Part Two
Chapter Thirty-Five
Delhi, 1942
Isabel sat on the verandah with a glass of nimbu pani at her elbow. The shadows were lengthening. It was February, one of her favourite times of year. The late afternoon was cool and mellow.
The newspaper lay across the table in front of her. Nothing today on the fighting in the East. She would ask her father when he came home. She lifted her head, reached for her drink and looked out across the lawn as she sipped.
A light breeze stirred the mango trees and threw shifting patterns across the grass. She saw herself there, a child running over that same patch of lawn, crawling through those bushes, chasing the family of peacocks that strutted there now. Rahul was with her, a boy again, playing hide-and-seek.
The old magnolia tree they used to climb all those years ago was stirring into new life. It might blossom in the spring. Before the war, they gave it up for dead.
Isabel looked at her watch. They had guests coming for dinner but she might just have time to ride before her bath. She called to the syce to saddle Gypsy and went inside to change into riding clothes.
The bungalow echoed with muffled noises. Her mother, calling to Cook. The slosh of water as her mother’s bath was prepared. Abdul appeared from the kitchen and padded barefoot down the corridor with a pitcher of heated water. He stooped and his hair was streaked red with henna to disguise its grey. She remembered him from her childhood, a thin, startled boy, sent to the Chaudhary’s cramped home in search of her. Now he was a grandfather.
She rode west, taking a path out through the fields towards the open countryside. The land was recently turned, ready for planting. Village women bent low as they weeded and cleared ditches. The plumage of their vivid saris – indigo, turquoise, gold – shone against the dull brown of the earth. Men, stripped to their lunghis, whipped the flanks of bullocks to press them forward through the dirt, dragging plough-blades behind them. Their backs shone with sweat.
Gypsy snatched at the bit, eager to gallop, and she had to strain to hold her back. The path ahead narrowed. An elderly man, strolling towards her, stepped off into the ditch to let her pass and bowed his head. The air was brittle with dying heat and thick with the rich scent of earth. The path powdered to dust where Gypsy set her hooves.
Ahead, the path looped and turned to the right towards a small village and a crossroads there, which would allow her to turn back towards the bungalow. She had ridden further than she planned, she’d be late, but she didn’t regret it, it was simply too lovely an evening. A plume of birds rose, cawing, from a cluster of trees off to one side. They wheeled and disappeared over the fields.
The light was full as it turned from white to gold and she felt a surge of well-being. Edward would stay safe. She wouldn’t allow herself to think anything else. The war would end and he would come back. Perhaps, if Sarah and Tom invited him to Delhi, she might even see him again.
Gypsy tossed her head, tugging, and she shortened the rein. The first dark huts of the village came into view. There was a gnarled tree at the crossroads, she knew it from childhood. The old men of the village liked to sit in its shade on wooden benches to drink chai and smoke bidis. She’d known her father stop there sometimes, when they rode together, to greet this man or that and listen to their troubles. Ear to the ground, he told her. Catch a problem before it happens.
She thought of him now as she approached and of the life he’d made for them here. Burra Sahib. How proud she had been as a little girl to ride through the countryside at his side and see men put their hands together in namaste or scramble to touch his boots in respect. He cut a fine figure then, a broad-shouldered man who could swing her up onto her pony without a thought. Now, his knuckles were swollen with arthritis and his bones crooked.
The benches under the old tree were dotted with hunched men. She nodded to them as she turned Gypsy to pick up their homeward path, holding her with care as they passed a shuddering bullock cart, loaded with potatoes and stunted cauliflowers. A village dog ran out and snapped at Gypsy’s hooves and she patted the mare’s neck with her left hand to steady her.
The copse of trees lay just beyond a dip in the path. She was only a few hundred yards away when the men stepped out. Young men with cloths tied across their noses and mouths. Several held staves, fresh wood, cut perhaps from the same trees. In amongst them, the low light flashed on a knife or sword. Her stomach gave a sudden contraction. They glared at her and the deliberate way they emerged as a group from the shadows of the trees made her hands shake. She was almost upon them. There was nothing for it, it was too late to turn, she must simply ride on.
‘Easy, Gypsy. Calm, girl.’ The feeble sound of her voice made her more afraid.
One of the men took a step towards her and raised his club. ‘Jai Hindustan Ki!’ His brown eyes gleamed. His cry was taken up by those around him. Others lifted their staves high in the air and waved them in tight fists.
For a second, she hesitated. There were too many of them. Perhaps she should stop, talk to them in Hindustani, reason with them. If they were locals, they must know her, know her father certainly, since they were small boys. The men straddled the path. Their chants grew wilder, their gestures more menacing.
She slackened the rein and gave Gypsy her head, squeezed her sides, urging her forward. She broke at once into a fast trot, approaching a gallop by the time they crashed forward into the knot of men. Staves cut through the air, whistling round them. Gypsy reared, rolled a wild eye, twisted, lashed out with her front hooves in panic.
Isabel focused on Gypsy’s neck as she struggled to hold her steady and to keep her seat. Something struck Isabel across the side of the head, above the eye. Gypsy’s front legs plunged back to earth and she tossed her mane, snapping, as a man grabbed at her bridle. Thwack. A stick smacked her across the haunches.
Gypsy screamed, pitched forward, flattened her ears and bolted through the men, scattering them with flailing hooves until, a moment later, they were through and beyond, galloping along the open path, Isabel pressed low along Gypsy’s neck, breathing the heady scent of the mare’s sweating coat, Gypsy’s mouth flecked with foam, the men and their shouts already receding, fading to an ugly memory as the calm of early evening again knitted and settled around them.
‘Good Lord! Isabel, what on earth—’
‘What happened?’
She hoped to creep past them from the stables but they were sitting on the verandah with cocktails: her old schoolfriend, Sarah Winton, John Hargreaves, newly promoted to Superintendent of Police, and his stout wife, Dorothy, and Isabel’s parents. The horror in their faces made her lift her hand to her head. Her fingers found the thick stickiness and crust of congealing blood.
‘It’s not as bad as it looks.’ She looked at her bloodied fingertips. ‘I’ll just clean up.’ She made to turn and continue inside.
‘But darling—’ Her mother was on her feet.
Sarah’s face was all concern. ‘Did you take a tumble?’
‘Not exactly.’ She hesitated. ‘Gypsy’s got a nasty gash. They had nails in those sticks. They must have.’
‘Nails?’
Dorothy said: ‘My dear girl.’
Hargreaves took a step forward. ‘You look awfully pale.’
‘Sit down, Isabel.’ Her father’s voice was quiet and commanding. He was the only one who seemed to understand at once. He placed a gin tonic in her hand and guided her to a planter.
‘Now.’ His hand was warm on her shoulder. ‘Tell us exactly what happened.’
After dinner, Isabel and Sarah sat out together a little longer, shawls wrapped round their shoulders, savouring the cold night air. John and Dorothy Hargreaves had left. Her parents had retired to their rooms. The garden was heady with the scent of the last chrysanthemums of the winter, gold and white and maroon, now ready to be overtaken by the first buds of bougainvillea.
Sarah opened her case and lit them both fresh cigarettes. They sat back with a cr
eak of settling wicker and blew lazy columns of smoke at the darkness. Isabel was drowsy with rich food and wine but too unsettled to go to bed. The cut above her eye, stained brown now with iodine, pulsed with a low throb. The faces of the young men rose again in her mind, their eyes menacing, their fists raised.
‘What kind of person strikes a horse?’ The gash across Gypsy’s flank was deep. The syce had rubbed ointment into it but she feared infection.
Sarah raised her eyebrows. ‘Or a woman.’
Isabel considered. ‘It’s the idea of their hating me, that’s what hurts. You know? I wish I understood what they’re thinking.’
Sarah shrugged. ‘There’ve always been troublemakers. The political rows give them an excuse.’
Isabel twisted round to face her. Sarah’s eyes glistened in the strands of lamplight spilling out from the drawing room behind them. ‘I do worry. Don’t you? I mean, Pearl Harbour. Then Hong Kong. Thailand. Do you think it’s possible …’ she paused, reluctant to say the words. ‘They’re getting closer.’
Sarah shook her head. ‘They were talking about it at The Club the other night. They seemed to think the Japanese had been jolly lucky to get as far as they have. There’s still a lot between them and us. Singapore, for one thing.’
Isabel looked out at the dark lawn. ‘But if the Japanese did invade’ – she held up a hand as Sarah opened her mouth to protest – ‘I’m just saying, if. Do you think the Indians would really stand by while they slaughtered us?’
‘Mr Gandhi seems ready to.’
Isabel shook her head. ‘I can’t believe that. I mean, not people here. Not Abdul and the mali. They’ve known us all their lives.’
‘You just don’t know. Until it happens.’ Sarah blew out her cheeks, exhaling smoke. ‘Which it won’t.’
Isabel lowered her voice. ‘What about independence?’ It was a topic she daren’t raise in her father’s hearing. ‘I mean, it is on the cards eventually, isn’t it? I don’t see why they can’t just support us through the war and then see.’
‘Apparently that’s not enough. They want it now.’ Sarah wrapped her shawl more closely around her shoulders. ‘John Hargreaves says there’s hardly anyone capable in the police. Not in the upper ranks. If we upped sticks and left them to it, they’d make an utter botch of things.’
Isabel snorted. ‘Hargreaves.’
Sarah gave her a sideways look. ‘He’s not so bad.’
‘He’s a buffoon. I pity Dorothy.’
‘At least she’s got him here. He’s not lord-knows-where in some jungle.’
Isabel looked at the familiar contours of the trees and bushes. ‘I can’t imagine living anywhere else. Can you? I wouldn’t go back to dreary England for anything.’
‘I just want this damned war over and Tom safely home.’ Sarah sighed. ‘I don’t care where we live, as long as we’re together again.’
Out in the gloom, a match scraped and flared as the chowkidar, guarding the gate, lit a bidi.
‘Any news of Tom?’
‘None.’ Sarah aimed a stream of smoke at a cloud of flies above their heads. ‘You know how it goes. Nothing for ages and then two or three letters come at once.’ She turned to Isabel, her eyes glinting in the darkness. ‘Anyway, it’s not Tom you’re worrying about, is it? It’s that other chap. The one who asked Tom about you.’
‘Don’t be silly.’
Sarah pulled a face. ‘What’s his name? Jones?’
‘Johnston. Edward Johnston. And of course I’m worried about Tom.’
‘You don’t fool me.’ Sarah raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t know why you don’t just write to him. Send it through Tom, if you like. They see each other all the time.’
‘We lost touch years ago. When Jonathan died.’ She paused, remembering. ‘I doubt he’d even recognise me.’
‘You haven’t changed that much.’
Isabel hesitated. She was thirty-one. She was being a fool, thinking about him as much as she was. It had just been a shock to hear of him again, after all this time.
‘He’s probably married.’
‘Doesn’t sound like it. Anyway, suit yourself.’
Isabel drew deeply on her cigarette, feeling the smoke in her lungs. She wondered what he looked like now. She let out a long column of smoke.
‘You know Felicity?’ Sarah said. ‘She got a letter from George a few weeks ago with the last page missing. Rather queer, she thought. Then, just the other day, a second letter came and, lo and behold, there was the missing page from the first one, tucked in the middle. The censor must have been half-asleep.’
Isabel smiled in the darkness. They sat in silence for a while.
Sarah reached forward to stub out the remains of her cigarette. The fragments glowed red, then died to darkness in the ashtray. She got to her feet, wrapped her shawl more closely round her shoulders. ‘The trouble with you, my dear, is that you’ve given up.’
Isabel blinked. ‘On India?’
‘On men. You think you had one shot and you blew it and that’s it.’
Isabel opened her mouth to protest but Sarah lifted a finger to silence her.
‘Don’t bother arguing. I know you too well.’
When Sarah had gone, Isabel lay in bed in the darkness. Outside, cicadas screeched, unseen, in the grass.
Her head ached. She lifted her fingers to her forehead and traced the dried blood along the cut there. She tried to imagine where Tom and Edward might be, lying in some jungle camp, plagued by insects, surrounded by sleeping, snoring men.
Her eyes closed and her thoughts drifted. Bright sunshine came and the white-sand beach on Car Nicobar and Edward standing at the water’s edge, his back to her, his shoulders broad, smoking a cigarette, as the waves ran in, low and gentle, bathing his feet and swirling sand around his toes.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Asha
Fried potatoes again, spiced with chilli.
Asha tore off strips of roti and pinched them up between her fingers, chewing slowly to savour each mouthful. They sat in a circle in the smoky half-light of the hut, cross-legged, knees touching. A make-do household of women and children. The aunties watched over the children as they ate, slapping their bare legs if they misbehaved, prodding them to finish. They ate little themselves.
‘What about you?’ Asha pointed to the pot on the dying fire. Already, the potatoes were almost finished.
‘Not hungry, Didi.’ Her cousin’s wife kept her eyes low. Her cheeks had a hollow look now. She seemed older than her years.
Asha considered. Her wages weren’t due for another two days but a diet of potatoes meant the money had run out. Nothing had arrived from the men for some weeks. She looked at the pot. ‘No sabzi today?’
‘Gobi, only, in the market.’ The auntie looked embarrassed. ‘Too much of cost.’
The oldest boy, Sushil, ten now, said: ‘I can work. If I left school—’
Asha reached forward and cuffed him across the back of the head. ‘No one’s leaving school.’ It was an old argument and she was tired of it. ‘They feed you there, don’t they? Be grateful.’
The aunties scraped out the pot and gave the boys what was left, then they blew up the fire, mixed water, milk and tea and set the chai to boil. They served Asha each evening as if she were a man because she worked in a clean-hands job and brought good money home. They held their tongues around her.
After dinner, the women crouched low on their haunches in the dust outside. The sounds drifted back into the hut: the slosh of water and clang of metal as they washed the pots and the low murmur of their voices. Asha headed out for a walk.
Her head ached. Her classes seemed restless nowadays. The children were too hungry to concentrate. When they bowed their heads over their books, their hair showed the light streaks of bad diets. In the playground, many were too listless to play.
The day gave way to dusk. Kerosene lamps, hanging from trees and posts along the edge of the bazaar, made yellow circles of muddy light. The ha
wkers sat quietly on the ground with patient, sloping shoulders. She walked along, her mind barely registering what she saw. The gobis were poor specimens, the size of potatoes only. A meagre pile of beans was there. And bhindis.
‘Sister! What about apples? Very good tasting.’
An elderly man with bare, gnarled feet offered her a red apple.
She shook her head. ‘No money, Uncle.’ His apples were carefully arranged in a pyramid. They looked dusty and undisturbed as if he had failed to make a sale that day.
He wagged his head, still held out the apple. ‘Take one anyway. Why not?’ He patted the space beside him. ‘You’re the teacher, nah? My son’s boy goes to your school. May it please the gods he learns his letters and numbers and gets a good job. Not like his poor old grandpa.’
She didn’t know his grandson but she took the apple, thanked him and sat for a moment. The evening air was cool. They watched together the feet, some in boots, some in chappals, others bare, tramp past along the path.
‘No business?’
He shrugged. The folds of skin around his eyes fell in loose pouches. When he spoke, his remaining teeth showed red with betel. ‘No one has money.’
‘Bad times.’
‘No work.’ He sucked his teeth. ‘My son gets a day’s work a week nowadays.’ He leant closer to her. ‘Bengalis, that’s the problem. They’ll work for nothing.’
Asha nodded. The aunties complained about Bengali men, hanging around the slum, begging for work. She heard their accents late at night, drunk sometimes and rowdy. ‘People are going hungry there. That’s what they say.’
‘We’re all hungry.’ The old man rolled his eyes. ‘What’s so special about their bellies?’
She tutted, bit into her apple. It was sweet and crisp and she fell silent as she ate. Her pleasure in the apple was tainted by guilt. She might have put it in her pocket and taken it home to the children but that would have been rude and besides, it tasted so good.
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