Bhowani Junction

by John Masters

  I said, ‘No, you won’t. Only me. If you had an ounce of guts you’d go down to Bombay and see Mr Wallingford.’

  He shouted, ‘I have got the guts! I am not a coward! But I would only make things worse. You don’t understand.’

  I understood only too well. Whatever he did went wrong. That was the last two inches of knife. I said, ‘How do you expect anyone to stand up for you if you won’t stand up for yourselves?’

  He said, ‘I cannot get leave from the railway in time.’

  I said, ‘Of course you can. Or go without leave.’

  He said, ‘By God, I will go, Mister Colonel Savage! I’ll show you! You watch me!’

  I went with him then and there into the Institute, wrote a letter to Wallingford, and gave it to him.

  Don’t forget I loved Victoria. Don’t forget I wasn’t ninety-six and as wise as Bernard Shaw. I was just a man who didn’t realize that if you don’t temper the wind to the shorn lamb a hell of a lot of nice people are going to want to take the lamb right under their overcoats.

  THIRTY-TWO

  At four o’clock that afternoon Victoria came through to my office with some damned piece of bumf or other, and found me smoking a cheroot with my feet up on the desk. My heart did a climbing turn when I saw her again—about an hour since I’d seen her last in there—and I said, ‘Is this all you can find to do?’

  She stood by the desk, smiling at me. I swung my feet down, picked up my hat, and told Chris I was going back to my bungalow. I told Victoria to come along.

  She said, ‘I told Mater I would be home early.’

  I said, ‘Come on,’ and held the door open for her. She ducked under my arm and got into the jeep ahead of me. Her skirt looked very tight and full of Victoria, after the saris. I remembered that Taylor had a pair of her pants. I wondered if he’d thrown them away or was keeping them in his pocket. Probably keeping them.

  As we drove off I could feel her relax. I had taken charge, and for the moment that probably meant more than anything else to her. There comes a point when anyone says, I’ve had enough of deciding. The road swept smoothly past, riflemen jumped to attention and saluted me, the quarter-guard sentries presented arms. She tucked up her back hak as the wind tugged it out from under her cap.

  I felt her glancing at me. My God, it was written on my face plainly enough that I was going to take her straight to bed as soon as we reached the bungalow. She huddled closer to herself on the bouncing seat. She was glad that I had taken charge, but still——! She was deciding to jump up as soon as the jeep stopped, and cry, ‘No, darling! You have to make me want to, first. It says so in Marie Stopes.’ But I could make her want to, without moving a muscle or even looking at her. That was what Taylor had been up against in the morning—certainty against uncertainty. When he pulled out his pistol he was really asking me whether it was right for him to shoot a man who insulted him, knocked him out with an inkwell, and went to bed with his girl. As I have explained, I damned nearly told him it was.

  I stopped the jeep, and Victoria’s skirt was shivering on her thighs. Her face was hot, and her eyes big and uncertain. I touched her elbow and walked slowly beside her to the bedroom. I closed the door gently, turned to her, and took her hands in mine.

  I didn’t say anything, because I’m not built to ask favours. But I was asking her, all the same. I could feel my face slackening, and cursed and swore at myself for being so weak. She ran into my arms and overwhelmed me with kisses. Then she undressed quickly, and it was me who shivered and she who whispered, ‘There, there!’

  When we had made love I slowly recovered my wits. I told her to have a bath. The tub was full of cold water.

  The sheets were soaked with our sweat, and she got up quickly. Lying back on the bed, I said, ‘The towels are in the bathroom. Victoria, what are you going to do if it does have to be me?’

  She said, ‘I don’t know. I’ve never felt like this before.’ But I think she had. She was all female and never counted and never remembered.

  She went into the bathroom, and I heard her splashing about. Then she began to sing. ‘It had to be you, it had to be you, it had to be yoooou!’ She could not sing well.

  I went in quietly. The cold water had brought out goosepimples all over that satin skin. I said, ‘Don’t we know any more words to that damned song?’

  She looked up and laughed, and her breasts wiggled, shaking off drops of water. I said, ‘Move up. Get your great bottom over,’ and climbed into the zinc tub with her. Those things are only four feet long, if that. She shrieked, ‘Look out! There’s no room. It’s going to tip over! Oah, Rodney!’

  We lay on the stone floor while the bathwater sloshed over us and soaked the towels. I splashed her and began to scrub her back with a hard brush. She yelled, ‘No, no, it hurts! You are a baby, really.’

  ‘Oah, I am a babee, am I?’ I said. I teased her, and her eyes went soft, and I knew she would the for me then, because it was I who had given her the power to laugh about that accent. She got herself under control and said, very ladylike, ‘Please stop scrubbing me with that brush, Colonel Savage. You are making me bleed.’

  I held down my hand and hauled her upright. The sex was over for the moment, and I worshipped her, and warnings of being without her were going like butterflies in my stomach. I suddenly stepped in and took her as tightly in my arms as I could. She was cold and wet and fresh against me, and I was cold and wet and fresh against her, and all our nerve ends tingled, and our faces shone, and cold water ran down our foreheads and into our mouths as we kissed.

  I went out and left her to finish drying by herself. She was so happy she could not even sing. She found me in the livingroom.

  Ramsaran, my bearer, came in with the tea tray and went out again. I motioned to Victoria to pour. I said, ‘Tell me about the sari.’

  She said slowly, ‘It was going to be like a magic carpet. It was going to take me away from all the squabbling, and the topis that have to have waterproof covers on, and the betel-nut stains that mater tries to hide.’

  (And was my bed going to be a better magic carpet, my totem pole a better magic lamp? The answer was yes.)

  She said sadly, ‘It worked. The sari carried me away all right. But the place it took me to turned out to be foreign and frightening, and full of strangers.’

  (If a girl who is half Indian and half English proves to herself that she is not at all Indian, may it not logically be argued that she must therefore be entirely English? It can indeed so be argued.)

  I said, ‘They’ve opened the Club to non-Europeans.’

  She, ‘They—who?’

  I said, ‘The Club committee.’ I sipped my tea. It was hot as hell.

  She said, ‘But they can’t do that.’

  I said, ‘What do you mean, they can’t? Do you think it’s against the law?’

  She said, ‘No, but——’

  I knew what she meant. In practice, clubs were for Europeans only, or for Indians only, or for Anglo-Indians only. There were exceptions—the Willingdon in Bombay, for instance—but generally that was the custom. No one had the power to abolish a custom.

  I said, ‘Well, they’ve done it here. Tonight the Collector, lord and master of Bhowani, is going to be allowed to enter the Bhowani Club as a member. Unless he’s blackballed or doesn’t pay his dues, anyone will be allowed in. Only Indians are going to be allowed to blackball other Indians, once it has got started.’

  She said, ‘Our people would have been blackballed if we’d ever tried to join. We didn’t, though. Some of the girls have been taken there as guests, during the war. Even the girls never used to go before the war. Is it true that the young officers would get into trouble if they took one of us to the club?’

  I told her that they’d be invited to transfer to the R.I.A.S.C., which is trouble enough, I suppose. I said, ‘Anyway, there’s a dance tonight, and I will drink myself insensible if you don’t come with me. Will you?’

  She put down her teacup. Al
ready the candour and carelessness of the bath were a long way back for both of us. Why couldn’t we spend our lives in beds and baths and trains? They were all closed compartments, the rest of the world shut out. She said, ‘Must we go?’

  I said, ‘You mean you’d rather keep me in my proper place—bed?’

  She said, ‘No, Rodney. I just think it will be awkward for you and for me. I’ve been so unhappy, I don’t want to——’

  I said, ‘Victoria, bed is wonderful, but don’t you feel that there ought to be something behind it or beyond it?’

  She said, ‘There is! I admire you so much, darling.’

  I told her to commit intimacy with her admiration. She winced and begged me with her eyes not to go sticking knives into her, because she would have to love me whatever I did. But I do keep one rule and that is, no deception. I always want to win, but I discovered long ago, at Wellington, that it’s no good winning on false pretences. I don’t win just to win, but to have. I’d massacre Taylor to the best of my ability, but if Victoria married me she must know me, and know she was marrying Rodney Savage, not a dear sweet kind polite cuddly little teddy bear. She had a bad influence on me. Ever since I saw her I’d kept wanting to be polite and kind to her. It took a large physical effort to be myself—well, shall we say the kind of myself I had long ago made up my mind to see in my mirror: cold, cruel, efficient, ice-blue eyes, all steel and sex. Ha!

  I said, ‘Don’t you think we ought to find out more about each other? How we live, how we think, what we are? I know your geography pretty well now, all your hills and valleys. Hadn’t we better study each other’s sociology and anthropology?’

  ‘There’ll be history too,’ she said sadly.

  I sat back. That was the wisest thing she’d ever said. I said, ‘Please come. Long dress. Ten o’clock. I’ll fetch you.’

  She asked if I’d be in evening dress, with a true female’s desire to see her man looking unnaturally distinguished. I said, The Auk stopped all that frivolity at the beginning of the war. Please don’t think I despise Patrick.’ I made her wrench her mind on to it, but she saw at once that I had not really changed the subject.

  She said, ‘No, I don’t think that. You were marvellous with him.

  I said, ‘I was a c-a-d, and you know it, but I didn’t have much choice this time.’

  Everyone had run true to form—the uncertain Anglo-Indians, looking for a leader; Govindaswami the wise and black, shouldering the abuse; myself; Victoria.

  I felt a powerful longing to ask her the usual insane questions that people in love do ask each other. ‘When did you first think you’—sigh—‘liked me, darling?’ ‘I loved you the first moment I saw you, I think, darling—but I suppose I pretended to myself’—sigh—‘that I hated you, darling. I was afraid of being hurt, darling.’

  I took the letter out of my pocket and handed it across to her and said, ‘I think you ought to know why I was in such a hurry to get you into bed this afternoon.’

  She read it and asked slowly, ‘When did this come?’

  I told her, ‘This morning.’

  The letter was from G.H.Q. It terminated her duty with my battalion w.e.f. June the twelfth. It announced that on the same date she was to begin again on her three months’ leave pending release from the service. To-day was June the twelfth.

  I said, ‘But I’ll be willing to pay when you’re a civilian. Quote a rate. Piecework, or time and overtime.’

  She said absently, ‘Don’t be nasty, dear,’ and I felt as unstable as a plate of jelly.

  She stirred her tea. I could see her mind slowly ticking over. She thought she ought to get out while she could. She thought it was foolish to hope that any thing would come of this beyond what had already come—peace and sexual ecstasy. And confidence. She didn’t think I had any intention of marrying her. She wondered what she would feel like when it ended. But she said, ‘I’ll stay with the battalion until the three months are up, Rodney—if you want me to.’

  ‘You’ll get no pay,’ I told her.

  She said, ‘I get full pay while I’m on leave pending.’

  I said, ‘Okay. I’m sure I can fix Nigel. Of course I want you to. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d have an I.O. who could fill out an intelligence report and a brassiere. Just for that, I’ve put you in for the M.B.E.’ I went over to her and ran my fingers up under her hair. I pressed and released the loose skin of her scalp, and she sat back, moving her neck comfortably and purring.

  I could still feel her head under my fingers when I reached her house a few minutes before ten o’clock that evening. I ran up the walk and knocked. Through the door I heard her mother say, ‘Don’t keep the colonel waiting, Victoria.’ I heard her snap, ‘Why not?’ and grinned to myself. She was a woman with no parts missing.

  I heard mumbling inside. Mrs Jones’s voice said, That is a very noisy little car he has. What is it? Will he give you one?’

  Victoria muttered, ‘Shhh! Mumble, mumble … oh, Mater, why should he mumble mumble? Good night.’ The door opened, and they came out. The hall light glinted on the grease in Mrs Jones’s stringy hair. Her stockings were hanging in wrinkles on her legs, and she was wearing felt bedroom slippers. She told me that Rose Mary would also be at the Bhowani European Club.

  On the way to the club I asked Victoria what was the latest on Rose Mary. She said, ‘She’s having dinner with Howland—at the Sudder Savoy, I believe. Afterward they’re coming to the dance at the Club.’ She sat glumly beside me, worrying about it. She asked suddenly, ‘Is it true that Howland owns a big trading concern in England?’

  He had told me that often enough, but I didn’t believe him. I didn’t know whether to be sorrier for Howland or Rose Mary in that set-up.

  As we neared the club I made up my mind that I intended to marry Victoria. She was learning who I was. She must now be given a fair chance to see what I was, in the terms of my society, and decide whether she wanted to try and fit in there. There must be no deception, positively no mirrors.

  She had never been inside the Club. As we went in she braced herself as though she expected to face a battery of insolent monocles, but in the hall the only starers were the glass eyes of a pair of buffalo heads. I waited there for her until she came out of the Ladies’ and then told her we were meeting the Dicksons in the murghi-khana.

  She laughed cheerfully. It seemed a fine joke to her to call the lounge the henhouse. I looked at her curiously, and she stopped laughing. It was a very old joke, but how was she to know? In the Institute people were ladies and gentlemen.

  Molly Dickson greeted us with a shriek. ‘Victoria! You look beautiful. Rodney, darling! Do you like my dress?’ She was wearing a black sheath with no shoulder-straps and no back. Her back was not good; the spine and shoulder-blades showed clearly. I could never understand how such a fool could know so easily when I was acting and when I wasn’t.

  Victoria sank back in a chair and looked round. Henry Dickson stared at her, his brow furrowed. He was trying to think of something to say. She decided she had to help him. She said, Those are lovely pictures,’ and pointed at the wall.

  Henry turned his head slowly and looked at them. He said in surprise, The “Midnight Steeplechase?” Well, personally I rather like them, but Rodney says he’s collecting a fund to be awarded to the first mess or club that hasn’t got them.’

  Molly overheard and shrieked, ‘Do you mean to say you’ve never seen those horrible things before? Wherever have you been? Oh dear, that was silly of me, wasn’t it? Don’t mind me, Victoria. I’ve got a brain like a sparrow.’

  ‘Like a hen sparrow in April,’ I said, but I’m damned sure she said it on purpose, to underline some of Victoria’s difficulties for her. I could see she liked Victoria a damned sight better than she liked me.

  The brigadier wandered in, a glass of crème de menthe wavering like a green tulip bud on the ends of his slender fingers. Henry and I got up. I said, ‘Good evening, Nigel. I didn’t know you were here.�
��

  He said, ‘Good evening to you, Rodney. Good evening. I’m on my way back to Kishanpur from another of those eternal conferences at Agra. You don’t have any problems, do you? Good, good.’

  I wilted; even Henry tried to act decadent; and Victoria cheered up as she listened. I assured the brig that all was well, although life was quite too wearing and coarse-making. He hoped I wouldn’t be rude to Reginald again. Reginald had come to him almost in tears, he said. Reginald was a very clever young man, but shy and sensitive. And of course he wasn’t a soldier, thank heaven, so he didn’t understand. Absently People-Psmythe let his hand fall on Victoria’s knee. Later he gave her the yellow carnation from his buttonhole. He was not in uniform. She pinned it in her hair. He drifted off.

  I said, ‘One day I’m going to put a grenade in People-Psmythe’s thunderbox, and I hope to God Reginald’s on it with him at the time.’

  Govindaswami was there in a mixed British and Indian party. Later he asked Victoria to dance with him. I wondered what I would do if he started making trouble for her about the Macaulay business. He was a damned good chap, and I hoped I wouldn’t have to double-cross him.

  Our group in the murghi-khana kept changing. People talked about India a bit, but mainly it was the war, or England, or their future plans—cottages in Devonshire, future meetings at the Berkeley Buttery, prospects for the Grand Military at Sandown. The younger fellows talked to Victoria, and they were a little too young to know how not to be patronizing. Others did it deliberately. She was obviously a blackie-white and obviously in tow of me. There were plenty of people who didn’t like me, and I saw at once that they were taking this perfect opportunity to get at me through her. She saw it too. My armour was too good for them as a rule—I mean the gongs and the rank and my war record and other things; the right ties, the right cries—but to them Victoria seemed a big hole in it, right under my heart. Right under my fighting arm, anyway.