The air hummed with the sound of the sea. She thought of Sami’s fury.
‘She was jealous of me. From the start.’
He sighed. ‘Perhaps.’
Their breathing, stirred up by the panicked flight, started to slow and settle and the silence between them deepened. Isabel blinked. Thin strands of moonlight reached down through the woven walls and made patterns of silver lace across her legs. Edward’s silhouette gradually emerged from the gloom. He sat, curled forward, his shoulders hunched.
‘I thought I’d never see you again.’ She spoke softly. His face was obscured by shadow. ‘I couldn’t bear it.’
He bowed his head. The close, warm smell of his body, so near her own, cut through the stench of the dead. She reached out a hand, tentatively touched his cheek.
‘Why are you sending me away? Why, Edward?’
No reply. She sat with the silence, desolate. In a moment, he might leave and never return. A rustle of dry wicker as he shifted his weight. She held her breath and listened. A shudder, a sudden loud sob, hastily swallowed back. The catch of his breath.
She crawled forward and reached blindly for him, wrapping her arms round his huddled body and drawing him to her. He smothered a cry. His body was hard with tension and he held himself apart from her, even as she pressed her face into his chest. His skin, under his shirt, was smooth and moist. She ran her fingers across the broad muscle of his back and tightened her arms around him.
A tremor ran through his chest and for a moment, she feared he was about to push her away. She clung to him, buried her lips against his neck and kissed the fresh salt of his skin.
He groaned, lifted himself apart from her and searched for her face in the darkness. She pressed her eyes closed. Spangles of white light flew through the black.
Her voice was a whisper. ‘Edward.’
Something broke in him. His movements became sure as he took her shoulders and eased her backwards onto the floor of the hut. His hands found their way beneath her clothing to her skin. She arched her back as his fingers ranged the length of her body. A low moan. His breath fell on her cheek.
She opened her eyes. His face loomed over hers, his face strained, his eyes closed. She ran her hands down the small of his back to the curved muscle of his buttocks and pulled them closer, digging her nails into his skin as he held himself above her. They began at once to rock, clutching each other. She lost all sense of herself as they moved, merging in the darkness not just with him but with the waves rising and crashing against the shore.
Afterwards, they clung together in the darkness. His arms were so tight around her that she could scarcely breathe. She buried her face against his neck, damp now with sweat, afraid to move, to break the spell. Edward, she thought. My love. Then, in panic: how can I go back to him now, to Jonathan? How will I bear it, after this?
Finally he pulled himself free and lay beside her. She tipped back her head to see his face in the half-light. His eyes were shut, his forehead tense. She traced his eyes, his cheeks, his lips with her finger.
‘Edward.’
He didn’t respond.
‘I thought you didn’t want me.’
His mouth made a hard line. ‘How could you think that?’
‘You’re sending me back to him.’
He sighed and the judder passed through them both. ‘You’re his wife, Isabel.’
She reached her hand to the back of his head and stroked the short, soft hairs along his neck. ‘How can this be wrong, Edward? How can it?’
He turned his face away. ‘Of course it’s wrong.’
Her mouth trembled as she began to cry. In a matter of hours, she thought, all this will be over. I will be gone.
‘Don’t.’ His fingers reached for her cheek, wiped it. ‘Please.’ He turned, drew her to him, stroked her hair.
Already the darkness was slowly lightening with the first shade of dawn.
She struggled to speak. ‘I don’t want to leave.’
‘I know.’ Silence for some minutes. His voice, when he spoke, was strangled. ‘I don’t want you to. But you must.’
A breeze blew in from the sea, whipped across the surface of the beach and threw sand against the wicker. The walls pressed in on them both. She closed her eyes against the growing light and buried her face in his neck, hiding from the smell of death all around them.
She thought of the poor souls, men, women and children, who had lain here through the years, each in their turn, alone in the darkness, listening to the same low rattle of sand against the hut and the drumming of the waves beyond and knowing them to be the last sounds they would hear on this earth, their last fragments of life.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Isabel stepped down the gangway onto Port Blair’s teeming waterfront. Her clothes were tattered and crumpled, her hair filthy. She hailed a tonga to the house.
Singh lazed on the ground, smoking with Cook. His mouth gaped. He jumped up, squashed out the remains of his bidi and rushed forward to greet her.
‘Madam.’ He led her up the staircase to the upper storey. The wooden stairs felt grand after the rickety ladders of the Mission. ‘Hot water, madam, for bathing?’
‘And some chai, please, Singh.’
Isabel sat with her china cup and saucer and silver teapot and looked out over the ordered flower beds, coconut palms and the jungle creepers stretching away up the hillside. It seemed very tame to her now. In the distance, a gramophone played a jazz tune. When she was last here, Edward had been with her. It seemed a very long time ago.
She thought of poor James who had been thrust into the darkness to meet the ghosts of his ancestors and emerged transformed. She closed her eyes and rested her head against the edge of the chair, overcome by a feeling of exhaustion and of emptiness.
Below, on the road, a car horn blared. She awoke in confusion, uncertain for a moment where she was. Her mouth was parched and her neck stiff. When she opened her eyes, they fell on Jonathan. He sat across from her, one leg crossed over the other, a gin tonic in his hand. She looked down at the table between them. The tea tray had been cleared. Beyond, the sun was low and the light tangled in the coconut trees was yellow.
‘I suppose I should say welcome home.’ He studied her with the coolness of a cat. ‘You look different.’
‘Do I?’
He continued to scrutinise her. ‘Sunburnt, of course, but more than that.’
She shrugged, looked away. She was different. After all she had seen, all she had lost, she was no longer afraid. ‘We need to talk, Jonathan.’
‘I won’t divorce you. Do as you please, but keep it quiet.’
She wondered how long he had sat there in his chair, watching her. ‘You want me to stay?’
‘Yes. Play the part.’ He got to his feet, set down his empty glass and crossed to lean against the balcony rail.
She looked at him with an odd sense of detachment. He was her husband and yet a stranger. If she left him and returned to Delhi, she would be a long way from Car Nicobar and Edward and the disgrace would ruin her parents.
‘Leave the boy alone, Jonathan.’ She thought of Bimal’s red eyes. ‘He’s too young.’
He shrugged. ‘He’s old enough.’
The darkness deepened. In the trees, birds shrieked as they wheeled through the dusk and settled along the branches. Clouds of insects hung above the rail.
Singh stepped onto the balcony, set a mosquito coil on the table and lit it. The smoke rose and dispersed, bringing bitterness to the evening air.
He picked up Jonathan’s empty glass and paused.
‘Another gin tonic.’ Jonathan looked across at her. ‘And for you, my dear?’
‘Nothing, thank you.’ She tried to force herself to smile. ‘I’ll go to bed, if you don’t mind. I’m very tired.’
She withdrew, leaving Jonathan to drink on the balcony alone.
She woke early the next morning. For a moment, she didn’t know where she was. The pillow was crisp and clean, the mattress sof
t. Above her, the ceiling fan sent ripples of cool air across the room. Then she remembered. She closed her eyes, bitter with disappointment. She couldn’t find the will to move.
Jonathan’s door opened and his footsteps sounded up and down the passageway. She traced his movements around the rooms until he clattered at last down the staircase, calling to Singh. A woman’s tread followed, softer and more stealthy.
At seven o’clock, the bedroom door creaked open.
‘Asha?’
Asha carried in a tea tray and set it on the bedside table, then turned to leave.
‘You’re back?’
‘I am just returned, madam.’ The girl hid her face, muttered something inaudible.
Isabel sat up. ‘Where were you?’
Asha raised her hands to her face. ‘My father’s cousin, madam. In the village, in the jungle. He was very sick. They sent for me.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Isabel frowned. It made no sense.
Asha turned her back and tugged at the mosquito screen to open up the window behind it. Warm air, scented with sea salt, drifted in, spread across the room by the turning fan.
‘I’m very sorry, madam.’
‘How is he? Your cousin.’
She pulled a face. ‘He is passed, madam.’
Isabel watched her as she moved about the room, her eyes averted. ‘I’m sorry.’ She paused. ‘But you should have talked to me about it, Asha.’
‘Yes, madam.’ She disappeared, closing the door with a soft click.
Isabel lay back against the pillows. Sami and the women in the Mission would already have risen, washed themselves in salt water and rubbed coconut oil through their hair. Their fires would be smoking. Soon school would start in the clearing.
In the passageway, Bimal crept to and fro. Singh would be setting her place for breakfast, her knife and fork the only cutlery on the long polished table. Familiar sounds drifted in from below through the open window. Cook’s voice, scolding the kitchen boy. The clatter of metal pots. The hiss and sizzle of oil.
‘Gracious, my dear! You look so thin.’
‘And your skin! Burnt to a cinder.’
Mrs Copeland and Mrs Allen pecked at her, all smiles.
‘So you taught savages!’
‘Weren’t you frightfully afraid?’
They tutted and clucked, herding her into the corner of the verandah until her back touched the rail.
‘But my dear, what was Jonathan thinking?’
‘Letting you go off like that. Quite absurd.’
The lawn of Government House stretched out behind them, its neatly mowed grass yellow in the afternoon sun. The white canvas of a marquee and its side tents rose on the far side, a sequence of meringues. Inside, Lady Lyons was holding one of her quarterly Ladies’ Days, hosting the matrons of Port Blair to a grand afternoon tea.
Mrs Copeland and Mrs Allen cocked their heads and looked at her through narrowed eyes.
‘Have you been terribly ill?’
‘Banana. Mashed in rice. Always works. Cures the dickiest tummy.’
‘Anyway, you shall eat now. Come along.’
They swept her between them, down the steps to the gravel path, which skirted the lawns and along towards the marquee. Isabel, used now to being alone, found the chatter overwhelming.
The interior of the marquee was a fug of overheated flowers. Sunlight bled through the canvas. Lady Lyons received them with warmth. Mrs Copeland and Mrs Allen started to prattle, singing the praises of the decorations, of the plates of miniature sandwiches, which the servants threaded through the crowd to offer.
After some minutes, Lady Lyons directed the ladies to the long tables at the far end of the awning where cups and saucers lay in rows for tea, then placed her gloved hand on Isabel’s arm and led her out into the garden, down a gravel path between immaculately kept flower beds. She walked briskly, pausing every now and then to pluck dead leaves or to inspect a bloom.
‘You really should garden.’ She didn’t wait for a reply. ‘It’s jolly difficult out here but it’s important to challenge oneself.’
She paused at a straggly rose bush and lifted a drooping bud between two fingers. ‘I had this shipped out from home as a seedling. Doesn’t exactly thrive here but it’s still alive. Suppose you could say the same of most of us.’ She walked on, adding over her shoulder, ‘One can always have pots. My father taught me that. He dragged us all over India when I was a girl. My poor mother hated being uprooted so often. Pots. Load them on a cart and off you go.’
The path narrowed on the far side of a copse of trees and revealed the harbour far below, glinting in the sun. The roofs of Port Blair made red blotches in the island green. She paused as Isabel caught her up.
‘You were sensible to come today.’ She spoke in a low voice, her eyes thoughtful. ‘People are talking.’ She paused. ‘Whatever’s happened between you, your husband’s not an unreasonable man, you know.’
Isabel wondered how much Lady Lyons knew. They were interrupted by one of Sir Philip’s men who came hurrying down the path. His hair stuck to his scalp and his forehead glistened with perspiration as he handed Lady Lyons a chit.
‘From Burra Sahib, madam. Most important.’
She tutted to herself as she unfolded it. As she read, her expression changed.
She said under her breath: ‘Always the worst possible times.’ She turned to Isabel and added: ‘We should go. There’s a ferry waiting.’
‘Go?’ Isabel frowned. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Our husbands need us.’ She gave Isabel a keen look. ‘I really think it would be prudent of you to come.’
They took a tonga from the harbour directly to the jail and were ushered through the security gates in a flurry of procedure, then escorted to the open courtyard where Asha’s father was once hanged. Windows blinked down on them from all sides, framing unseen eyes within.
A knot of uniformed men stood huddled together there, laughing. The group began to part as Lady Lyons strode forward. The laughter subsided as they caught sight of the women and their expressions turned to embarrassment.
The chief commissioner lifted his hand. ‘My dear, I do apologise—’
‘But what news!’
A body lay, wrapped round in a shroud of unbleached cotton, at the men’s feet. The folds around the head were open, showing hair that was matted and littered with scraps of dried mud and debris. One of the officers touched it with the toe of his boot and passed a remark in a low voice.
Isabel stepped forward. She saw at once that these were Sanjay Krishna’s features. His flesh was livid and bloated. His eyes were closed, his lips blackened.
Isabel flinched, took a step away, overcome by a wave of sickness.
‘You got him.’ Lady Lyons spoke briskly to her husband as if the rest of the company were deaf. ‘Well done, darling.’
‘Tip-off.’ He tapped his nose. ‘Local knowledge.’
‘What happened?’
‘He was already dead when they found him. Drowned. Tried to hide in a cave, by all accounts, but he picked the wrong one.’ He nodded. ‘Anyway, I can’t take all the credit. Jonathan here commanded the search.’ He gestured to Jonathan with an open palm. ‘Top job, absolutely.’
Isabel swallowed down bile in her throat. Her eyes fixed on the ground. The dirt was mottled with boot prints.
The chief commissioner went on: ‘We had to send in divers to haul out the body.’
‘Why did you bring him here?’ Isabel’s shock sounded in her voice.
Jonathan said: ‘He’ll have the proper rites, don’t worry. But first, these criminals need to see him.’ He raised a hand and gestured round at the dark cell windows. ‘They need to know what happens to men like him.’
Isabel turned her eyes back to the ground. A voice cried out, then another. They seemed at first to come from inside her head.
‘Jai Hind!’
A cry, followed rapidly by answering echoes all around. The voices multipli
ed as the shout flew between the walls, many voices blending to one.
Sir Philip said: ‘Stop that!’
The officers turned and ran, scattering, to the various doorways that led into the cell blocks.
‘Jai Hind!’
Metal clattered against the bars. Prisoners on all sides, unseen in the darkness of their cells, raised their voices and beat out the rhythm of their chant.
‘Jai Hind! Jai Hind!’
The mantra of Indian independence. The shouts resonated round the courtyard, bouncing off the brick walls, even as the guards raced into the buildings and down the corridors to silence them.
Isabel struggled to adjust to her old, solitary life in Port Blair.
Jonathan left early each morning and stayed away until late in the evening. They spoke to each other only in company and then very little.
During the long days, she took solitary walks, losing herself in the noise of the native bazaar and the harbour, where she was generally the only European in sight.
In the afternoons and evenings, she sat in her bedroom, looking out through the thousand squares of the mosquito screen at the stirring leaves of the jungle. In the quiet and stillness, Edward joined her and sometimes her childhood friend, Rahul, and Sanjay Krishna too.
A numbness descended upon her and a sense of powerlessness. I am waiting, she thought. I must endure this misery until change comes. She had no idea what that change would be.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Asha
Asha overheard Singh and Cook talking about her.
‘Like father, like daughter,’ Cook said. ‘I always said so.’
She had her fingers on the handle of the kitchen door, coming to fetch a tray.
‘She’s a thief.’ Singh’s voice. ‘They should beat her.’
A wooden spoon bang, banged against the sides of a mixing bowl.
‘Madam is too soft.’
She pushed open the door and walked in. They saw her and scowled.
That afternoon, when Isabel Madam disappeared on one of her long walks, she dodged Singh and ran to the restaurant to see Amit.
Daughters of India Page 20
