Hot Water Man

by Deborah Moggach

  They sat down.

  ‘This local glue is inferior,’ she said. ‘You have to hold the bits together for an age. As a rule I do all my entertaining at the Sind Club. They have a little room. I’d snap my fingers and that was that. But this time there was some delegation, I.B.M. or I.T.T. or I.B.B., some footling initials. Mrs Gracie, I said over the phone. All regrets. Times have changed, Ronald. So in the end I had to serve the Minister out of cups from Bohri Bazaar. Perhaps he took pity on me.’

  ‘It’s the minister who controls the land permission?’ In other words, it was Shamime’s uncle.

  ‘He’s an old friend; he was in opposition when my husband was alive, the only chap who could beat Morris at tennis. He listened but you can never really tell what they’re thinking, Ronald. There’s a lot of fight left in these old bones, I told him. He sat there cooing at the pussies. At least he likes them. Heaven knows if he likes donkeys.’ She paused. ‘He probably hates cats but he was being polite. Or religious. The Prophet had a cat, of course.’ She picked up a piece of teapot. ‘A slippery man. Involved in all sorts of deals, I’ve heard, changing sides when it suits him. Still, they’re all slippery, Ronald, you’ll learn. You’ve only been here a few months, haven’t you.’

  ‘Less than two, actually.’

  ‘You’re young, Ronald. What was it, cotton?’

  ‘Chemicals. Cameron’s.’

  ‘There used to be so many young chaps like you. Of course they’re all back home now, quelling the English natives. I wish them luck. One hears such stories nowadays. Where’s the respect gone, Ronald, and the pride? Here they’re delighted enough to get work at all.’

  Donald lifted a handle and held it against different pieces of cup to see which fitted. It was uncomfortable on the floor; his trousers dug into him. But he did not mind. ‘That’s partly why I came out, actually,’ he said. ‘Things in England seem, well, to have come apart. Everybody’s fighting for himself. I was once in the warehouse at Cameron’s, the firm I work for. It was winter and fairly cold –’

  ‘Ah, winter.’ She sighed. ‘Plants weighed down with frost. Tobogganing. One pines for snow.’

  ‘We haven’t had much of that recently, actually. Usually it’s just grey and drizzly.’ He picked up a bit of china with a pink rose on it. ‘Anyway, while two men were slowly loading boxes on to a container, a third man was holding up a thermometer. I thought he was testing the humidity or something – for the stock corrosion perhaps. In fact he was waiting until it dropped just below the statutory minimum and then they were going to knock off. Just like that. Never mind if half the stuff wasn’t loaded.’

  ‘So you worked in a warehouse, Ronald.’

  He laughed. ‘Oh no, I was only training – on the executive scheme. Visiting the different departments to see what made them tick. But here people have worked for Cameron’s all their lives and they’re proud of the firm. It seems one has to travel four thousand miles to find that nowadays. I mean, our Cameron’s driver would wait all day until someone told him he could go. It might be because he hasn’t been educated to think for himself – my wife would certainly say so and I’d agree. She’d blame the dread hand of colonialism. Colonialism is a four-letter – is a nasty word to her. But then the less educated you are, the more you have to have something to cling to and identify with. This country couldn’t be run by a democratic government, it’s simply not ready yet. One’s job is to make sure it’s a sound thing they’re clinging to. And of course educate them so they can work that out for themselves. Christine – my wife – thinks this is an old-fashioned and paternalistic idea. Or imperialist or something. We argue about this.’

  He stopped. In fact, what they argued about was mostly of a more niggling, personal nature. They used to argue about large and noble topics, but recently these had shrunk to attacks upon himself. The global subjects were mainly reserved for when they had company.

  ‘Ah, here it is.’ He picked up a jagged piece. ‘I know that one’s partly enjoying it here through being a big fish in a small pool. I didn’t have a quarter this responsibility in England, you know. But it makes things worth doing. One’s decisions aren’t watered down by six people above you, or argued out of existence in committees. In England one’s a cog in a big machine. It sounds selfish but I’m not just talking about me. Lots of people feel this. Nowadays there’s very little room for quote individual initiative unquote.’ He held the handle against the piece of cup; it fitted. ‘Here, well, one has an identity.’ He took the glue brush and painted the edges. Then he pressed them together. ‘I’m waffling on a bit, aren’t I.’ It surprised him, the way he was talking.

  ‘This is much better than the wireless. Do go on, Ronald.’

  By now he did not feel able to correct his name. Nor did he want to, in fact. To her he was Ronald – more articulate, more attractive, more tenderly protective than Donald, with opinions that were not criticized but listened to, her blue eyes widening as if he were the first person to say such things. She must be nearly as old as his grandmother but this did not matter. In a sense she seemed younger than Christine. Despite her brittle bones she seemed softer and more receptive. More feminine, in fact. He passed her the glue. It was a Dickensian pot with the brush sticking out of the top. What was it about Christine? Nothing he said could alter her. She had the shuttered look of the safely committed. He could make no difference; she made him powerless.

  He kept the handle clamped to the cup. ‘My family – I mean the men – all had something worthwhile to do. They could make a difference to things. My father fought in the war.’ Christine would say: he shot down three Germans. Call that an achievement? He could not answer this but he knew it was not quite the point.

  In a moment he would mention his grandfather. Mrs Gracie would understand him if he said ‘Proud of their country’. In Britain you could not say that any more; the words, like so much else, had been devalued. But they meant more than people realized. His grandfather, like his father, had actually been prepared to die for what he thought was right. It was not blind indoctrination or sheep-like mindlessness. It was something to do with belief. They had not sat there looking at a thermometer.

  With Mrs Grade he could use those words, but even he felt trapped by their dwindled meaning. She leant over, the newspaper creaking, and picked up the teapot spout. Christine would say it was to do with male domination. Everyone with a prick is an imperialist, she had said once with half the Saloon Bar listening. That Roz was there of course. Today in the bazaar she could not laugh at this. He had hoped, so much, that this place would change her.

  ‘They were stretched and tested,’ he said. ‘Up to now I’ve never had a chance to be that. They made their mark.’ He thought of the flat in Crouch End, number 144b, looking down on to other people’s gardens. ‘Here we have a lovely garden that’s ours. I meet people who’re actually making the decisions, who change things. One can change things oneself, in a smaller way. My wife thinks I’m a snob and like meeting people who know the Prime Minister.’

  ‘Charming man, of course, quite brilliant. He can talk the birds off the trees. Picked it up in Oxford, no doubt. Are you a university man, Ronald?’

  ‘Christine went. I went straight into Cameron’s. You see, my mother was only living on a widow’s pension and my grandmother got very little. I felt I had to get a job.’

  ‘I can tell your wife’s pretty. I must meet her.’

  He paused, holding together the handle and the broken piece of cup. He loosened his grip; they eased. He pressed them together. ‘She’s rather got into this Women’s Lib business.’

  ‘Lib?’ She looked up from the teapot. ‘Oh yes, they burn their underwear.’

  ‘She’s always – well, been swept up into things.’ He remembered her in the sixties, a clever girl with her hair wrenched into those little plaits, swaying her head to dreamy music. Now she swayed to rousing chants. She bought these movements like wholesale fitments inside her head. He considered this lazy; it meant
that after the initial investment she no longer had to question them. This made him irked and stifled. But how much had she really changed inside?

  ‘Such a beautiful teapot, Ronald. It will never be the same. The damage has been done.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ He paused. ‘It’s all to do with recognizing women’s rights, that sort of thing. They say some worthwhile things; sometimes I just feel it’s the way they say it. Their missionary zeal.’

  ‘We used to have a lot of them here, of course. I suppose they’ve all gone now.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘From the churches. Awfully difficult to talk to because they knew they were right. We used to have these tedious teas.’

  ‘I see. Missionaries. The thing is, my wife can usually outargue me. She’s had a good education.’ He had once mentioned this – mildly, a touch humorously. If she had been a man, with a mother and Granny to support, she would have felt obliged to go straight into the equivalent of Cameron’s. ‘I think she’s more intelligent really.’

  ‘We had a poor little Welsh girl; she suffered dreadfully with the heat. And with us, no doubt. Couldn’t teach for toffee. Miss Sopwith, probably from rather a good family. Perhaps they were the aeroplane people. We only called her Soppy, of course.’

  ‘You were brought up here?’

  ‘All over the place. Of course it was one country then. Papa’s work took him everywhere – Delhi, Bombay. Summers we spent in the hills. Mama was a very intelligent woman, like your wife. You needed to be clever, believe me. Don’t be fooled by what you hear, Ronald. It took a lot of skills to run a large house and all the servants. I’m sure your wife finds that.’

  Unable to answer that truthfully, he nodded. The handle had stuck at last. He rummaged amongst the newspaper for the next piece. The paper lifted with his hands, it was so hot.

  ‘So tell me about this Women’s Lib, Ronald.’

  ‘It’s catching. It’s infectious. Soon they’ll be wearing badges saying “Women Against Everything”.’ He laughed, gruntingly. He found a curved sliver. This cup must be in about eight pieces. He hesitated; he did not want to be disloyal. ‘About a year ago I won some money on my Premium Bonds so I organized a surprise – a romantic week in Venice. When I showed Christine the tickets – I’d put them in a box and tied it with red ribbon – she was thrilled of course, but then she looked affronted. Was her job so unimportant, she asked, that I’d presume her to take a week off, just like that, when I’d organized for my own time off beforehand?’

  ‘Ah, Venice. Morris wanted to take me there on our honeymoon. We had to settle for Kashmir.’

  He pictured Iona on a boat, her head resting against a pillow while her bridegroom pointed out the names of the surrounding mountains. He would be expected to know such things. How easy for a husband, in those days. He himself would have known the names; that was simple.

  A shadow fell. Iqbal padded in noiselessly and started to lay out the tea. Donald took this opportunity to stretch his legs; they were numb. He wandered over to the veranda. It was breezy out here. They knew how to build in those days, with their thick walls, high ceilings and galleries for ventilation. None of this gimcrack modern stuff; flimsy walls like Adamjee Plaza where one had to rely on air-conditioners and the chancy electricity supply. He was a romantic at heart. Even Mrs Gracie’s clutter seemed more pleasing than Christine’s. Christine’s disorder seemed a wilful statement of her priorities. Mrs Gracie, on the other hand, seemed helpless amidst the debris of her own past.

  He gazed through the broken fretwork. Down below, one part of the garden was still tended. During winter, no doubt, that bed would be full of the flowers his grandfather had described. The lawn was shaded by trees; they looked like elms except for the black pods hanging down. Through the branches he could see the clock tower of the cantonment station. The hands were missing now. He could almost hear the bugles blowing and his Granny lying awake while the trains shunted. In those days the clock worked. His grandparents had not honeymooned in Kashmir but in the Grand Hotel in Murree. Only the best for little Dottie, said Grandad, pointing to the photo in the album. In this house, for the first time since he had arrived, he felt near to him.

  Tea was ready; he turned back. It was drinks hour really. He had lost track of the time, gluing together these frail old cups, piecing together the past. He sat down on the floor.

  ‘Did you live in this house when you were married?’

  She nodded. ‘Now you’re not to guess my age, Ronald. Some sugar? Dear Morris – when he was alive everything was spick and span. He had the highest standards.’

  ‘Was he in the army?’

  ‘Oh no. He became a judge, like Papa. He was a good deal older than me. He kept me in order. I was a wild young miss, Ronald. The servants spoiled me dreadfully when I was a child.’

  He sipped the tea, trying to work out dates. There must have been some point when his grandfather and Mrs Gracie were both in Karachi. These circuit judges travelled; so did the army officers. But Grandad had mentioned her name.

  He brushed glue on the third bit of cup. ‘It must have been marvellous, growing up here.’

  ‘Except for the clothes. We used to be laced into these horrible tight dresses, most unsuitable for the climate. I feel so envious when I see these young girls nowadays gadding about in their summer frocks.’

  He wondered where Christine had been gadding about today in those baggy things.

  ‘But it was marvellous, Ronald. And as you grew up there were all those nice young officers. Always far too many to go round, of course. They used to ship out the frumps from England – the Fishing Fleet, they called it – to try and find them husbands.’

  Donald paused, holding the piece in place: broken rose against stalk. ‘Actually my grandfather was in the army here.’

  ‘Dear boy, why didn’t you tell me? What was his name?’

  ‘Herbert Manley.’ He added modestly: ‘Lieutenant-Colonel Manley, he became.’

  ‘Manley . . . Manley . . .’ She gazed at the half-mended teapot. ‘So many faces, Ronald. They all looked so handsone in their uniforms, but rather alike. They would ask you to dance with a small bow,’ she bent her head, ‘. . . like this.’ She pushed back the alice band, which had slipped forward.

  There was a silence. The ceiling fan creaked. He imagined her brain, slowly working with the memories. ‘There was that Major Marnley, of course, I dimly remember him, but he was posted elsewhere.’

  ‘Marnley?’

  ‘He might have become a Lieutenant-Colonel after he married that English gel. There was a certain amount of fuss at the time, I seem to remember, but it all blew over. They all did it, of course; it was common knowledge.’

  ‘What, marry?’

  ‘Oh dear me no. You couldn’t marry them.’ She laughed. ‘But it was only natural. Us girls weren’t supposed to know about that sort of thing, I mean I was only in my twenties, but what else could the poor chaps do? Not nearly enough English girls to go round.’ She stopped to think, gazing at the broken bits of china. ‘Young men in their prime.’

  There was a long silence. Donald held his breath. Perhaps she was just working out where the pieces went.

  ‘Maningtree. There was a Major Maningtree. But he was a bachelor. Besides, I believe he passed away with the dysentery. One day, Ronald, you should just take a look at the churchyard. So many graves and some of them so wee.’

  Donald kept the third piece clamped against the others. He tried to keep his voice casual. ‘This Marnley. Was he transferred to – I think it was something to do with Pore?’

  ‘Something poor. Rags? Ragastan. No, it’s Rajastan.’

  ‘P-O-R-E.’

  ‘Cawnpore. Silly me. How clever you are. Cawnpore. No reflection, I’m sure, on what happened. I’m sure it wasn’t. Just to stop – well, complications. I presume the English girl didn’t know, you see. It wouldn’t do for them to meet in the street. Occasionally the native woman would make a bit of trouble
– even come to the house.’ She dabbed the glue. ‘Sometimes if there was an infant involved, as in that case. But by and large they knew their place. No doubt a little money changed hands. They behaved like gentlemen, Ronald. Even this Marnley, I’m sure, despite what they said.’ She stopped, gazing at Donald. ‘Oh dear, I haven’t put my silly foot in it have I? It’s not your grandfather?’

  ‘Grandfather? Oh no.’

  Donald was fumbling with the three pieces of his cup which seemed to have fallen apart. He had thought the handle was glued. He tried to press them together but his hands would not do what he wanted. He did not want the pieces to clatter together with his shaking. He put them down on the newspaper.

  ‘I can’t tell you how delightful it is, Ronald, to have a young face around. It reminds me how life used to be one long party. One used to think: there he is, leading a thousand men. And here he is, bringing me a lemonade fizz. Now I’m just an old woman fighting for her existence.’

  ‘Existence?’

  ‘Her donkeys’ existence, I should say. But my own too, Ronald. I live and breathe that place. You see I don’t have many friends left now – nobody who could remember what it was like then. They’re my babies. I was not blessed with children. Call me sentimental; everybody else does, I’m sure. Or else mad. Can this mad old lady rely on your support, if it comes to a fight?’

  He could feel himself nodding; at least he thought he was. He gazed out at the slats, blurred by the evening sun. He felt congested.

  He concentrated on his surroundings. The plaster walls were peeling. You’ve always clung to the past, Christine had said.

  If he touched the walls the paint would fall in flakes, lying amongst the broken china. This sandstone looked solid but the whole house was crumbling. White ants too. In the shelves the books looked perfectly all right. Then you opened one and the pages had crumbled into dust.

  He must not think of his grandfather; he must think of his manners. He smiled at Mrs Gracie. Suddenly her little-girl curls seemed odd, surrounding that wrinkled face. They must have chatted about this and that, he could not remember a word of it later. She seemed to notice no difference. He attempted to put his cup together again, with no success.