Stars Over the Southern Ocean

by J. H. Fletcher

The driver nodded; she climbed aboard.

  The hostel was in a side street. It was small and could have done with a lick of paint but was better than many she’d stayed in on her travels.

  She checked in, and left her backpack in the four-bed dormitory on the second floor where she would be sleeping. No one was there for the moment, but no doubt that would change. She went out to explore. There was a roadside stall where she bought a dish of curried vegetables. The owner of the stall was wearing white cotton trousers and a long-sleeved dark shirt, collarless and buttoned at the neck. He spoke to her, his tone friendly, but in what she supposed was Urdu. Incomprehensible. She tried him with English. No luck. They smiled helplessly at each other. No matter.

  She paid for the food, fire-hot and good, then bought a tiny bottle of water, which cost more than the food.

  She walked. Women with headscarves; women hidden head to toe beneath black robes. Boys running, staring at the foreign woman; bare-headed men walking. Black hair, blue eyes, noses like scimitars in the dark-skinned faces. The clatter of cart wheels, vendors shouting. Everywhere the smell of water, of weed, of spicy food and sewage.

  She came to a river, warehouses along its banks, and turned back.

  ‘A man has been looking for you,’ the manager of the hostel said.

  Tamsyn was astonished. ‘What sort of man? Was he wanting to sell me something?’

  ‘No, no, nothing like that. A sahib. A very good man. I have known him since he used to come up here as a child. He is a friend of my cousin. Also a very good man. He said he would be coming back later.’

  A sahib? She knew only one man fitting that description. But why would Grant Drake be looking for her?

  Fifteen minutes later she found out.

  She was having a cold shower—no hot water available in the Happy Neighbours hostel—when the manager knocked on the door of the dormitory where she was still the only occupant, although a backpack was now lying on a second bed.

  ‘The sahib is back.’

  ‘Ask him to give me five minutes.’

  Grant was standing in the common room beyond the arrivals desk. He had changed his clothes and was now wearing light-brown slacks and a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, revealing tanned and muscular arms. As she had at Palam airport, she thought he looked remarkably attractive.

  ‘This is a surprise,’ Tamsyn said.

  ‘For me as well as you,’ Grant said. ‘As I told you, Esmé and I are booked into our houseboat for two weeks but I still have to be ready to go back to Delhi if I’m needed. I’m a senior track engineer with the railways. With derailments, track failure and antiquated rolling stock there are always problems of one sort or another and I’m the one who has to deal with them, more or less at a moment’s notice. It’s not often a fortnight goes by without some kind of emergency so I’m always on stand-by. I didn’t want to spoil Esmé’s holiday so I arranged to have a nanny stay with us to keep an eye on her if I had to go away. I expected to find her at the houseboat when we got there but there was no sign of her. Now I find that her son is sick and she won’t be able to come, after all.’

  ‘So what do you plan to do?’

  ‘I could ask the houseboat owner and his family to take care of her, should I be called away, but I think that might be unfair to them, when they have their own commitments.’ An apology of a smile. ‘So I was hoping you might be able to help me out.’

  ‘You mean come and keep an eye on Esmé if you have to go away?’

  ‘Not quite. I was thinking of inviting you to stay with us on our houseboat. No obligations. I saw how you and my daughter took to each other, and the houseboat will be a lot more comfortable than this hostel. You’d come as my guest, so it wouldn’t cost you a rupee, and if I have to go away, I’ll pay you for looking after her. You’ll have your own bedroom, of course, and I can show you around, as I told you in Delhi. If you would like that.’

  Tamsyn thought she would like that very much and saw no need to pretend otherwise.

  ‘But what does Esmé think about all this?’

  ‘When we discovered that Lakshmi wouldn’t be coming, she said maybe I could persuade you to join us instead. “I would like that,” she said.’

  Good to hear.

  ‘When would you want me to come?’

  ‘Now.’

  Grant was clearly a no-nonsense person. Tamsyn found she liked that, too.

  ‘Okay,’ she said.

  ‘I’m delighted.’ His smile showed he meant it.

  ‘I’ll go and settle up. Fetch my things.’

  ‘I’ll wait outside for you.’

  She felt astonishment as she climbed the stairs. Astonishment at the situation, so unexpected, opening up possibilities she had never considered; astonishment at herself for accepting, so readily, a situation some might think ambiguous.

  Who cares what some might think? she asked herself. It was her life, her decision, and she couldn’t wait. When she ran back down the stairs, backpack swinging from her shoulder, she was singing inside her head. A joyous feeling and a joyous sound. All the same, she spoke to the hostel manager again when she settled her bill.

  ‘You say this man is all right?’

  ‘Oh yes. You may be sure of that.’

  Does he make a habit of picking up young women?

  She could not bring herself to say such a thing but knew she must say something to ease her doubts.

  ‘Does he come here often?’

  The hostel manager looked at her sternly. ‘If you are asking what I think you are, my answer is no. As I told you: he is a good man, an honourable man. He is not a man for any hanky-panky.’

  He could hardly get a better testimonial than that. She decided she would take the chance. After all, she thought, if he tries anything I can always walk out.

  She picked up her backpack and walked out into the open air.

  Grant had kept the taxi waiting. They hopped in and headed off down a gravel road, leaving the air behind them smeared with brown dust. It seemed that every few yards they passed more clumps of irises, some blue, others white. The stately beauty of the flowers enhanced her mood.

  CHAPTER 8

  They came to the lake, a vastness of water with flowers in profusion along the bank and more floating.

  ‘What flowers are they?’

  ‘Lotus flowers.’

  In the distance, far away, the snow-clad mountains shimmered in the haze. A long line of houseboats was moored, bows to the shore, with others further out.

  Tamsyn had not known what to expect but the houseboats she could see along the bank were long and low, made of wood, with windows along the sides and a ramp connecting them to the shore.

  ‘Are you staying in one of these?’

  ‘Ours is further out. They’re bigger and more peaceful.’

  ‘How do we get to it?’

  ‘There’s a boat called a shikara and a boatman.’

  Tamsyn found that the shikara was like a gondola but with satin curtains hanging on either side to protect the passengers from curious eyes. The boatman perched in the stern and used a paddle to get along.

  It took five minutes to reach their destination. Tamsyn looked at the sign above the houseboat’s stern. The Imperial Palace.

  ‘Wow! Royalty, are we?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Wow was the right word for it. The outward end of the wooden ramp rested on floats. They climbed out of the shikara and went up the slope into what proved to be the living room. Aziz—the man in charge—was waiting with Esmé to greet her.

  Esmé grabbed her hand. ‘I am so pleased!’

  Grant and Aziz spoke to each other in what Grant later said was Urdu.

  ‘He’s an old friend. I remember coming here as a child during the war years. It was Aziz’s father running things in those days. Aziz and I used to swim together. Went fishing, too, I remember, up in the hills.’

  ‘Did you ever catch anything?’

  He laughed. ‘We
caught trout. Ate them, too.’

  The interior of the living room was lined with honey-coloured wood, with a carved wooden ceiling and a large pot-bellied stove against an outer wall.

  ‘You’d need that in winter,’ Grant said.

  There were easy chairs, a soft-cushioned sofa and a red woollen carpet on the floor.

  A doorway led to a dining room with a dark wooden table and chairs. Through the open window she could see the shore with a hill rising steeply, and what looked like the dome of a temple showing through trees on the summit.

  Beyond the dining room were three bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, and a flight of stairs leading to the sun deck.

  ‘Imperial palace is right,’ Tamsyn said.

  While she’d been admiring the interior of what she now saw would be a proper home and not just a stopover, at least for a week or two, Esmé had escaped and was running this way and that on the sun deck over their heads. They could hear her chattering excitedly in Urdu to Aziz. They smiled at each other.

  ‘She’s enjoying herself,’ Tamsyn said.

  ‘She’s a happy child,’ Grant said. ‘And she’s glad I got you to come.’

  ‘And your wife?’ A question that had to be asked.

  ‘Leukemia. Four years ago this August. Esmé was only three so doesn’t really remember her. A blessing, I suppose.’

  ‘And you live in India?’

  ‘Born here, live here, likely die here. My father was an officer in the Indian army, stayed on after independence. He’s dead now. So’s my mother; the Indian climate isn’t kind to old white widows.’

  ‘So where does Esmé stay when she’s not with you?’

  ‘The convent is a boarding school. But at weekends and shorter holidays she stays with Parvati’s parents. My job means I often have to be away, sometimes for days at a time. I never know when I’m going to be called out, so I’m very glad you’ve agreed to help.’

  That was one way of putting it, she supposed.

  ‘Let’s get you unpacked,’ he said. He led her to the first of the three bedrooms. ‘This do you?’

  A bed; a chest of drawers; a window through which she could see a tiny island, in its centre a willow tree putting out fresh green leaves, the ground beneath it covered in flowers; a bathroom with a massive bathtub.

  ‘It’s marvellous,’ she said.

  ‘Nowhere to hang your ball gowns,’ he said.

  ‘How shall I manage?’ she said. ‘Backpacking without somewhere to hang my ball gowns?’

  He left her to it. It took her two minutes to unpack her things; she went back to join him in what Aziz had called the lounge room.

  ‘You fancy a glass of wine?’

  ‘I didn’t know you could get wine in India.’

  ‘Not cheap, but there are ways. A word of warning, though. Don’t buy the local stuff. It costs a lot less but it’s poison. Drink it and you’ll suffer the worst hangover you’ve ever had. Go up on the deck and I’ll bring the bottle up.’

  She climbed the flight of stairs to the deck. The sun was bright and hot but there was an awning with chairs beneath it and a small table. For the moment she ignored the awning and stood with her hands on the rail that ran around the edge of the deck and looked at the view. The water was dotted with small boats: canoes and shikaras going silently about their business. Across the water, cattle grazed along the shore. An occasional car passed down the road, yet these slight movements did not intrude. The lowing of a cow accentuated the silence. The world of the lake was a world of stillness, a dream in which the distant mountains, snow-clad, floated above a haze-blurred horizon.

  She thought about how, if she’d agreed to go with the French boy, she might at that moment have been aboard a train, crowded and noisy, the heat indescribable, heading south towards Madras. Instead, here she was in this place with its cool air touched by the fragrance of flowers, in the company of a man to whom she was growing more attracted by the minute, and she was grateful to a kindly fate that had caused it to happen.

  Beauty and coolness: that was what Grant had promised her and that was what she had now, with a marvellous houseboat thrown in. Beauty, coolness, a houseboat. He had invited her to stay. A fortnight in this wonderful place: how lucky could you get?

  To stay for a fortnight would not be visiting him but living with him.

  Was that what she wanted?

  I could live here, she thought. We could drift on the lazy waters of Dal Lake; we could trace the course of ice-cold rushing streams; we could ride horses, venture high into the land of snow; breathe the coolness of the alpine air as we sleep.

  She could not do it alone, or would not. Because Grant was part of that picture; it would be incomplete without him.

  She reminded herself this was only an interlude. Kashmir was no more his place than hers. He was of European origin but was presumably an Indian citizen, a widower with a seven-year-old daughter. He was in Kashmir as she was, on holiday. And when the holiday was over? He would go back to his work with the railways and she would continue her travels. This was only an interlude.

  She heard his steps on the stair and he appeared carrying a tray with an open bottle of wine and two glasses. He put the tray on the table and came to join her at the rail.

  ‘Like it?’ he said.

  ‘It’s heavenly.’

  ‘If there is a paradise on earth,’ he quoted, ‘it is this, it is this, it is this.’

  ‘You told me that yesterday. And you’re staying here two weeks.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Then you’ll go back to work?’

  ‘I to work, Esmé to school. That’s right. Why?’

  ‘Just asking.’

  ‘Come and drink your wine.’

  They sat in the shade of the awning. A faint puff of scented air came from nowhere. She breathed it in and sipped her wine. It was cold and dry, delicious.

  ‘You like it, then?’

  ‘The wine?’

  ‘The place.’

  ‘I told you. I think it’s heavenly. I like everything about it. I was telling myself that just before you came up on deck. A place to linger, a place to stay, a place where you can truly say, I’ll never want to go away.’

  ‘Who wrote that?’

  She had, the words springing from nowhere into her head, but she was not about to admit it, afraid he might think she was round the bend.

  ‘I forget.’

  ‘I agree with that, up to a point. But we always have to go away, don’t we? To go back?’

  He was right. ‘You’re saying that even a place as lovely as this might eventually lose its magic.’

  Slowly he drank his wine. ‘There’s a lot more to Kashmir than the Dal Lake. I’ll show you some of it. If you like.’

  ‘I’d like that very much,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe we could start by taking a tour of the lake. We can explore further another day.’

  She walked to the side of the deck and gripped the rail firmly with both hands. She breathed in, slowly and deliberately, as she looked out at the lake and the land beyond. The cool air smelt of things other than flowers; there was a sharpness of spices, the exotic scent of challenge, of going where she had never thought to go in her life.

  On the map she knew where she was; to the north lay the icy world of the Himalayan wilderness; beyond that the empty steppe flowed away. She had heard it called the land of horses, the only human construction the yurts of the herders, the plains of the north, unfenced, the solitude and silence of the empty lands.

  There were also the fabled cities, the Silk Road, the Golden Road, leading the traveller to Tashkent and Samarkand.

  Most of this she could not hope to see but the idea entranced her. She wanted to say she would stay as long as he was willing to accept her. It was reckless, even foolish: she didn’t have to tell herself that. She was allowing herself to be seduced, not so much by the man as by the emptiness of central Asia where, over two thousand years before, Alexander of Macedon
had led his armies. She had read that even today they found the occasional silver coin bearing Alexander’s head.

  She had read a story by DH Lawrence, ‘The Woman Who Rode Away’. I am lost, she thought. She was helpless yet determined, knowing that within seconds she was going to be that woman, the woman who rode away. She turned to face him. Half the deck separated them yet in that moment she could see nothing but his eyes.

  ‘I would like that,’ she said. ‘I would like you to show me something of those places.’

  ‘It might take more than a fortnight,’ he said. ‘To do it properly might take a lifetime.’

  What was she to make of that? Yet she answered at once.

  ‘As long as it takes,’ she said.

  Now the green eyes were so close and so large they seemed to be devouring her, but she held his gaze and did not flinch. No need to say anything; the silence and interlocked eyes had said it all.

  She would stay two weeks, or longer, with all that implied.

  They had lunch aboard the houseboat, all three of them sitting at the dining-room table. It was Western food, properly prepared, and Tamsyn was puzzled by that and by the fact that the meal had been provided by staff she never saw. She asked Grant about it.

  ‘There’s a kitchen boat moored astern of the houseboat. That’s where the staff stay. They prepare the meals there and come and do the cleaning and tidying up while we’re out of the way.’

  ‘I’ve been on the kitchen boat,’ Esmé said. ‘Mr Aziz took me. There are children there.’

  ‘You can go and visit with them, if you want,’ Grant said.

  ‘Now?’

  ‘When you’ve finished your meal.’

  She was a lively girl but well behaved. Tamsyn had not had enough time to get to know her properly but what she’d seen she liked. On the plane they’d talked about her school, the convent and the strict Sister Benedict; now she asked what sports she played, what friends she had, what her interests were outside school. She did this because she wanted to know but also to take her mind off other feelings that she sensed moving through her.

  Desire was part of it but much more than desire: there was excitement and apprehension, the need to keep control of herself and the world about her.