by Maggie Ford
‘It’s Josie.’
The door handle had rattled loosely and there was Pam, her hazel eyes, so like Dad’s, lit up with the joy of seeing her, almost ecstatic with joy.
‘Josie! Oh, how lovely, you coming to see me. Oh, come in, Josie!’
‘You didn’t think I wouldn’t come and see you?’ Josie queried as she stepped into the tiny living-cum-dining room so poorly furnished with bits of this and that, and all so obviously second-hand, that it made her feel sick with pity for Pam’s state.
‘It’s only Mum and Dad who feel the way they do about you,’ she went on, taking Pam’s offer to sit in one of the fireside chairs that had seen better days. ‘The rest of us, Connie and Danny – Annie’s not here of course – haven’t any axe to grind. It’s not our affair.’
And it wasn’t mine,’ Pam added, standing over her with her square features, again so much like her father’s, creasing up a little. ‘But it feels as if it is. All I did was fall in love with George Bryant. But you’d think I’d gone off and murdered the King of England the way I’ve been treated. I never thought Dad would throw me out. I feel … Honestly, I feel …’
Tears were forming in her eyes at the plight she had been forced into. Josie felt she was on the point of collapsing on to her knees before her to be cuddled as she fell into a fit of weeping. There would be weeping but not for herself when Josie divulged her sad news.
‘Look,’ she cut in before Pam could dissolve into self-pity. ‘You make us a nice cup of tea.’ (The tiny, odd-shaped oil stove with a little door on one side could hardly have heated more than a kettle or saucepan or a frying pan, and then only one utensil at a time, and again Josie felt that wave of pity flow over her thinking of the lovely meals Pam used to enjoy from their mother’s shining black kitchen range in whose oven she still baked fresh bread as she’d done all her life.) ‘Then I’ll tell you why I’m here – apart from coming to see you because I wanted to.’
Innocent of what news lay ahead of her, Pam dried her eyes quickly and grabbing the kettle off the stove, said a little more brightly, ‘Shan’t be a tick,’ and took herself out of the room. Josie heard her descending the stairs to the floor below, distinctly heard the sound of a tap being turned on and water running into the empty kettle, then the footsteps lumbering back up the bare stairs. Pam’s body was heavier now with her child waiting to be born in August.
Back in the room, Pam placed the kettle on the oil stove and fiddled about getting the thing to light That done, she turned to Josie with a smile bleak with apology. ‘It takes a while.’
Her head bent over the small cloth-covered table, she arranged two cups and saucers, got spoons from a cardboard box on the floor where the cutlery was apparently kept. Milk she got from a bottle standing on a shelf together with a half packet of sugar and a packet of Lyons tea.
Josie looked around. ‘Where do you wash up?’
‘Oh, in the sink on the next floor.’ Pam’s tone was falsely cheerful. ‘The landlady had a butler sink and tap installed there when she turned all this into flats. We all use it’
‘I didn’t see any sink when I came up.’
‘It’s in the corner behind the stairs. It’s a bit dark there.’
‘Where do you wash?’
‘There’s a bathroom. Quite a big one really. We take turns. Our turn is on Wednesdays. But we can use the sink there for a morning or evening wash when the bathroom’s free. We pay for the heating. There’s a boiler on the ground floor. The water’s usually warm enough, though at the moment, being summer, Mrs Carper sometimes doesn’t light it very often. In winter so I’m told, we get hot water through the pipes to keep the place warm, so it’s not too bad.’
‘Good God,’ Josie sighed, watching the kettle for some sign of steam coming from it. ‘You don’t reckon on still being here by wintertime? You’ll have the baby to worry about by then. There’s no room.’
Pam smiled her wan smile. ‘We’ll have to see. I mean, George don’t earn much, the shrimping industry’s going down the pan all the time, and I’m not working. Can’t. We do our best.’
‘Don’t George’s parents help you at all?’
A small flutter of anger passed across Pam’s face. ‘Do ours help at all? They couldn’t care if we both died.’
Then the anger passed.’ How can his parents help? They’re nearly as poor as we are. There’s virtually no shrimping industry now. It began dying when shipping started mucking up the river and shrimps went off elsewhere. And it’s getting worse. George and his dad have to go miles out to sea now to catch anything worthwhile, sometimes nearly to Harwich, and they’re out in all weathers. At least cocklers know where their cockles are. Shrimpers have to go chasing all over the place for their catch. And Dad thinks he was hard done by when his boat caught fire. George’s dad never talks about it At least Dad has done well. George’s hasn’t.’
As though exhausted by her tirade, Pam sat down on the other, even more worn, fireside chair next to Josie’s.
The kettle had only just begun steaming and Josie felt it could be hours before they ever got their cup of tea. She must start to relay the news about poor Connie. It would be unseemly to embark upon light chit-chat, if Pam in her present frame of mind permitted such a thing, and then to go on to report dire news that should have been told at the very outset.
‘Pam,’ Josie began. ‘I’ve something to tell you. It’s about Connie.’
Pam tilted her head slightly, her smile warmer. ‘The wedding?’ Perhaps she was hoping to be invited, all finally forgiven. Connie had said that she had indeed invited her but that Pam had declined, for obvious reasons. Any hope Pam might have must be quickly quashed.
‘No, not the wedding. Well, yes, it has something to do with it, but … ‘ This was going to be far harder than she in her impulsiveness had thought. ‘You see, Pam, the wedding … it won’t be … it’s off.’
‘Off?’
The whistle on the kettle had begun to hum, very low. Soon its note would rise to a scream demanding to be taken off the stove. Desperation clutched at Josie’s chest. She leaned forward.
‘Pam, something dreadful’s happened.’
Was that glee in Pam’s face, glee at something gone wrong in the Bowmaker family, compensating her in part for what bad been done to her, even if it came from Connie’s corner, Connie who was still nice to her? ‘They haven’t split up, have they? They haven’t had a blazing row, have they?’
‘Pam … Ben’s dead.’
She hadn’t meant it to come out like that. How did people convey the tertible news of death? She’d never done it before; never experienced death before except for her young brother. She had been only thirteen then and awful as it had been, she had only the luxury of crying to contend with, the sad knowledge that Tony was no longer there hitting her only when she came in from school or from playing with friends. At all other times, she forgot that he was no longer there.
Now she must convey the worst news of any to another, and it wasn’t easy. So it had been blurted out. Pam’s face had frozen in the midst of her smile, a fixed grimace. The kettle’s whistle had risen considerably.
‘What d’you mean, dead?’
‘I mean … what I say. Ben was drowned. Sunday.’
The whistle was shrieking. Pam took the kettle off and put it on a stand on the table for the while. She seemed now to be moving like an automaton, holding the empty teapot close to her. ‘Drowned? How? What happened?’
‘I don’t know. Just that the police came for Mum. Danny went with her. Dad has an injured foot, from jumping off the boat on Saturday. He couldn’t go. They left me behind to give eye to him. They came back but all they said was Ben had been drowned, an accident off the gasworks jetty – someone said it was cramp.’
Pam’s voice sounded far away. ‘But Connie said he was such a strong swimmer. She wished she could swim like him. Said she should have learned. Just self-taught. Perhaps he’ll turn up all right after all.’
�
�Pam – don’t be silly. He’s dead.’
‘I’m not being silly … ‘ She stopped abruptly and they both looked at each other.
‘They found the body some hours later,’ Josie said, her voice low. ‘Connie had to go and identify him.’
She saw Pam lean over the table. Head bent, she was weeping, sudden great gulps of weeping. Leaping up, Josie, more distraught at the way she had blurted it all out than for any other reason, went and took Pam in her arms.
‘I’m sorry I had to be the bearer of such news. I didn’t think you’d take it this bad. After all, Ben wasn’t family, not yet anyway.’
Pam’s voice came fast and fierce and angry, gulping its way through her tears. ‘I’m not crying for Ben. I’m crying for Connie, she didn’t deserve to have that. Apart from you, she’s the best of the bunch, she didn’t deserve to have that happen to her. She’s been good to me, better than any of them, and this bad to happen to her. I wish … I wish it had been him, Dad, to go through that. Then he’d know how it feels. I wish … ‘
Josie leaned back in horror. ‘You mean you’d want him to lose Mum? Pam, you can’t wish a thing like that.’ She too was in tears, that Pam could say this, almost as if Pam had cast a curse upon them all. ‘You can’t wish a thing like that.’
Pam’s words could hardly be heard through her crying. ‘Of course I didn’t. Of course not. But I wish it could have been anyone rather than Connie. Oh, Josie, I miss Mum and Dad so much.’
There was nothing Josie could say, wishing, as they stood in the centre of the poor little flat with only lino to stand on and second-hand chairs to sit on and a rickety table to eat off and an oil stove to cook by and washing done by rota, that Pam could be forgiven, called home, and they could all be happy again, and Ben could still be alive. And she wished that Annie was here.
Chapter Fourteen
Annie sat in one of the deep bamboo armchairs on the covered veranda, the letter from her parents unopened. She thought of Connie, the wedding. Probably the letter would be full of it and she had not been there. She felt left out, wondered if they had missed her, if Connie in her happiness had stopped once to miss her. Perhaps she had, but only fleetingly on that her special day.
It felt odd imagining Connie married. She had sent her a unique wedding present, a pair of pure silk bed coverlets and four cushion covers and an ivory statue of a group of Indian dancers. Something different from the usual run of wedding presents. Connie would have been delighted, she was sure. She thought of Connie and Ben settled in their Bethnal Green flat. Then she thought of herself, here.
She didn’t want to open her letter yet. Hearing about the wedding and all that had gone on as well as the day-to-day trivia which always provoked feelings of homesickness that were growing worse as the months went by would only destroy her for the rest of the day.
It had been wonderful here at first, still winter, the air despite the sun’s fierce heat freshened by cooling breezes from the Himalayas hundreds of miles away. Her arrival here had filled her with wonder and excitement as she’d wandered about the villa, which seemed almost too spacious for just her and Alex, and of course the obligatory half-dozen servants, or boys as he called them. Running from room to room she had been struck speechless but for cries of wonder at each new discovery.
Alex had watched her progress as she’d run out to the wide veranda and on into the well-kept garden, his face creased by a grin. ‘Well, what do you think of the place?’ he’d asked needlessly, already knowing her answer.
She had run back and embraced him. ‘We’re going to be so happy here, Alex darling.’
Those first couple of months had indeed been happy. Homesickness had had no place in her happiness, and what did it matter if she hadn’t immediately taken to the Raj, as the English out here were called by the Indians? She had Alex. He was all she needed. She spent each day eagerly waiting for him to come home of an evening, her time completely taken up by the large house she lived in. Each evening was spent together in rapturous bliss. He had said he should write to his parents telling them of their marriage, but her joy in the place had been such that she had feared it being ruined and he had indulged her and not written and their life had gone on happily. It was with the arrival of that intense heat of summer, when even the punkah, that efficient long strip of stiff material moved back and forth by a sleepy punkahwallah, failed to do more than stir the humid air around a little, that homesickness began to make itself felt.
Sitting on the veranda, its slim colonnades twined with vines limp with rain from the thunderstorm that had raged all morning, Annie stared with glazed focus at the sodden garden, its dank odours rising up to fill her nostrils. Pale daylight lightning flickered from cloud to cloud and thunder rolled continuously around the sky – a foretaste of what the monsoon in a month or two’s time would be like. Clothes stuck to her. Perspiration didn’t just dampen her temples, it actually trickled, and she often wondered how on earth the other Britons – Anglo-Indians as they termed themselves – could appear so cool all the time. Used to it, she supposed. But how long did it take for a body to get used to this climate? And when this storm abated as it would towards afternoon, the sun would batter the soaked earth with its heat filling the air with rising mist to make the whole place as sticky again as if the storm had never been. And they said this could continue for months once the monsoon did arrive. Annie felt she couldn’t bear the thought. Already she was hating the place, but it was so hard to make Alex see.
He was in his element here, had made friends so quickly. When she complained, he’d laugh and say she was just taking a little longer to get used to it, that was all. He just didn’t understand. He’d spend the hottest part of the day with colleagues lunching in the shade near to his office, to come home in the evening wondering why she was so down.
Knowing the letter from home would only make her feel worse, she put it aside until Alex came home when she would probably feel a little more well disposed towards life here. She contented herself instead by reading a book until lunchtime when the gong thrummed softly announcing tiffin, lunch, and she came to eat in the dim and quiet room. The storm was finally going away. Morarji, her house boy, padded back and forth; she desultorily watched his movements as he served the meal, cleared away after her, brought a pot of tea out to her on the veranda. Now the sky was clearing but none, as she could notice, of the clammy feel to the air. After lunch she bathed, had a little lie down, trying to make the most of the movement of air from the punkah, finally got up, washed again, changed her frock and tidied her hair, to be served more tea. Dinner would be held back until Alex came home. He came home full of high spirits as she knew he would. She lifted her face for him to kiss.
‘So, what’ve you been doing with yourself today?’ he asked brightly, but added, seeing her more low-spirited than ever as he helped himself to a whisky and soda, ‘Surely you’ve not been hanging around here all day? No wonder you’re bored. Why don’t you go down to the club during the day? That’s where everyone is, there being precious little else to do in this heat. You’d enjoy yourself, chatting, playing a bit of bridge, sharing a bit of gossip.’
‘I didn’t feel up to it,’ she told him, getting a drink for herself. Now he was here it tasted much better than when she drank alone. ‘And I don’t really get on with them.’
‘Don’t be silly. Annie, of course you do.’
How could he understand? He came from a wealthy, socially confident background, and from the very start felt at ease with people such as these, while she still sensed that they looked at her with distaste, her speech, as nice as it was, not theirs, which featured a certain accent she had never acquired. Hers echoed in her ears as soon as she opened her mouth. She’d rather stay away. Trouble was she was getting a reputation of seeming a little odd and the more she kept to herself the odder she was appearing to become. Yet she felt so ill at ease with all of them. It was becoming a vicious circle.
With a sudden thump she put down her glass
on a side table, her anger bursting out against them all with their haughty sidelong glances and their awkward … no, censorious silences.
‘What is it about the people out here? They behave as if they think they are gods or something.’
‘Perhaps they are in a way.’ he said, unruffled, sitting himself down in one of the deep bamboo armchairs on the veranda. ‘Out here they are.’
‘Out here, yes,’ she replied stiffly, still on her feet, leaning her pelvis against the low fretwork railing in an agitated series of thumps and gazing out at the rain beating down on the lawn below her. ‘At home they wouldn’t behave like that. At home they’d probably be fawning around someone higher up on the social scale than them.’
‘They,’ he murmured behind her.
She turned, frowning, her train of thought broken. ‘Pardon?’
‘They, not them.’ He was contemplating his glass, and she continued to frown at the fair crown of his head as his correction dawned on her.
‘Is that all you’re concerned about, Alex, the way I speak?’
He looked up, his fair handsome face loving and helpful. ‘You keep telling me, darling, you feel you don’t fit in, that you wished you could speak better than you do. To me you speak perfectly. But you won’t be convinced. I was only trying to help you along. If you’re going to get on with these people …’ it sounded to her as though he were gently admonishing her ‘ … you’ve got to mix with them, speak the way they do. It would help. All I’m trying to do is …’
‘And you …’ Anger made her splutter. ‘You act like the biggest god of all.’
His turn to frown. ‘What god?’
‘One of the ones these English think they are – out here. Honestly, Alex, you’ve changed. I don‘t know if it’s since our marriage or this place, but you always seem to be on your high hat all the time, as if you feel you mustn’t put a foot wrong before the Indian population. Like you were a god.’