by M A Bennett
Rollo said, ‘Of course. But we aren’t dining here. I’ve had a bit of a wheeze. We’re having a moon party.’
I looked at the others, at a loss. This was something my mother had not taught me. ‘Ah, yes,’ I said. After the Gibraltar thing I thought it better to feign knowledge. ‘Of course. A moon party. Yes. Yes.’ I nodded my head sagely.
The others smiled at each other again, in a way that seemed to entirely exclude me. Serena put her head on one side. ‘You don’t know what that is, do you?’ she said pleasantly.
‘Probably doesn’t even know that man walked on the moon,’ snorted Gideon. ‘Maybe the news didn’t reach India. No television sets, eh, Mowgli?’
This, of all things, stung me. I love the moon landing and everything about it. I have knowledge of it that I think would rival even Charles’s and was anxious to display it. ‘Of course I know. Apollo 11. 20th July. Mr Neil Armstrong, Mr Buzz Aldrin and Mr Michael Collins.’ It was three months ago now, but the excitement still hasn’t died down. It is all the nation can talk about. In fact, all the world can talk about – India was just as obsessed when I went home for the summer.
‘That’s right,’ said Rollo. ‘So we thought we’d celebrate man’s great achievement.’ Something in his voice was a little off – as if he did not think the achievement that great.
I felt a little uneasy, and decided it was safer to drop any pretence at knowledge. ‘What happens at a moon party?’
Rollo drained his drink. ‘Get your monkey suit on, old chap, and you’ll see.’ He glanced out of the mullioned windows. ‘There’s a lovely moon tonight.’
‘It’s called a hunter’s moon,’ said Charles, who always has the facts at his fingertips. ‘First full moon after the harvest.’
‘Perfect,’ said Rollo, looking at me intently. ‘It’s almost as if it were meant.’
It turns out that the term ‘monkey suit’ was not, in fact, a racial slur, but merely a colloquial term for a dinner jacket. When I came back downstairs all the boys were dressed just like me. So it was in full black tie that I found myself walking through a dark forest, called, apparently, Longwood, with the others – the boys in their black tie, the girls in coloured taffeta under fur coats. I had no idea where we were going but dared not ask. For all I knew this was a normal occurrence for the English upper classes, to set out on a late-October night by moonlight. There were no torches, and dark clouds kept scudding across the face of the moon so that the figures ahead of me flickered like a cinefilm. It was an odd procession. Rollo led the advance party, and we were followed by a line of servants in black livery with white gloves, bearing hampers and baskets and bottles. One of them carried a gramophone for playing records, and when I looked back I could see the moon shining on the big brass bell. No one said anything to me on the walk except Gideon, who caught me up just as we were about to plunge into the trees.
‘You must be used to the jungle, eh, Mowgli?’
‘I do not live in –’ I began, but he pushed past me into the dark.
We were out of the forest and into the open, and our well-dressed convoy walked up a little hill, silver in the moonlight, to a round building with a cupola on top. The cupola reminded me with a pang of India. There were lights on in the building, streaming out into the night, changing the grass from silver to gold. Our strange procession reached this temple, and two servants opened the double doors to let us in. Rollo led the way, and, bringing up the rear, I could see the interior was set with a round table, like Camelot. The table was a treasure trove of silver plate and crystal laid out for a dinner fit for a king.
Rollo stood behind his chair. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the folly. A fitting place, I feel, to mark the moon landing.’ I looked up and saw that the folly had been decorated with shooting stars and planets and spherical white-paper lanterns revolving silently over our heads, their insides lit by candles. At least four servants stood around the edges in the shadowy dark beyond the reach of the candlelight. The three footmen I could see by their white gloves, and the only maid by the white lace on her cap. We were sitting boy/girl, so I was flanked by Serena and Miranda.
As we sat down, and the servants brought us soup and red wine, I tried to interpret our host’s welcoming remark. Folly, I knew, meant foolishness or a mistake. ‘Does he not like the moon landing?’ I asked Serena, low-voiced. ‘It does not sound as if he likes it.’
‘None of us do.’
I was surprised. To me, the moon landing seems to be the foremost achievement of mankind – the zenith of science and pinnacle of accomplishment. ‘Why ever not?’
‘Because it’s so Savage, darling.’ I have never received an endearment before that sounded less fond. ‘This isn’t a celebration; it’s a wake.’
‘To trample on the face of the moon! And Americans too!’ added Francesca. ‘Ghastly.’
‘Did you watch it, Mowgli?’ asked Miranda.
‘Yes. That is, in a manner of speaking.’
‘On television?’ she probed.
‘No.’
‘He doesn’t have one. I told you,’ crowed Gideon from the other side of the table. Now everyone was listening and I was in what my father would call a no-win situation. If I confessed to a television – and we do in fact have a small one in the Aravalli Palace – I would be seen as Savage. If I claimed not to have one, I would be seen as a literal savage, i.e., a primitive. Actually the truth is somewhere in the middle. India has a national television channel, but it only broadcasts for two hours a day, and therefore did not carry the moon landings live.
‘I did not watch it on our television set. I watched it at …’ Damn it all, I had checkmated myself. I had to mention India now ‘… at Jantar Mantar.’
They all snorted like the horses in our stables at home. Then they began to chant JantarMantarJantarMantarJantarMantar, mimicking the accent I haven’t quite managed to shift in seven years. I could not remember the part where my mother had said it was U to ceaselessly mock your guest. But I am so used to mockery that I looked down and patiently crumbled my bread roll between my fingers, waiting for them to stop. At length, they did. ‘What on earth is Jantar Mantar?’
‘It’s an observatory.’
‘Telescopes and electronic instruments?’ asked Charles pertly.
‘No,’ I said. Having broken my father’s golden rule and spoken about my home, I did not want to go into detail. ‘It dates from 1734. It is a series of astronomical structures. Staircases to the sky.’
That night of the 20th July was magical. My cousins and I went up to the observatory with our transistor and listened to the landings on All India Radio. We watched the moon from the top of the ghostly white structures. We looked at the moon’s surface, with the seas and craters, and strained to see the pinprick shadow of the LEM, and the two mosquito-sized men crawling about on the surface. I was in love with the science that had taken them so far. It was a modern miracle. But I was not about to say that to these jackals.
Alone among all of them, Rollo looked interested. ‘Staircases to the sky, Mowgli. It has a certain poetry to it.’
He took a long drink. ‘That’s what’s gone now,’ he said. ‘The poetry.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
He got to his feet unsteadily and held out his glass as if to make a toast. He lifted it to the full moon, which peered in at the window. ‘Queen and huntress, chaste and fair, / Now the sun is laid to sleep, / Seated in thy silver chair, / State in wonted manner keep’.
I shifted a little. I was not used to people declaiming poetry outside of English literature lessons. But I had to admit that Rollo spoke the lines well, like Mr Michael York, and there was a real yearning in his voice.
Then know-it-all Charles spoiled the moment. ‘Cynthia’s Revels, by Ben Jonson,’ said he.
‘Precisely, Charlie,’ said Rollo, giving his friend an odd, intense look when he uttered the name of the poet, and pointing a wavering finger at his face. I wondered how many G&Ts Roll
o had had while they were all waiting for me. ‘But she is not chaste any more, is she, the moon?’ he said savagely. ‘Those dirty Americans have crawled all over her. Laid their filthy boots in her silver dust. Penetrated her with their flag. Despoiled her and taken her booty home in their phallic rocket ship.’
In all the endless flag-waving coverage of the newspaper and television news – even fashion articles about moonboots and metallic dresses, and how to make moon meringues and baked Alaska – I had never heard this perspective before. On the one hand, it sounded deranged. But on the other, it sounded oddly … chivalrous. And very, very, British.
But I did not agree that there was no poetry to the moon landings. Yes, I loved the science of it, the equations and the instruments and the pure maths. But that did not mean there was no romance to this moment of history. Maybe the wine gave me courage, for I said, ‘Perhaps the old words are replaced by the new. Think of what Mr Armstrong said when his foot touched the moon. One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.’ I heard those words just a few short weeks ago, crackling through the radio, and in that moment my heart swelled. ‘Was that not poetry? Will those lines not be remembered for as long as your Mr Jonson’s?’
They all looked at me as if one of the Labradors had learned to speak.
Then Gideon started to laugh. ‘He jolly well ruined it by what he said next though,’ he said. ‘Bloody funny, that. You have to hand that to the Yanks.’
‘What are you talking about, Gidders?’ asked Rollo, as he collapsed back in his chair, raking his blond hair back from his forehead.
‘You must have heard about this,’ said Gideon. ‘Right after the one small step bit, he said: Good luck, Mr Gorsky.’
‘Gorsky? Sounds like a bloody Commie,’ said Charles.
Miranda said, ‘Who’s Mr Gorsky?’
‘Well,’ said Gideon, glad to have the attention of the room. I sensed he liked being the leader, even though he could never really outrank his friend Rollo, Lord of the Manor. He leaned forward in the candlelight and pressed his hands together like a namaste. ‘Apparently, when Neil Armstrong was a kid he was playing in his back garden and he heard his neighbours arguing. They were a Jewish couple called the Gorskys, and he went to the fence to listen. The wife was screaming at her husband, I’ll give you a blow job the day that kid next door walks on the moon! So of course when Armstrong does walk on the moon, the second thing he says is, Good luck, Mr Gorsky.’
There was a silence in which everyone looked at Rollo. He looked very stern for a moment, and then his beautiful face split into a grin. An infectious laugh burst out of him and he laughed until I thought he would cry. Of course, that set them all off, as if they’d been given permission. I did not laugh, because I did not understand the joke.
Gideon must have spotted my serious face. ‘Didn’t you know that one, Mowgli?’
‘No,’ I said soberly.
Serena put her chin on her hand and leaned towards me, her eyes unfocused. ‘You do know what a blow job is, don’t you, Mowgli?’ she asked sweetly.
‘Of course,’ I lied.
‘What is it then?’
I was silent, staring at my empty soup plate. I could have kicked myself. After the moon-party slip, it would have been much safer just to admit the things I didn’t know. The maid’s hand came into my view and I could see every detail as if it were magnified: slender fingers; bitten nails; a freckle on the thumb. She whisked away the plate and I wished I could vanish so easily. I whispered unhappily, ‘I don’t know.’
‘What’s that?’ Serena cocked a hand behind her ear.
They were all looking at me. I had to say it louder. ‘I don’t know.’
Serena sat back, satisfied with my humiliation. But Gideon hadn’t finished with me yet. He watched me like a cat as the footmen and the maid brought round the main course – some sort of poultry in a creamy sauce. ‘A blow job, my dear brown friend, is when you put your … there are ladies present so I’ll say your pocket rocket in someone’s mouth, and have a jolly nice time until blast off.’ He watched me closely; they all did, including Rollo with his cool, blue gaze.
I did not know what to do under such scrutiny.
I thought of Ritu. That time I met her – the only time – at the Chatterjees’ party. She was sitting modestly below the fairy lights and the mango blossom like a goddess in a shrine. Like an idol, she was literally weighed down with gold – on both arms, on her headdress and from her nose to her ear. When she smiled at me the chain from her nose to her ear had relaxed into a bow, smiling too. I imagined for a moment asking such a thing – this blow job – of that goddess and felt my stomach churn.
‘Well,’ said Gideon, clearly enjoying himself. ‘This is a weekend for new experiences. Maybe you could try it.’
The maid, the owner of the bitten nails and the freckled thumb, was placing his plate in front of him at that moment.
‘You’ll give our Indian friend a blow job, won’t you, sweetheart?’ From where I was sitting I could see that he slid his hand up the back of her thigh, under her skirt, and placed it between her legs.
Her hand flicked upwards in reflex and she tipped the entire contents of the plate into his lap. ‘Jesus Christ. You stupid little bitch,’ spluttered Gideon, jumping to his feet.
The others started laughing again. And I could hear Rollo saying, ‘I reckon you asked for that, Gidders.’ The maid, sobbing, wrenched open the double doors and fled. Unable to bear the laughter, I pushed back my chair and followed her into the cold.
Night
Outside it was as bright as day – the hunter’s moon shining her hardest. I caught up with the maid at the bottom of the hill. She was sitting on a stone bench, doubled over, shivering. It was very cold, but I was sure it was not the winter that shook her. I took off my jacket and put it around her shoulders. She looked up and for the first time I saw the face below the white lace cap.
The first thought I had was that she was very pretty.
The second was that hiring a girl who looked like that to work this weekend was like getting a rabbit to work for wolves.
‘Are you all right?’
I sat down beside her, but not near enough to frighten her. The stone was freezing under my seat, and the wind whistled through my dinner shirt.
‘Yes.’
She didn’t sound all right. ‘I’m Hardy.’
‘I thought your name was Mowgli. That’s what they were calling you in there.’ She jerked her head towards the folly.
‘No.’
‘Why’d they call you that then?’
‘It is from a film. Well. A book first, by Mr Rudyard Kipling. Then a film by Mr Walt Disney.’
‘I know that,’ she said scornfully, and I formed the impression that on any other day she might have laughed. ‘I go to the pictures. Five shilings at the Newcastle Odeon. I seen The Jungle Book four times.’
‘So you know where the name comes from then.’
‘Yes. I know.’ She breathed out a long sigh. ‘My name’s Ina.’
Her accent was strange and unfamiliar but pleasing to the ear.
‘I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Ina.’
She merely sniffed in reply.
Gideon’s actions had nothing to do with me, but I felt unaccountably as if I should apologise.
‘I am sorry for what happened to you in there. It was not – it is not gentlemanlike behaviour.’
She was silent for a moment and then said, ‘No one’s ever spoken to me like that before.’
I was not sure what she meant. ‘In there? Or out here?’
She snorted. ‘They speak to me like that all the time. No. I meant out here. Now. With you.’
‘Then I am sorry for that too.’
She did not seem inclined to talk, but I could not just leave her.
‘Did they hire you for the weekend?’
‘No, man. I been here for more’n a year.’
I was surprised. She seemed very young
to be in service for England. ‘How old are you?’
‘Just turned sixteen.’
So she was two years younger than I, but while I was learning Latin verbs, she was waiting on Neanderthals like Gideon. ‘Where do you live?’
She looked surprised. ‘At the Hall.’
‘So you live at Longcross? In the house?’
‘Yes.’
I thought of another way to ask the question. ‘Where are you from?’
‘Washington.’
‘Ah.’ That explained the strange accent. ‘The United States.’
Her laugh, through the tears, sounded more like a gulp. ‘No, man. Washington in County Durham. Mebbe an hour down the road.’
‘Where are your parents?’
‘Still there. With me brothers and me sister.’
‘So who looks after you?’
‘There’s Mrs Nicky. Mrs Nicholson, the housekeeper.’
‘Is she a … pleasant lady? Could you tell her about … about this?’
‘Haway!’ she exclaimed, a word I had never heard and did not understand. ‘She’d most probably give me a thrashing for being forward.’
I began to get the idea. This young lady, no older than a schoolgirl, had been sent away from a very crowded home to make money, and was expected to tolerate overtures such as these without complaint, for there was no one to confide in anyway. It was no worse than what happened in India, but something about her plight still touched me.
‘I have to go back in there.’
‘Surely not tonight,’ I said. ‘Can you not go back to the house?’ The grand structure in the distance, lit at every window by pinpricks of light, now seemed like a haven. ‘There are four footmen attending the party, and only one course and brandy to go.’
‘If I don’t, I’ll be dismissed.’
The statement, uttered so matter-of-factly, was hard to argue with.
I looked down the silver hill into the black wood. I’d rather take my chances in that dark jungle than do what she had to do. And what I had to do. ‘I have to go back too.’
‘Why? I thought fancy young fellers could do whatever they want.’