“You’re not fat.” Poor Rose had heard this a million times before, but still managed to sound indignant. “You don’t want to look like a ghastly stick and you’ve got those great big blue eyes that one day a man is going to drown in,” she’d added in her fortune-teller’s voice.
“No, he won’t,” Tor had said gloomily. “I’m practically deformed I’m so hideous—and look at these spots on my back.”
“I’m not getting out of bed to look at your spots, Tor,” said Rose, who’d been propped up on two pillows at the time. “But Tor,” she whispered, “do you want to see a proper baby elephant?”
And right there and then Rose had shocked her by pulling down the coverlet, and pulling up her nightdress—something Rose would never have done before her marriage—to show off the hard swelling of her stomach and her belly button, which protruded like an acorn.
“Touch it,” she said. “Can you imagine how vast I’m going to look at nine months?”
Tor put the flat of her hand on the dome, and then cupped both sides.
“Oh God, Rose…isn’t that”—Tor almost said horrible—“isn’t that…” she touched it gingerly with her fingertips, “peculiar. You don’t look big yet, but it feels so different, and it’s so funny to think of a baby sleeping inside. Has Jack seen it yet?”
“Yes,” said Rose.
“What did he say? Did he kiss it? Did he cry?”
Rose had looked at her.
“You’re so romantic, Tor,” she’d said flatly. “I don’t think he said anything.”
And again, Tor felt she’d crossed a newly drawn line in Rose’s life, and that beyond it lurked a world full of adult worries—worries that Rose thought she was too thick or inexperienced to share.
The train chugged on, and now Tor, her cheek pressed to the window, was brooding about India. In two weeks’ time all of this—the huge blue sky, the mud huts flashing by, that donkey, that woman in a pink sari waving at the train—would be gone, and would soon become faded in her mind like pictures in an album. How bloody unfair that was when, in spite of everything that had gone wrong, she had been so marvelously happy here.
Her sigh left a circle of condensation on the windowpane, and then, as the train whooshed past fields of sugarcane, a happier thought bubbled up: maybe the riots in Bombay would get so bad that nobody would be allowed to leave, and if this happened the ship would be canceled, and then perhaps she might go and live with Rose for a while, at least until she had her baby, for she didn’t imagine that Ci Ci would want her much longer.
Or perhaps Ollie would, at the last minute, fight his way through the crowds to rescue her. He would wrest her P&O ticket from her hands and tear it up on the gangplank; the pieces would flutter into the breeze. They’d dance together again like they had that night at the Taj; he’d tell her with tears in his eyes what a lucky man he was to be given a second chance.
Errrgh. What an idiot. A crick in the neck ended that daydream. When she opened her eyes, Rose was looking at her.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “You’ve been twitching.”
“I don’t want to go home,” Tor blurted out and then regretted it. There had been an unspoken agreement between them on this holiday not to discuss the unthinkable: in two days’ time, Rose was going to take the train to Poona, and then what? Jack was supposed to get home leave every three or four years. But who knew if he’d take it, or where they’d go. They might never see each other again.
“I’m sorry, too,” said Rose carefully. She looked out of the window. “It is going to be funny being back in Poona again after having such fun with you chaps.”
Tor glanced at her. “Rose, I was just thinking. If I ever did come back to India, or found some way of staying, could I come and live with you for a while?”
“Gosh.” Rose looked quite thrown. “Do you mean after the baby’s born or something?”
“Yes.”
“Well…maybe.” Rose wasn’t exactly jumping at this. “Obviously, I’d love it, but I’d have to ask Jack. And I mean, what would you do? I mean, how would you live? Would your pees support you?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Tor slumped against the back of her seat. “I don’t know…It was just a silly train thought. Forget I mentioned it. I mean, I can’t just dump myself on you, can I?”
“It’s not that, Tor,” Rose said after a long silence. “It’s just that there’s quite a lot going on at the moment.” To Tor’s horror, she’d turned red and her voice had cracked.
“Rose,” Tor said, “I’m trying so hard not to pry, but is everything all right?”
“No,” Rose said when she could speak, “I mean, yes—it’s just that Jack really might be sent to Bannu soon for operational experience. Most of the regiment have come home, but they’ve been threatening this for months and, you know, my life’s not my own anymore.”
“I know, Rose.” Oh, poor Rose, she looked so upset and embarrassed. To change the subject as quickly as possible, she looked across the aisle to where Frank and Viva were sitting.
“What on earth is going on there?” she whispered. “They look so mis, like stone statues.”
“Very odd,” Rose whispered. “This is not gossip, well, I suppose it is, but I saw him leaving her room early this morning. I couldn’t sleep and was watching the sun come up. But now look at them, they haven’t spoken one word to each other almost for the entire trip. Did something happen?”
Tor shrugged. “I don’t know,” she mouthed. “Do we dare ask her?”
While Rose mouthed, “No!” Viva half opened her eyes, looked in their direction, and closed them again. She wasn’t very good at pretending to be asleep.
When their train arrived at the Victoria Terminus, it was raining. Geoffrey Mallinson, red-faced and agitated under his umbrella, elbowed his way through the swarming crowd to meet them. Over the roar of the station, he explained in a hearty bellow that he’d driven himself in the Daimler because walls had ears and he didn’t entirely trust his servants at the moment. Frank got into the back with Viva and Rose. Tor sat in the passenger seat.
On their way out of the station, the Daimler swished through muddy puddles littered with discarded placards from the demonstrations.
“Well, you chose the right time to leave town,” Geoffrey said, half turning so he could speak to Frank. “We’ve had a dickens of a time here: first the rain—seven inches in one hour—then the riots. It took me two hours to get to work yesterday.”
Tor pretended to shudder. “Do you think they’ll go on for ages?” she said hopefully.
Geoffrey didn’t seem to hear her; he was one of those men who, if there was another man present, ignored the women. “I hope you’re all coming for lunch,” he suddenly boomed. “Ci’s laid on a marvelous spread.”
Tor saw Frank and Viva glance at each other and hesitate. They still hadn’t spoken.
“Do come.” Geoffrey glanced at them anxiously through the rearview mirror. “The memsahib’s been cooped up at home for five days now because of the troubles; and, who knows, you might not see us again at Tambourine.”
“What do you mean?” said Tor.
“Well,” Geoffrey’s eyes struggled to find Frank’s, “London’s getting windier and windier about these demonstrations, and of course there’s been a tremendous slump in profits since the war. I don’t suppose we’ll hold out much longer.”
Tor gasped. “What?”
“How many factories have already closed?” Frank asked.
“Well, certainly five or six—mainly jute and cotton—in the past few months, and we’re only hanging on by our fingernails. Tragedy really, when you think of how hard we’ve worked and all the years it’s taken us to build the thing up.”
The car lurched as Geoffrey swung suddenly around a bullock cart blaring his horn. “Hurry up, you blithering idiot!” he yelled out of the window. “Get over! Get over now! But not a word to Ci over lunch,” he said when the car was purring smoothly forward again. “This has all been far more o
f a shock than she lets on.”
Beads of sweat had formed across his forehead like a line of unpopped blisters. He mopped them with his handkerchief.
“And of course, it may well all be a storm in a teacup,” he comforted himself, adjusting his large bulk against the car seat. “I mean, it’s not as if we haven’t seen it all before.”
“Darling sweets.” Ci pounced the moment they entered the hall. She was wearing an orange silk dress, more suited to an evening party than lunch. Her mouth was carelessly smeared with red lipstick, some of which she left like a brand on Tor’s cheek.
“Lovely, lovely, lovely to see you all,” she said. “And who does this divinely good-looking young man belong to?” Visibly brightening, she put a hand on Frank’s arm. “Pandit,” she shouted, “I think we all need rather a large gin—in the drawing room, if you please.” She snapped her fingers.
“How do you think I look?” she asked Tor suddenly as they walked across the marbled hall.
Tor said, “Wonderful, Ci Ci, quite wonderful, and how very kind of you to stay in for us.”
She understood now the frantic paddlings going on beneath the polished surfaces of Ci’s life—the dumbbell sessions, the daily eyebrow pluckings, the shrieks about clothes.
“Stay in for you.” Ci turned to look at her. There was something birdlike, frantic about her eyes. “I haven’t stepped foot out of this house for five days. I’m actually speaking to you from the grave. When I woke up this morning there was no color in my cheeks at all.”
“Well, it’s even more kind of you to ask us for lunch,” Rose rescued Tor. “Were the riots horribly frightening?”
“Not a bit,” said Ci Ci grandly, “they’re two-hatted oafs.”
“Cecilia refers to the fact that Hindus often carry Muslim hats in their pockets, so they can change if they wander into the wrong area,” Geoffrey said helpfully, always happy to translate.
“And vice versa,” Ci added indignantly, “and it’s all rot, so let’s all have a very large gin and forget about the lot of them. Pandit! Where are you?”
“Well, actually,” said Frank, “I’m afraid I can’t.” He looked at his watch and frowned. “I’m on duty at six.” He was speaking to Viva as if she was the only person in the room, but Viva shook her head and turned away.
“Oh, don’t go. One little drinkie won’t hurt.” Ci was almost pleading. “I’ve done the whole thing for you really, to thank you for rescuing the girls. And everything’s on the table. Our chauffeur will drive you both back—you won’t have a hope of a taxi from here, not at the moment.”
Frank and Viva looked at each other again, and there was another awkward pause.
“How very kind,” Frank said eventually. “But I must be gone by four at the very latest.”
He looked most peculiar, thought Tor, and again she saw that when he glanced at Viva, she turned away.
Four liveried servants, one behind each chair, leaped into life as they entered the dining room. They salaamed deeply.
The light, well-proportioned room gave out onto a terrace where there were large tubs of heliotrope and arum lilies all in bloom. The enormous crystal chandelier, switched on quite unnecessarily given the brightness of the day, floated bubbles of light over a table set with damask cloths, Venetian glasses, and small bowls of tuber roses.
Ci Ci sat down unsteadily at the end of the table. “Pandit,” she said, “forget the gin and charge everyone’s glasses for a celebration glass of champagne.”
“I’ve forgotten, my love, what it is we’re celebrating exactly?” Geoffrey said nervously.
“Life, Geoffrey,” she said, giving him a beady look. “Life. He’s got no sense of occasion,” she told Frank. “He never had. Come on, hurry up. Jaldi,” she said to the three servants who were handing around plates of salmon mousse and Melba toast. There was a pop as Pandit opened the Moët & Chandon with an expert twist.
“Now,” Ci said, when everyone had taken their first sip. “I’ve been sitting here, God help me, with Geoffrey for the last few days, so what I need is a good gup. Tell me something I don’t know. Astonish me.” She gave a curious grimace.
Tor, Rose, and Viva shot desperate looks at one another; Ci swallowed another mouthful of champagne.
“Well, they say they had a very jolly time in Ooty, dear,” Geoffrey prompted helpfully.
“Oh, did you?” she asked Frank. “Any amusing people there at this time of year?”
Rose gamely stepped in. “Well, it was quite quiet, but it was such fun being together again, Ci Ci,” she said. “And the Woodbriar is every bit as nice as you said it would be, and Jane spoiled us and packed us splendid picnics and we saw some wonderful flowers and it was so nice to feel cool again.”
She sipped some water and came to a sudden halt—Ci’s eyes over the rim of her glass had gone perfectly blank, like a goldfish who’d come to the surface of a bowl and found no food there.
“And what about our Tor?” At last Ci had swiveled around to talk to her. “Any decent men there, or was it all picnics with the girls?”
“No men at all.” Tor hated the faint air of salaciousness that hung around her question and was, suddenly, not in a mood to placate her. “But lots and lots of lovely lemon cake.”
“Oh, I remember that wonderful cake.” Poor Geoffrey was all over the place like a man who’d invited a semi-wild tiger into his sitting room to entertain the guests.
“So Tor’s been eating again, what a surprise,” said Ci Ci.
“Darling!” Geoffrey jumped up so quickly he dropped a crystal fingerbowl on the floor, and shards of glass and water spread over the Persian carpet. Ci looked at it perfectly expressionlessly for a few seconds.
“God, you’re a clot, Geoffrey,” she said at last. “A clumsy clot.” A shred of meat had clung to her teeth. “Really. I mean it.”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha,” Geoffrey laughed as if this was a splendid joke; he clapped his hands. “D’you know, she’s right for once? Vivash will clear it up,” he said.
“Not for long, Geoffrey,” Ci reminded him softly.
Before Ci went upstairs for her afternoon siesta, she remembered that a man had called for Tor and she’d meant to give her the message.
“Oh heavens, who?” Tor tried to sound unconcerned. Oh, Ollie, please, please, God, let it be Ollie.
“Now, who in the hell was it?” Ci put down her cigarette holder while she thought. “Oh, I know, I know. What was his name? Toby Williamson. He said we’d all met at the Huntington’s; I had no memory of it. He wanted to know you were safe in the riots. He left a telephone number.”
Tor’s heart sank instantly. “How kind of him,” she said.
“Was he the one with the insect collection who wrote poetry?” Ci’s expression was satirical. “Such fun,” she told the others. “She read some to me. ‘My heart is a tool / I’ve been such a fool…’” she improvised gaily. Tor felt her cheeks flush with shame.
How cruel of her to have shown his very nice poem (actually about birds and eggs or something) to Ci, who had doubtless amused her circle at the club with it, too. She’d met Toby at some do at Government House. A sweet man, she remembered, who did something to do with teaching boys at a school somewhere. He’d talked to her about birds, and then, she remembered, about women’s clothes and she, totally, in the grips of Ollie obsession, had hardly heard a word. All she could really remember of him was that he had a kind smile, and, oh yes, that was it, they’d had a hot-making conversation about modern poetry until she’d had to explain to him she was a complete ignoramus and he’d have to speak to her friend Viva about things like that. He hadn’t sneered at her about that, but looked at her thoughtfully.
“I’m envious,” he’d said. “You have it all to come.”
I was just phoning to see if you were all right. That was kind, but when she tried to remember what his voice sounded like, she couldn’t.
When Ci had left the room, Rose said, “Will you phone him back?”
“Nothing to lose,” said Rose lightly. “Except your ticket home.”
“No,” agreed Tor.
“Shall we toss for it?” Rose got out a three-rupee coin. “Snakes you do, squiggles you don’t.”
She flung the coin in the air, then clapped it in the palm of her hand.
“Snake wins,” she said.
Chapter Forty
When Viva and Frank got in the back of the Mallinsons’ car after lunch, she pulled the seat rest down between them.
“I can’t stand that woman,” she exploded as soon as they were in motion. “How dare she speak to Tor like that?”
“Careful.” Frank looked at the chauffeur, who was driving with an ear cocked in their direction. “Maybe she drinks because she is frightened,” he said in a low voice. “Everything is ending for her, too.”
“Well, I really do hate her,” Viva muttered. “She’s pure poison.”
She felt his hand touch hers.
“Viva,” he said, “I’m worried about you going back to Byculla on your own. Let me stay with you for a while.”
“No,” she said. “No. You can’t come back.”
“Talk to me, please,” he said. “There’s hardly any time left now.”
“I am talking to you,” she said childishly, pulling her hand away. “I’m talking to you now.”
“We can’t just pretend nothing happened.”
Yes we can, she thought. She’d done it before and she could do it again.
The most disturbing thing of all was that she felt so intensely alive sitting next to him like this, so aware of his thigh muscles under the lines of his trousers, his hand resting casually on the seat rest. Her body was blazing with sensation in a new way, and all of this felt wrong and muddled up because Guy could be dead, and surely nicer or better people would be in mourning, not in lust.
“I’ve got a lot of work to catch up on, and Mr. Jamshed’s there, and look,” as they drove up the Queen’s Road, she pointed outside the car window at the calm streets, the palm trees, the sea beyond. “Everything looks perfectly normal again. It’s as if the riots never happened.”
East of the Sun Page 35
