She continued, reminiscing about their stay at Mrs Penny’s bed and breakfast in the Lake District the previous summer:
I often wonder if we could ever live in such a beautiful place – perhaps when we are old, we could buy a little tiny house in a beautiful place and make up for the years one has to spend in ugly places. It is funny, you are the only person I can possibly imagine living the whole of my life with and being happy. The thought of being young with you is full of joy, of being middle-aged and having children is full of charm and of being old and welcoming our grandchildren and our old friends to some little home of ours is surely something delightful.
The vision of their future that Helen outlines in this letter is heartrending for me, particularly with regard to welcoming grandchildren, because Avadh would miss meeting his first grandchild, Stephen, by nine months. She continued:
I always have a feeling that when the passions of our lives are over, we shall still love each other intensely and be strong in our unity. Now you will think I’m being solemn and that won’t do it all – I’m sure chutney was never meant to be eaten solemnly, but to be so hot that it made you jump – well I am sorry I am too far off to make you jump, but I hope I shall be with you soon and we can share our pickles forever after.
By dint of reading on the buses and trains I have nearly finished the four Indian books that I got from the library and I shall go next week and get some more. I can honestly say I have enjoyed them all and hope to read a lot more, now that I’ve found out where to get them. I feel the more I read the better I shall understand people when I get to India and the less likely I shall be to let you down, but I wish I could get some translations of up-to-date Indian novels and other books, but Tagore seems to be the limit of the fiction side of our libraries.
Take very good care of yourself, my treasure, and whatever you do, do not neglect your meals. Napoleon said that an army marches on its stomach – and that applies to us too. A man with an empty tummy is no good to anyone.
*
Around this time Avadh began formulating what he called a ‘wicked plan’ that Helen could come to India and they could get married in a semi-secret way with only one of his brothers present. Helen could take a job in Bombay and they would live apart until the issues with Kashi were settled. However, in his letter of the morning of 15 February he wrote in despair that there was still no news from his brother and he felt utterly trapped. Of course, Helen coming to Bombay was a flawed plan because it would mean both of them would have to find new jobs if they subsequently decided to live in England, whereas at that time she already had a good one.
Moreover, he wrote that his father, who had been so supportive, seemed to be wavering: ‘In a very subtle way, my father has suggested that it would be welcome if I changed my mind. Of course, he only harps on Vijay and says that if he lived with me (at this time) he will certainly bring some life into my otherwise dull life. Well, I don’t know what he means by it. Because of all this I feel so stupid that I can’t even write good letters to you.’
At this stage, Kashi and Vijay were still at the family home in Bulandshahr, near Delhi. In the afternoon of the 15th, Avadh received a letter from his Doctor Brother saying that Kashi’s mother now appeared to be amenable to an agreement. His heart ‘leaping with joy’, Avadh wrote to Helen outlining a detailed financial plan. When he was absolutely sure of the settlement, she was to come to India by sea, the cheaper alternative. He would send her the £75 his father and brother-in-law had given him, with which she could repay John. By the end of February, he hoped to have £98 in the bank out of which he would send £13 to Kashi, leaving enough that he could perhaps send a further £25 to England and still maintain an emergency reserve. If Helen sold a radio he had left behind as well, she could pay down her life insurance debt.
At last my dad could see light at the end of the tunnel, and thought he could see a path through their financial minefield as well. Helen replied to him on 20 February:
Dearest one,
Today came three letters from you, a love letter of 14th, a proper wail of woe of 15th and your later one of 15th telling me the good news. The first one delighted me, the second nearly made me weep with utter despair and the third one filled me with hope again. (I always look at the postmarks on your letters and read them in datal order!)
I feel as if I have suddenly woken up after a most horrible nightmare and can see the light peeping through chinks in the curtains to comfort me. I know we have got lots of battles to fight yet, but slowly we shall get ourselves into a strong position, so that we can take a strong financial blow without worrying very deeply and then we will get a little home together. I feel we can do quite a lot once we can settle this sad business over Kashi. Although it means that I shall not see you for another fortnight, I shall be so glad to get onto a ship, go to my cabin, lay my head on the pillow and rest for several days. At this moment I do not feel that I have any strength left to cope with any change in my life without first resting a little. I have kept on my feet and have not been taken ill, but the strain has been so great that, like you, I am feeling the effects. We shall have to be a little patient with each other at first and, although you will not have the rest of the sea voyage, I will try and make you well when I come.
I will have an orgy of stitching on your clothes as soon as I’ve got the flat into some semblance of order – it is a thing I always itched to do when you were here, but could not really do it – short of stripping you in public and sitting down there and then with my needle! I hope very much my sewing machine has not been broken in transit.
All my love,
Your favourite trouble and strife,
Helen
The phrase ‘trouble and strife’ puzzled Avadh so she had to explain in a later letter: ‘“Trouble and strife” is just London slang for “my little wife”. They always talk about “my trouble and strife” or “my old Dutch” when they mean their wife. It is a peculiar rhyming slang about which I must tell you one day.’
Negotiations continued to the point where Avadh believed there was some sort of agreement, but his father and brother had not yet given a green signal for Helen to come.
I think all my family can be trusted now. They will act only in our best interests. So, darling, be patient, just very patient, and in the meantime, take best care of yourself.
I am sorry that I have given you a slightly wrong notion of the attitude my father is adopting and will adopt. He will help me financially or otherwise – in anything – though he will have every sympathy and love with us, he does not want to show that he has been, in any way, instrumental in forcing Kashi out. I think we should not grudge that, because he feels that he brought Kashi for me and this is the only way he can remain friends with Kashi’s people. Well, I suppose it is all right. Do not write to him just at present – there is not enough space here to explain – but he does not want to have any proof against him that he conspired with me to have you – although no doubt without his active help things would have been much more difficult. Of course, once you come, you become as much a member of our family as anyone else.
*
On 21 February, Helen wrote about women in the world of work. Millions of women had worked during the war and although many were laid off when men returned to take up their old jobs again, a substantial number remained. Some companies had what were known as ‘marriage bars’, which prevented women from working after marriage: it was assumed that the husband would support them so they did not need jobs. Lloyds Bank had a marriage bar until 1949 and the BBC had one from 1932 to 1944. However, the times were changing fast, and women were beginning to enter higher education in greater numbers than ever before, and to expect a certain amount of career satisfaction from their jobs. It was 1970 before the Equal Pay Act was passed in Britain, stating that men and women who did the same job should receive the same remuneration, but Helen sometimes complained about inequities she encountered in 1950.
My present job is keep
ing me very occupied, but I like it. The customers are on the whole very pleasant with me and give me the same respect that they gave my predecessor, who was a man. Even now in England one has to fight quite a lot of prejudice against women in the business world, although it is getting less every year. Indian women have yet to really start going through the mill in this respect. There is a great deal to be said for the complete freedom of women and I do firmly believe that they should be free to earn their living as they wish, if they wish to, but one does have to pay for it by taking responsibility, accepting insults and losing something of one’s feminine gentleness.
You will wonder why I am talking about this, but really I am only gossiping to you and it is something which has come to the front of my mind during the last few days since having to handle big businessmen. One can tell in a minute by the way these men treat you whether they are men who got rich quickly during the war or whether they had been in business for generations. The latter ones are always courteous and polite because they are very proud of their firms and the old names these firms bear. The others don’t care twopence.
Although I find interest in this work, I shall drop it like a hot brick the moment I can come to you, because then I shall have a job to do in which my whole heart is – I only hope I can do it well.
I was awfully pleased when you said you had started to work seriously – I felt that you were not worrying quite so much. I know you can produce some very creditable stuff, given peace of mind to work with, and I am positive that you are by far the most knowledgeable man in India at present on your subject. I do hope I shall get to India in time to type your thesis, but if I don’t manage it, do have it typed by someone good, even if you have to pay a goodly sum to have it done well. A beautifully set out paper always gathers more approbation then a messy one and I know what a mess some typists can make of papers.
Mother asks to be remembered kindly to her future son-in-law. I might add that you meet with her approval. I am going to get into trouble with [her] tonight, as I shall be so late home from work, but I could not write any of this letter during my lunch hour as I was too busy to take a full hour and just stopped to eat a little and wash my face. Mother has forgotten the days when she used to write reams to my father when he was fighting in Russia!!
Darling, what fun it would be to have a really good giggle and laugh together. I feel as if I have been solemn far too long and need a jolly good spanking.
It’s obvious that Helen’s relationship with her mother had improved markedly since the old days. Both of her parents genuinely liked Avadh and treated him with respect, although they must have shared in Helen’s frustration over the delays to their marriage plans. When she did finally leave for India, Helen wrote regularly to her mother for the rest of her life.
*
On 17 February, Avadh wrote as usual despite having little news. He said he was going to try to have an informal discussion with the director of the laboratory about his ongoing professional concerns and he professed his love for Helen: ‘My love for you is as great as the Himalayan mountains – though I wonder whether I will give you that much happiness and protection as it does to its people.’
She replied on the 23rd: ‘You say you cannot always manage to say in English the words of love which you would like to say, but nobody has ever written to me such beautiful letters as you write to me and I treasure them – I have them all – yes I have.’
In this letter she wrote about the general election in Britain, which was taking place that day:
Nobody in this country really wants the Conservatives to rule us again, but we are so afraid of the Labour Party opening the door to a Communist regime, which is completely against our way of life, that it is almost certain that the Conservatives will form the next government. It is better to have a Conservative government which we can bolt out of office again in five years than to have a Labour government who might change the constitution and make way for a Communist dictatorship. This is written on polling day and as soon as this letter is finished I shall go and vote; it will be interesting to see if my forecast that the Conservatives will get in with a narrow majority is right. We shall know tomorrow.
In the event, Clement Atlee’s Labour government was re-elected by a majority of just five seats over Winston Churchill’s Conservatives. In office they continued the campaign of nationalization that had seen the creation of a National Health Service in the postwar years, but Helen’s fears of a Communist dictatorship, common to many in this Cold War era, were not realized.
On 19 February, Avadh wrote in response to Helen’s explanation about the significance of an engagement ring, but the message was not yet getting through to him.
Darling I am sorry that sometimes you are embarrassed when someone asks you for an evening out. I do not know the English ettiquette [sic] (I don’t know the correct spelling) but if you know such a person fairly well to be your friend, you can go out with him. I mean as a friend, without the word ‘boy’. I would not mind it, though, of course, if I saw and knew, probably I would feel it; but then I am a reasonable person. Do as you please; all I tell you is that I still love you and need you.
Darling, if you like I can buy a ring and send it to you – or you can buy it on my behalf and put it on. Don’t buy a very expensive one, but one which could serve your purpose.
She replied on the 24th, spelling it out for him in black and white:
It is really very trying with one’s heart in one place and one’s body in another but I hope that Dr Bhatia will be able to sew them together again one of these days – what do you think?
The English etiquette about engagement is this. When a couple agree to marry at a future date, the man gives the girl a ring to wear on the third finger of her left hand. Seeing this, no honourable man will ask any favours of her, such as to go out with her, although he will, of course, talk to her quite freely if he knows her. In law, she is engaged and has a definite status in court. If no ring is given, she is not formally engaged. She has no status in law and any man who can persuade her away from her fiancé, should he wish to do so, is quite at liberty to try. Of course, it would be a waste of time for any man to try and persuade me away from you, but occasionally people do ask me out, etc. I do not want to go out with them – nobody is of any interest except you, so, of course, I do not go. If John and his wife or Ronald [Helen’s second fiancé’s brother] and his wife asked me it would be different as they have wives with them. But enough of that. I don’t need a ring yet. One day, when we are out of debt you shall buy one for me, just for the love of me.
When she finally arrived in India, Avadh presented Helen with a beautiful gold engagement ring with a ruby and two small pearls. She treasured it always.
*
On 25 February, Helen wrote about her continuing experiments with Indian cooking.
I am writing this letter with one eye on the oven. I am having a second try at making bread without yeast. I think one cannot buy yeast in a country like India where no beer is made to produce the yeast. The first loaf I made was so flat that even the ducks to whom I fed it had difficulty in eating it! Next weekend I want to try and make an Indian lentil dish of which I have the recipe, but it is not easy to experiment in a house full of people like ours!
You have no idea how concerned I am about keeping your tummy full. Is there, do you think, in Ahmedabad a really clean shop where I might buy meat or fish occasionally until I have learned enough Indian dishes that we need not bother? I have to think that I must know a minimum of 14 Indian dishes at least, to be able to give you at least different meals every day for a week, meals that are nourishing too. I am so thrilled with the idea of keeping house for you and of having you snuffing around the kitchen to see what’s cooking. I want to be a good cook. I have just taken the bread out of the oven and I think it is right this time!
On the 26th, she reported the unfortunate, but not surprising, results. Indian bread cooked in a Western oven is doomed to failure.
You will be amused to hear that the bread I turned out yesterday was not right but I know one can make it without yeast so I shall try another method. Father teased me dreadfully about it when I fed it to the ducks. He swore that their stomachs were dragging along the ground with the weight of it!
Once she was in India, Helen learnt to make excellent rotis on a brazier and, later, a gas stove.
Avadh, too, wrote about food. First he reassured Helen:
Is it possible that I will not be eating to my heart’s content [when you are here]? I am all the time instructing the servant to cook things without putting any hot stuff so that you may find the least difficulty with coping with Indian food. In fact, the cooking of vegetables in this flat is hardly any different than English cooking. There is some difficulty about the English type of bread, as I do not know how to make it. But we shall get it from the market so long as you are not in a position to make it at home. Eggs also we can get in plenty, there being no ration on them and they cost only two shillings and threepence a dozen [in England they were four shillings and a penny, almost twice the price]. The only point on which I have not been able to make any headway is meat, since I do not know how to cook it and the servant does not take it. But I know that one can get mutton (goat’s meat) which they say tastes similar to beef which of course is difficult to obtain [because Hindus believe cows to be sacred animals]. In summer months, one should try to take meat only occasionally. We will always be able to make several types of English sweets which as you know I like much more than Indian types. We will have to get an oven.
Passage Across the Mersey Page 15
