered by Mother’s description of the hazards awaiting them. I didn’t envy them!

  The road gangs had done wonders with the landslides beyond Chinari, and the next day, despite a few hold-ups, we were free by midday of those terrifying gorges and the unceasing thunder of the river, and driving once more on a flat, straight road through the long avenue of Lombardy poplars that leads to Srinagar. Peace — it was wonderful! Yet even here every ditch had become a pond and every pond a lake, while the Jhelum in spate was no longer the smooth and gently flowing stream that Mother had painted so often, but running fast and frighteningly high, streaked and dimpled with whirlpools that spoke of the hidden currents below, and dark from the earth and vegetation that it had torn from its once high banks as it swirled past on its way to Rampur and the gorges.

  That year friends of my parents, the Moons, who had a house on the outskirts of Srinagar, roughly half a mile up-stream of the club and on the banks of the Jhelum, had allowed us to moor our houseboat alongside the bund at the end of their garden. We couldn’t have been more grateful for it not only meant that we were within walking distance of the Church and the shops, the Post Office and Club and Nedou’s Hotel, and most of the other places we were likely to visit, but it was an ideal spot for Angie. At the foot of the bund, and just above the grassy strip of land that bordered the river, stood a large tree whose branches overhung the ghat and shaded the front of our houseboat, underneath which we were going to set up Angle’s house.

  Well, we eventually did so. But not that day, for the river had risen so high that it couldn’t have been more than a foot or two below the top of the bund on which, at first sight, our houseboat appeared to be sitting, embowered among the branches of a tree that should by rights have cleared it by any number of yards. In the circumstances, I suppose this was something that we should have foreseen. After all, we were only too well aware that the monsoon had been throwing its weight around this year, and that the Jhelum was in spate — and still capable of rising. But somehow we hadn’t; and the sight of the currents swirling through the boughs of that tree, and of our two boats, houseboat and cookboat, about to be swept on to and over the bund and dumped upside down into the Moons’ garden (because that was what it looked like) was no ordinary shock. For two pins I believe we would have sat down where we stood and collapsed into tears. It had been a nerve-racking day.

  Our retinue, however, were made of sterner stuff: while Mother, Bets and I were staring in horror at our floating home, the manji and his friend were busy greeting Kadera and Mahdoo with the maximum of noise and enthusiasm, and before we knew where we were we were hustled on board where tea, hot toast and pakoras, plus a banana for Angie, appeared like magic. Mother, with visions of the boat breaking loose and being swept away down-stream during the night, would have bolted for Nedou’s Hotel and holed up there until the river returned to normal. But she was shouted down by Kadera and the manji. The manji insisted that the worst was past, for the Weather Office had already reported a dramatic fall in the flood level, while Kadera remarked severely that if the manji and his family were prepared to spend another night on the river, the Lady-Sahib could be certain that it was perfectly safe to do so, and there was no need for her to start panicking. Needless to say, we stayed; and on waking next morning found our boat and the river a good deal lower than it had been the previous evening. Within a day or two you wouldn’t have known that there had ever been anything wrong. Floods? — What floods?

  As though in apology for its hostile shenanigans, Kashmir gave us another wonderful season. The sun shone, the lakes were strewn with lotuses and water-lilies, the Dāl had never looked more beautiful and, judging from the snapshots that survive, the Misses Kaye appear to have spent a good deal of time showing off — dancing, singing and acting in cabarets in aid of flood relief charities. (Bets did most of the dancing, while I did a bit of the rest.) In between rehearsing for these fund-raising entertainments we spent several wonderful weekends with Bruce and Edna Bakewell in their bungalow in the Lolab Valley.

  We painted a lot — all three of us. Mother sketched, while Bets and I painted ‘pictures’. Mine to illustrate verses or bits of prose that interested me: Rapunzel, for instance, Wynken, Blynken and Nod in their wooden shoe fishing for stars in the Milky Way, the Forsaken Merman, and Laurence Hope’s Kashmiri Love Songs — ‘Song of the Bride’, ‘Kingfisher Blue’, ‘Pale Hands I Loved Beside the Shalimar’, and all those. Believe it or not, they sold very well. So well, in fact, that of all of the scores of illustrations I did in those days and entered for local art exhibitions, only two remain in my possession. And that was only because the Illustrated Times of India Weekly paid for the reproduction rights, after which they returned the originals to me and I kept three of them. One because I liked it, another, ‘Ashoo at her Lattice’, because I didn’t (it was not a good bit of work and I tore it up), and the third because, like the first, my model for Ashoo had been the wife of the manji of our first houseboat. She was the most beautiful creature — like a Greek goddess.

  Bets started by painting dancers and moved on to pencil portraits; she was very good at getting a likeness in pencil but not so good in colour. Eventually, since I could get the colour but not the likeness, we combined: Bets would draw the sitter, and I would colour the drawing. It worked rather well, and was a great help to our finances. Mother’s sketches continued to outsell the two of us, though. Later, Bets to
o took to sketching, and became very good at it; and later still, after a few lessons from Hal Bevan-Pitman, she took to doing pastel portraits. These were — and still are — an enormous success, and they still keep her busy. She must have done hundreds of them by now, and is always meeting elderly people who say, ‘You did my Mother/Father’s portrait back in the thirties — mine too, when I was about five — I’ve still got them.’

  We both took a hand in designing the costumes for the cabaret shows, and one in particular was a triumph. Bets was to do a solo dance as a butterfly, and we designed, painted and constructed a pair of wings from mosquito-netting and wire, fastened to her back so that she could open and close them. We also made a large mushroom — a most lifelike one too, though I say it myself — large enough for her to lie on, so that when the curtain went up she was discovered lying asleep on it, with closed wings. That dance was the hit number of the show.

  I occasionally appeared in a chorus item, but left the solo dancing strictly to people like Bets, who were really good at it. But I did quite a bit of singing, generally as a twosome with some personable tenor or baritone, or supported by a chorus. The item I remember best was one in which, partnered by a dashing young cavalry officer, one ‘Bingle’ Ingle, we appeared on a darkened stage, sitting on a park bench in a pool of light thrown by a street lamp, and sang a song by de Silva, Brown and Henderson, entitled ‘A Bench in the Park’. It went down well, and was to be encored in strange circumstances many years later, when, having unexpectedly hit the jackpot with a best-seller, I found myself one bright and sunny morning signing copies of The Far Pavilions in the book department of one of the largest stores in San Francisco. This junket must have been well advertised by my publishers, since every section of the available space appeared to be packed with book-lovers queuing up to part with what seemed to me an astonishingly large number of dollars in exchange for a book that weighed about the same as an overnight bag and which they didn’t know if they would like. Among those trusting buyers, who should suddenly pop up out of the past but Bingle!

  It seems that he had read a bit of the advance publicity in the local papers and, putting two and two together, realized that this M. M. Kaye must be the Mollie Kaye of his earliest appearances behind the footlights (the War being over, he had married and settled in America, where he had become a professional actor and singer). We greeted each other with considerable enthusiasm and, carried away on a wave of nostalgia, sang a reminiscent bar or two of ‘A Bench in the Park’, which went down well with the public. In fact the staff in charge of the book section assured me afterwards that it helped to increase the sales of the Pavilions considerably. However, to return to India and the long-ago thirties …

  Chapter 31

  Ever since I started writing down the story of my life, I have been uneasily aware that one day I would have to come to this part. It has, so to speak, been lurking in the wings: an ominous patch of shadow cast by something just out of range of the corner of one’s eye, felt rather than seen. I also have an uneasy suspicion that I have written too much about the years up to date, merely in order to put off the evil day when I must write about the happenings of this particular time.

  If I could ignore the whole episode and leave it out of this book, I would. But it explains so much of what came later, and without it, my darling Tacklow’s subsequent behaviour would seem inexplicable. I am also happy to say that now I have come to it, I can’t dwell on it at any length even if I wanted to, because at the time I didn’t know what was going on. Tacklow never discussed it with me, and though I hate to admit it, I was far too busy enjoying life to realize that something was worrying him. Mother knew, but she too was having fun, and didn’t really give him as much support as he needed, I’m afraid. In fact we both let him down.

  It was, of course, that fatal visit to Ajmer.

  Tacklow’s immediate boss was Major Barton, the Assistant AGG Rajputana, who took his orders from the AGG,* a Colonel Someone, whose name I can’t even remember. We had all rather liked the Major. He and his wife had stayed with us in Tonk on several occasions, and we had stayed with them at their headquarters at Deoli. We were, or so we thought, friends. But apparently the Major had objected strongly to having a subordinate who was not only his senior in army rank, but had been knighted. He seems to have cherished a suspicion that in the Neutral Territory of Ajmer, Tacklow (though his junior in the hierarchy of the ‘F and P’ and the princely states of Rajputana) might be seen to outrank him. Which is why he had done his best to put us all off attending the Viceregal festivities at Ajmer. Unfortunately, that had failed and he had found his worst fears realized.

  If only he’d told Tacklow the real reason why he did not want Sir Cecil and Lady Kaye to go to Ajmer, Tacklow would have seen the point at once. And the sense, too! But the Major was not a big enough man to do that and, alas, my father was far too unworldly a one to think of it himself. He didn’t care a fig where he sat at table — above or below the salt! — and nor did his friends. Or Mother either. My parents were both of them genuinely untainted by the tediously snobbish rules of precedence, and couldn’t have cared less who went in to dinner with whom. (Tacklow, no party man, would in any case have been wishing to goodness that he was elsewhere, either poring over his beloved stamps* or comfortably in bed with the Times crossword puzzle.) As for Mother, as I have already said, she adored parties — any party was fun to her, and she never failed to enjoy one. Neither of them would ever have suspected that precedence was the Major’s Achilles heel, or that the fact that he and his wife had been publicly ‘outranked’ by someone technically subordinate to him, was gall and wormwood.

  We were slightly surprised that he never came near us during the following months, even though we heard that he had actually passed through Tonk and had spoken to Saadat and one or two members of Council. We had merely supposed that he was in too much of a hurry. I can’t remember who it was who first told me that Barton-Sahib had his knife into Tacklow, and why. At a guess, it was the Tikka-Sahib — a cheerful young man who delighted in gossip, always knew everything, and was a frequent visitor to Tonk. It could even have been one of the Begums, because this being India, almost everyone in Tonk apparently knew about it; and thought it was funny! Everyone, that is, except my parents, who until the balloon went up remained in happy ignorance.

  Unfortunately, I can’t give a detailed account of the various events that led up to what Mother called the ‘Tonk Affair’, although about a year after Tacklow’s death she gave me a bulky sealed package that contained, so she said, all the relevant documents concerning it that Tacklow had kept. These included his own account of everything that had been said or done as well as the letters he had written to her at that time — which alone accounted for almost a quarter of the whole, since throughout their married life, whenever they were apart Tacklow would write to her every day. There were also copies of a couple of letters that Mother had written (most ill-advisedly) to Saadat. Everything was there down to the last detail, insisted Mother in floods of tears, and she was giving it to me so that one day I could write it all down, ‘so that everyone would know the truth’.

  Well, perhaps she did possess a touch of the second sight after all, for at the time that she thrust that bursting file into my reluctant hands, I had no more intention of becoming a writer than I had of swimming the Atlantic. I was going to be an illustrator of children’s books, another Arthur Rackham or Edmund Dulac. Never, never a writer! I took that file because I couldn’t possibly have refused it, not with Mother dripping tears all over it, and behaving as though she was landing me with some kind of sacred trust. But as just then life was being pretty sticky for me without this as well, I locked it away in a suitcase and forgot all about it for the best part of another year. And when I did get round to it, it made me so bloody* angry (it still does!) that if I’d been in India at that time instead of a bed-sit in London I really think I would have hitch-hiked to Tonk to tell Saadat and Co. exactly what I thought of th
em, and gone on from there to Deoli to try my best to strangle the Major with my own hands; confident that no jury would convict and that the verdict would be ‘Justified homicide’.

  I wept buckets over that file, just as Mother had done. My poor, darling Tacklow. I couldn’t bear to think of what he had been through.

  When I felt less murderous, I began to wonder what I could do with the file, and after spending hours and days of thought on it, I realized that there was literally nothing I could do. It had all happened several years before, and Tacklow himself was dead. It was finished. Kutam hogia! And I was a nobody; a penniless art student living in a sleazy ‘bedsitter’ off London’s King’s Road and managing to live on an income of one pound five shillings a week, which was the pension of an unmarried daughter of an Indian Army Officer (and lucky to get it, for if Tacklow had been in the British Army I wouldn’t have got anything!). I had no ‘pull’, and if Tacklow’s friends had been unable to help him, of what use would I be?

  In the end, I burnt the file. I couldn’t bear to read it again and realized that I could do nothing about it. The past was the past, and the sooner I burnt it the better. Tacklow was where he would no longer care, and I couldn’t spend the rest of my life lugging that bulging file of past misery and malice around with me like that tedious albatross. Anyway, I was going to be an illustrator, and I’d better get on with that …

  Well, time catches up with one. I failed to make a living from my art, and ended up writing. And now, after all these years, I could almost wish (only almost) that I had kept that file. Because when it comes to details — names, dates, scraps of information, and so on — there is so much that I have forgotten; and what is left can so easily be dismissed as ‘what the soldier said’. For instance, I can’t even remember what the Begum’s name was, because, as the senior lady in the state, she was the Begum: the others were merely ‘so-and-so Begum’. I can only give you a rough outline of the ‘Tonk Affair’, which is probably just as well, as from what I recollect of the size of that bulky dossier, a detailed account of its contents would have taken up far too many pages and been insufferably boring.