Pale and exhausted, she looked at her watch. Eight-fifty. It seemed important to make up her mind what to do before she set off for work. She walked about her room hugging herself, sat down on her bed, stood up, checked her watch again, and, finally, went out into a phone box in the street and dialed the number at the hospital Frank had given her.
She got through to reception.
“Gokuldas Tejpal Hospital,” said a singsong voice at the end of the line. “May I help you?”
“I need to speak to Dr. Frank Steadman,” she said.
She heard pages rustling. “I don’t know where he is,” said the voice at the other end. “Will you wait?”
She waited. Five minutes later, Frank picked up the phone.
“Frank, it’s me. Viva. I can’t talk for long, I’ll be late for work. I wonder if I could ask for your professional advice on one or two of the children at the home who aren’t doing very well?”
“It’ll have to be after lunchtime.” The crackling line made his voice sound impersonal. “Shall I come to the home?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Two-thirty all right?”
“Two-thirty will be fine,” she said. “I’ll see you then.”
At two o’clock that afternoon, Viva was sitting in the courtyard beneath the tamarind tree supervising a group of six children: Talika, Neeta, Suday, and three shocked little girls who’d been dumped outside the gates two days before.
Only the oldest one, a fierce-looking little girl with matted hair, had spoken; the others only gazed at her with eyes numb with misery, seeming to have no idea of why they’d come or where or who they were.
It was important, or so Mrs. Bowden had said, to get these new girls into some kind of routine of learning to take their minds off what had happened to them, and so Viva had spent the last half hour instructing them in what was known at the home as “social skills”—mainly a list of “thou shalt nots”: thou shalt not put rubbish in the streets, or spit in public, or defecate into an open drain. Suday, the joker, had just said, “And now, Miss Wiwa—please, you can teach me to wink also; that is a social skill.” She’d shown them, even though she knew that Mrs. Bowden would not approve.
Frank walked in as the children were laughing. He was carrying his doctor’s bag. It worried her how happy she felt to see him again.
“Now, children,” she said, “settle down and be quiet for a while. We have a visitor.”
“My God,” he said. He’d taken the chair beside her. “I wish my ear for languages was that good,” and there’d been giggles and nudges as she’d blushed a deep, bright red.
“Daisy Barker’s been teaching me,” she said, “and it’s not as good as it sounds. I can only say ‘pipe down’ or ‘eat up’ or ‘go to bed.’ Do you know Daisy? She runs this place. She also works at the Settlement in Bombay; I thought you might have been to one of her parties.”
She felt she was babbling incoherently. The children were listening agog, their eyes moving from face to face as if they were watching a tennis match.
Viva looked at her watch. “Girls and boys,” she said, “we can break for half an hour’s play now. Say good-bye to Dr. Frank.”
“Good-bye, Daktar Frank,” they chorused, and raced off to play. A few moments later Talika came back with two glasses of lemonade on an old tin tray. Concentrating fiercely, she lifted each glass with both hands onto the table.
“Stay for a moment, Talika,” said Viva. “This is one of the girls I wanted you to see,” she told Frank. “Her name is Talika.” Viva squeezed the child’s hand, sad to see her looking so tense and fearful. She would like to have told him more about her, but was frightened Talika, whose English was improving, would pick it up and either feel ashamed or humiliated. “She’s not doing too badly; in fact, we’re very proud of her, aren’t we, Talika? But, as you can see, she’s very thin.”
“Can I listen to her chest?”
She went to get one of the cotton screens they used for consultations in the courtyard.
“Don’t be frightened, Talika,” she said. The screen was around them and the child’s face bathed in its greenish patterns. “The doctor won’t hurt you.”
Frank got out his stethoscope. As he put it in his ears and listened gravely to the child, her large terrified eyes did not leave Viva’s.
“Your heart is strong, your chest is clear.” He tried to smile at the child but she wouldn’t have it. “I’m sure the clinic doctor has ruled out the usual,” he added. “TB, worms—she doesn’t look rickety.”
When he released the child, she shot back across the courtyard like a frightened fawn desperate to join her herd.
“Poor thing,” he said when she was gone. “She looks haunted.”
He looked up and held Viva’s gaze for a moment. “Do you have any idea why?”
“Not really. Her mother died of tuberculosis; at least we think she did, she still hopes that she’s alive. There was a flood in the slum where she lived and she was left at our gate. Sometimes she’s quite jolly. I mean, yesterday she was even dancing, but then something happens and she is almost unreachable and I don’t know why.”
“Maybe she’s homesick,” he said. He was sitting close enough for her to see tortoiseshell lights in his green eyes.
“There is a whole rich life going on in a slum—most Europeans don’t understand it.”
“And what about you?” He looked at her again. “What are you doing all this for?”
The directness of his question took her aback.
“I like it here,” she said. “I really do, and I’m still writing, in fact I’ve had a couple of things published.”
“But that’s wonderful, congratulations.” He did have a shattering smile, that was the problem, and when he looked at her like that, she felt a tug inside her, a longing.
“I’m all right, you know.” She stood up quickly.
“I know,” he said gently. “That’s good.”
He wound up his stethoscope, packed it away in his bag.
“Except,” she could feel him about to leave, “I may have done something rather stupid last night. Guy Glover turned up in my room. It was a shock. He said he’d come to give me my money back.”
“Did you take it?” He looked at her anxiously.
“Yes…or at least some of it.”
“I thought we’d decided you weren’t going to do that.” Frank flexed his knuckles; he was frowning at her now.
“I thought I might need it.” Because I needed to do it my way, she suddenly recognized.
“I wish you hadn’t done that.”
“I do, too, now, but I was…” She stopped herself saying the word “flustered.” “I was persuaded by him that the police might want to see me and that I’d need it for the bribes. Do admit, Frank,” it was her turn to glare now, “there is a certain logic to that.”
Frank’s expression was grim. “What he most wants is to go on pestering you. He’s an obsessive and you’re on his list. Why on earth did you let him in?”
“I didn’t. He was in my room when I came home. He was lying on my bed.”
Frank groaned. He thought for a while and said, “Look, Viva, I don’t want to worry you, but this could turn into a nasty situation. Is there anyone here at the home you can really trust?”
“I trust Daisy Barker,” she said. “Absolutely.”
“Well, tell her right away,” he said. “That way, when the police come round, she’ll be warned.”
“Do you really think they’ll come here?” Viva felt a sick sinking in her stomach.
“They might. They’ve probably already got their eyes on you anyway, a group of European ladies running a place like this at a time like this, when everything is so uncertain.”
“Oh, God.”
“Now I’ve frightened you,” he said more gently. “The police have plenty of other things to do at the moment, so don’t worry too much, but just be more careful, please.”
They found Daisy sitting
in what was grandly called “the back office”—a dark, humid room in the depths of the building with a large overhead fan and an elaborately tiled floor. The room had a desk, a chair, an old filing cabinet, and on the wall a calendar, on which a woman in a sari floated down the Ganges in a boat extolling the joys of drinking Ovaltine.
“Daisy,” said Viva as they walked in, “this is Frank. He’s a locum at the Gokuldas Tejpal. We met on the ship.”
“Oh, greetings.” Daisy jumped up and pumped his hand. “Well, we’re never ones here to look a gift doctor in the mouth—if you ever have any spare time.” She took her glasses off and smiled winningly. “In fact, only last night we had two street boys in with minor burns, but one does worry in this heat. I wonder if you could have a quick look—could you? Oh, you are so kind.”
The boys, skinny and shifty-eyed, were produced. A brief case history supplied. Both had been residents in one of the local orphanages. They’d been beaten so badly they’d run away, finding shelter in a shed near the railway track two miles away from the Victoria Terminal, with six other boys. A fight had broken out over a pot of cooking rice, both had been scalded.
As Frank examined them, Viva became aware of his hands. They were beautiful hands, brown and long-fingered, now gently probing the wound on the boy’s leg.
“It’s actually healed quite well,” he said. “What did you put on it?” he asked the boy in Hindi.
The boy, Savit, said he’d peed on it and then put ash from the fire into a paste.
“Well, God was on your side,” Frank told him gravely.
When both boys had been examined, and their wounds treated with antiseptic cream, they went away grinning as if all this attention had been a tremendous treat. Frank turned to Viva. “I think you should now tell Daisy the other reason why I’m here.”
“I was going to,” Viva said. She took a deep breath. “Daisy, do you remember me telling you a little about the boy on the ship? The little monster it was my misfortune to chaperone? Well, there’s a new episode. He punched one of the passengers on the ship, the son of a prominent Indian businessman. No charges were pressed at the time, but it seems that the victim’s family are now after some kind of revenge and I could be implicated.”
“Why you?” Daisy’s clever eyes blinked behind her specs.
“Because legally, technically, we were in foreign waters and he belonged to me.”
“That sounds absolute codswallop to me. Are you absolutely sure?”
“No, I’m not,” said Viva. “The boy loves dramas, he says all kinds of strange things to draw attention to himself, and this could easily be another, but the point is, he came round to see me the other night. He claims to have been bribing the police, and if he or they come round, I—Well, Frank thought I should let you know what’s going on.”
“Well, bribing the local police is hardly a big news story in Bombay.” Daisy seemed to be taking all this in her stride as Viva had hoped she would. “But I don’t at all like the thought of him turning up in your room. You must definitely tell Mr. Jamshed and get him to change your locks, and then I think…” Daisy closed her eyes, “I think you should leave town for a few days to put this young man off. I’ve been trying to persuade her to do this for a few weeks anyway,” Daisy explained to Frank. “I think she looks tired.”
He glanced at her impersonally, and she felt she had become, in that moment, another one of his patients.
“I’m not tired,” she said.
“It’s going to get even hotter than this soon, Viva,” said Daisy. “It’s imperative to take breaks. Don’t you agree, Frank?” Viva was surprised to see that her employer was almost flirting with him, certainly both of them seemed to be treating her as if she was public property.
“I do,” he said. “I think they’re essential.” He stood up and picked up his bag. “But, ladies,” he looked at his watch, “you’ll have to excuse me. I’m on duty at four. Leave a message for me at the hospital if you want any more help.”
“Gosh,” Daisy said after he left, “what a good-looking man,” adding more professionally, “and how useful for us that he works at the Gokuldas.”
“Yes,” said Viva. The suddenness of his exit had registered as a slight shock to her, a feeling that there were other things she’d meant to say.
Glancing through the open door, she saw him striding across the courtyard, opening the gate, then shutting it firmly behind him.
“And I think he’s absolutely right about you taking a few days off. Do go to Ooty,” Daisy urged. “It’s cool and beautiful and that guest house I was telling you about really is charming. Do you have a friend you could go with?”
“Well, I might have.” She remembered shouting at Tor that morning and felt guilty about it.
“It will do you nothing but good”—Daisy was beaming—“hills, cool breezes, little chalets, mountain birds.” As her square practical hands sketched out the vistas, Viva felt fearful. Something about the word “chalet.” Rain, a woman crying.
“Are you all right, dear?”
When she looked up, the fan above her was clacking. Daisy was talking.
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” she said.
“Oh good.” Daisy gave her honking hockey captain’s laugh. “Just for a moment there you looked as if you’d seen a ghost.”
Chapter Thirty-four
It was Tor’s private opinion that Viva had been a little hard on Guy, even on the ship. Of course, he could be silly and affected, and maybe he did occasionally make things up, but what sixteen-year-old didn’t?
She herself had spent most of her sixteenth year in Middle Wallop imagining that Nigel Thorn Davies, her father’s red-faced land agent, was secretly and painfully in love with her, and that he would seize her and declare his feelings for her at any moment—at dusk in the summerhouse, or on a country walk somewhere leafy and private. Sometimes it seemed to her that she’d spent her whole life imagining things would happen that hadn’t.
And she still smiled to remember that moment on the ship when she’d played Guy the Jelly Roll Morton record. The satisfying way he’d yelped, how his skinny neck had jerked around like a ball on an elastic band. In that moment, he’d been what the Negro jazz musicians at the Taj called “a gone coon,” and wildness was something she wistfully appreciated.
But even so, she was tremendously relieved when Viva phoned on Tuesday morning to apologize once more for her outburst. When Viva had suggested a short holiday in Ooty, she said she’d love to come.
“The timing could not be more perfect,” she’d added significantly. “You see,” she lowered her voice to a mutter, “it came.”
“What came?”
“You know, it. The thing I was worried about. My friend.”
“What friend?” Viva sounded baffled.
“The curse.” Honestly, Viva, for an intelligent woman, could sometimes be very obtuse. “I had so many hot baths I practically dissolved, but oh, the relief. It was the worst four weeks of my life, Viva. I thought I was going to have to waddle straight off the boat and into a home for fallen women.”
“Well, thank God for that. What a relief.”
“It was and I’m sure that’s what made me so switched off about the Guy thing. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t even eat, can you imagine. Also—” Tor looked around the room to see if any of the servants were in earshot. “Ci and I have had the most appalling row. I’ll tell you when I see you. I’ve started to hate her,” she whispered. “I can feel her marking off the days till my ship leaves. I honestly think she’s gone mad in the heat.” Tor said before she hung up, “I can’t wait to get away.”
Although Tor had tried to joke with Viva about her awful row with Ci, it had hurt so much. She thought about it when she put the phone down: which parts she could bear to tell and which parts must stay hidden inside her huge humiliations file and buried forever.
Even Ci must have known she’d overstepped the mark. She’d tried to blame it later on the heat and the f
act that Geoffrey’s cotton factory was losing more and more money and maybe this was partly true: before the storm burst, the atmosphere in the house had felt positively electric.
The tension had begun building when Ci came back from her holiday in Mussoree, looking more drawn and tired than when she’d gone away. She’d started to stare at the phone in a funny way, to smoke more than usual, and on one shocking occasion Tor saw her smack Pandit around the face for bringing her a Gin and It without her usual ice. Pandit had stood there smiling and apologizing, but Tor had heard him mutter darkly as he raced back into the kitchen with the red mark on his cheek.
Tor was almost convinced now that Ci had a lover. Ollie had told her, with typical lack of tact, that most of the mems took them.
“I could honestly walk through the Malabar Hill at two o’clock on a weekday afternoon,” he’d boasted, “and make love to almost any woman I wanted, they’re so bored, and so desperate.”
He’d also told her, at first she’d so enjoyed these thrilling gups, that a hotel in Meerut, a favorite station for trysts, had taken the precaution of employing a blind porter to ring a two o’clock bell to warn all the lovers to get back to their beds at a decent hour.
Anyway, whoever it was that had been sending Ci flowers was no longer sending them and now she no longer cooed “Dahhllling” into the phone like a dove, and there was a look, almost feral, in Ci’s eyes as the scarlet talons ripped through the post in the morning before she tossed the letters aside. She was in a mood to draw blood and Tor was the closest victim.
The row began quite late one night when Tor was sitting at her dressing table, half undressed for bed, and Ci had walked into the room.
East of the Sun Page 30
