Where Earth Meets Sky

by Annie Murray

  By seven-thirty Lily had dressed herself, with a little help from Prithvi with the hooks and eyes, and put her hair up, wrapping the bandanna round it, and applied a thin line of kohl round her lids. Turning her head from side to side she realized that she looked very exotic. The doctor would be pleased. It was her habit to try and please him. It made her life peaceful. Tonight, though, her own spirit was strong in her and she felt a great flare of anger. Who did he think he was, some sort of puppet master, to have her dancing to his every tune?

  ‘You may think you’ve got me on a string,’ she whispered to her reflection, ‘but not for much longer, Doctor. Because I love Sam Ironside and he loves me. And you have no power over that.’

  And walking tall, haughtily, she went to the doctor’s study and rapped on the door.

  ‘Ah Lily, my dear!’ Dr McBride said, throwing open the door to enable her to make a triumphal entry, and in so doing made Lily see that Dr McCluskie knew exactly what was her position in the household, and that she was there to be displayed as if part of a harem. She felt deeply shamed and angry, but she knew that coldly, quietly, she would play her part, for the moment.

  ‘I say, how splendid!’ Dr McCluskie leaped to his feet. ‘What a very beautiful addition you are to the room, Miss Waters.’ Unlike the last time she had seen Dr McCluskie, when he had appeared very gentlemanly, this time she sensed a lascivious edge to his speech which repelled her.

  ‘Good evening, Dr McCluskie,’ she said coolly, as they shook hands. She saw by the blush rising from his collar that this bashful bachelor was strongly affected by her presence.

  Dr McBride handed her a glass of sweet sherry and Lily sipped it, feeling its syrupy warmth in her throat.

  ‘From what part do you hail?’ Dr McCluskie asked, and Lily, feeling the usual dread of questions, trotted out her usual version of events very briefly, before quickly diverting the conversation on to himself, a subject on which he appeared ready to elaborate at some length. As Dr McBride ushered them to the table, Dr McCluskie was telling Lily that much of his work from Patna involved travelling the villages, where he lived for weeks at a time, scarcely ever seeing another white face except those of missionaries in the field.

  ‘It can make a man very hungry for a sight or sound of home,’ he said, almost apologetically. ‘And tonight is a veritable feast.’

  Lily smiled faintly. She saw Dr McBride frowning, but Dr McCluskie, who suddenly seemed to have come to life, began to regale Lily with stories of medical oddities he had encountered in his work in remote villages, and as Prithvi carried in the soup, he was in the midst of a descriptive parade of goitres and tumours and birth defects hideous enough to turn the stomach.

  ‘The whole of the foot was infested with white ants,’ he said enthusiastically, as Prithvi fled from the room.

  ‘D’you think, Duncan, we could manage to find a less picturesque line of conversation in front of the ladies?’ Dr McBride requested in irritation. ‘After all, even some medical men are not used to the rigours of rural India.’

  ‘How utterly remiss of me,’ Duncan McCluskie said, raising his glass to Lily. There was a twinkle in his eyes, but whereas before he had seemed placid, now there was a hard edge to him, something mocking. He was already well gone for drink. Both men were drinking whisky. ‘Ewan and I go back a long way together – and we medical men, you know, we grow accustomed to talking about things which are not usually aired in polite society. My humble apologies, Miss Waters.’

  Lily inclined her head graciously. She wasn’t having him thinking that she was so easily shocked. ‘Not at all. It was most interesting. I haven’t had the privilege of visiting the more remote parts of the country.’

  ‘Ah – no place for a lady, that I can tell you,’ Dr McCluskie said, and another stream of reminiscences began.

  They finished their soup and Prithvi came in, looking terrified, with the duck, which turned out to be excellently done. As they ate the two men exchanged stories and memories of student years in Edinburgh and their work since and Lily became their captive audience, though she was in any case oblivious to most of it, her mind wandering longingly to Sam. From what she did hear, the more they drank, the more competitive the storytelling became, each man trying to cap the other’s experiences. Dr McCluskie had worked in some of the poorest parts of Glasgow before arriving in India and he was a fund of extraordinary tales which Dr McBride, who had been in Mussoorie for years, simply could not match.

  ‘I’m sure Miss Waters doesn’t want to hear about all this,’ he said more than once, leaning forward to replenish Dr McCluskie’s glass.

  ‘Ah, but I must just tell you this one,’ Duncan McCluskie insisted, and launched into a story about a family he had been involved with in Glasgow with thirteen children and almost every degree of ill health and misfortune that could be imagined. Listening to him talking about the lives of this poor family made Lily very uncomfortable. Little do they know, she thought, that I come from a place not so different. The Horne girls had left her in no ignorance of the fact that she was a poor foundling whose parents had deserted her. She felt a shudder go through her at all that she might have become. Better to put up with Ewan McBride’s maulings than be poor like that!

  But she was also becoming more aware of the strained atmosphere between the two men and especially when Duncan McCluskie said to her, ‘Perhaps you’d like to come with me on one of my jaunts into the countryside, Miss Waters? I’m sure you’d find it highly educational.’

  Dr McBride let out a sudden gust of laughter, but Lily could tell there was a dangerous edge to it.

  ‘Really, Duncan – you are a card. Can you imagine this Lily-flower here out in the squalor of the villages?’

  ‘Oh – I rather think Miss Waters has more to her than meets the eye,’ Duncan McCluskie said, looking deep into Lily’s eyes, before she lowered her gaze. The conversation was making her feel increasingly uncomfortable, these men acting so competitively over her. Fortunately Prithvi came in again then to clear away the plates and bring in the hot apple pie.

  ‘I say – you’ve done us proud here!’ Duncan McCluskie said. ‘I haven’t enjoyed a splendid meal like this in a very long time!’

  ‘That’s also thanks to our Miss Waters here. She has taken responsibility for organizing the household and making us fully shipshape.’

  ‘Well, it’s time someone took you to task, if you won’t employ the normal number of servants like anyone else, McBride!’

  ‘I don’t need servants – I just need Lily here,’ the doctor replied unguardedly. In his half-drunken state he gave her a soulful stare, like a lecherous spaniel. Lily felt more and more uncomfortable, and as soon as the pie was eaten she got up quickly from the table.

  ‘I’ll leave you gentlemen to your coffee now,’ she said.

  The two men lurched to their feet in surprise. ‘No, Lily – don’t leave us yet,’ Dr McBride said. Lily knew it was an order, but she decided to treat it as a request.

  ‘It’s kind of you, but I’m very tired and I’m sure you would like more time to talk alone. Goodnight, Dr McCluskie. It has been most enjoyable.’

  He took her hand in his clammy one and held it for seconds longer than necessary, staring into her eyes.

  ‘Goodnight, Miss Waters. I’m charmed. Utterly charmed.’

  At last she was free to leave the room.

  If he knocked on the door she didn’t hear it. The first thing she became aware of was a light in the room and she sat up, pulsing with shock. She had been deeply asleep, but now there was a figure standing by her bed, holding a candle and she knew immediately from his slender build that it was not Dr McBride.

  ‘No need to be frightened,’ he whispered. He lifted the mosquito net and sat down on the bed. Lily could see that Duncan McCluskie was very much the worse for drink. His eyes looked glazed and strange.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ She was torn between outrage and fear. It must be the small hours and he had seen fit just to wan
der in here! What was she, some woman of the streets that everyone could use on a whim? But he was a strong-looking man, with a wild look in his eye at this moment and she was frightened of what he might do. Setting the mosquito net alight with the candle seemed a distinct possibility, quite apart from anything else. She eased herself away from him, in readiness to slide off the other side of the bed.

  ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know, you beautiful, teasing whore.’ His voice was low and urgent. ‘Flaunting yourself at me like that all evening. This is what you do for him, isn’t it? So you can do it for me. That’s what you want, isn’t it? I can see you looking at me . . . Well, I’m ready for you.’

  Without even putting the candle down he lunged at her, grabbing her round the shoulders with his left hand and forcing his lips to hers while he held the candle with the other, perilously close to her hair. Lily struggled, panic-stricken, and managed to get her legs on to the floor the other side of the bed. She struggled away from him, fighting her way out from under the mosquito net.

  ‘For God’s sake – you’ll set the place alight! Get that candle away from me. How dare you come in here and behave like this?’

  But he was not easily deterred. He reached over to put the candle down on the washstand and stood up to fling the mosquito net over the wooden frame before lunging at her.

  ‘Don’t go all prissy on me. I know you’re his mistress. It’s obvious. If you go about dressed up like a bitch on heat, what do you expect? I haven’t had a woman in months and it’s no way for a man to live. I want you, Lily, and I’m going to have you. By God, if you can give yourself to that old dog, you can give yourself to me too . . .’

  He seized hold of her, pressing himself against her with frantic urgency, pushing his tongue in her mouth, his hands groping at her breasts. He took hold of her shoulders and tried to force her down on to the bed. Lily found her mind working faster than she had ever known it. Knowing how drunk he was, she leaned her weight against him. Duncan McCluskie took this as being the response he wanted.

  ‘That’s it . . .’ He breathed whisky fumes into her face. ‘I knew you wanted it. Get on the bed, lie down so I can have you . . .’

  Lily drew back as if she was about to obey, but then stepped fast towards him again and shoved him as hard as she could. For a moment the doctor wavered, then toppled over backwards on to the bed.

  ‘You scheming bitch!’ he growled.

  ‘Get out,’ Lily hissed, standing over him. ‘Or I’ll wake the whole house. Is that what you want? How dare you come and behave in this disgusting way? Now you get up and get out of my room!’

  He sat up, groggily, seeming stunned, as if coming to his senses.

  ‘All right, I’ll go – I’m sorry.’ He got up off the bed. ‘Don’t say anything, will you? I’m sorry – it’s just been so long . . . I got it wrong . . .’

  Lily opened the door without another word and waited for him to leave.

  ‘You won’t tell Ewan?’

  Lily had no intention of telling Ewan McBride because she knew far better than Duncan McCluskie what his jealous anger was like. But she said stiffly, ‘So long as it doesn’t happen again.’

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Lily did not see Dr McCluskie the next morning, but what had happened in the night and the way she had stood up for herself made her feel stronger. In any case, her mind was full of thoughts of Sam.

  She spent a pleasant teatime hour at Zinnias with Susan and Srimala, playing with Isadora, and in a snatched moment, she and Sam arranged to meet at the beginning of the Camel’s Back that night.

  Lily ate her dinner alone. After last night’s events she had wondered how Dr McCluskie would be able to face her, and her only sighting of the two men was that evening. As Lily was standing in the hall exchanging a few words with Jane Brown, the doctors came in out of the dusk. Lily saw a shade of emotion pass across Dr McCluskie’s face, a reflex of extreme embarrassment, which was then converted into a superior contempt.

  ‘Good evening, Miss Waters,’ he said coldly.

  She nodded. ‘Mr McCluskie.’ It had not been deliberate, omitting to call him ‘doctor’ but she saw the insult register with him.

  However, she spent most of the evening fretting in her room about whether she would be able to leave the house without anyone seeing. She thought about trying to climb out of the window, but, like so many Mussoorie houses, it was built clinging to the edge of the hillside and outside, apart from a narrow ledge, was nothing but a steep drop into darkness. She would have to get through the house as best she could.

  At five to eleven her heart was beating so fast she could hardly bear it. She had been pacing the room trying to find an outlet for all her pent-up energy, and at last she opened the door of her room very quietly and crept out into the corridor. She had even left the pillows in her bed to look like her sleeping shape. As she crept along the corridor she heard the two doctors’ voices in Dr McBride’s study, could smell whisky and pipe smoke and hear their drink-laced laughter. They would be carrying on like that for hours to come. She went to the front door and slipped out into the mild, sweet-scented darkness.

  Her steps sounded loud out in the street and she realized that she was never out at night unaccompanied and was unused to the deep darkness, lit only by a crescent moon.

  ‘Lily?’ His voice came from the shadows and her whole being leaped with happiness at the sound.

  ‘Sam!’

  He caught her immediately in his arms and they clung to each other, at last alone and able to express their feelings.

  ‘God, girl, I love you,’ he said into her neck. ‘I love you so much.’

  ‘And I love you. Oh, Sam, what are we going to do?’

  She wanted to pour out all her fears, but this was not the time to talk and for those moments all they wanted was to stand in each other’s arms. But then they heard whistling, and footsteps coming from the Camel’s Back Road, and they stepped apart.

  ‘Come on – the car’s parked below the Kulri Bazaar. We’ll get out of town.’

  ‘Can we?’ Lily was amazed. ‘Surely we can’t just take it?’

  ‘Lily.’ His voice came out of the darkness. ‘This is something that doesn’t happen except once in a lifetime. And terribly soon I’ll have to be gone – back on the ship. What could be the harm?’

  ‘I can’t believe it – us just being able to be on our own!’

  ‘All week it’s been all I’ve been able to think about. Come on.’ He reached for her.

  They walked hand in hand through the winding bazaar, all shut up for the night now, and down, past poor native houses, hearing the sounds of families crowded inside, the cry of an infant, voices, a man singing. And all around, the smells of dung fires, incense and spiced food. Lily breathed in the smells of India, and everything was made lovely because Sam was walking beside her, holding her.

  The car was parked in a low building which looked and smelled like a stables. When Sam cranked up the engine the noise seemed to explode into the quiet, and he jumped in and released the brake, switching on the bright headlights.

  ‘Right – we’ll find a spot just for us.’

  She couldn’t see much as they drove along except for moving shadows, aware sometimes of the tall trees above, and of their delicious smell, and of the switching bends in the road. They didn’t speak much, not then. Sometimes, as he drove, Sam reached across and touched her hand, pressing it gently.

  ‘You’re here – you’re really here!’ she said once, full of love, drinking in the wonder of his presence.

  At last he stopped in what appeared to be the edge of a little clearing and as the engine died the silence expanded round them, broken by the high squeak of some woodland creature. The thin moon looked down on them through the trees which moved gently in the breeze.

  ‘We’ve been here before – d’you remember?’ he said. ‘The picnic a few days back.’

  ‘Have we? I couldn’t tell on the way.’

  �
�The one with the little stream running between the trees. Where Isadora got her clothes sopping wet.’

  ‘Oh yes!’ she laughed. ‘Yes, of course I remember!’

  Sam got out of the car and was foraging in the back for something.

  ‘I’ve got a surprise for you. Come on. We’ll make it nice.’

  She could see very little, but followed him over the soft woodland earth and to the place he seemed to have in mind and she heard a small clanking sound as he put something on the ground.

  ‘I’ve got wood and paper, matches, a lamp – even tea and cake,’ he said. ‘We’ll have a nice little fire and make it cosy. And there’s a rug in the car. I’ll just nip and get it.’

  ‘Don’t leave me here!’ Lily said, alarmed. ‘I’m coming with you!’

  Sam laughed. ‘Well, I’d better bring the bag back with me as well, or we might never find it again.’

  Holding hands, giggling like two children, they hurried back through the trees to the motor car to collect the rug.

  ‘Like babes in the wood,’ Sam said.

  ‘Isn’t there supposed to be a gingerbread house?’

  ‘No.’ He thought about it. ‘I think that’s a different story – I couldn’t be sure, though!’

  In their clearing he laid the fire and got it burning, and the wood caught gradually, the flames building and glowing in the night, sending off their warm light and dancing shadows. Lily busied herself spreading the rug on the ground, feeling that although they were outside, with no shelter and the most basic of provisions, she had never before experienced such a sense of luxury. She unpacked the bag, the bottles of tea and bananas and slabs of cake wrapped in waxed paper.

  ‘How completely wonderful!’ she said, amazed by the careful preparations he had made.

  ‘I picked up quite a bit camping with the captain,’ he said. ‘I don’t think there are too many animals up here to worry about, but they don’t like fire anyway.’