Tigers

by M A Bennett

  ‘Not this one.’

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘It does not matter. The stakes are much higher for you. My problems are nothing to yours.’

  ‘Why?’

  She was certainly persistent, this Miss Ina. ‘Because … because I have something to learn. It is the culmination of years of hoping and striving and waiting and false starts. So I cannot give up now.’

  ‘Like the astronauts,’ she said.

  I looked up at the moon, and the moon looked down at me. ‘I suppose if the astronauts could walk up there, I can walk back in here.’

  ‘They weren’t alone though,’ she said. ‘There were three of them.’

  ‘Two,’ I said. ‘Mr Michael Collins stayed in the craft.’

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘So we’ll be the two that moonwalked.’

  She held out her hand to me. I shook it. ‘Do you want to be Armstrong or Aldrin?’

  I did not want to be Mr Armstrong, after that agonising Mr Gorsky conversation. The silver of his reputation had forever tarnished a little for me. ‘I will be Mr Aldrin,’ I said.

  ‘OK. I’ll be Armstrong.’ She got up. ‘Come on. Time to make contact.’

  We walked up the little hill to the folly. I entered the glass doors first; she slipped in in my shadow. As I sat down and a footman replaced my napkin on my lap, Rollo hissed, ‘Where have you been?’

  It was the first time I had ever seen the charm slip. He looked angry and anxious all at once.

  ‘I went to the aid of a lady in distress.’ Suddenly I felt stronger, as if I was on solid ground. ‘Any gentleman should do the same without hesitation.’

  I had been hunting long enough to know when something was wounded. His eyes flickered. ‘Hardly a lady.’

  I thought he was wrong about that. I watched Ina as she quickly and efficiently cleared the plates, even from Gideon’s place. To look at her you would not know that anything untoward had happened – she was so poised and self-possessed. I admired her very much in that moment. But as I watched Ina, Rollo was watching me. Then I realised. He was jealous. He wanted Ina for himself.

  When I returned to the house I went up the stairs and almost bumped into Ina coming down the passageway outside our rooms. My day was over, but she was carrying brass cans of hot water for washing.

  I would have offered to carry them, but I did not want to make things worse for her. But I did, as she passed, murmur, ‘Goodnight, Armstrong.’

  She gave the ghost of a smile. ‘Goodnight, Aldrin.’

  As I went into my room I wanted so much to collapse fully dressed onto the four-poster bed. But I knew I had to write this – to record the first day of my transformation. So this is a full account of what happened on my first evening at Longcross Hall. Goodnight.

  I suppose that won’t do. It’s not enough to end like that. All the writers I admire end their chapters with some sort of homily – a conclusion drawn or a lesson learned. So for tonight mine is this:

  I realise I have made a friend at Longcross Hall, but not at all the one I had expected.

  I realise too that I have acquired yet another name.

  Sleep well,

  Aldrin x

  ‘Those arrogant shits!’ exclaimed Shafeen hotly, flinging the book away from us and sitting up. ‘How dare they treat him like that?’

  He looked out over the rooftops at the lights of Jaipur. ‘Christ. And to think that prick Gideon Villiers grew up to be the Old Abbot. I remember when he was our headmaster we all thought he was Santa Claus. I guess he was always a monster.’

  I sat up too and stroked his arm. ‘Yes, but what you’re missing is how lovely your father was. Look at how he came to Ina’s rescue.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have had to,’ said Shafeen grimly. ‘Talk about history repeating itself – or rather, foreshadowing itself. Rollo’s exactly like Henry.’

  ‘And your father’s exactly like you,’ I said, picking up the diary again and finding our place. ‘Settle down. I want to know what happened.’

  And together, we started reading again.

  Saturday, 25th October 1969

  Morning

  What happened today is almost unbelievable. I’m shaking so much I can hardly write. But I’m going to really try to set this all down as it happened. The biggest challenge will be to write each part of the day without leaping ahead to the terror that came later.

  I must remember that I actually woke feeling quite optimistic. Although the Medievals were foul to me last night, meeting Ina was a comfort, and her courage gave me the courage to try my best to listen and learn and mould myself into an English gentleman.

  We had breakfast in an attractive smallish dining room, painted a pale gold colour and lit by weak winter sun. Our breakfast waited on the sideboard, beneath great silver domes. Behind the sideboard was a vast portrait of Queen Elizabeth. The first Queen Elizabeth, I mean; not the one I met when I was eleven. On the gilded frame was a carved legend, which said: Either a hunter or the hunted be. It seemed like sound advice.

  There were no footmen in attendance, as we were all to help ourselves. I did see Ina though, coming round with a coffee pot – silver too to match the domes. She looked neat and composed and, apart from faint violet shadows under her eyes, no worse for her ordeal of the night before. As I took my place between Miranda and Serena I saw with relief that all the Medievals were dressed in casual country clothes. I was relieved too that I was not required to make conversation. Rollo held forth, telling us of the morning’s plans.

  ‘An easy start,’ he declared. ‘Just a bit of cubbing this morning.’

  The Medievals all gave a pleased cheer, but my mouth went dry around my toast and marmalade. I had no idea what cubbing was but was not about to expose my ignorance yet again.

  ‘For the benefit of our guest,’ Rollo went on, ‘that’s when you take the hounds into the covert to get the scent of the foxes. We let the cubs go but give them the scent of the adult ones. Then, tomorrow when we take the pack out, they have the scent in their nose.’ He took a swallow of his coffee, cradling the cup itself, not the handle. I immediately adjusted my own hold on my cup. This was most confusing.

  ‘Ideally we’ll put up the old bugger we’ve been after for a few seasons now. A wily old dog fox with black points who keeps eluding us. Tomorrow we’ll put on a proper show for him. Hunting pink, the lot.’

  ‘That’ll be a bit of a change for you, eh, Mowgli?’ needled Gideon. ‘Hunting with horses and hounds? Still chucking bloody spears in India, I’ll bet?’

  I waited for Rollo to correct this. He knew what an advanced hunting culture India had. I knew his father, Monty, had lived there until Independence in 1947, at which point he’d moved back to England, married and had Rollo. I knew that because I’d actually met Rollo’s father. But Rollo didn’t stick up for me, or India. He was laughing all over his handsome face.

  I will not say it did not hurt. And being used to such insults never seems to make the receiving of them any easier. Once again, I heard my father say, Don’t mention India. But I had something to say that I didn’t think even they could look down on. The portrait by the sideboard had reminded me, and I was not strong enough to keep my mouth shut. ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘the queen stayed with us in our palace. To go hunting, as a matter of fact.’

  That silenced them. I took a prim sip of my tea, enjoying the surprise on their faces.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Eight years ago.’

  ‘Bollocks.’

  ‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘My parents – the Maharajah and Maharani of Jaipur –’ I couldn’t help myself, even though I knew to boast about your connections was very non-U, according to my mother – ‘took Her Majesty and Mr Prince Philip on a tiger hunt.’

  Miranda snorted. ‘Mr Prince Philip.’

  Everyone ignored her. Rollo looked at me closely. ‘Really? You took the queen hunting?’

  ‘Yes. I thought you knew.’

  ‘How the bloody hell would I
know?’

  ‘Because your father was there,’ I said simply. ‘Mr … Colonel Monty.’

  Rollo looked taken aback. ‘I knew the pater had been tiger hunting with the queen once. He settled here after Independence, but he went back in ‘61 to accompany the royal party, because he used to be the secretary of the Tiger Club in Jaipur. And that was to your family home? I didn’t know that.’

  I considered the possibility of saying that that was because this was the first real conversation we’d had in seven years. But I did not. For the first time, I felt like I had the upper hand. I had been on the hunt. I had met the queen and Mr Prince Philip. Rollo hadn’t. It had been during the holidays, so I supposed that while I was hunting tigers, Rollo had been here at home with the women and children. My lip curled a little. ‘Did he not tell you about it?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Rollo, trying to regain the ascendancy. ‘In fact,’ he said proudly, ‘he told me how he saved the queen’s life.’

  I remembered every detail of the day, but I certainly did not remember that bit. I did not wish to gainsay Rollo, so I said carefully, ‘I do not recall Her Majesty’s life being in peril that day.’

  ‘That’s thanks to the pater,’ said Rollo. ‘The queen has a distinctive perfume, which she wears every day. Something French, apparently. They were getting in the jeep to set off from the Tiger Club, and the pater got wind of it. Advised her to wash it off, or she’d be tiger food.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Miranda.

  I knew this one. ‘The tigers love cologne,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Correct,’ said Rollo, and I felt oddly proud. ‘They go crazy for it. They would have attacked her just to be near the smell.’

  ‘Gosh! I hope she thanked him,’ said Serena.

  ‘She did,’ said Rollo. ‘She gave him this.’ He got something small and metallic from his pocket. It was a lighter. ‘See,’ he said. ‘It has the queen’s own coat of arms on it.’ He passed it to me, surprisingly, seemingly anxious that I believe his story. I studied the lighter, with the lion and the unicorn and the royal arms in between. I passed it back, and Rollo flipped the top and spun the wheel with his thumb. A little flame sprang obediently to life.

  ‘Lights first time,’ remarked Gideon.

  ‘Always does,’ said Rollo. ‘It was a gift from the queen of England. Not going to be rubbish, is it?’

  Gideon said to me, ‘You catch anything on this “royal” hunt, then, Mowgli?’

  I raised my chin. ‘Yes. A fierce tigress called Melati.’

  The girls all giggled. Francesca said, ‘She had a name?’

  Serena picked up on the joke. ‘Did she introduce herself before she took the royal bullet?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I mean, that is, I named her.’

  Rollo seemed interested. He put his cup down and breathed a single word at me. ‘Why?’

  ‘It is a tradition, to name your prey. It helps you focus on their capture. It is also a way to honour them. She was brave and cunning. She gave us a good hunt.’

  ‘It’s a mistake to anthropomorphise animals,’ said Charles, who never uses a short word where a long word will do. ‘It elicits sympathy.’

  ‘Oh, I did not feel sorry for her,’ I said hurriedly. That was not true. I remember my father told me to put my foot on Melati’s throat so a photographer could take a picture. I remember her fur shifting under my hunting boot over the muscles of her powerful neck, just as it would have if I had been stroking her. That shift had given me an odd feeling of shame. I’d felt, in that moment, that my foot should not be there. I posed for the photograph next to Her Majesty the Queen and Mr Prince Philip, and my parents, and Rollo’s father; but the moment the picture was taken I took my foot off her neck. And that was the last time I put the sole of my foot on Melati. I would not stand on her again, even when she was a rug on the floor of our townhouse in Jaipur.

  I tried to express this feeling now. ‘I respected her. She gave us a good hunt. And if you respect your prey, you are halfway to catching him.’

  ‘What a load of hippy codswallop,’ began Gideon. ‘Let’s all get our sitars out.’ But Rollo shushed him with a wave of his hand. And that gesture finally unlocked the dynamic between them. Gideon liked to think of himself as a leader, but Rollo, though quieter and less demonstrative, was the boss. And it had nothing to do with this being his house. He was the one with real authority. Now I understood.

  Gideon was the Eggman.

  We were the Eggmen.

  Rollo was the Walrus.

  The Walrus buttered his toast with deft flicks of a silver knife. ‘What you say is very interesting, old boy. Tell me, how would you catch this fox we’ve been after for years?’

  Once again, everyone was looking at me. I swallowed with difficulty, the food bone-dry in my mouth.

  I remembered going after Melati with the royal party. I had spotted the tigress first, half hidden in the undergrowth, the tall grass and her stripes becoming one, and in that split second I’d had a decision to make: I could call out or let her go. For that instant, she had looked at me with her amber eyes and I had held her gaze.

  I came back to the present and answered Rollo’s question. ‘I would look him in the eyes,’ I said. ‘I would let him know me, so that I may know him.’

  Gideon let out a splutter of laughter.

  I ignored him. Men were talking now.

  Their eyes were still on me, but now I did not mind so much. I had once had a tiger’s eyes on me. For the split second before I had betrayed her to a queen.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said Rollo, looking at me in a new way. ‘This afternoon we will test your methods. Approved by Royal Appointment, eh?’

  I knew what this meant. The leather shop where we’d bought my weekend suitcase – and this diary – had a royal crest over the door. My father had pointed to it like it was a shrine to Durga herself. See? he had said reverently. The ueen. By Royal Appointment meant you could display one of those crests that I’d seen in the shops in St James’s. The royal coat of arms, just like the one on Rollo’s lighter. As we finished our breakfast I thought of myself with the warrant painted on me, like the painted warriors of old. It was a pleasing thought.

  Stables hold no fear for me. I am as confident in my riding as I am about anything. But even I took a step backwards when I saw the mount they had chosen for me.

  He practically blocked out the sun. He was big and jet black and skipped around on the cobbles, jogging sideways. Bad habits, I thought, because everyone is afraid of him.

  ‘This is Satan,’ said Rollo, his eyes fixed on me. The girls giggled, as they always did.

  Ignoring them, I put my foot in the stirrup the groom held out to me and vaulted onto the monster’s back. He threw his head up, an old trick, and if you are not fast, this manoeuvre will give you a bloody nose.

  I was quick. I jerked my head out of the way just in time. I looked down at the groom. ‘These his usual antics?’

  The groom shot a look at Rollo and gave a surly shrug. Satan started dancing crabwise on the cobbles again, so I gathered the reins into a leather loop and slapped his cheek hard. Bahen Chod, I said under my breath. A terrible Hindi word. And Satan quieted down and stood like a statue, with four feet planted on the ground.

  Suddenly the Medievals did not seem so cocky. They still had to be mounted. While some of them seemed accomplished riders – Serena, particularly, vaulted up like an Amazon – I enjoyed Charles hopping around with one foot in the stirrup as the big bay he had been allocated circled around, refusing to stand still. Charles did not look so clever then. At length we were ready to ride out to battle, and as we rode under the stable arch I noticed there were red roses climbing prettily over it.

  They were the colour of blood.

  Midday

  Cubbing was not an especially exciting pastime, not if you have hunted a tiger from the back of an elephant. As far as I could tell, our purpose was to stand in a ring around a spinney of twisted trees, the hounds
weaving in and out of our horses’ legs, and to turn back any mature foxes that peeped from the undergrowth. In a brace of hours I let a couple of cubs slide past me – the hounds put up a frenzied yelping but were not allowed to follow and sulked visibly in the undergrowth. The only thing I liked about the pastime was that we were strung out around the covert so that we were too far away from each other to comfortably hold a conversation. Of all the Medievals Rollo stood nearest to me, still and cold as stone, his blue eyes fixed on the covert.

  The cold came for us all. There was a white autumn sky, mizzling with rain; the leaves were sodden underfoot, the branches dripping, and the cold crept into one’s bones. I dropped my reins and pushed my hands into my padded jacket. The hoarse crows mocked me from the black branches and I longed for the heat and dust of India. It really was miserable, and many times I wondered why I had yearned for so many years to be invited to a country-house weekend.

  We stopped for a lunch of soup and sandwiches in a gamekeeper’s hut that had the dimensions of a good-sized skiing chalet. There was a brazier in the centre of the wooden room, which made no impact unless one stood practically on top of it. No one spoke to me at lunch except Ina, serving soup in her uniform. Her eyes met mine over the tureen. ‘Hello, Aldrin,’ she murmured in greeting.

  ‘Hello, Armstrong,’ I said in reply.

  Her shy smile was the only warmth I felt this afternoon.

  I thought we would go back to the house after lunch, but Rollo seemed determined to keep watch until he found the particular fox he was looking for. It seemed intensely personal to him, and we were all carried forward by his determination. It was his will alone that was keeping us all there, like a string of prayer beads, holding the spirit of the prey he sought within that charmed circle. If one of us broke the chain, his prey would escape. The hounds, as they had a habit of doing, had disappeared, as if they were as bored as I.

  Then, when I was about to fall from my horse with the cold, I saw a little triangular face. I knew this was the dog fox Rollo was looking for. He had black points on his ears and snout, and a seasoned, wily look most unlike the cubs I had freed.