The Road Back

by Liz Harris

  ‘Come in,’ her father called, and she heard her mother open the door and go into the room. She didn’t hear the door close.

  Knowing that she ought not to do it, but unable to stop herself, she crept down to the bottom of the staircase, crouched on the lowest step and peered around the wall. She had a clear view along the corridor, through the open door and into the front room.

  Her father was sitting in his usual chair behind the table, staring straight ahead of him, his glasses on the table in front of him. Patricia saw him nod slightly to her mother as she entered the room, then pick up his glasses and pull a pile of typewritten sheets towards him. Her mother hesitated a moment, then went and sat on the chair opposite him, with her back to Patricia.

  There was a broken line of books along the middle of the table. A wall of words separating her parents, she thought.

  ‘Yes, Enid?’ Her father’s voice was very quiet.

  Patricia suddenly felt very nervous for her mother: when her father’s voice was quiet like that, he should be left alone.

  He leaned forward, pushed the books in the line closer to each other, and sat back against his chair. She wondered if her mother was able to see him above the books.

  ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ he asked.

  ‘Patricia’s gone to bed,’ she heard her mother say. ‘I think she’s already asleep.’

  ‘Her ability to bring this day to an early end with sleep is, indeed, enviable. I fear that I shall find the welcome oblivion of sleep somewhat more elusive. This has been a sad day for me.’

  ‘And for Patricia and me, too, George. For me, too,’ her mother said. Patricia sat up in surprise. Her mother didn’t normally talk to her father like that, sort of sharply, accusingly. ‘He was my son as well as yours. I loved him, too.’

  ‘I am well aware of that, Enid.’

  Her father sounded very calm. Relief flooded through Patricia. She knew that her mother was wrong to speak to her father like that, but she’d had a terrible day and Patricia didn’t want her father to get angry with her.

  ‘I have no wish to disparage your grief, Enid, nor that of Patricia’s. We are all mourning the loss of someone who was born with great potential. James lost the life he might have had and now we, in turn, have lost James.’

  ‘That’s right,’ her mother said, her voice strange. ‘I’ve lost my baby.’ Her voice was getting louder; it sounded as if she was going to start crying again. ‘So why are you sitting in here on your own? Why aren’t you with me, helping me through this? We’ve lost a child, George.’ Her mother hunched her shoulders, leaned forward, put her hands to her face and started to cry.

  Patricia swallowed the lump in her throat, and watched her father get up, go round the table to her mother and stand beside her. He put his hand on her mother’s shoulder. She stared in amazement: her father never touched her mother.

  Her mother must have been as surprised as Patricia because she immediately stopped crying and looked up at him. ‘You blame me, George, don’t you? You’ve always blamed me for James being ill, haven’t you? You think it’s my fault. You think I should never have left him with Mary. I know that’s what you think. You’ve always held me responsible for what happened. You have, haven’t you?’

  Her mother put her face in her hands again, and her shoulders shook.

  Her father slightly raised his hand, then he put it back again on her mother’s shoulder.

  Even though she couldn’t see his face, she could tell from the way he was standing that he felt uncomfortable. ‘I’m not aware that I have ever apportioned blame for James’s affliction to anyone, Enid. It happened, and we’ve had to accept that and learn to live with it. I’ve done my best to do just that. That’s all.’

  ‘But that’s not all, is it?’ Her mother dropped her hands and looked up at her father as she spoke. Patricia caught sight of her face, and drew her breath in sharply. Her mother looked awful, not like her mother at all; her face was all swollen and desperate. ‘Whether or not you admit that you blame me, it’s there all the time. I know it is. It’s been there every single day of our lives since you got back from the war. James would never have got ill if I hadn’t left him. That’s what you think, isn’t it? But I had to go into the hospital, so maybe his illness is Patsy’s fault, too. Is she also to blame, George?’

  An icy hand gripped Patricia’s heart. Her eyes went to her father’s back, and she waited. He took his hand from her mother’s shoulder and returned to his chair on the other side of the table.

  ‘You are being ridiculous, Enid,’ he said, sitting down and picking up one of the typewritten sheets next to him. His voice sounded very cold. ‘You need to calm down and control yourself, my dear. I shall put your words down to your grief.’

  Patricia felt herself relax.

  Her mother stood up and wiped her eyes. ‘You do blame me, George, and that’s why, on all of the occasions over the past few years when we should have been together, comforting each other, you were doing exactly what you’re doing now – hiding away in here. But you can rest assured that I won’t embarrass you again by expecting more from you than you’re able to give.’

  She pushed back her chair, turned and started to walk towards the door. Patricia quickly scrambled to her feet.

  ‘Just a thought, Enid,’ she heard her father call after her. Her mother stopped where she was and turned round, her back to Patricia. ‘Every person must deal with his grief according to his character. In my grief, my need has increasingly been for solitude. I accept that. It is evident to me, however, that your need is that I blame you for James’s illness. But are you quite certain, my dear, when you look into your heart, that I am the person who’s been blaming you for the past fifteen years? Is there not someone, weighed down with guilt, who is blaming you far more than ever I could, or would?’

  Her mother didn’t move. She stood still, staring in the direction of her father. The clock on the wall ticked loudly in the silence of the room. ‘You do blame me, George,’ her mother said at last, and she turned back to the door. ‘Yes, you do.’

  Patricia was half way up the stairs by the time that she heard the click of the door closing behind her mother.

  Shaking, she ran into her bedroom and threw herself on to her bed. How dare her mother suggest that her father might blame her for James being ill! That was mean, mean, mean. Her mother was just jealous of the closeness between her and her father; that was it. She’d been really nasty that evening, trying to turn her father against her, and she’d never, ever forgive her for what she’d said.

  Chapter Six

  Ladakh, June 1960: Kalden, aged 16

  Kalden stood in his favourite place at the top of a steep slope that fell sharply to the water’s edge, and watched the thick morning mist inch its way up the crimson and green walls of the mountain, gradually uncovering the narrow ravine below and opening the beauty of the valley to his gaze. The dark stream at the foot of the craggy ridge, swollen with melt-snow water, snaked sinuously between clusters of fallen rocks and banks of crimson scree.

  A spray of blue gentians nestled between two rocks at his feet. Peeping out from beneath them, he could see the tips of the wind-gnarled rose-bushes that clung to the sides of the slopes. In the burgeoning light of day, the flowers had started to unfurl their petals and were springing to life. Just like red butterflies, he thought.

  A lonely bird swooped across the ravine.

  He raised his eyes to the bird, and beyond the bird to the purple crests of the distant mountains, and he sighed with pleasure. It was going to be a beautiful day: summer was creeping over the plateau, melting the winter snow; Dolma had run her hand very slowly across his chest the night before and whispered that she liked him very much; and ahead of him was a day with Mr and Mrs Henderson and Peter. He couldn’t have felt happier.

  Mrs Henderson was going to start teaching him and Peter to play a tune she’d written for the three of them. Peter and he would play their recorders and Mr
s Henderson would play the accordion. The recorder that the missionary family had given him the year before was the best present he’d ever had and he loved learning tunes to play on it.

  He’d been very surprised when they’d given him the recorder and he’d tried to give it back, telling them that they’d already given him enough by teaching him lots of things, such as how to speak English and how to read. But they’d insisted that he take it. They all had their own instrument, Mrs Henderson had said, and they wanted him to have one, too; he was, after all, effectively a member of their family.

  He’d learnt to play the recorder as quickly as he’d picked up the piano accordion. In fact, he’d soon caught up with Peter and overtaken him, which hadn’t pleased Peter at all. But Mr and Mrs Henderson had been full of praise for the speed with which he’d learnt the instruments. He was a natural, Mrs Henderson used to say. A good all-rounder, Mr Henderson would add; a lucky boy to be so strong and powerful, as well as musical.

  Since he’d been given the recorder, he’d hardly touched the accordion. He still liked it, but the recorder was easier and it belonged to him. What’s more, he could carry it in the folds of his clothes and play it wherever he wanted.

  From the moment that he’d learnt his first tune, he’d been waiting for the right time to play it to his family.

  His chance had come during one of the long winter evenings when he and his parents and brothers had been sitting round the fire in the upstairs kitchen, listening to stories and singing and making music. Finally, there was a break in the conversation. This would be a good time to show them the recorder and what it sounded like, he’d thought. They knew he could play the drums, but so could other people in his village. No one in his village, however, could play the recorder. That made him special and they would be proud of him.

  And he could see that they were proud of him as they listened to him play, but he could also see the sadness in their eyes.

  ‘You play very well, my brother,’ Anil had said when he’d finished. ‘But this music comes from the missionaries. It reminds us that you still go to their house. And this is not good.’

  ‘You are a Buddhist, Kalden, and you are going to be a monk,’ Tenzin said, moving to sit next to him. He’d put his hand on Kalden’s shoulder. ‘You should now be spending more time with the monks, learning their ways, and less time with the Christians. Recorder music belongs to the world of the Christians.’

  He’d thought of Dolma, and he’d opened his mouth to tell them that he might not be a monk after all, but Tenzin, his hand still on his shoulder, had started to sing a song about the approach of summer, and he’d closed his mouth again. There’d be time for that another day.

  After that evening, he’d never played to them again.

  He’d carried on helping his brothers and parents, doing everything he was asked to do: sowing seeds in the spring, tending the animals in the summer, harvesting the ripe crops in the autumn, making dung cakes and mud bricks, helping with the spinning, and joining his family and village in the celebrations that took place throughout the year. But when he’d done his chores and had spent enough time with Dolma for her to be happy, he’d go as fast as he could to his missionary friends.

  That was where he was needed; that was where he belonged; and that was where he felt that he only ever really came alive.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t feel strongly for Dolma. He did. It was just that the Hendersons had opened his eyes to the world that lay beyond his village, beyond his country, and he couldn’t seem to stop himself from wanting to learn everything there was to know about that world.

  But he knew that he couldn’t carry on as he had been doing.

  In between the hours that he spent with Peter and his parents, he and Dolma had been spending time with each other, and he sensed that his family was watching them anxiously, worrying about him and hoping very much that he’d find with her the future that they’d always known he longed for.

  It was a future that he must now secure, or risk losing it. Tenzin had made that very clear when he’d taken him aside one afternoon not long ago.

  ‘Dolma is a very pretty woman,’ Tenzin had begun awkwardly. ‘She is much admired by several young men, both from her village and from ours. You are not the only man to have feelings for her. But her eyes are for you only, my brother. And why not? You have grown into a fine man.’ He’d given Kalden a wry smile. ‘I think there will be many babies, and soon.’

  Kalden had looked down at the ground.

  ‘But you should not delay. You should go now to the onpo and ask if the stars are favourable for a match with Dolma. If they are, we will send presents and pots of chang to her family, and hope they will be accepted.’ He paused. ‘If this is what you want.’

  Kalden had stood still. The white lime-washed house that stood alone on the plain had sprung into his mind. He pushed it aside.

  ‘It is,’ he’d said. ‘You are right. I like Dolma and I want to be a married man, not a monk. I’ve not been thinking about the future, and I should have been. But I will now. Our parents will soon move next door. The babies are getting older and our house is already crowded.’

  Tenzin nodded. ‘Then speak to the onpo soon. If you do not, Dolma may give her affections elsewhere.’

  ‘I shall do that,’ he’d said, and he’d returned to his task.

  Down in the valley, the winding stream was sparkling in the shifting light of day, and warm air was creeping around him. He looked up at the clear blue sky and saw that the sun had edged above the mountains. It was time for him to go and see the Henderson family. Turning his back on the view, he began to pick his way over the rocky ground to the path that led to the missionary house.

  As soon as the house came in sight, he began to run towards it across the flat ground, gathering speed as he passed a small wayside shrine, and not slowing down until he reached the drystone wall that encircled the house.

  Peter was coming out of the house as he hurried along the path to the front door. His hands were thrust deep into the pockets of his lightweight trousers, and his face was troubled.

  Kalden stopped sharply.

  ‘Ju-le, karu skyodat-le, Kalden?’

  ‘I am well, thank you, but hot,’ Kalden replied. ‘I been running.’ He looked closely at Peter. ‘And you, Peter? You are not smiling. Something is wrong?’

  Peter glanced at him, and quickly looked away.

  ‘It depends upon how you look at it,’ Peter said. He looked down at his feet and kicked the ground. Dust flew in the air and he sneezed.

  Kalden laughed. ‘You always do that. You forget how dry ground is.’

  ‘You’re right. And to be honest, I’ll be glad to see the back of it.’

  The smile faded from Kalden’s face. He stared at Peter, his brow wrinkling.

  ‘What you mean, you be glad to see the back of it?’ A frisson of fear ran through him.

  Peter gave a strained laugh.

  Kalden took a step back.

  ‘Ignore me,’ Peter said. ‘My parents are having a row and I’m in a mood, that’s all. Let’s go for a walk, shall we? I promise not to be bad-tempered for all of the time.’

  ‘Yes, we can walk, if you like, unless there is something for me to do here. Mrs Henderson say she teach us music she written, but we can learn music another day.’

  ‘That’s decided then. If you don’t want anything to drink, we can set off at once. To be honest, I can’t wait to get away from the house for a bit. But if you’re thirsty, just say so and I’ll get you something.’

  ‘No, we walk now. We pass a stream most likely and I drink there.’ Kalden turned round, and walked back up the path alongside Peter. ‘Why Mr and Mrs Henderson having a row and you in a mood?’

  Peter’s eyes didn’t move from the ground in front of him.

  ‘Why, Peter?’

  ‘Kalden!’ Mrs Henderson shouted in the distance behind them.

  Peter gave an exclamation of annoyance. They both stopped w
alking and looked back at the house. Mrs Henderson was hurrying along the path towards them, closely followed by Mr Henderson, who was half hidden behind her. Kalden saw that her eyes were shining brightly and that she looked very happy.

  ‘Where are you boys off to?’ she asked, reaching them. ‘You’ve only just got here, Kalden. Has Peter told you our exciting news?’

  ‘I haven’t said anything yet, Mother,’ Peter cut in sharply. ‘We’re just about to go for a walk.’

  ‘Maybe Kalden won’t think it’s such exciting news,’ Mr Henderson said gruffly. ‘Maybe like me he’ll think it’s depressing. Not exciting at all. Just depressing – too depressing to talk about.’ He turned abruptly to his left and stalked off across the patch of turnips in the direction of the small orchard of apricot trees that they’d planted a few years earlier at the back of the house. ‘Depressing and disappointing,’ they heard him repeat as he disappeared from sight.

  Kalden looked from Peter to Mrs Henderson. She looked anxious and not excited any longer. His heart beat faster. ‘What is Mr Henderson talking about?’ he asked. ‘Why he sad? What is depressing and disappointing?’

  Peter exchanged glances with his mother.

  ‘Why don’t you come in for a drink, Kalden?’ she suggested. ‘Then we can tell you what we’ve decided to do. You and Peter can go for your walk after that. How does that sound? What do you think, Peter?’

  Peter gave a slight shrug of his shoulders. ‘Why not? Come on, Kalden. We might as well go back.’ Gesturing for Kalden to go with them, he went to his mother’s side and started to walk with her to the house. Kalden hesitated a moment, then began to go after them, a step or two behind them all of the way.

  They climbed the wooden stairs to the upstairs kitchen, and Mrs Henderson put out some dried apricots and poured them each a bowl of creamy yellow yak milk. Peter picked up his bowl and drained it. ‘I can’t wait to have a wider choice of things to drink,’ he said, an expression of distaste on his face as he put the bowl back on the table.