Staying On: A Novel (Phoenix Fiction)

by Paul Scott

  She shook her head so he took the tray back, rinsed the pot and cup, ear cocked for the summons to pay-parade.

  It came. He marched in, saluted, took the money in his left hand and the pencil in his right to sign the wage book with his usual flourish. He saluted again.

  “The lawn,” she said, retrieving wage book and pencil. “Burra Sahib – I think – is very pleased about the arrangements Mr Bhoolabhoy has made for the lawn. He’s looking much better. I am pleased too. Really very pleased.”

  “Yes, Memsahib.”

  “It is so curious about illness and health. Small things, little things, they make all the difference.” She resumed her spectacles and searched on the top of the escritoire. Finding what she was looking for, an envelope, she handed it to him and murmured, “For the garden, Ibrahim”, and allowed her hand to stay, so that for a moment their fingers were in contact.

  “And tonight,” she went on, “I shall go to the pictures.” She handed him some more money. “Please book my seat for the second show.”

  “Yes, Memsahib. Memsahib, it is only Wednesday.”

  “I know. A rare day for me to go. But I have not been, as you know, since Colonel Sahib became ill, and tonight he too will be doing something unusual for a Wednesday. He and Mr Bhoolabhoy are to be – convivial, I gather because Mrs Bhoolabhoy has a special bridge party. Mr Bhoolabhoy is coming here, after dinner. Perhaps you would keep an eye. Very very small chota pegs for Colonel Sahib.”

  Ibrahim put his hands behind his back.

  “Memsahib is going alone to the pictures?”

  When she did so he called a tonga for her, accompanied her, sitting up front with the driver, ostensibly to make sure no harm came to her. It was then usually understood that he would be out front to meet her when the show was over and accompany her home. It was also understood that in the interval Ibrahim had seen the picture himself from a seat in the front benches which he seldom had to pay for because he had a friend at the side entrance.

  It had been just so, long ago in the days of the Moxon-Greifes in Mirat, when he was a boy. Oddly enough the Moxon-Greife’s evening for the cinema had been a Wednesday, and when he was old enough, his father – their bearer – had begun to send him down to the box office with money for the seats and a chit signed by the Sahib. All Ibrahim had had to do was run into the cantonment bazaar, and to the Majestic, present chit and money and run back with the tickets which he gave either to his father or to Naik Hussein, the Moxon-Greife’s driver who had become a movie fan too, out of sheer boredom at having to wait or be back in time with the car to be at the entrance when the Moxon-Greifes came out. Hussein had learned to fill in the time by slipping into the front rows reserved for servants and babus. And one day, finding Ibrahim watching people go in (corrupted already by the scent of an enchantment suspected but experienced only in still pictures outside) Hussein took him in with him.

  They did not see the end of the film because Hussein was punctilious about leaving in time to have the car at the entrance before the show ended. Ibrahim ran the short distance home, faced his father’s wrath but was saved from its consequences by Hussein who pointed out that to attend a foreign-language movie (which he himself couldn’t follow at all) was as good as doing homework in the English the boy was already learning and showing an aptitude for in the class reserved for the sons of attached non-combatants at the regimental school. The Moxon-Greifes had arranged Ibrahim’s attendance, so when Hussein described film-going as homework his father didn’t have a leg to stand on and in fact took an early opportunity to mention it to Mrs Moxon-Greife when she inquired how Ibrahim was getting on.

  Thereafter Ibrahim was allowed to sit next to Hussein at the front of the car on picture-going nights. Sahib and Memsahib must have been amused by his devotion to what they called the silver screen. They discussed the picture with him on the way home, speaking both in Urdu and English. “The end was disappointing, don’t you think?” Mrs Moxon-Greife very often said. Ibrahim did not like to say that he and Hussein never saw the end of a film. Sometimes he begged to be allowed to stay but Hussein wouldn’t leave him a moment unaccompanied. He had caught up years later, sitting in front of his brother-in-law’s television set in Finsbury Park, watching the old movies. Thus he had seen at last how Greta Garbo died at the end of Camille, how Bette Davis died at the end of Dark Victory and sat desolate on a chair in the Tower at the end of Elizabeth and Essex. In a London cinema he had watched Vivien Leigh running through the mist at the end of Gone With the Wind.

  Lucy-Mem was more accommodating about time than the Moxon-Greifes had been and less nimble on her feet anyway. She was given too to gossiping in the foyer, so that now Ibrahim had ample time to see the fade-out, go with the crowd, earmark the waiting tonga and approach the front, ready to escort her. On the tonga-ride home, he in front, she behind, they talked about the movie. He liked doing that because it gave him an insight into the things that moved her and the things that made her laugh or of which she disapproved or got bored by. He was longing to accompany her again. Like her, he had not been to the movies since Tusker Sahib was taken ill.

  So, hands behind back, he put the question. “Memsahib is going alone to the pictures?”

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh, Ibrahim. You want to go too.”

  He nodded his head from one side to the other: a gesture which in this case meant, As Memsahib wishes.

  She smiled, took off her spectacles. “Why not? Indeed why not? After all, we have both earned an evening off. And we can surely trust Burra Sahib to guard his health, and Mr Bhoolabhoy to see that he guards it. So yes, Ibrahim, let us tonight both go to the pictures. Do you know what is on?”

  “Repeat showing, Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid. Paul Newman, Robert Redford.”

  “Yes, of course. We saw it last year, but such good actors. Second House, then Ibrahim. My usual seat if possible.”

  He saluted again. In the kitchen he inspected the contents of the envelope marked “For the Garden”. At the agreed number of rupees a month for the ten or so days of February Joseph had worked it was one rupee short. He had expected Memsahib to cut it even finer. That she both had and hadn’t confirmed his opinion of her as a lady of style.

  Just as he was about to leave the bungalow to work out how much percentage it would be reasonable to claim for himself before handing the balance to Joseph he heard the gramophone start up. He peeped in. Memsahib was backing gracefully away from the machine, gently turning and twisting her body, her arms round an invisible partner, balanced a little precariously on the soles of her long-ago shoes.

  “Oh how my heart has wings.”

  Chapter Six

  WHILE IBRAHIM was out booking the seat and Tusker was still out with Bloxsaw, the dak came. Among the few bills and catalogues was an airmail letter from the Blackshaws in England: a proper letter in a proper envelope, not one of those wretched new-size air-letters it was difficult to open without tearing part of the message. The reason for the envelope was that something had been enclosed: a newspaper snipping from The Times.

  LAYTON. On February 19 at his home, Combe Lodge Combe Magnus, Surrey, after a short illness, John Frederick William, Lt-Col. (IA Retd) Pankot Rifles, beloved husband of the late Mildred Layton (née Muir), dear father of Sarah and Susan, grandfather of Teddie, Lance and Jane, greatgrandfather of Boskie. Funeral private. No Flowers please, but donations if wished to the Cancer Research Fund.

  Phoebe Blackshaw had written: “I’m afraid we’ve reached the stage of life when we look at the Obits first. Directly I saw the word Pankot it occurred to me that you and Tusker must have known Colonel Layton and his family or at least known of them. Not being real Pankot people ourselves the name only rings vague bells, perhaps as people you sometimes referred to. Anyway there it is. How is dear old ‘Bloxsaw’? And how are your dear old selves?” Having delivered that last glancing blow, Phoebe rambled on full of herself as always. If Phoebe’s letters were not now virtually the only ones Lucy could ex
pect to have from home she would have considered them tiresome in the extreme.

  When Tusker came back from his walk he seemed in a good mood. He asked cheerfully, “Anything nice in the dak?”

  “Only a letter from Phoebe.”

  “Usual guff I suppose. What’s the drill for lunch, old thing?”

  It was ages since he had called her that.

  “Has your walk made you hungry, Tusker dear?”

  He said it had but that he didn’t want broth, nor a tray from the restaurant. He didn’t want to go to the restaurant either. The very sight of Mrs Bhoolabhoy waddling from bedroom to kitchen and back again with one of her bloody headaches turned him off. He hadn’t seen Mrs Bhoolabhoy since his attack. He didn’t care if he never saw her again, the old bitch.

  He ruffled Bloxsaw’s dumb head, and hesitated. Was he at last going to mention the garden?

  “We could go to the Shiraz for lunch,” he said.

  Her heart fluttered.

  “Oh, Tusker. It’s so expensive.”

  “Bugger the expense.”

  “What about tonight?”

  “Can’t tonight. Billy-Boy’s coming over for a noggin, remember?”

  “That’s what I mean, Tusker. The Shiraz for lunch would be lovely if we can really afford it for once, but it will worry me if you overdo things. Shouldn’t we go to the Shiraz another day, when you don’t have to cope with Billy-Boy in the evening?”

  “What’s the point when it’s now I’m hungry? Thirsty, too. Ibrahim!”

  “Ibrahim’s out, Tusker. What do you want? I’ll get it.”

  “A gin if there’s any left. Where’s the idle old sod gone?”

  “Well I thought that as you’re spending the evening with Billy-Boy I’d go to the second house at the pictures, so he’s gone to get my ticket. Is that all right?”

  “What could be wrong? You usually do go.”

  Not for a long time, she was about to say, but didn’t because the nice mood he was in might not last through the small argument such a conversation could easily lead to. So she gave him a very weak gin, changed her twin set and shoes and at twelve-thirty they went across to the Shiraz and up in the lift to the Mountain View Room where he complained about the table first offered and then about a gravy stain on the menu the waiter handed him.

  But he was obviously enjoying himself. The Srinivasans waved. Bobbie and Nita Ghosh came across for a word. The Desais, arriving, stopped by and chatted long enough for Lucy to fear that Tusker would invite them to join him at his expense. The Desais were the richest free-loaders in Pankot. And not once, going to Europe, had they come back with one single little thing from the modest list they usually asked Lucy to give them. Moreover, they were the only two of Tusker’s Indian friends who had neither called nor sent flowers. Well, almost the only two. If she put her addled little mind to it she imagined she’d be able to think of several others who would make the same kind of fantastic excuses Mrs Desai was making about having only “just heard” because they’d been here, there, everywhere, dashing about the place, what with their son Bubli to see off to Dusseldorf, a conference in Delhi Mr Desai had had to attend and now their daughter’s marriage coming off shortly in Bombay, eight hundred guests, a killing expense.

  “Can’t they just elope?” Tusker asked. Tusker said things like that to Mrs Desai. It was a form of flirtation, although she knew he didn’t like the woman. Mrs Desai threw back her disgustingly beautiful head and laughed, and her diminutive husband who had no conversation that wasn’t about money actually smiled as if this was an idea he had turned over in his computer-like mind and regretfully rejected. Their daughter was to marry a minister’s grandson.

  “What a marvellous idea,” Mrs Desai said. “Ved and Sita would adore to do just that, but his parents are crashingly orthodox and seem to have literally hundreds of relations, apart from all the government people who’ll expect to be invited. Thank God it’s Bombay and not Delhi, or I suppose we’d have had to have her too.”

  “Come,” Mr Desai said.

  Tusker now sat down. In public he was punctilious about such things. As he settled again he muttered, “With a crore of her husband’s black market money to try and get rid of, what’s she complaining about?”

  “Oh, Tusker,” she whispered, then – looking at the prices for the first time – thought, Oh God. “I think the soup of the day, don’t you?”

  “Not unless you want to kill me off for good. You’re looking at Tahble Dhoti, which is the usual load of old rubbish from yesterday’s left-overs.”

  That’s us too, Lucy thought, not quite thinking it in words but getting their resonance. She wished he wouldn’t use his private language in public. Tahble Dhoti. People sometimes misunderstood.

  “What we’re looking at is the Allah Carti. Or the Allah Cart, after all we’re all in it up to the neck. Say what you want, Luce and don’t look at the rupees.”

  She took off her spectacles. First “old thing” and now “Luce”. A goose walked over her grave. “I’ll have what you have, Tusker, but I’m honestly not terribly hungry and remember what Dr Mitra said. Please be circumspect.”

  Was he going to mention the mali? It was strange that he had refused to mention him so far. He had not mentioned the garden once, since the night she found him crying on the loo. Perhaps he was ashamed. She had never seen him cry before. She had half-hoped that Dr Mitra, who had visited one day soon after the mali started, would say something, so that Tusker would be forced to take note and say something himself, but Mitra was a man who never noticed domestic arrangements and had hardly listened, probably hadn’t taken it in, when she confided to him that the state of the garden was getting on Tusker’s nerves.

  But I’m not going to think about all this today, she told herself. I am here, at the Shiraz, with Tusker. She looked round the room. There were some American tourists at the far end of the room. She guessed they were American because they were all talking to one another, and at least two of the women had their hair done like Jackie Kennedy. Between her and the Americans was a table-load of Japanese with their cameras slung over the backs of their chairs. The Japanese were saying nothing but eating with oriental patience and waiting – waiting for what? For Kohima to fall at last? For the gates of Delhi to crumble? Or for the snow on the peaks of the distant mountains to melt under delayed radiant heat from Hiroshima?

  Just then Mrs Bhoolabhoy billowed in, in shocking pink. Wasn’t she supposed to be playing bridge? Her companions didn’t look like bridge-players, in fact they looked to Lucy like a gang of Mafia-type Indians. One even had a suit with gold-glitter thread woven in it. The party went to a table far down the room, behind a latticework screen. Tusker had not seen her. Lucy was relieved. It would have put him off his food and spoiled things for both of them. She could not be sure whether Mrs Bhoolabhoy had seen them. And what did it matter.

  “Have you decided, Tusker, dear?” She asked.

  At that moment, Lucy could have sworn, Mrs Bhoolabhoy had sat down. The five storeys of the Shiraz seemed to lean a little farther towards the East and a tremor to pass through the whole fabric.

  . . .

  To Sarah Layton

  The Lodge,

  Smith’s Hotel,

  Pankot,

  (Ranpur).

  2nd March 1972.

  Dear Sarah (Lucy wrote the following day),

  It’s getting on for 25 years ago that we last saw one another and you’ll scarcely remember me, although we were all in Pankot during the last war and of course it was my husband (Tusker) and I who moved into Rose Cottage when you and your family moved down to Commandant House.

  A friend of ours, now back in England, and whom you won’t know because they were Tea and didn’t come to Pankot until 1965, has sent me a cutting from last month’s Times about your father’s death because she imagined we must all have been acquainted. I felt I must write to say how sorry I am to learn of this, and indeed of your mother’s death earlier.


  Poor Tusker has been quite ill recently, so although he is now on the mend I’ve not yet told him for fear of distressing him, but I know he would wish to join me in offering my sympathy to you and to Susan. He always spoke so highly of your work when you were in the WAC (I) and worked in his department at Area Headquarters, and, as I did, he had a great respect for Colonel Layton and indeed the whole family.

  I shall not intrude on your grief by going into all the hundred and one things that come to my mind about the Pankot you knew so well and Pankot as it is today, but should you be interested presently it would truly delight me to correspond with you from time to time.

  Tusker and I remained at Rose Cottage until early in 1949. You may remember he was invited to stay on for a year or two on contract with the new Indian government. When he finally retired he took a commercial job with Smith Brown & McKintosh in Bombay. The firm sent him home on a short business trip in 1950, and naturally I went with him, but that’s the only time I’ve been in England since first coming out over 40 years ago. It seems so strange to me, put like that. Tusker finally retired about 10 years ago when he was sixty and we’ve been back in Pankot for most of that time and are now literally the last of the permanent British residents on station. Quite a lot of people pass through from time to time though, young people from home and of course tourists, and we have a number of good friends among the Indian officers and their wives.

  Rose Cottage still stands. Colonel Menektara, who commands the depot, and his family live there. Tusker and I dined in the mess a few weeks ago when they celebrated the end of the war with Pakistan. The silver tray your father so kindly presented is still a prized possession, as is the silver donated by Mrs Mabel Layton’s first husband. Colonel Menektara will be sorry to hear of your father’s death, although of course they would never have known one another. He was originally Punjab regiment and I think only a young Lieutenant in 1947.

  We, as you see, are back at Smith’s Hotel where we were quartered throughout the war, or rather we’re in The Lodge, the adjacent bungalow which was taken over as an annexe. There is now a new and very smart hotel next door called the Shiraz. Unfortunately it does rather loom over our own compound. The bazaar is much the same, although there are some rather smart new shops. Ghulab Singhs and Jalal-ud-Dins you will remember. The New Electric cinema has been smartened up, but is still there and I go quite often because they show English and American pictures. We are really quite cosmopolitan and getting more modern every day.