The Towers Of Silence (The Raj quartet)

by Paul Scott

  ‘Hello, Barbie. Are you feeling better? I’ve brought these from the garden. I remembered the yellow were your favourite.’

  Barbie smiled and nodded.

  Her voice, of which she had been proud, had become a humiliation. It was weak on the consonants. It cracked on the vowels. When she spoke she could feel the vibrations in the tight drum of her chest.

  ‘Thank you, Sarah.’ She tried to whisper it but the first vowel betrayed her. One had to face it. ‘My silly old voice,’ she said in two registers at once. ‘It seems to have packed up on me. Some will think it a blessing if it keeps me quiet.’

  The roses trembled as the fractured sounds hit them.

  ‘You’ve been here before, haven’t you?’

  ‘Once or twice. But you were very sleepy.’

  ‘You were in uniform. You brought me a bottle of barley water. I still have some. Would you like a glass?’

  ‘No, but I’ll give you one.’

  ‘It would oil the cogs.’ She watched from the pillow-bower of roses while Sarah poured barley water. Helped into a drinking position she could feel her own backbone against Sarah’s hand. Her wasted body filled her with revulsion; in the room it alone lacked the security of shape and form and definition. It was like something the bed had invented, got tired of and left half-finished to fend for itself.

  ‘I shall be glad to get out of here,’ she said when Sarah had resettled the pillows to support her in the half-upright position the nurses were always trying to keep her in, in an unequal struggle against the gravitational pull of the foot of the bed and the mattress under her bony buttocks. ‘There is something about a hospital bedroom that drains one of self-confidence. One feels anonymous.’

  ‘You have your name on the door.’

  ‘Have I? That’s handy. It minimizes error. Was I in this room when you came before?’

  ‘No, in one with three other beds but only one was occupied. By a Mrs MacGregor whose husband was an engineer.’

  ‘I remember curtains round the bed with sprigs of forget-me-nots and scarlet pimpernels. And a horrible thing like a bomb. But it was only the oxygen. Why have I been moved to a room on my own?’

  ‘Captain Travers thought you’d like it. You’ve got a private balcony. When you’re better you’ll be able to sit out and not be bothered by people.’

  ‘People have never bothered me. It’s been the other way round. Was I very ill?’

  ‘You had pneumonia.’

  ‘I know. But Edwina had pneumonia. She wasn’t in hospital more than three weeks. I’ve been that already.’

  ‘A little over.’

  ‘Shall I be here much longer?’

  ‘A week or two I expect. You’re much better today. You’ll make strides now.’

  ‘Was Clarissa very cross?’

  ‘What could she have to be cross about?’

  ‘Cross with me for being ill.’

  ‘She visited you. She wouldn’t visit you if she were cross, now would she?’

  ‘I don’t remember her visiting me. I only remember you.’

  ‘I expect you were asleep.’

  ‘Will she have me back?’

  ‘Of course she will. There isn’t any question.’

  ‘I thought Dr Travers might be keeping me here because he knows Clarissa’s had me.’

  Sarah smiled. At the turn of phrase presumably. It was what soldiers said. I’ve had it. You’ve had it. It was very expressive.

  ‘And she knows the mission’s had me too. I showed her the letter.’

  ‘You mustn’t worry about Clarissa.’

  ‘Is my trunk still safe?’

  Sarah nodded.

  ‘Still in the mali’s shed?’

  ‘Yes, still there.’

  ‘Does your mother know?’

  Sarah shook her head.

  Barbie looked at the roses. ‘It was wrong of me getting you to hide it. But Clarissa would have drawn the line at the trunk. It had better go to Jalal-Ud-Din’s. If we could move it one day when your mother’s out.’

  ‘Mother’s unlikely to look in the mali’s shed. Anyway it’s doing no harm. Whenever you want it it’s there. You only have to ask me or mali.’

  ‘No. Your mother will get to know. And you’ll be in trouble. There are some little toys in it. Things the children made for me. If I give you the key you could get them out. The baby could have them when he’s older. The mali could keep the trunk. Everything else in it can be thrown away.’

  ‘You said the trunk was your history.’

  ‘Lying here one has no history. Just each hour of the day.’ She grinned.

  ‘Yes you do. And you needn’t worry about the trunk or about Clarissa having you back. Just concentrate on getting well.’

  ‘Is Susan getting well?’

  Sarah nodded.

  ‘And the baby is all right?’

  ‘The baby’s fine.’

  ‘Is Susan quite near me?’

  ‘You can see the nursing home from your balcony.’

  ‘Then I’ll sit out there and transmit prana to her.’

  ‘What’s prana?’

  ‘The goodness in the air. You breathe it in. And out. Like smelling roses. Like blowing dandelions.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Blowing dandelions.’

  It was one of the more difficult words. It came out so distorted she doubted that Sarah would understand. Her eyelids felt heavy. She let them close just for a second or two.

  When she opened them Sarah had gone, the roses were in a vase and the lights and shadows in the room had rearranged themselves as they did in theatres to denote the passage of time.

  *

  The red hospital blanket round her knees and chest reminded her of Christmas. Seated in the wheelchair at the open doorway between room and balcony she might have been surrounded by shiny pink-and-blue-wrapped parcels and by children waiting for their turn to climb on her knee and whisper secret longings and desires. She could smell pines. Through half-closed eyes she could transmute the gold of sunshine on the leaves of the trees into snow and ride the sleigh of the chair high above the roofs of the hospital and the carved balconies of the bazaar and the spire of St John’s. Santa Barbie: leaving a lingering glittering frosty scent of her own magical intrusion.

  We could go down to Ranpur she had said to do some Christmas shopping. Oh I shall never go to Ranpur again Mabel answered at least not until I’m buried.

  The reply had begun to trouble her with its vagueness, its curious subtlety. Its element of prophecy.

  She opened her eyes fully and through the balcony rails saw the girl walking in afternoon sunshine along the tarmac pathway from the nursing home. Sarah with roses. The girl looked up. The red blanket had caught her eye. She waved and came on. It seemed a long time before Barbie heard the door open in the room behind her and the little Anglo-Indian nurse say, ‘You have a visitor.’

  ‘Hello, Sarah,’ she croaked. ‘You see. I’m on the mend except for this wretched voice. If you wheel me in we can see each other. There’s only room for one on the balcony.’

  Roses descended upon her lap and she felt the chair grasped and tip up as Sarah began to negotiate it back into the room. When they were settled, seated together at the window, Barbie said, ‘You’ve been visiting Susan. How is she?’

  ‘Much better. Captain Samuels thinks she can come out quite soon. And incidentally Captain Travers seems very pleased with you.’

  ‘Have you seen him?’

  ‘On the way in. He thinks about another week will do it. Perhaps two to be on the safe side.’

  ‘Did he mention my voice?’

  ‘No. Why are you worried about your voice?’

  ‘That’s what Doctor Travers says when I ask him. But listen to it. It gets no better.’

  ‘It’s only a bit hoarse. You’ll be all right when you’re on your feet and walking in the fresh air.’

  ‘I hope so. It would be awful to lose one’s voice. For me, like a paint
er to lose his sight, a musician his hearing. It was never a singing voice of course, but it carried in the schoolroom. Mr Cleghorn said it had a note of command which he advised me to develop because it was very important for a teacher. When I was a girl I took elocuton. I called it electrocution. My mother paid for me to have the lessons to help me in later life and in her decline she often asked me to read to her. You put such expression into it, Barbie, she used to say. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. She died half way through A Tale of Two Cities.’

  She lifted the bunch of roses to smell them. Sarah took the opportunity to speak.

  ‘Barbie, I shan’t see you again for a while. I’m going back with Aunty Fenny to Calcutta to stay with her. We’re going tomorrow. When Susan’s okay she and Mother are going to join us so that we can all go to Darjeeling, probably some time in September.’

  Barbie let the roses fall. Her body seemed to have reacted of its own accord in advance of the sense of dismay, of loss, which was slower, only just now taking hold of her.

  She said, ‘What about the baby?’

  Sarah gathered some of the dropped petals from around the bunch on Barbie’s lap.

  ‘Well of course they’ll bring ayah and the baby with them. Captain Samuels thinks it would be better for Susan not to go back to familiar surroundings right away, so tomorrow after we’ve gone Mother’s going to close Rose Cottage and move into Flagstaff House until Susan’s discharged. Then when Captain Samuels gives the word they’ll come down to Calcutta.’

  ‘Close Rose Cottage?’

  ‘Only until we get back. Perhaps for Christmas. We’re sending Mahmoud on leave but the mali and his wife will look after things.’

  ‘Who is this Captain Samuels?’

  Sarah paused. ‘A very intelligent man,’ she said.

  ‘But the journey, Sarah, with a tiny baby.’

  Sarah dropped the petals into a wastebin.

  ‘I don’t think the baby will come to any harm. He’s quite a tough customer. And I think we can depend on Mother to travel in the maximum comfort and with every available amenity.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. I was looking for objections. Because I don’t want you to go.’

  ‘I must be going in any case. I’ve promised Aunt Fenny.’

  ‘I didn’t know your Aunt Fenny was in Pankot.’

  ‘She came up to help Mother. You know what some families are. In trouble they close the ranks and stick together.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be better for her to wait? Until you can all go, with Susan?’

  ‘She can’t be away from Uncle Arthur any longer. Well. That’s one answer. But I’m the culprit really. They’ve decided I need a holiday.’

  ‘Are you ill?’

  ‘No, Barbie. Do I look ill?’

  ‘No. No, you don’t. You look tired but that’s not surprising. Oh, I should be glad for you, shouldn’t I? You liked Calcutta.’

  Sarah nodded. She was looking at the roses, still touching them, making sure all the loose petals had been gathered.

  Barbie observed the pale gold lights in the girl’s hair. She felt possessive in her love. She moved a hand to make contact, but Sarah misunderstood. She must have thought the movement of her own fingers among the petals had begun to irritate the invalid. She took her hands away, folded them in under her arms but stayed bent forward in the chair, her knees almost touching the red blanket.

  ‘Will you visit Captain Merrick when you’re in Calcutta?’ Barbie asked.

  Sarah shook her head.

  ‘He’s probably gone anyway. To somewhere where they fit artificial limbs. I believe they get on to it quite quickly nowadays.’

  ‘But he’s only just had the amputation.’

  ‘It’s two months ago.’

  ‘I’ve lost track of time,’ Barbie said. ‘What will happen to him?’

  ‘I suppose they’ll find him a job somewhere either in the police or the army. He wouldn’t be the only officer around with a disability. Why?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about him.’

  ‘Have you, Barbie?’

  ‘Lying here one has little to do but think. I’ve been thinking about something you said after you’d been in Mirat. Do you remember? We were sitting under the pine tree and you said you thought Captain Merrick had got it all wrong about the men he arrested in Mayapore, the ones who were supposed to have attacked Miss Manners. You said it would be terrible not just for them but for him, to have got it wrong but never see it, never believe it.’

  ‘Yes, I did, didn’t I? What made you think of that?’

  At last Sarah looked up from her study of the roses. But her eyes were not lit by more than polite inquiry. Perhaps it hadn’t been her interest in the question that made her look up but her arrival at the end of an earlier train of thought which enabled her to.

  ‘I’ve been wondering whether I was wrong, about Mabel, about Mabel’s wishes,’ Barbie said. ‘And if I were whether it will be more terrible knowing it than not knowing it. Wouldn’t it be more terrible for Mr Merrick to know he’d got it wrong?’

  ‘Perhaps, for a moment. But better in the end surely?’

  ‘Better to know and to say, I got it wrong? But everything that happened as a result of him getting it wrong would be on his conscience forever wouldn’t it? There’s nothing he can do now to put it right, is there? Even if those men have been released from prison since.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that be better than having no conscience?’ Sarah looked down at the roses again. ‘Don’t let’s talk about Ronald Merrick. Let’s talk about what’s bothering you.’

  ‘It’s connected really,’ Barbie said. She could observe the fair head again without disguising the depth of her feeling. ‘Everything seems to be. Even spoons. I think it’s this room. It addles my mind. The walls are so white and bare.’ If she shut her eyes she could feel how everything depended now on the pumping of her old heart and the strange electrical impulses of her brain which switched from one picture of her life to another, encapsulating time and space, events, personalities. ‘I saw her,’ she said. ‘I was very frightened because I heard her first and mistook her for Mabel. When she left I heard the car. It went towards West Hill.’

  She had closed her eyes. Now she opened them and found Sarah watching her.

  ‘People said it was a joke, didn’t they? When her name appeared in the book. They said it must be someone playing a joke in bad taste. But I saw her. It couldn’t have been anyone else. The way she talked and stood, genuflected. You could see she had held a position of importance in public life. I wished I could have seen her face. But there was this veil and the old-fashioned topee with a wide brim. And she sat in front of me. When she looked to this side, that side, there was just a shadow of a face.’

  ‘Who are you talking about, Barbie?’

  ‘Miss Manner’s aunt, Lady Manners. You met her in Srinagar. Your houseboat was moored close to hers. Everybody else was embarrassed, because of the child being there. But you––-’ She stopped. Sarah was looking at her in the oddest manner. ‘Have I only imagined it?’

  ‘Imagined what, Barbie?’

  ‘That you crossed the water and talked to her. And saw the child. Yes, I’m sorry. I remember now. It seemed to me the sort of thing you would have done, so I imagined you doing it. The picture was very vivid. All that hot sun and deep green water. Fronds of a kind of willow hanging above the roof of the houseboat. And the child crying. Motherless, fatherless child. But it had Krishna as well as Jesus. I think Miss Manners must have been rather a special person. She could have got rid of it. I mean before it was born. People would have praised her. And her aunt would not now live in obscurity. But—’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Obscurity or not she was very proud. You could tell. Not of herself, of her niece. My father once said to me, Barbie, there is a conspiracy among us to make us little. He was tipsy at the time of course. There was a stage of his tipsiness between the initial release
and the final moroseness and anger when he sang and talked and said things like that. My mother told a neighbour whom she wished to impress with our superiority, “My husband has a lot of the poet in him.” After that I used to watch him hard. I imagined the poet in him as an unborn twin, one that could be cruel to him as well as kind. Like the demon spirit of a party. After he said that about there being a conspiracy among us to make us little I thought of the demon spirit or poet as a giant bottled up inside him and turned into a dwarf by a spell which only liquor could break.’

  Still gazing down at the fair head, bent above the roses, she continued. ‘My father’s life was full of anomalies but so was my mother’s. For instance she was a great church-goer. Her piety on Sundays inspired me as a little girl. It was through her local connections that I got into a church school and stayed on as a pupil-teacher. But when I was grown and told her I wished to serve God in the foreign missions, the missions to India, she was very shocked. Oh, Barbie, she said, not among heathens! She made me feel my ambitions were wrong, almost sinful. Perhaps they were. Even when she was dead and I’d summoned the courage to apply I went to my first interview as if I knew I was doing something to be ashamed of. I huddled into myself. I walked through the streets hunched. I made myself small. To slip through the mesh of people’s disapproval and not to be noticed. When I sailed for India I thought: Now I can be large again. But that has not been possible. One may carry the Word, yes, but the Word without the act is an abstraction. The Word gets through the mesh but the act doesn’t. So God does not follow. Perhaps He is deaf. Why not? What use are Words to Him?’

  Encouraged by Sarah’s quietness she touched the girl’s head, smoothed the soft helmet of hair. Almost indiscernibly, but unmistakably felt by the hand, the girl inclined her head briefly into the caress.

  ‘I shall never see you again!’ Barbie cried suddenly. ‘Don’t go to Calcutta!’

  Sarah laughed: a girl embarrassed by a foolish and importunate elder. ‘Oh, Barbie, I’m not going away for good!’

  ‘No.’

  There are these spoons, she wanted to say; and began to – but mercifully her voice gave out and she was saved the indignity of rambling on about such nonsense. Apostle spoons! She grinned and shook her head. Her voice came back. ‘You’ll write to me if you have time, won’t you? And if you meet a Mister Studholme . . . but that’s unlikely. Very unlikely. He’s Mission. Although very important.’