The Kashmir Shawl

by Rosie Thomas

  Myrtle would snatch hers away. ‘It’s early. Put on a record, darling. Let’s have a little dance.’

  Nerys said very firmly, ‘I don’t want another, thank you.’

  Myrtle sighed and her frown deepened. ‘Oh dear. I’d forgotten how boring Srinagar can be. Don’t you ever get bored, Nerys?’

  ‘Not in the same way as you, I don’t think.’ You need something useful to do, Myrtle McMinn, she thought. From what she had seen so far, Myrtle’s days seemed to consist of telephoning, getting dressed to go out, going out, and then recovering from either the boredom or the alcoholic excesses of going out by undressing and wrapping herself in a silk kimono. What else did all these women do, apart from laugh and sip cocktails and paint their nails?

  Myrtle scratched a line in the air to indicate that their drinks were to be put on the McMinns’ bar tab. She smiled at Nerys, squeezed her arm and let it go. The furrows were erased from her forehead. ‘You’re quite right. Archie will be home early tonight, and we should go and keep him company. I’m sorry to be so witchy. Frances Thingummy-Thingwig quite got to me, with her evil stories. Poor Angie Gibson wouldn’t hurt a fly, and if she’s finally left her horrible husband for good then I wish her luck. She deserves better. Now, let’s go. Am I forgiven?’

  ‘For nothing,’ Nerys insisted. They linked arms and made their way past the emptying tables. It was the soft blue time by the lake that wasn’t quite afternoon any longer but hadn’t yet become evening. It was the hour when Europeans went home to dress for dinner before meeting yet again later at the club or elsewhere.

  A little wooden bridge linked the pontoon to the stretch of close-mown grass in front of the clubhouse. As they crossed it, their heels clicking on the wooden planks, the first bat of the evening flitted from the trees and skimmed overhead. The lights in the club drawing room were on, and a group of people was silhouetted in front of the windows.

  Nerys saw a man with a head of curling tawny hair, chopped off anyhow, unlike the tidy military crops of his companions. His face was sunburnt and his clothes looked as if he had shrugged them on without much thought as to whether they were even clean, let alone pressed. He had deep-set eyes, a broad chest, and although he was of only average height he seemed bigger than his companions. He was talking in a resonant voice, in English but with a noticeable foreign accent, and Nerys heard him demand, ‘Why not? The answer should be yes. In the mountains no is never an answer, my friends. We must ask again …’

  As the two women passed by he lifted his head and frankly appraised them. His eyes caught Nerys’s and held them for a second. Caught off balance by this she looked straight ahead and followed Myrtle on through the french windows and into the drawing room. They passed out of earshot.

  ‘Did you know them?’ Nerys asked, as Myrtle glanced round.

  ‘No – why? Wait a minute. The wild-looking one is called Stamm, I think. He can’t be a German, can he? Swiss, or something like that, probably. I don’t know the others.’

  The room was almost empty. A young woman was sitting alone at the far end.

  ‘Now, here is someone I do want to speak to,’ Myrtle murmured.

  The woman held a magazine intently angled towards the lamp but Nerys could tell she wasn’t reading it. A cup of tea sat cold and untouched beside her.

  ‘Caroline?’ Myrtle said.

  Reluctantly the other put the magazine down. She had very pale skin, so nearly translucent that the blue veins showed in her throat. Her fair curly hair was held back from her temples with a pair of tortoiseshell combs and her full lower lip looked as if it might tremble at any moment. Nerys could see that she was very young, perhaps not much more than twenty, and distinctly pretty in a round-faced, innocent way.

  ‘Caroline,’ Myrtle repeated, ‘how are you?’

  Caroline collected herself. She produced a smile. ‘You’re back.’

  Myrtle made the introductions.

  ‘Caroline, please,’ the young woman insisted, when Nerys tried to call her Mrs Bowen. Here, plainly, was someone quite unlike Mrs Conway-Freeborne.

  ‘Nerys,’ she offered in return.

  ‘Is Ralph here?’ Myrtle wanted to know.

  ‘No. He’s gone with the regiment – didn’t you hear? I believe it’s manoeuvres first and then another posting. There may be one more short leave, or they may have to deploy at once. I don’t know anything, though, really. It’s only what Mrs Dunkeley and the other wives are saying.’

  Caroline’s fingers twisted in her lap, and her rings caught the light. Nerys felt a twist of sympathy for this young wife, probably newly married and deeply in love with her handsome officer husband who must now go off to war.

  Myrtle sat forwards in her chair. She reached out and caught Caroline’s chin, turning her face to the light as she did so. ‘And you?’

  The girl’s skin was so pale and clear that the flush rising from her neck and colouring her cheeks was very noticeable. ‘I’m …’ She tightened her lips and moved away from Myrtle’s grasp. ‘I’m perfectly fine, thank you.’

  She looked warningly towards Nerys, and Myrtle nodded. ‘I’ll come and call on you,’ she told her, in a way that didn’t invite contradiction. Nerys wondered whether that was what the girl wanted, because she didn’t look as though she did. She was biting her lip, and her long lashes were lowered to conceal the expression in her eyes.

  Myrtle and Nerys said their goodbyes, and went on through the club to the jetty where the shikara men waited for a fare.

  ‘Here, Memsahib,’ called one, out of a row of bobbing heads. ‘Cheap fast ride. Where you go?’

  They climbed down into his taxi boat as he held it steady for them. Like the others, it was a narrow, elegant craft with a high prow. Under a curtained canopy there was a mattress seat for two, piled with cushions and rugs. Nerys and Myrtle slid into their places as the boatman pushed off from the mooring. He was a Muslim, dressed in a long grey tunic-style shirt and a bright red skullcap. A shawl hung over his shoulders, against the coming chill.

  Myrtle told him where they were going and he dipped his leaf-shaped paddle. Water dripped as he lifted it again and they glided forwards through the lotus leaves and ranks of dried seed heads out towards the centre of the lake. The sun was setting and bars of low cloud in the west were flushed with gold and crimson. Mist rose off the water and hung in filmy layers, partly veiling the two low hills of Srinagar, one crowned with a fort and the other with an ancient temple. The Himalayas were dark, two-dimensional masses against an ink-blue sky already pricked with stars. The old town shone with yellow lights, and there were more chains of lights showing on the lake’s islands and from the Mogul gardens at the opposite end. The boat seemed suspended in the air, anchored by its mirror reflection. The only sound was the rhythmic dip of the paddle and the boatman singing under his breath. The thought came to Nerys, unformed because it was so unpractised, but still it came, This is beautiful. I am so happy.

  Then Myrtle’s cigarette lighter clicked and the flame briefly lit an ellipse of her face. ‘Poor Caroline Bowen,’ she said, on an exhaled breath.

  ‘It must be hard for such a young wife, to have her husband going off to fight and not knowing when he will ever come back.’

  There was a moment’s silence.

  ‘I wish it were that simple,’ Myrtle said at last.

  ‘Why?’

  She paused. Then she said, ‘I’ll tell you what everyone knows.’

  She described how Miss Caroline Cornwall, as she then was, had come out to Kashmir straight from her secretarial college in London. She was from a good family but her parents were dead – her mother when she was a little girl and her father quite recently, from a heart attack. That had left her stepmother with whom she was on friendly terms without being particularly intimate, because Caroline had been at boarding school since before her father’s remarriage.

  ‘A sad story, but not that unusual, I suppose,’ Nerys murmured, reflecting at the same time that she had no knowl
edge of the sort of people who sent their motherless daughters away to school. She couldn’t imagine her shy, fond father doing such a thing. ‘How do you know her?’

  ‘I met her first at a Residency party. The stepmother has some remote family connection to Mrs Fanshawe.’

  Mr Fanshawe was the British Resident in the princely state of Kashmir. In the grand setting of the Srinagar Residency, he and Mrs Fanshawe performed the rituals and elaborate formalities of liaison between the British rulers and the government of India, the maharajah and his court, and directed the complicated strata of military and civilian societies that surrounded them.

  ‘The Fanshawes are very sound on service, and pragmatic on Independence,’ Nerys had heard Archie McMinn saying. ‘They do an excellent job here, in the old-fashioned way.’ She hadn’t known what any of that meant; neither did she imagine that she would ever understand precisely because India didn’t run in her blood, as it did in Myrtle’s and Archie’s.

  Myrtle was describing how Caroline Cornwall had come out to join the Resident’s household. ‘She was appointed a sort of assistant secretary to Mrs F. I think her duties amounted to doing the flowers in the public rooms every day, managing the calls book, sending out invitations and so on. That reminds me, I must take you to sign the book. If you don’t leave a card, darling, you won’t be invited to lovely gatherings up at the house – cocktails, tea and tennis, that sort of thing.’

  Myrtle was laughing and Nerys joined in. ‘I don’t have a card. And I can’t play tennis.’

  ‘My God. Social death. How will you ever meet anyone?’

  ‘I’ve met you and Archie. That will do for me. Go on with the story, please.’

  ‘Well. Miss Cornwall had been up here barely six months before her engagement was announced to a Captain Ralph Bowen. They met, of course, at the party following a polo game in which she had watched Captain Bowen scoring three goals. Or something of that order anyway – who knows? This was quickly followed by a wedding at the English church, regimental guard of honour, reception at the Residency.’

  ‘All very suitable, by the sound of it.’

  ‘So you might think. This was perhaps a year ago.’

  ‘And now the captain is going off to war.’

  That wasn’t news. Most of the Indian Army husbands were away, and as the summer season ended, Srinagar was home to a mixture of abandoned wives and the few remaining civilian families whose men, like Archie, were in reserved occupations. Myrtle had remarked more than once that it was a very different place from the pre-war city.

  They were in the middle of the lake now. The sun had gone down and the light in the sky faded through lavender to steel grey as the moon rose over the mountains. Nerys watched the silver disc as it sailed through veils of cloud.

  ‘Nerys?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Would you say that you are happily married?’

  Her immediate dutiful response was to say yes. Anything less would be a betrayal. And then, with the small start that was becoming almost familiar, she realised once again that she had hardly thought about her husband that day. How could that be, for a woman who was laying claim to a happy marriage?

  The moment of exultation she had just experienced had been to do with the beauty of the place, and the pleasure of having Myrtle for a friend, but most of all it had arisen from a sense of freedom. For almost the first time in her life, certainly for the first time since her wedding day, she felt like her own person. But then, she reminded herself, if she were not married to Evan she wouldn’t be here at all, to be happy or otherwise. She would be at home in Wales, and most probably a spinster. Very few other romantic opportunities had presented themselves. Or – more accurately – none.

  Nerys smiled, remembering home and the narrow horizons of chapel and valley. It was true that as a husband Evan was disappointing in some respects: married life wasn’t the passionate communion she had dreamt of as a green girl. But she was in no doubt that Evan was a good man, and a kind one in his way, and a human being with much in him for her to admire. She respected him. Theirs wasn’t like Myrtle and Archie’s partnership, but she reckoned that all marriages were different.

  She was also beginning to understand that it was true what people said about absence making the heart grow fonder. She was looking forward to seeing Evan here in Srinagar, even in his stiff black preacher’s clothes among the smart club wives. She had a sudden picture in her mind of his hands, long-fingered, as they rested on hers. My dear?

  Suddenly she was blushing as hotly as Caroline Bowen had done and she was glad of the gathering darkness. ‘Yes,’ she said deliberately, and with conviction. ‘I would say that I am.’

  ‘Yes,’ Myrtle echoed. Nerys had no doubt that she was mentally celebrating her own luck and happiness, not the Watkinses’.

  Ahead of them were the lights of the Garden of Eden and its neighbours glimmering under the sentinel trees. There was the expected scent of smoke in the air, and of Majid’s good cooking. Myrtle cast the butt of her cigarette into the water. ‘The trouble for Caroline is that she isn’t happy. I don’t believe that her captain ever can make her happy, either.’

  ‘I’m sorry for her, then.’ Nerys didn’t press for more information.

  The shikara man expertly drew his paddle in a circle, swinging the boat’s prow towards the houseboat’s steps.

  But Myrtle added, in a lower voice, ‘She’s a very young girl, and her head’s full of romantic ideas. She doesn’t have many people to confide in. Her husband is always away and she’s been looking elsewhere for love and attention, the poor darling. That’s not unusual in Srinagar, of course, but unfortunately Caroline has chosen an option that’s not just compromising but quite dangerous. As soon as she told me about it I warned her to break it off at once, but from what I saw of her tonight I’m guessing that she has done nothing of the kind.’

  The prow of the shikara gently grazed the houseboat steps that descended to water level. The boatman caught the mooring post and made fast. At the same moment the double doors leading to the Garden’s veranda opened and Archie appeared, yellow lamplight spilling over his head and shoulders.

  ‘Here you are at last,’ he called.

  Myrtle silently placed a finger to her lips to indicate to Nerys that even Archie wasn’t privy to this particular story.

  Nerys briefly grasped her hand. ‘Mrs Bowen is lucky to have you for a friend,’ she murmured. ‘And so am I.’

  Myrtle threw her head back and hooted with laughter, startling the boatman. The shikara rocked as they climbed to their feet, and Archie handed them in turn up the shallow steps before he dropped some coins into the man’s uplifted hand.

  ‘Thank you, Sahib. Goodnight, Lady Sahibs.’ The boat was already sliding away into the gloom and its ripples lapped sweetly against the Garden’s planking.

  ‘You’ve been having a good time,’ Archie observed. ‘Who was at the club?’

  ‘The usual tragic figures.’ Myrtle sighed. ‘I don’t think Nerys was impressed.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Nerys protested indignantly. ‘I was rather overcome by the glamour of it. We met a woman who said Myrtle had gone jungli, but I imagine she was actually referring to me.’

  Archie rested a hand on each of their shoulders. ‘I can’t think what she was talking about. You are the two most elegant and beautiful women in Srinagar.’

  Laughing, they passed into the houseboat’s saloon.

  The round table in the centre was laid for dinner, with crystal glasses and silverware on the starched white cloth. The marquetry panels and carved cornicing glowed in the candlelight, and the pervading scent of polished wood mingled with the fragrance of dozens of deep crimson late roses arranged in bowls on the side tables. In silver frames, the faces of Myrtle and Archie’s family in England and Scotland crowded the shelves, interspersed with pictures of steam engines and bridges. Archie’s Indian Railways work was also his passion, but he complained that his country was at war and he
would much rather be in uniform.

  He moved towards the drinks tray as Nerys went on down the corridor that ran along one side of the houseboat. The wide floorboards creaked softly under her feet.

  In her room, the covers were already turned down on the bed. Her few clothes hung neatly in the sweet-scented wardrobe, each item freshly pressed, with her shoes polished and placed on the shelf beneath. She took off her light jacket and put it on a hanger. How easy it would be, she thought, to grow accustomed to such luxury. It was a good thing therefore that the opportunity wouldn’t arise. Soon, in the next few days, she must begin the search for an appropriate home to rent in order to be ready for when Evan arrived. She couldn’t trespass on the McMinns’ hospitality for ever. Her budget was tiny, but she was sure she would find something.

  After a soft knock on her door Majid appeared. ‘Are you ready, ma’am? I will send hot water?’

  A little procession of Majid’s helpers came with tall enamel jugs and filled her bath.

  That evening, at dinner, Archie announced, ‘My darling, I have to go down to Rawalpindi in two days’ time, and then to Delhi. After that I’m not sure, probably east. I don’t know how long it will be for, unfortunately. There are some track problems that we must solve in order to cope with troop movements.’

  Myrtle put down her knife and fork. ‘So soon?’ she asked calmly.

  Both women knew better than to ask what troop movements, and where.

  ‘I had a telephone call this afternoon. Our holiday’s over. We were lucky to get such an extended time off, you know.’

  ‘Yes, of course we were,’ Myrtle agreed. She sipped at a glass of water and Majid, who had been silent in the shadow at the far end of the room, came forward to replenish it from a crystal jug. ‘I should think Nerys and I will amuse ourselves here for a few more weeks. I don’t think I shall go down to Delhi yet. It would mean opening the house up properly, and that seems pointless just for me, don’t you think?’