by Ellis Peters
‘When you come to think of it,’ said Tossa practically, ‘I might be just the right person for this job. If the kid is going to be flown off to her father in any case, it might as well be with somebody who’s been in much the same boat, and knows the language.’ And somebody else, she thought, but did not say, who’s never had parent trouble in his life, and doesn’t know how lucky he is, but manages to rub off some of the luck on to other people even without realising it.
‘It might, at that,’ agreed Dominic, cheered. ‘Anyhow, let’s go and see.’
By which time they were close to the turn that led to the Somerset studio, and the issue was as good as decided.
The Misses Eleanor and Marianne Dashwood sat side by side on a flimsy, gilded, Empire sofa like twin empresses receiving homage, pretty as new paint and something more than content with each other. ‘Thick as thieves,’ Tossa had said, but in this white, gold and pale blue elegance it seemed an inadmissibly crude phrase – even though the white and gold was gimcrack when you came close to it, and stopped abruptly twenty feet away, to give place to the hollow, cluttered chaos of any other sound stage, littered with skeleton fragments of booms and wiring and cameras and lighting equipment, and a miscellaneous assortment of frayed, bearded, distrait people carrying improbable things and using improbable words in several languages. ‘Cheek by jowl’ suggested itself, Dominic thought, in some underhand way, but could hardly be entertained in face of Eleanor’s resolute and shapely little chin and Marianne’s damask-rose cheek. In view of the late-Empire ball gowns of Indian muslin, the daintily deployed curls, dark brown and scintillating gold, and the white silk mittens that stopped only just short of the creamy shoulders, better settle for hand-in-glove. As sure as fate, that was what they were; and anyone around here who had plans that involved manipulating these two Dresden deities had better watch out, because he would be playing a formidable team.
It was an earnest of their sheer professionalism that even between takes they continued to look in character, Chloe gently grave and cool and exceedingly well-bred, Dorette sparkling and distressed by turns, as extrovert as a fountain. Neither of them put her feet up or lit a cigarette. They sat with one foot delicately tucked behind the other, to show a glimpse of a pretty ankle, as young ladies were taught to sit once, long before the miniskirt and the glorious freedom of tights. Dominic revised a half-conceived notion of what Dorette must be like; she might not be a gifted actress, but she was an intelligent diplomat who could make what gifts she had do just as well.
And talk! She could talk the hind leg off a donkey!
‘… and then, you see, Tossa — Oh, forgive me! May I call you Tossa? You see, I feel I know you already, your mother has talked so much about you. And you’re so like her, did you know that?’ Tossa knew it, and could hardly fail to be flattered by it, even though she often looked in the glass to find the homely, reassuring outlines of her father’s face, less obviously but just as surely there behind the delicate flesh, and the straight, bright, luminous gleam of fun in the eyes that could only have come from him. ‘…and then, his family made it quite impossible, you know. Oh, Satyavan was simply the new India in person, travelled, educated, sophisticated, brilliant and already rich in his own right… he had a company making beautiful cosmetics, and another one running travel agencies all over the east and the Middle East. The family were rupee millionaires even before him, but that was all in textiles, cottons and silks, and they really looked down on anything else. An old family, too, and these Punjabis are very proud. So I was the undesirable one, you see. His mother was broken-hearted when he married me. She’d been widowed for two years then, and Satyavan was the only child, and of course, you know, sons… Hindu sons… Sometimes I think that if only Anjli had been a boy… But she wasn’t, and then there weren’t any more children.’ She wiped away, discreetly and with great dignity, a non-existent tear. ‘Really we never had a chance to bridge the gulf. And it is a real gulf, one would need a lot of patience, and love, and craft… and luck! And luck we didn’t have.’
Dominic hedged his bet still more cautiously. Only a very clever woman would have used the word ‘craft’ just there. Moreover, Chloe, delicately fanning, her wide eyes on her fictional sister with all the critical admiration of a second watching his expert principal in a duel (and without any qualms whatsoever about the outcome), had raised one eyebrow with a connoisseur’s approbation, and the corners of her very charming and very knowing mouth had curled into an infinitesimal and brief smile of pleasure. What chance had any husband with women like these?
‘And he didn’t even try to get custody of Anjli?’ Tossa had seen the omens, too, and reacted with a blunt and discordant question; simply, thought Dominic, to see what would happen.
Dorette’s damask cheek bloomed into the most delicious peach colour, and again faded to the waxen white perfection of magnolias. Dominic was fascinated. The magicians of the world would go grey overnight, worrying how she did that in full view of her audience, at a range of a few feet, and in harsh film lighting.
‘Tossa, you must be charitable, you must understand… Poor Satyavan, you mustn’t think he didn’t love her…’ (Or why, thought Dominic ruthlessly, would you be shoving her off on to him now, you being the loving mother you are?) ‘Yes, he did try… indeed he tried very hard. But you see, at that time we were so bitter, both of us. And I fought just as hard. Perhaps it was simply that I was American… for after all, there is an understanding, don’t you think so?… of one’s own people? They gave her to me. That was all that mattered then. I didn’t think of him… of his mother… To an Indian woman sons and grandsons are everything, but even a granddaughter would be such joy… But it’s only afterwards that one realises the cost to other people. You mustn’t think I haven’t thought about this for a long time, and gone through agony. All these years, ever since she was six years old. I’ve had the joy of her, and he… My poor Satyavan…’ She made a little poem out of the name this time, the first ‘a’ muted to a throw-away sound almost like V, the second a long sigh of ‘aaah’! Her wisp of an embroidered Jane Austen handkerchief came into brief, subdued play. No doubt about it, Dorette was an artist.
Tossa’s dry little, gruff little voice said: ‘Yes, I do see, he must have missed her terribly!’ But Chloe’s undisturbed smile said serenely that Dorette was doing very well, and could afford to hold her fire. Perhaps she even read her daughter’s implacable motives; whatever the doubts about Dorette’s brain, now rapidly being revised, there had never been any doubts about Chloe’s. Dominic held his peace, and saw the Taj Mahal clear as in a vision.
‘Tossa, there’s a time even to give up what one wants and needs, a time to remember… not other people’s wants and needs, but theirs. The children’s.’ Dorette turned her head and gave them the benefit of her full blue stare, radiant and dazzling; and her beauty, of which they had heard so much and thought so little, was absurd, agonising, irresistible. They understood her power, and being immune to it made no difference when the rest of the world was vulnerable. She looked eighteen, agitated, appealing, Marianne to the life. The Austen irony was missing, perhaps, but this was between takes. ‘She has a whole family there, wanting and longing for an heir. She has a kingdom, you might say. What right have I to keep her from it? What can I give her to make up for it? In America she is just one little girl, not nearly a princess. And my husband…’ She looked momentarily doubtful about that word, but shouldered it and went on: ‘He has rights, too. She knows nothing of the world he can offer her, and she has a right to know everything before she makes a choice. When I marry again…’ Oh, noble, that brave lift of her head, facing the whole world’s censure for love! Or money. Or something! ‘…she will be watching us from a cool distance, I know that. She knows who her father was, she knows he is far away, and almost lost to her. I want to be honest with her! I want her to go to her father!’
A pale person in an unravelling pullover and a green eyeshade leaned through the pump-room pal
ms and called: ‘Any time, Dorrie!’ and Miss Lester, switching from emotion and sincerity to a note of sharp practicality which Tossa found almost insulting, called back in quite a different tone: ‘Coming, Lennie! Give us three minutes more!’ and as promptly returned to character. As though Chloe’s two student stand-ins for a New England governess who declined to cross the world had been a couple of cameras trained on her. No more sales-talk was necessary, Chloe’s brief, reassuring glance had told her they were sold already; still, for her reputation’s sake she kept up the performance in a modified form and at an accelerated tempo.
‘My husband is expecting his daughter. I wrote to him a month ago, before I left the States, to tell him that she would be coming. He will be so happy to see her, and so grateful to you.’
For one brief and uncharacteristic moment she looked back, remembering a thin, fastidious face set in the tension of distaste and disbelief as he argued his case in court, with the dignity he was incapable of laying aside, and which had passed for arrogance and coldness. He could hardly be expected to compete with such an artist in heartbreak and tears and maternal desperation as Dorette Lester; sometimes she wondered why he had even tried. And sometimes, too, she wondered exactly why he had waived his rights of access, resigned from his science chair, and left for India immediately after the divorce suit ended. Was it outraged love and implacable anger against the wife who had shucked him off – a broken heart, in fact? Or had he merely extricated himself in shock and disgust from a world he had suddenly realised was not for him, a jungle not denser than, but different from, his own? She knew better than to simplify his withdrawal; herself uncomplicated though occasionally devious, she was subtle enough to recognise a greater subtlety.
‘I will give you his address in Delhi, and his mother’s, too – Mrs Purnima Kumar – just in case of any contretemps. There will be no difficulty, you’ll see. And of course, all expenses will be my concern, I’ll see that you have plenty of funds. No need even to hurry back, after all, you must see something of India while you’re there. Satyavan will be glad to help you make the best use of your time, I know.’
She didn’t know anything of the kind, she hadn’t been in touch with her ex-husband since he left America, but the family eminence ensured that they would have to put on a show for the visitors; she had learned that much about the Kumars.
‘When,’ asked Tossa, with careful, measured quietness, ‘is Anjli expected to arrive in London?’
‘The day after tomorrow. If you could come with me to meet her at London Airport, we could have a night all together, and I could arrange your flight for the next day. Such luck, I have an old, good friend who is filming over there, quite near to Delhi, and I’ll wire him to meet your plane and take care of you. If you need anything – but anything! – you can call on Ernest, there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for me. But the journey itself is just too much for a child alone. And we’re so pressed, quite behind schedule, you see it’s impossible for me…’
Yes, quite impossible. Not simply because it would inconvenience her, there was more to it than that. India was an alien world into which she had no wish to venture, and Satyavan Kumar was something more distant than a stranger, because he had once been so close. This much of Dorette at least was genuine, she would almost rather die than confront this part of her past again. That all-American marriage – they said this millionaire of hers was a disarmingly nice and simple person – was her life-line, she daren’t let go of it for an instant to look behind her.
‘You will take my little girl over there for me, won’t you?’ Knock off the calculated charm, and in its way it was still a cry from the heart.
‘Dorette! You ready there?’
‘Yes, Lennie! We’re right with you! Tossa, dear…’
‘Yes, Miss Lester… Yes, of course we’ll take her!’
‘Darling… so grateful… my mind at rest now… Sure, Lennie, coming! Day after tomorrow… Heathrow… I’ll phone you the details… what was that Midshire number again?’ And Chloe laughed, not aloud, just a faint purring sound of contentment, and hugged and kissed her own daughter briefly.
When they crept out of the sound stage she was singing, without a trace of irony, back there behind them in the furnished corner bright as a nova:
‘When will you learn to moderate, my love,
The ardour of a heart that can be broken...’
Tossa sat dour and silent in the Mini for some moments after they had made their way out of the lot and turned north for Midshire and Dominic’s blessedly normal home. Then she said in a dubious voice: ‘Of course, for all we know the father may be no better. But at least he ought to have his chance. And anyhow, this one’s contracting out, so somebody has to do something.’ And in a moment, with reviving optimism about the general state of man: ‘We’ll see what your people say about it.’
All Dominic said was: ‘I still don’t see where the catch is, but there has to be one somewhere.’
What Dominic’s people said, almost in unison though they were tackled separately, was: ‘Of course go! You’d be crazy not to. Always say yes to opportunity, or it may never offer again.’ And his mother, viewing Tossa’s grave face with sympathy, added: ‘If the worst comes to the worst, bring her back. We can fight out the rest of it afterwards.’
So they were all there at Heathrow to meet Anjli’s plane, Dorette in mink and cashmere and Chanel perfume, Chloe booted and cased in leather dyed to fabulous shades of purple and iris, with something like a space helmet on her extremely shapely little head and Ariel’s formidable and lovely make-up on her clever faun’s face, Dominic and Tossa top-dressed for the frost outside, but with their modest cases full of hurriedly assembled cottons and medium-weight woollens, mostly organised out of nowhere by Dominic’s mother. Who now had her feet up at home, a drink at her elbow and a paperback in her hand, and only the mildest regrets at facing a quieter Christmas than she had expected. It was a long time since she’d had her husband to herself over the Christmas holidays. And what fools these children would have been to pass up India, upon any consideration, when it fell warm, aromatic and palpitating into their arms.
In the arrivals lounge the privileged crowded to the doors to see their kin erupting through passport control. Dorette swooped ahead in a cloud of pastel mink and subtle fragrance.
‘Darling! Oh, honey, how lovely to see you!’
The girl turned an elegant head just in time to present her left cheek to the unavoidable kiss, adjusted her smile brightly and extricated herself more rapidly and dexterously than Dominic would have believed possible.
‘Hi, Mommy! How have you been? Gee, what a flight, I’m about dead on my feet. Oh, hi! You must be Miss Bliss, Mommy’s told me so much about you, and all about this darling film. My, that outfit’s keen, you know that? It’s just a dream…!’
If ever the selfconscious and phoney and the real and eager and young met in one voluble utterance, this was the time. But it took somebody Chloe’s age to respond to all the nuances at once, and Chloe had relegated herself deliberately to a back seat, and didn’t mean to be turfed out of it. Let Tossa, who prided herself so on her maturity, make her own way through the quicksands. Chloe smiled, kissed the pale golden cheek and made a cool neutral murmur in the small, fine, close-set golden ear.
‘And here’s my daughter Tossa, who’s coming with you to Delhi… And Dominic Felse, a friend of Tossa’s… a friend of all of us…’
‘Why, sure,’ said the clear, thrilling little voice, aloof as a bird, ‘any friend of yours! I just hope I get in as one of the family, too.’ She put a thin, amber hand into Tossa’s, smiled briefly and brilliantly, and passed on to Dominic with markedly more interest. ‘Hullo, Dominic! Gee, I’m lucky, being so well looked after. I sure appreciate it, I really do.’
So this was the poor little girl! Little she was, in the physical sense, well below average height for a fourteen-year-old, and built of such fine and fragile bones that she contrived to seem smaller than s
he was. She wore a curly fun-fur coat in a mini-length, and a small round fur cap to match, in dappled shades of tortoiseshell, like a harlequin cat. Her long, slim legs were cased in honeycomb lace tights and flexible red leather boots that stopped just short of her knee, and the honey of her skin glowed golden through the comb. A fur shoulder-bag slung on a red strap completed the outfit. But the accessories of her person were every bit as interesting. Her fingernails were manicured into a slightly exaggerated length, and painted in a pink pearl colour, deeper at the tips. The shape of her lips had been quite artfully and delicately accentuated and their colour deepened to a warm rosy gold. A thick braid of silky black hair hung down to her waist, a red ribbon plaited into it. Half her face was concealed behind the largest butterfly-rimmed dark glasses Dominic had ever seen; but the part of her that showed, cheeks and chin, was smooth and beautifully shaped as an Indian ivory carving, and almost as ageless. Sophistication in one miniature package stared up at Dominic unnervingly through the smoke-grey lenses. The obscurity of this view suddenly irked her. She put up her free hand in a candid gesture of impatience, and plucked off her glasses to take a longer, clearer, more daunting look at him.
The transformation was dazzling. Thin, arched brows, very firm and forthright, came into view, and huge, solemn, liquid dark eyes; and the face was suddenly a child’s face as well as a mini-model’s, eager, critical and curious; and presently, with hardly a change in one line of it, greedy. No other word for it.
She was at the right age to wish to be in love, and to be able to fall in love almost deliberately, wherever a suitable object offered. Dominic was a suitable object. He saw himself reflected in the unwavering eyes, at once an idol for worship and a prey marked down.
Over Anjli’s head he caught Tossa’s eye, marvellously meaningful in a wooden face. They understood each other perfectly. No need to look any farther for the catch; they had found it.