Meet Me in Bombay

by Jenny Ashcroft

  Breakfast was already laid out in the shade of the veranda awning: freshly cut fruits beneath a fly net, sliced banana loaf, soft rolls from the local bakery, and bowls of creamy curd, honey, and pistachio nuts. Beyond, on the lawn, the peacocks strutted territorially, safe, for the moment, from the gardener’s children, who would chase them later, trying to steal feathers from their tails.

  Maddy slipped into one of the wicker chairs, poured herself a steaming coffee, and, realizing how hungry she was (she’d steered clear of the curry puffs the night before: the Christmas turkey…), helped herself to the banana loaf, a roll, and some honey.

  She’d just taken her first mouthful when Ahmed, the same bearer who kept her supplied with cigarettes, appeared through the drawing room doors, dressed in a pristine white tunic, a paper package in his hands.

  “Memsahib,” he said.

  He always called her that, even though she wasn’t married, and had asked him countless times to use her name instead.

  She did it again now. “It’s Maddy,” she said, swallowing, “please. Honestly, I keep thinking you must be talking to someone else.”

  He smiled (as he always did), then said “Memsahib” again, and held out the package. “This is coming for you.”

  “Me?”

  His head wobbled.

  She reached for it, assuming it must be from England, although she couldn’t think who would have sent it. Aunt Edie, who had very little money left these days, had already posted talc for Christmas; Maddy’s old college friends had clubbed together and sent a care package (fruitcake, custard powder, cocoa, and a box of Jacob’s High Class Biscuits). Had Uncle Fitz remembered her? Had he really thought she’d want him to?

  It seemed not.

  The package wasn’t from England at all. There wasn’t even a stamp on it.

  She looked up at Ahmed. “Where did this come from?” she asked.

  “A boy is bringing from the station,” he said.

  “The train station?”

  Another head wobble.

  “Bombay train station?” she asked. “The terminus?”

  “The very same, memsahib.”

  Even more intrigued, she pulled the paper apart.

  Then she felt a laugh break from her, just at the surprise of it. Because her box of matches was inside, a well-worn copy of A Guide to Bombay, too, a piece of paper on top.

  The first letter he ever sent her.

  I overheard your non-resolution for 1914. It’s a very good one. I don’t like to think of you being homesick. Hopefully this guide will help you enjoy your time in Bombay a little more, as it helped me when I used to live here.

  It’s a loan, Miss Bright. I shall be back to reclaim it.

  And I saw you mislay these matches. I thought you might need them, perhaps they will help with the homesickness too.

  Luke Devereaux

  She laughed more, reading his words over, looking from them to the book and matches, then back to the paper.

  Luke, she thought, tracing her thumb over his writing. Luke Devereaux.

  I like it.

  She liked that he knew her name, too. That he’d found it out, found out where she lived. Heat spread through her skin as she realized that he must have asked someone—Peter, probably—even before he’d waved at her on the promenade. That he’d noticed her drop her matches, cared enough to collect them.

  Seen her right from the very start.

  Hand trembling, she turned the note over, wanting to see if there was an address, any clue as to where he’d gone.

  There was nothing.

  I shall be back, he’d said.

  “When?” she said. “When will you be back?”

  Ahmed looked at her warily, as though she were running mad.

  She didn’t care. All she could think of was that his name was Luke Devereaux. That he’d surprised her. Done this.

  That he hadn’t just disappeared.

  He’d been thinking about her, too.

  CHAPTER THREE

  She became even more desperate to speak to Peter, of course. There was so much now that she wanted to know: how Peter knew Luke Devereaux, where Luke Devereaux was from, what train he’d taken … The list went on, multiplying. She’d see Peter that afternoon, she was sure. There was an officers’ cricket match between the Hussars and the Gurkhas at the oval: a large, very British expanse of green surrounded by poinciana, palm, and banyan trees, adjacent to the university. She hadn’t been particularly excited about the match, or a long afternoon in the middle of town shielded from the cooling sea breezes, but now couldn’t wait to get there. She could talk to Peter then.

  He wasn’t there.

  Everyone else from the party had come, lethargic on the rattan loungers lining the boundary, parasols propped on shoulders, flanneled legs crossed, clapping lazily at each four and six, but not him.

  “Sick as a dog,” said Della.

  “The curry puffs?” said Maddy.

  “The champagne, I suspect,” said Della, who looked quite pale herself. “What do you need him for, anyway?”

  “Nothing important,” said Maddy. A lie, but, much as part of her yearned to confide, talk about it all, another, bigger, part held her back, even with Della, afraid that if she started picking over everything, it would ruin it. Besides, what was there really to tell? Just a wave, a parcel …

  She thought about that parcel all through the sunbaked afternoon. She sat by Della’s side in a deck chair, slowly cooking in her tea dress, and pictured it on her bedside table, rereading Luke Devereaux’s note in her mind; she already knew it by heart. The cricketers played on, knocking the ball around the yellowing grass field, but she wouldn’t have been able to say who, of the Gurkhas or Hussars, were batting at any one time. She barely remembered to speak when Guy Bowen, dapper in a cream suit and boater, stopped by to say hello, cool lime sodas for her and Della in hand, and asked if they’d both had fun the night before.

  “A little too much,” said Della.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get a dance,” he said to Maddy, gray eyes crinkling.

  “Next time,” she said.

  “I’ll hold you to that,” he called over his shoulder as he returned to where he’d been sitting, beneath the swaying cloth punkahs on the pavilion. “Already looking forward to it.”

  “Just like an uncle,” said Della, stifling a yawn.

  “Drink your drink,” said Maddy.

  For once, Della did as she was told. Luckily, she was too preoccupied with her own tiredness to go on, or expect much in the way of conversation for the rest of the match.

  “Early nights all round, I think,” said Richard, when it at last came to an end. (Who had won? Maddy hadn’t the faintest; all she could think about was that she was within touching distance of returning to her room.)

  She collapsed on her bed as soon as she got there, not even stopping to remove her hat, kick off her boots, before she started on Luke Devereaux’s book. She had to put it down again for a bath, to dress for an early supper, but read it cover to cover that night, her head on the soft pillow, the shutters open, dragonflies fluttering invisibly in the darkness beyond. She turned the pages slowly, lingering over the tantalizing descriptions of temples and markets, seeing them in her mind’s eye. She thought how strange it was that he must have done the same once. That she now had his book, and knew nothing about him, hadn’t even met him.

  Not yet.

  She finished the final page and let the book fall shut on her chest. Eyelids heavy, she told herself that it didn’t matter that she hadn’t managed to speak to Peter. She was always seeing him, she wouldn’t have to wait long. Her eyes closed. She could talk to Peter soon.

  But the very next morning, before she was even fully dressed, her father stopped by her room to tell her that he’d had word from the viceroy: he was needed for business in Delhi, from there for a goodwill tour of the independent princely states. “There’s been a lot of change with our residents lately,” he said. “We
need to smooth things over, keep ‘the kings’ onside. I’m taking Peter, too. I’ve just been to see him. He’s meeting me at the terminus. We’ll be gone a couple of months.”

  Maddy stared, hairpin halfway to her head. Was he joking?

  He didn’t look like he was joking. In fact, he was looking at her like it was all about to get worse.

  “Della’s going to tag along,” he said.

  “What?” said Maddy.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re all going?”

  “We’ll be back before you know it.”

  “No you won’t.” She dropped her hairpin on the bureau, the full enormity of two months ahead, just her and her mother, sinking in. There’d be no prospect of her father coming home each evening to look forward to, no Della.… “Can’t I go as well?” she asked, slightly desperately.

  “Your mama would prefer you stay here.”

  “Why?” Maddy asked, baffled.

  “She missed you, darling, all that time you were away.”

  “She never visited,” said Maddy. “Only once.…”

  “I’ve told you, she had her reasons.”

  Maddy didn’t ask what those reasons had been. She’d done that enough over the years. Richard would never say, nor would Aunt Edie. It’s not my story to tell.

  “I can’t believe you’re all leaving me here,” she said.

  “I’ll miss you,” said Richard, “but honestly, you don’t want to come to Delhi. It will be chilly at this time of year, very dull.”

  It’s absolutely ripping fun, Della wrote, several days later, days in which, with the city in a post-Christmas lull, Maddy hardly left the house, then only for evening drinks with her mother and Guy at everyone’s favorite watering hole, the Gymkhana Club, and, out of desperation, back at the club again for a sweltering morning tea of scones and stale cucumber sandwiches on the long, lower terrace with Alice and her fellow memsahibs. (So much moaning about one’s servants, the cost of flour, and the constant battle of keeping food safe from the red ants. “Table legs in water,” said a wife from the army cantonment, Diana Aldyce, “it’s the only way. If I’ve told Cook once, I’ve told him a thousand times.” If Maddy had heard it once…) We’re staying at the viceroy’s house, Della went on, which is essentially a palace. He throws the most marvelous drinks parties and dinners for us every night, with more brandy and gin than even Peter can drink. We’re leaving for Rajasthan tomorrow, first stop a hunting lodge in Ranthambore. There’s talk of a tiger safari. Tigers, Maddy.

  Maddy wrote by return.

  You’re very heartless, she said, but tell me more, anyway, so I can live vicariously.

  She watched the silver post tray each morning for Della’s reply, or something from Aunt Edie, one of her friends back in Oxford; anything to break the hot monotony of her days with her mother. The two of them echoed around the too-large villa, coming together only for meals, where—but for the occasional comment on the growing heat (Alice), ponderings as to what everyone must be doing in the north (Maddy)—they spoke very little. Unable to bear it, Maddy spent most of her time wherever Alice was not, moving from her room to read on the veranda, play the piano in the drawing room, outside for yet another walk among the butterflies and peacocks in the garden. The nights were hardly better. Although the usual round of Bombay soirées, music recitals, and dances picked up again, and she went along, if only to be doing something, they weren’t the same with everyone gone. Whenever she escaped for a cigarette at the Yacht Club, she missed Della more. Each time she took out her matches, she turned them slowly in her hand and thought of Luke Devereaux. Sometimes she considered taking his advice, using his guidebook to get out and explore—her yearning for England, the green parks, warm, buzzy cafés, Aunt Edie (even, in her lowest moments, Uncle Fitz) was only worsening—but she kept telling herself, I’ll go tomorrow. As the days rolled by, though, pushing New Year’s further into the past, she didn’t go anywhere. The second week of January became the third, and gradually she started to doubt Luke Devereaux ever would come back to reclaim his guidebook. It was far easier, in the baking loneliness of the villa, to believe that he must have forgotten all about her.

  It was on a rare cloudy Monday toward the end of the month that she drifted down to breakfast, went to check the post, then paused, seeing a sepia postcard on the pile of embossed envelopes. It was a picture of a dirt street, women in saris, rickshaws, and a cluster of elephants. She picked it up, turned it over to check who it was from (she assumed either Della or her father in Rajasthan), then squealed in disbelief.

  Hello from Secunderabad,

  I find myself wondering if you’re putting my book to good use, Miss Bright. I hope so. I’m looking forward to a full report. Go down to the tank at the base of your hill if you haven’t found it yet. It has water from the Ganges in it, and the Hindis meet to scatter their loved ones’ ashes. Or, for something a little less deathly, try the spice markets.

  Meanwhile, here’s a taste of somewhere else for you to discover one day.

  Luke Devereaux

  She held the card to her bodice, then tipped it away again, looking back down, just to make sure it was real.

  It was.

  It really, really was.

  “You look happy,” said Alice, coming out of the drawing room.

  “I am,” said Maddy, forgetting for a moment who she was talking to, too ecstatic for inhibitions. “I’m just about over the moon.” She read the card once more—I’m looking forward to a full report—and, on an impulse, said, “Could I borrow the motor?”

  Alice reached for the coffee. “What for?”

  “To explore.”

  Alice filled her cup, then added milk, freshly squeezed from the kitchen cow. “Explore where?”

  “Bombay,” said Maddy.

  “I realize that, Madeline, but where in Bombay?”

  “I don’t know,” said Maddy, who’d remembered now who she was talking to, and that it wasn’t someone who invited confidences, least of all about Luke Devereaux’s book. “There’s so much I haven’t seen.”

  “You can’t go out alone,” said Alice. “I could go with you…”

  “Or Ahmed?” said Maddy, too quickly.

  Alice didn’t appear to notice her haste. In fact, she smiled. It was one of the truest Maddy had seen from her. It suited her, softening her delicate face.

  Maddy almost smiled, too.

  But then, “How about Guy?” Alice said.

  * * *

  Exploring with Guy was hardly what Maddy had had in mind. She suspected it wasn’t what Luke Devereaux had intended either. Alice was adamant, though. She even suggested they invite Guy for dinner that night. “We can ask him then.”

  “It’s really not necessary,” said Maddy. “No need to go to the trouble of dinner.”

  They ate in the candlelit dining room, the windows ajar, balmy air wafting in.

  Guy had come straight from the hospital, but had still changed into evening tails. He nodded along as Alice told him that Maddy was in need of a guide, listening in that gentle way of his. Maddy, examining him in the glow of the flickering candles, couldn’t deny that with his dark pomaded hair, fine-boned face, and closely shaved jaw, he looked well; there’d be many besides Della who’d think him on the heavenly side. Not that she’d ever concede that to Della, who’d have a field day with the admission (if she ever returned from her ripping fun hunting tigers). Maddy didn’t really like to think about it. She wasn’t sure why she was. She jostled her shoulders, shaking the awkward musing away.

  Guy smiled across at her. “Maddy,” he said, “I wish you’d said something before. I’d love to show you around. We can go in the mornings, before it gets too hot.”

  “You’re so busy,” said Maddy.

  “It will be my pleasure,” he said. “There are some perks to being in charge. I’ll juggle things around.”

  “Really,” Maddy insisted, “it’s too much to ask.”

  He called twi
ce weekly from then on, pulling up in his open-topped motor, glass bottles of boiled water in the trunk, their itinerary for the morning ready-planned. He told her that, truly, she didn’t want to visit the nearby water tank—“I’m afraid the men can’t be relied on not to disrobe before wading in with the ashes”—and took her to the most British of landmarks instead: the Victoria Gardens, Flora Fountain, the esplanade—all places she’d been to with her father, not one of which was referenced in Luke Devereaux’s book. Guy didn’t ask if there was anywhere else she wanted to visit. In fairness, he probably assumed that, having been back so short a time, she didn’t have many ideas. And he’d gone to such lengths to help her, she was loath to hurt his feelings by telling him how much he missed the mark with his excursions. So she went along with him, said how marvelous it was to be out and about, listened to his tales of the hospital, laughing in earnest when he told her about a snake who’d got into the operating theater, how he’d had to finish an appendectomy, one eye on it curled up in the corner, and chatted in turn when he questioned her about her friends back in Oxford, whether she’d eaten at the Lyons Corner House on St. Giles (absolutely), or gone to the moving pictures (once or twice; her aunt Edie was an avid Calamity Anne fan). She didn’t not enjoy the mornings out. They just weren’t anything like what she’d hoped to do.

  She resolved to take matters into her own hands. (If you want something done, and all that.) Every Monday, her mother left in the motor for one of her memsahib teas, which lasted a good few hours. It was enough time to do something. Maddy had only ever occasionally accompanied Alice before, so it was hardly out of the ordinary for her to elect not to do so now. She waited for her to leave, then pinned her hat into place, asked Ahmed to hail her a rickshaw (for a small fee), and off she went.

  The first outing, she didn’t go far, just a few minutes down the road to the water tank, which she’d pictured as a tiny affair hidden in the trees, but was as wide as a river with long sloping steps framing it, the sea just beyond, and shrines all around. Men (who did indeed have a tendency to disrobe) were having their hair shorn beside it, she presumed as part of their grieving ritual. (“Yes, memsahib,” said Ahmed later, “it is a way to make sacrifice.”) More were in the water itself, scattering their urns while hundreds of women and children watched from the stairs. For herself, she kept well back, sharply aware of not belonging there, unwilling to intrude, holding her breath at the otherworldliness before her, feeling, for the first time since she’d arrived back in October, the thrill of being in India.