“Yes,” she said, “years and years ago.”
“Ah.” When he held her gaze for a moment, she felt cornered, a little panicked, so she told him about the children she was meeting at Tamarind: their gaiety; their incredible bravery; how determined they were to survive.
“Will you write about them?” he asked. He’d remembered that, too, and she could do nothing about the quiet spurt of happiness that followed. “That was what you said you’d come to do. To write.”
“If I could do that, well,” she said, “that would be something.”
“You’ll do it,” he said. “I can feel you will.”
That was all. And when he didn’t even try to kiss her on the way home, she was not disappointed.
He’s right, she thought, I will do it.
Lying in her bed an hour later, having drawn her curtains against the stars, she was surer than ever it was a job she needed, not a man.
Chapter Thirty
Bombay, April 1929
April came in like a fire-breathing dragon and Viva and Rose both got a telephone call from Tor. The Mallinsons, finding the heat unbearable, had taken themselves off to a hotel in the hill station of Mahabaleshwar for three weeks. Tor had the house to herself. She needed them to come and stay with her. Simple as that. She was tempted to add “It’s an emergency,” but hoped if she had enough baths and drank enough gin, she could keep one mortifying secret to herself.
Rose—the reliable—had phoned immediately, saying of course she would love to come, for a week if that was convenient. Jack was all for it (Oh, hooray for Jack, thought Tor sarcastically) because the weather in Poona had been almost as hot as in Bombay, and he knew she’d be more comfortable in Ci Ci’s house.
“If we swim,” she warned, “it has to be in private and you’re not to laugh at my cossie—I look like a baby whale in it.” She was four months pregnant.
Viva, to her considerable surprise, had also responded quickly. She said she was working at some children’s home, and could stay only one night or two at the most. She’d work during the day but they could spend the evenings together. Tor could hardly wait to see them.
On the day before they came, Tor woke, as she had on every one of the mornings since her monthly period had failed to arrive, sweating with fear and pleading with God to put her out of her misery. For the rest of the day she made the bhisti, the water man, run up and down the stairs, bringing hot water in relays to her bathroom. She’d already taken five miniatures of Gordon’s gin from Ci Ci’s drinks cabinet and hidden them underneath her bed in the guest room. She’d almost fainted after her second bath and stubbed her toe painfully on her bed, but nothing had happened. Between baths, she’d stumbled around in the glare and scorching heat of the garden.
As she wobbled down the path, one of the gardeners had stopped her to show her a row of dead mynah birds, their beaks sticky with blood. He’d demonstrated to her with a graphic flapping of arms how the heat had burst their lungs, and then laughed as if this was a tremendous joke. And then, as if this wasn’t enough, when she’d sat in the pond garden in a state, all she could hear through the shimmering air was the cry of the brain-fever birds that got on everybody’s nerves at this time of year with their monotonous cries of It’s getting hotter! It’s getting hotter! It’s getting hotter!, as if anybody needed reminding.
Thank God Rose and Viva were coming, she thought. She was definitely going mad.
By three-thirty that afternoon, when the mercury in the thermometer was hovering at 107 degrees, she was determined to try one more time. She called Balbir, the water man, up to her room, and when she ordered him to fill up another bath with the hottest water he could find, she could feel the man, whose brown skin was already slick with sweat, practically rolling his eyes in disbelief at her folly. What kind of mad madam sahib took boiling-hot baths in weather like this?
Someone, Ci Ci’s ayah probably, a sharp-faced little woman who padded around noticing everything, must have found the empty gin bottles. She’d pulled them out from under the bed and arranged them in a neat row on top of the dressing table as if to say, “I know what you’re up to.”
Rose was due at four, and while she waited for her, Tor padded around the house barefoot, leaving footprints on the wooden floors, trying to decide on the coolest bedroom to put her in. She settled eventually on a shuttered room at the back of the house that had pretty chintz curtains and a huge fan. She told Dulal, the boy who worked the tatti mats, that when Madam Sahib Chandler came he must work extra hard to keep her cool because she was, and she’d sketched the outline of a large tummy with her hands, like that. Dulal, who was young and handsome and rather impertinent, had stared at her and laughed out loud, bringing on a fresh burst of insecurity.
Why was he laughing at her like that? Did everyone know about the gin bottles now?
Rose was here. Plumper but still pale and beautiful, even with her bob half grown out. She was wearing a blue maternity dress and when she flung her arms around Tor and said, “Oh golly, I’ve missed you,” Tor felt the hard bump of Rose’s tummy against hers and had to bite the inside of her lip to stop herself crying. Why did Rose always do things so well, and she always get things so wrong?
Rose looked so happy to see her, and Tor, not wanting to spoil things immediately, took her out to the veranda for tea and cakes.
Rose sank into a deep chair. “Oh, thank the Lord,” she said, crossing her perfect legs. “What bliss to feel halfway cool again.”
They gossiped for a while about this and that, and after tea, Rose fell asleep in her chair in the dormouse way Tor remembered from their childhood when, after a day’s hunting, Rose would eat her boiled egg and collapse in a heap over the kitchen table.
Tor looked down on her while she slept. What a wonderful friend she was, coming to see her immediately and making it sound like the only thing she wanted to do. She put a cushion behind her head and crept upstairs again.
There was just time, she estimated, for one more bath before supper. Pandit, who had to go off to find the water man, who was probably in his hut having supper, stomped off downstairs and made no secret of his irritation this time. He was bound to tell Ci when she came back.
Quarter of an hour later, she sat in her bath, naked and weeping. Please, God; please, God; please, God. Please don’t make me have this baby. She drank another tumbler of gin from her toothbrush glass, crying “Urggh hideous!” as it went down. Even at the best of times she hated gin. After a few more minutes, feeling dizzy and sick, she got up and saw her lobster reflection in the steaming bathroom cabinet. She got out of the bath, dried herself slowly and cleaned her teeth, still waiting for the miracle to happen. Nothing—just that damn bird still mocking outside the window: hotter, hotter, hotter…
Time to get dressed. To cheer herself up, she put on a favorite midnight blue dress, and then one of Ci’s embroidered jackets—too tight now that she was putting on weight again—a double row of pearls, “one row far too timid” was one of Ci’s maxims, and went downstairs. She was determined not to spoil the evening yet.
“Tor, are you all right?” Rose said, as she walked into the living room. “You look puce. Are you sickening for something?”
At that moment, Chanakya, the lighting man, walked in with a glowing taper to ignite the oil lamps on the veranda, and then another servant with a plate of cheese straws. Tor shot them a significant look. “We had one but the wheels fell off,” she said casually to Rose—their warning code to each other for as long as they could remember for “can’t talk now.”
Pandit arrived in his snowy evening uniform, his mustache bristling and officious, to ask them what time they would like to dine. He’d brought soda fountains and glasses with whiskey in them, and small bowls of olives and cheese canapés.
Tor, who always ate more when she was worried or upset, ate two canapés quickly. What was the point of following Ci’s ridiculous diets now?
“Come on, Piglet, out with it,” Rose said w
hen Pandit had gone. “Something’s up.”
Tor took a deep breath and was about to answer when the doorbell rang. Viva had arrived, on the back of a motorbike driven by one of her friends from the children’s home. She burst through the door, her hair wild and dusty, and carrying her clothes in an old satchel.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “There was a huge demonstration opposite the VT Station. They were burning Union Jacks; there were fire engines, policemen. I didn’t actually think I’d get here at all.”
“Oh, they’re at it all the time now,” said Tor. “It took me a whole hour to get to the races the other day; the road was blocked by Gandhi supporters sitting down. They may call it a peaceful demonstration, but it blocked the traffic for hours. Do you think they’ll stop it soon?”
It was a relief to have something sensible to talk about, for she was aware of the worried way Rose was looking at her.
“No, I don’t,” said Viva. “Quite a few of the children we see at the home are already Gandhiji’s girls. I think he’ll change everything forever.”
“Oh well, politics.” Tor dismissed the subject with a wave. “Geoffrey Mallinson’s so obsessed we actually fine him now for mentioning Gandhi—I mean, what a bore sitting there in his nappy spinning. Look, would anybody like a wash before dinner? V?”
Tor followed Viva up to Ci’s elegantly marbled bathroom. She poured water into the basin so Viva could wipe the dust from her face. “Thank you for coming, Viva,” she said.
“Well, you said it was an emergency.”
“Oh, that,” Tor said lightly. “Just an excuse to get you here.”
Viva gave her a searching look. “Sure?”
“Let’s have dinner first and talk later,” said Tor.
The gin had made her feel pleasantly blurry around the edges and sentimental. All she really wanted to do was to forget about her problems and have fun with these girls, her precious friends.
“Whenever you like.” Viva plunged her face into the basin. “Oh, water, water,” she murmured. “How divine. All I get from my tap at the moment is rust and dead flies. Would it be a nuisance if I had a quick bath before dinner?”
Pandit stomped up the stairs again with the water man.
When Viva came downstairs, she was wearing a simple coral dress that emphasized the slenderness of her waist and the dark abundance of her hair, which tonight hung loose around her shoulders. Her only adornment was a pair of long silver earrings she said she’d bought from a local market. Tor, looking at her, thought, Why are some people just born impossibly glamorous without ever seeming to try? Beside her, she felt fat and overdressed, like a child who had raided Mummy’s dressing-up box.
Dinner was served early in a long candlelit room, kept bearably cool by fans whirling slowly overhead. The French windows were open; the air was saturated with the scents of mimosa and frangipani. Beyond the dimming outlines of the garden, the lawns and the terraces, a vast yellow moon was sinking into the sea.
Rose’s blond hair shone like a child’s in the candlelight. When they asked about her new baby, she said, yes, it was a lovely surprise, wasn’t it? Neither of them had really expected it, but Jack was delighted, and so was she.
“This is so grown-up of you, Rose,” Tor said, her eyes vast and scandalized.
“Yes, it is, isn’t it,” Rose agreed, but the only fly in the custard was that Jack’s entire regiment might be moved soon to Bannu on the northwest frontier, which was very dangerous, but they’d cross that bridge when they came to it, she said serenely. “Gosh, do look at that moon,” she said. “Isn’t it the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?”
All of them had looked up obediently, but then Tor put down her soup spoon. “Hang on, Rose, what does this mean for you? Will you have to go, too?”
“I’ve no idea yet. It hasn’t been decided if wives are wanted on the voyage.”
Rose said this calmly and cheerfully as if it was a joke, but Tor recognized the small muscle that was twitching in Rose’s cheek, just as it had when she was eight years old and steeling herself for something frightening.
“But don’t you have any say in this at all?” said Viva fiercely. “I mean, you’re having a baby.”
“No, I don’t,” said Rose. “I’m an army wife now, and it’s not exactly Jack’s fault.”
Tor could suddenly feel her own heart pounding.
How precarious all our lives are, she thought. Night had suddenly fallen outside and she could see the leaping reflections of their candles against black windows. Rose, nineteen years old and pregnant, miles from home; Jack away, possibly in danger; Viva living in her hideous-sounding flat with dead flies in the taps; and herself, well, that didn’t bear thinking about, not until after pudding.
“Pandit,” she rang the small bell at her elbow, “is there any of that wonderful ice cream left, and maybe some mille-feuilles?” Why not enjoy what they could while they could.
“Viva.” Rose put down her ice cream spoon. “What about you? What about this job of yours? You’re always such a woman of mystery.” She punched her softly on the arm.
“Am I?” Viva said. “I don’t mean to be.”
“Well,” Rose was struggling with this, “you’re so different from most of the girls we meet, and so sort of changeable. In quite a good way I mean,” she added hastily.
“You are,” Tor agreed. Ever since Viva had walked through the door that evening, Tor had been trying to put her finger on a feeling Viva brought out in her: something like hunger or dismay.
“You make your own plans,” said Rose, “you earn your own money. Doesn’t that embarrass you almost?”
“Embarrass?” Viva smiled. “What a funny word to use. I’ve never even thought of it like that.”
“Are you still going to be a writer?” Tor asked.
“Well, I am, or at least I hope to be. I’ve just sold my first proper story, a small piece about the children’s home to Blackwood’s Magazine.” Threads of excitement ran like electric currents through Viva’s voice as she said this, even though her expression was carefully impassive.
“Blackwood’s. But that’s amazing, wonderful,” said Rose. “Why didn’t you say immediately?”
“Because I can’t quite believe it myself,” said Viva. “My first few weeks here were so dreadful. I could hardly afford to pay my bill at the YWCA, but then I got work at the children’s home. I’ve been writing at night.”
“Gosh, how ripping.” Tor heard the flatness in her voice and tried to smile. She sipped her drink. “What now?”
“Well,” Viva hesitated, “I’m going to try and get the children at the home where I work to tell their own stories in their own words.”
“Heavens,” said Tor. “That does sound interesting.”
“But do admit,” said Rose, “it must be horribly depressing at times—those poor little orphans.”
“That’s exactly the point,” Viva’s eyes were blazing now, “and that’s exactly why I’m glad I’m working there, because almost nothing about it is how I expected it to be, so many clichés, so many misunderstandings. Those children are poor, but they’re full of life, of hope. They laugh far more than most of us do, more than English children even.
“And yes, I’m white and I’m supposed to be helping them, but sometimes I almost hate them, too—their poverty, their need, their complete lack of anything. And this is what I’m trying to think out for myself: all the lies, all the ways we have of trying to make life simple for ourselves by putting people into boxes marked black, white, good, bad, when all of us are victims of our own prejudices. To give you one example: there are two women of high caste at the home who never want to eat lunch with me. In their eyes I’m the dirty one, I’m the untouchable. To give you another, there’s a little Muslim girl at the home right now being sent to Coventry because of her religion, and there’s nothing we can really do about it. It runs so deep.”
“Gosh.” Rose folded up her napkin and put it carefully into th
e silver ring. “I do admire you. I don’t think I could do it.”
“Yes, you could,” said Viva bluntly. “My life is probably a lot easier than yours. It’s a question of choice.”
Ah, choice, thought Tor. She’d been too distracted to pay attention to all of Viva’s speech, but the part she’d heard had brought on the sinking feeling again. What had she done, really done in the last four months? Absolutely nothing apart from getting thin and then getting fat again and losing her virginity and going to lots and lots of parties and now getting herself into this hideous mess.
“So, what about you, Tor?” Viva was looking at her over the rim of her wineglass.
“Oh, I’ve had masses of fun here,” said Tor distractedly. “Masses…it’s been balloon.”
She really couldn’t talk about it yet—especially now.
They had coffee on the veranda and some crème de menthe for old time’s sake, even though it made Tor feel a little drunker. While they’d been eating, one of the servants had lit a flare path of small lamps whose flames flickered down the garden path right down to the sea. From their chairs, they could hear the soft flopping of waves falling down at the bay, a silky sound.
“Tor, you’re so lucky to live here,” said Rose. “I think it’s the most wonderful house I’ve ever been in.”
Tor burst into tears. She felt in the pocket of her dress and handed a piece of paper over.
“‘Empress of India,’” Rose read out. “‘Miss Victoria Sowerby, 25 May. Single.’” Rose examined the ticket, turned it over and over. “Oh, damn it, Tor,” she said quietly. “I can’t bear it. And you’ve been so brave all evening.”
Tor’s mother had often warned her that crying in public was a complete nonstarter, but Tor had cried properly then—great heaving, gulping sobs—she’d made such an awful mess of things.
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