Tigers

by M A Bennett

  He unsheathed his hunting knife and began to rise from his seat. The platform rocked perilously on our elephant’s back, and the great beast shifted his weight.

  I grabbed Shafeen’s arm. ‘But you need Henry’s help. Let me go. If you go up against him, he’ll never wake your father for you.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But think of Ina. I know this is what Father would want me to do. This is what he would do.’ And he swung his legs over the basket and slid down the elephant to the ground.

  Ignoring the shouts of the hunters, he ran for Prem and began sawing at the rope that bound him. The tiger’s head snapped round, caught by the flash of movement, and she began to prowl towards the tree, tail switching back and forth. Shafeen’s hands were bloody from where he had missed with the knife – Prem was babbling in horror and clinging to him, impeding his efforts, and the rope was still intact. There wasn’t enough time.

  I didn’t give myself a moment to think, or I would have been too terrified to do what I did. I slid off the elephant too and down to the ground. As swiftly and silently as I could I ran for Henry’s elephant, the dry grass whispering at my calves. All I knew was that he was the nearest to Prem’s tree and he had a rifle. He yanked me up to his platform and to safety.

  ‘Greer, are you crazy?’ he began.

  ‘No time,’ I said. ‘You have to shoot her.’ I got right behind him. I remembered Shafeen’s dad and Melati, and how he wished she had been saved, but this was different. This was his son and a different tiger, and if it was between the tiger and Shafeen … I put my arms around Henry and raised the gun, in a dreadful reversal of the time we’d been at Longcross and he’d made me shoot the stag. I wrestled the firearm to aim it at the tiger, my heart against his heart, my hands on his hands.

  Beyond the pewter barrel of the gun, I could see that Shafeen had abandoned his plan to cut the rope and had desperately picked up a dry branch from the ground and was jabbing it helplessly towards the tiger, holding her at bay. I thought again, out of nowhere, of the lie he’d told at Longcross, about him being the tiger’s son – I wished it were true that he’d suckled tiger milk, and that he was one of them, and that the tigress would feel some connection to him, would protect him. But I knew that was just – what had Shafeen called it? – mystical bullshit. He was just a man-cub with a branch standing in front of a tiger.

  ‘Shoot her,’ I urged Henry. ‘Just shoot her.’

  Henry lowered the rifle. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Listen to me.’ I grabbed handfuls of his jacket and spoke right into his face. ‘You have to save them. I know they don’t matter to you. I know to you they are only Indians – some sort of inferior brown race in your white-supremacist bullshit world view. But there’s something you should know. Your father was in love with an Indian. He loved Shafeen’s father. They were lovers.’ It was brutal, but I had to somehow shock Henry into action.

  He shoved me off him. ‘I can’t shoot her because I might shoot them,’ he said impatiently. ‘I can’t take the risk. She’s too close.’

  Then I understood. The tigress was in front of Prem and Shafeen, prowling back and forth like you see in the zoo – there was no clean shot. Henry was protecting the two men.

  ‘But we have to do something.’

  ‘We will,’ he said determinedly. He scrabbled at his jacket and got something from his pocket. I just saw the gunmetal-grey flash in his hand as he threw the object, fast and accurately, towards Prem’s tree. I thought he was throwing something to scare the tiger, but then I heard him shout Shafeen’s name. Shafeen reacted instantly, throwing out one hand, as he had so often for a cricket ball at STAGS, and catching the object. He cocked the top of the lighter with his thumb, spun the little wheel once. His eyes flared just as the flame did, and in the next second the dry branch he held kindled into a sword of fire.

  Man’s red flower, I thought – the only thing a tiger feared.

  Shafeen waved the burning branch right in the tiger’s face. She shrank down until the grass touched her white belly, the muscles in all four legs bunched as if to strike. It seemed as if that instant stretched out for eternity, then seconds or minutes or hours later time started again, and the tigress fell back on her haunches, checked, turned and ran.

  ‘Quick, Henry!’ I cried.

  ‘Mine!’ he shouted to the other guns. But then he swung the barrel skywards, as if he were shooting pheasant. He squeezed the trigger at the searing blue sky and the shot rang out harmlessly, kicking both of us backwards and nearly sending us tumbling off the elephant.

  No one else saw what Henry had done, so intent were they on the fleeing tiger. They fired too, but the tiger was long gone. As the thunder died away, I said to Henry, low-voiced and wondering, ‘You meant to miss.’

  He put a finger to his smiling lips. ‘Shhh,’ he said. ‘Don’t tell. Everyone will think I’ve gone soft.’

  26

  Shafeen half dragged, half carried Prem over to us.

  Prem’s wrists were bleeding where they had chafed against the rope, and he was babbling and sobbing, almost unable to walk, his knees buckling with terror. ‘We have to get Prem back to the clubhouse,’ gasped Shafeen. ‘He needs medical treatment.’

  ‘Who the hell is Prem?’ said Henry.

  ‘This is Prem,’ Shafeen snapped. ‘He’s our houseboy. How did he come to be here?’

  Henry had the grace to look guilty. ‘One of our scouts brought him. Smooth chap, wearing sunglasses and stinking of cologne.’

  Hari. The Jadejas’ suave and smiling driver. He’d supplied Prem to the Tiger Club as bait, covered in his mistress’s cologne, as a worthless, expendable low-life. Hari, the faithful retainer, had turned on his masters as surely as Bates the butler had turned on his.

  ‘God,’ said Shafeen. ‘You really are a first-class shit. You knew about this? And you let it play out?’

  ‘Not that he was tied to the tree, of course not. I just thought he was one of the beaters.’

  ‘A likely story,’ scoffed Shafeen.

  I shot him a warning look. We still needed Henry’s help. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘let’s leave the inquest until later, shall we? Can we just get Prem some help?’

  This seemed to cut through. Shafeen and Henry lifted Prem into the jeep, and Henry himself climbed into the driving seat.

  ‘No,’ said Shafeen. ‘Not you.’

  ‘Don’t be an ass,’ said Henry, not unkindly. ‘How will he get help at the club if I’m not with you?’

  Back at the club, Henry parked the jeep at the foot of the white steps in a swirl of dust. ‘Brigadier Charteris will see to your man. He was an army medic. Come on.’

  We made an odd appearance in the refined, rattan-furnitured dining room. We were all dusty and dishevelled, Shafeen was bloodstained and covered in ash, and Prem’s white gown was soiled with dirt.

  The moustachioed brigadier’s face went puce over his club tie when he learned the identity of his patient.

  ‘For God’s sake, Longcross,’ he sputtered, expelling a shower of whisky and soda. ‘He’s a bloody untouchable.’

  Henry’s face went dangerously still. ‘You’ll treat him as if he were your own son, or I’ll know the reason why.’

  The medic stiffened. Then, miraculously, he gave up his chair for Prem and we left him checking his vital signs.

  ‘I need a drink,’ said Henry to Shafeen, ‘so I’m damned sure you must.’

  We wandered out to the veranda, which was now in the afternoon shade. No one spoke until we were seated with the inevitable burra pegs of gin and tonic in front of us. Henry took a huge gulp. ‘Now,’ he said to Shafeen, setting his glass down, ‘what’s all this about your father and mine?’

  There was so much to say. Shafeen and I talked and talked until the sun began to set. The disappointed vultures circled home to be replaced by kinder birds whose job seemed to be to sing greetings to the night.

  With the fading light I saw Henry’s face blurring, the angles softening. Was
I mistaken, or did his expression soften too? The moon came out and sailed above us; the moon that turned men into tigers and tigers into men. Had it worked its magic on Henry?

  The story of Longcross in 1969 was a long one to tell properly. The moon party, the cubbing, the evening of beasting, the hunt, the chillies, the village hop, the assault of Ina on the rooftop. And the final, poignant coming together of Aadhish and Rollo – two boys from entirely different but in some ways very similar worlds, in which their love was equally forbidden.

  I kept my eyes on Henry as Shafeen told this part. I don’t know what I expected from Henry – surprise? Pity? Even disgust? But his expression was unreadable.

  When Shafeen finished there was a long silence, only broken by the benevolent birds. Eventually Henry said, brokenly, ‘I never knew.’

  ‘I suppose,’ I said hesitantly, ‘it’s not the sort of thing you just … bring up.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Henry drily. ‘It’s something that requires exquisite timing. On a deathbed, for example.’ Henry stretched out his long legs and his haughty demeanour returned. ‘You see, I wasn’t there when he died.’

  Shafeen was silent. There was nothing he could say to that.

  ‘He didn’t ask for me. He asked for you,’ Henry continued coldly.

  Shafeen smiled sadly at Henry. ‘And now you know why.’

  For a moment there was silence. We all looked up at the moon, and the moon looked down at us.

  Then Henry spoke. ‘Shafeen.’ I don’t know if I’d ever consciously heard Henry use the name before. ‘As you say, I’m nothing but a first-class shit. So what do you want from me?’

  Shafeen took a breath. ‘My father knew about the fire at Longcross, but I never told him that your father had died. But then we saw your father’s obituary in The Times. It had been at my father’s breakfast table on the day he collapsed. He’d read that obituary and then come straight to the Tiger Club – a place he associated with your family. His own father, my grandfather, had been a member of the club – the first Indian member. Your grandfather Monty had been tiger hunting with him and the queen. So my father’s first instinct when he read about Rollo’s death was to come to the club to feel closer to him. And as soon as he got here, what did he see? Or rather, who did he see? You.’ He unfolded the obituary from his pocket. ‘Look.’ He stabbed his finger at the picture of Rollo at STAGS. ‘He’s the absolute image of you. We think,’ Shafeen continued, ‘that when he saw you, he thought you were your father – young again, just as he was when my father fell in love with him. He literally saw a ghost. Tell me,’ he said to Henry, ‘did he meet your eyes?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Henry quietly. ‘Just before he collapsed.’

  ‘Well, there you go,’ concluded Shafeen.

  Henry returned the page of newsprint. ‘Suppose what you say is true,’ he said guardedly, ‘what can I possibly do about it now?’

  I took a breath. This was my crazy theory; I’d better be the one to expound it. ‘OK. Have you ever seen a film called Overboard?’

  Henry smiled tightly. ‘A Medieval like me? No.’

  ‘Long shot, I know,’ I admitted. ‘Well, Goldie Hawn plays this rich woman who gets a blow on the head and ends up in hospital with amnesia. When she sees her husband again, that’s the prompt she needs to jog her memory, and she’s cured of her amnesia and becomes her old self again.’

  ‘Your point?’

  ‘You are the husband in Overboard,’ I said. ‘Aadhish needs a reason to come back, and you’re it.’

  Henry was silent for a moment. His lip was curling, the softness of earlier gone. ‘Why should I come? He’s nothing to me.’

  Shafeen leaned forward in his chair. ‘He may be nothing to you. But he was something to your father. And he’s everything to me. Look, Henry …’ The naming thing was obviously catching on. ‘This might be goodbye for me. And I love my father. It’s not like you with yours. I truly love him.’

  ‘Oh, I did love mine,’ said Henry. ‘He just didn’t love me.’

  And there it was. The bitterness, the rawness, the humiliation, revealed for us to see. Despite everything he’d done, I felt sorry for Henry de Warlencourt.

  ‘Then I’ll trade you,’ said Shafeen, his voice unsteady. ‘It could be that my father will never come back. It could be that this is the end.’ I looked at him in shock. This was the first time he’d admitted this out loud, and I suspected it was the first time he’d admitted it to himself. ‘So I’ll cut you a deal, Henry. I’ll exchange you your father’s deathbed for mine.’ He was deadly serious, his eyes shining with unshed tears. ‘You can be the one to say goodbye. Say ciao, say cheers, say sayonara. So long as – dear God – so long as you say something.’

  I could see Henry wavering, but he still wasn’t convinced.

  I waded into the breach. ‘Henry,’ I said, putting my hand on his wrist, ‘this is your chance to not be like your father.’ The ruined flesh under my hand reminded me. ‘Look what you did for Ty on the day he died. You saved her life. You’re not him. He could have been a good man, a happy man. He loved once. He laughed once. But something warped him. Don’t let that happen to you. You can change. Will you come? Please?’

  The moon had risen fully and it was night. I could barely see Henry, but I could hear him still.

  ‘Yes.’

  27

  While the Tiger Club members noisily consoled themselves at dinner for the loss of a magnificent trophy, Shafeen, Henry and I, with the bandaged Prem in tow, climbed into one of the club’s Rolls-Royces.

  Shafeen had dismissed Hari on the spot and told him that if he gave any trouble, he, Shafeen, would involve the police. Of course, that meant we were without a lift, so one of the Tiger Club’s chauffeurs took us into the city.

  Prem, usually so chatty, was struck dumb, but it was hard to tell whether this was due to the honour of the car or the horror of the day. Henry, in the front, and Shafeen and I in the back were likewise quiet, silenced by the presence of the driver. But as the lights of the city grew closer Shafeen leaned forward with a question in Hindi, and Prem, with much bowing and gratitude, replied.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I said.

  ‘We’re driving him home.’

  ‘To your home?’

  ‘No. To his.’

  I smiled and squeezed his hand, but he snatched it away.

  ‘Don’t.’ He hung his head. ‘I don’t deserve anything. I had to ask him where he lived, Greer. You were right. I didn’t even know.’

  We drove to a part of Jaipur I’d never been to before, where the houses were more like shacks than dwellings. Sheets of corrugated iron served as roofs; swathes of fabric stood in for doors. It felt utterly wrong sweeping up to Prem’s home in the Silver Ghost Rolls-Royce, which probably cost more than every house in this district put together. Every kid in the street came out to gawp, and we were soon surrounded. Shafeen helped Prem out of the car and, at the sight of him, the residents urged forward a young woman and four children on a wave of chatter and benevolent pushing hands. This, then, was his family: the mouths he fed on what the Jadeja family gave him.

  Shafeen greeted the wife with a namaste, and spent some time talking with her and the eldest child – a good-looking boy probably not much younger than Shafeen – who seemed to be taking charge of the situation. The smallest child – a little girl with plaits to her knees – had her round eyes fixed on the silver ghost ornament on the car bonnet. She reached out a little hand to touch it. The chauffeur tsked loudly and made to shoo her away, but to my delight Henry stopped him with a word.

  Once Prem had been claimed by his family, Shafeen said his goodbyes. Prem, still a little shaky, lifted his hand to his forehead, giving his traditional Britisher salute. In place of his usual mockery, Shafeen stood up straight and, quite seriously, saluted him back.

  As the driver nosed the car away gradually, careful not to run down any of the shoal of kids, I said, ‘What did you say to the son?’

  ‘I said
, Your father is one of our family. And you are our family too.’

  This time, when I took his hand he didn’t take it away.

  ‘I also told Prem that if he comes to work tomorrow, he’s fired.’ He smiled. ‘He needs a paid holiday, and that’s what he’s going to get.’

  28

  When we reached the hospital and hurried down the clean, shiny corridors, the first thing we saw was the Princess Himani, dressed in bright coral and gold, in a huddle with two white-coated doctors.

  As we approached, the doctors nodded and left, leaving the princess pressing her beringed hands to her mouth. It was an ominous sign.

  Shafeen ran the last few feet. ‘Is he …?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, he’s still alive. But he has worsened. They don’t think he will come back now. They asked me … They asked me …’ Her face crumpled.

  ‘If you’d like to turn off life support?’

  She couldn’t reply but just nodded. Shafeen held her tight in his arms, her head at his throat. Then he set her away from him, holding both of her shoulders. ‘Mother,’ he said. ‘Let Henry try.’

  I’d almost forgotten about Henry, who was hovering awkwardly at the edges of this intensely intimate little scene. It was one of the few times I’d seen him look as if he didn’t belong somewhere.

  Himani looked dazed. ‘Who’s this?’

  Henry hesitated, then said, ‘An old friend.’

  She clasped his hand with hers, and Henry looked strangely moved. ‘If you think it might do some good … and what harm can it do?’ she said, her voice wavering between puzzlement and desperation.

  Shafeen opened the door of his father’s room and nodded at Henry. I knew this was no casual gesture, but an enormously meaningful moment. This was part of the deal agreed at the Tiger Club. He was giving Henry his own place at his father’s bedside, just as Shafeen had taken Henry’s place at Rollo’s deathbed. Henry hesitated. ‘What should I say?’

  Shafeen and I looked at each other. There was only one answer. ‘Call him Horatio,’ Shafeen said.