“Darling,” she said, “you know all those clothes I lent you when you first came out? I’d like them back, please.”
Tor wanted to cry at the meanness of this, for Ci had said she could keep them. Also, she’d felt so fine in those clothes for a while, so sure that everything in her life would change.
“Do you want them now, Ci?” she’d asked warily, wondering if she’d have time to give one or two of them to the dhobi who she sometimes saw cycling down to town in the morning with Ci’s evening dresses sailing behind, all of them coming back in the evening beautifully ironed. She’d ripped one or two of the seams, and the Chinese silk jacket still had tar on its elbow, picked up on the night that Ollie had taken her to Juhu Beach. She’d stuffed it to the back of the wardrobe thinking she’d sort it out later.
“No time like the present.” Ci’s smile was a grimace. “Geoffrey’s just announced a cut in the clothing allowance, and I doubt you can fit into them anymore, can you?”
Then Tor, feeling bulky in her sleeveless nightgown, had been forced under Ci’s eagle eye to lay all the clothes out on the bed.
“Good God.” Ci had picked up her Wolhausmenson hunting jacket and pushed her talons through the rips under the arms. “Who on earth did this?”
“I only wore it once,” Tor had stammered, which was true. Ollie had taken her out on some “nags” he’d been lent at the racecourse. “It was rather tight.” In fact, ludicrously tight for a riding habit, but Ci always chose style over practicality. “And we were jumping an oxer and—I was about to get it fixed.”
“About to get it fixed.” Something peculiar had happened to Ci’s mouth. “What stopped you? You haven’t exactly been busy here.”
They’d glared at each other for a long moment.
“Darling, I feel I must say something to you,” Ci had continued in a new more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger voice. “You see, nothing happens to you in life without self-discipline. I mean, how much, for instance, do you weigh now?”
Her eyes had swept over Tor’s plump arms, her expanding girth. I hate you, Tor had thought. I hate the way you talk, I hate the way you smoke, I hate the jokes you make about me to your friends. For she could just imagine how Ci would soon be describing her at the club. Huge, darling, fat as a pig again, or a returned empty—rather a large one, I’m afraid.
And in that moment, it was almost tempting to wipe Ci’s sad, superior smile off her face by telling her that not only was she fat but she was expecting a baby, too, so she could see some things were even more important than her blasted clothes.
“Ten and a half stone,” Tor had said. A lie. She was too frightened to go anywhere near the scales. And now, because she was in such a state, Tor could almost imagine Ci saying in that same flat voice, “You’ve been crying a lot lately, Tor. Are you up the spout or something?” and hated her even more, but no, Ci was holding her green Chinese silk jacket up in front of her, the claws of her nails like pegs.
“What have you done to this?” she was shouting. “This jacket was embroidered in Paris.” Her voice rose into an undignified shriek. “It’s absolutely and completely ruined.”
“I wore it on the beach.” Tor wondered for a second who this woman was who was roaring at the top of her voice, and then realized with a queer thrill that it was her.
“I got tar on the sleeve,” she’d shrieked. “Clap me in leg irons, why don’t you?”
“Oh yes, that’s right,” Ci had roared right back, her eyes bulging. “Oh, very grateful! I mean, all I’ve done for you in the past six months is to clothe and entertain you, you great fat fool.”
After Ci said the “great fat fool” bit, her mouth had clamped shut. Even she knew she’d gone too far.
And only later could Tor appreciate the wonderful irony of what happened next. As she and Ci faced each other—red in the face, breathing heavily—Tor had suddenly felt the pop of air between her legs, the unmistakable stickiness of blood. Shouting had done what gin and hot baths had failed to do. She’d suddenly beamed at Ci, who must have thought she’d gone mad. “I’m fine!” she said. “I’m absolutely fine.”
And it was at this moment she understood that not having a baby might, in certain circumstances, be every bit as magical as having one.
After speaking with Viva, Tor phoned Rose to see if by some miracle she could come to Ooty, too. Viva had said it would be fun if they could all get together.
“It’s supposed to be beautiful up there,” Tor wheedled. “Do try and come. Tell Jack I’m leaving India in the blink of an eye, that I desperately need you, and you’ll probably never see me again.”
“No need for any of that,” Rose said crisply. “I’ve already told Jack what I’m going to do.”
Well, bully for you, thought Tor. Rose sounded so much more in control, almost steely.
The plan was that as there was a party at Daisy’s on Wednesday night, Tor would stay with Viva and they’d take the train to Ooty the following morning. Rose would meet them up there. That gave Ollie—Tor had worked it out on her fingers—four days in which to phone her and tell her he’d suddenly realized he’d made a ludicrous mistake and wanted to divorce his wife in England and marry her after all, or failing that, maybe she might meet someone wonderful up at Ooty. What a good story it would make at their wedding reception. The most extraordinary thing, I was on the very point of going back to England when I looked up in this little hotel we were staying at and I saw…
Oh, what an idiot you are, thought Tor, catching herself out in her own daydream.
Dreaming was what hurt most, better to face facts now. She was fat and on the shelf, and there, barring a sudden miracle, she would stay.
Because they’d hardly spoken since their row, Tor was surprised when Ci insisted on driving her over to Viva’s house the following Wednesday afternoon. She wondered if it was because Ci, who could sometimes seem surprisingly sensitive to the good opinion of others, was trying to leave a good last impression, or perhaps make up for the row the week before.
All Ci said was, “Byculla, darling, is the absolute armpit of Bombay. I wouldn’t dream of you taking a taxi.”
The drive did not start well. After getting Tor to light one of her Abdullahs, Ci had filled the car with smoke and then started in on her again.
“This is absolutely the last thing I’m going to say to you about clothes,” she said as they wove in and out of a line of bullock trucks laden with sugarcane, “but are you absolutely sure I didn’t lend you my Lanvin jacket as well? That one’s part of a limited edition.”
“Quite sure.” Tor had been staring at the bullock’s bottom, wondering how a creature could be so thin and carry so much. “I tried it on,” Tor said. “And it was miles too small for me.” Ci often set these mean little tricks for her.
“Even when you lost all that weight? Months ago, I mean.”
“Even then.”
“How many pounds did you lose in the end?”
“Two,” said Tor. God, the woman was every bit as obsessed as her mother.
“Do you find the dumbbells helped?”
“Not really. Look, Ci, I don’t actually think I am all that fat, what I am is big-boned. I don’t have a lot of flab on me, and my waist is quite small.” This was true. “Curvy” Ollie had called her in a rare compliment. “Statuesque” was the word one or two of her other boyfriends had used. Sometimes it felt important to fight back.
“God, look at that ghastly creature!” Ci suddenly exclaimed. A naked man covered with ash was walking between the traffic, shaking his bony fist at the car. “Two pounds—ah well,” Ci went back to ignoring the world outside the car, “I don’t suppose it will matter too much in Hampshire.” Whatever that meant.
Then Tor, never a great one for directions, managed to get them lost.
Somehow they’d ended up on the outskirts of the Bora Bazaar, the vast, sprawling, untidy market where it seemed half of Bombay congregated to sell their rubbish.
“Really, Tor,
” Ci said as her skinny little ankle pumped the accelerator, “you are quite hopeless. I think I’d better have another ciggie.
“So where now?” Ci’s smile was a snarl by the time they got to the end of a road that led nowhere. “All this is terra incognita as far as I’m concerned.”
“Stop the car right now,” Tor longed to shout. “I’m sick of being grateful to you, sick of being your problem, sick of being wrong.” But back in the prison of politeness, she sat in the perfumed smoke of Ci’s car feeling sad and unworthy and hardly daring to breathe in case she said the wrong thing again.
When they finally got to Byculla and Jasmine Street, Ci, who’d sulked for the last twenty minutes, refused to park, saying it was far too dangerous and now too late. She would drive straight home.
“I’m sorry” were Tor’s last words to her, and Ci’s dismissive little shrug had hurt more than her anger.
Chapter Thirty-five
Tor had sounded so low on the phone that Viva was amazed to see how radiant she looked when she opened the door.
“Excuse my humble home,” Viva said as she led her upstairs. Mrs. Jamshed had been cooking up her famous shrimp patio that morning and the smell of garlic and cumin in the hall was so strong you could taste it.
“Excuse it!” Tor said. “I’m so happy to be here I could practically burst. Oh, Viva, what a wonderful place,” Tor said when she opened the door to her room. “So bohemian. I love it!” She looked at the ceiling, now covered with children’s kites, ran her hand over the silk bedspread and bounced on the bed.
“It’s going to be a bit cramped,” Viva said, “but I’ve borrowed a camp bed. I don’t mind sleeping in it, and we’re going to Daisy’s tonight, and we’ll leave first thing, so what the hell.”
Viva got them both some lemonade, and they went out on the balcony and Tor made Viva roar with laughter when she told the story of the Ci Ci row.
“The only thing I am so grateful about,” Tor’s eyes looked huge with shock at the thought of it, “is that I didn’t tell her about…you know…possible problems in the baby department. That would have been the final straw. And the club! Just imagine. That would have kept the old biddies going for months.”
“Why do you care so much what people think?” Viva said. “You can’t win them all.”
“I do care,” said Tor. “I want everyone to love me and they won’t. I wish I was more like you.”
“What do you mean, more like me?” Viva pushed a plate of biscuits toward Tor. “Come on, dig in.”
“A cat that walks alone. Look at all this.” Tor gestured toward her room. “I could never do this on my own.”
“Be broke, you mean, and live in a house that smells of curry? Poor Tor.”
“No, don’t tease. I mean live like this and know that one has done it oneself.”
Viva didn’t want to spoil Tor’s good mood by telling her how lonely and desperate she’d felt here at times, or how scared after Guy had turned up. She took a sip of lemonade.
“I don’t think earning your own living is as hard as it used to be,” she said. “If it’s independence you want.”
Tor heaved a sigh. “I don’t think I do.”
“What do you think you want then?”
“A husband.” Tor’s big blue eyes looked absolutely serious for once. “Some babies, a place of my own. For me the rest is just being brave.”
In her usual frame of mind, Viva might have raised plenty of bracing objections to this: have encouraged Tor to get some sort of training; offered to introduce her to the already wide variety of women Daisy knew—teachers, archaeologists, language experts, social workers—who found dozens of other things to do in India apart from hunting for husbands. But tonight, she felt strangely disinclined to urge Tor toward serious goals.
Frank was coming to the party.
Daisy had dropped this casually into the conversation earlier.
“I thought I’d ask that nice young doctor friend of yours,” she said. “He said he’ll come if he’s in town and not on duty.”
Why this piece of news should have made her feel so annoyingly hectic, she had no idea. She’d planned to write for an hour or so before Tor came, but instead had spent the time jumping on and off a chair and trying to line up her reflection with the only mirror in the room, which lay in the shadows opposite her bed on top of a chest of drawers.
Wobbling on the chair, she’d tried on her best dress—it was a flame-colored silk, its long darts emphasized her small waist and she liked the small bow at the back. Then she tried a blue embroidered jacket she was particularly fond of. She’d ripped the jacket off, tried on the only other presentable outfit she owned, a cotton shirt made of some white gauzy material. It looked pretty, she thought, against her coral and silver earrings.
She was enjoying herself when the sight of her eager, happy face in the mirror frightened her. He’s not going to come, she’d warned herself. And even if he does, you don’t want him.
“So what do you think?” she was asking Tor now, in an offhand voice, as if this was the first time she’d tried the flame silk dress on. “I could wear it with these.” She clipped on the silver and coral earrings that had belonged to her mother.
When Viva saw her face in the mirror again, she saw that her pep talk had done no good. She was still horribly excited.
“I think you could wear a jockstrap and opera glasses and still look beautiful,” said Tor. “Which is quite unfair, because you don’t seem to give a damn about all that.”
Daisy’s party was in full swing when they arrived. They could hear, from the street below, bursts of laughter, some jazz—the clownish kind with lots of whistles and squeaks. A row of colored lights shone from the balcony.
“Come in! Come in!” Daisy, beaming and wearing a bright pink dress, opened the door on a roar of conversation. Although Daisy lived on a shoestring, she loved giving parties and entertained with a reckless aristocratic confidence that Viva admired. With Daisy, there was no careful mixing of people of the same kind, no placement, or particular show, instead she threw all the people she liked—children, academics, local musicians, neighbors—into the pot, fed them well, wound up the gramophone, and let them get on with it. It was a real lesson in life.
“Come on!” She steered them toward the balcony, where they heard bursts of music and laughter. “I want you to meet everyone.”
“Everyone” was the usual rich mix: Mr. Jamshed and his two stunning daughters, Dolly and Kaniz, one of whom was dancing the Charleston. There was a large and stately Swedish sculptress in a caftan, on her way to study the carvings at the Elephanta Caves. Social workers, academics, writers, a fat man who was a professor of music and in Bombay to record. Some of them sat on sofas on the balcony under the starry sky, others were dancing.
Tor was immediately swept off by Daisy to talk to a Bombay advocate, Mr. Bhide, who she said had bravely defied convention by marrying a Hindu widow. (The widow turned out to be twenty-five, shy, and clever.) Viva stood for a few moments on her own at the edge of the roaring crowd. She was sipping one of Daisy’s lethal punches, hoping to calm her nerves.
For the next half hour she wandered through the groups of people, chatting and laughing, her senses trained like a pistol toward the front door. He hadn’t come after all. Well, good in a way, she reassured herself; it made things far less complicated.
Halfway through the evening, Daisy’s servants brought out bowls of steaming rice, three different kinds of curries, chutneys, and poppadums. They set them down informally on the balcony on low tables with cushions around them. Someone had put “Lady Be Good” on the gramophone and the foggy sounds drifted across the balcony and down the streets below.
“Please join us.” Mr. Jamshed beamed at Viva and Tor. He was sitting cross-legged beside a low brass table. His plate was piled with food; his girls were all around him. “Chalo jumva avoji,” he said, “Come, let us eat. My girls are teasing me for being old-fashioned and I need you to give th
em stick,” he said to Viva in his beautiful English.
“You see,” Dolly appealed to Tor, who was goggle-eyed at all this, “we are discussing education, and what my poor father fails to understand is that we have actually skipped a generation. My mother behaves as your grandmother, but I am as modern as you.”
“No, wrong,” said Tor with that peculiar intensity that Viva liked about her. “Viva tells me that you’re studying law at the university, so you’re miles ahead of me. I left school at sixteen. I can barely add up.”
“I’m sure you’re very clever also,” Dolly said tactfully.
“I’m not,” Tor said. “I’m quite dim, and, by the way, none of the girls at my school went to university either. We learned to sew and speak bad French instead. But I can dance the Charleston if that’s any good to you.”
“Yes!” Dolly and Kaniz said together. Their white teeth gleamed in the moonlight. They were entranced with their new friend.
“Absoludol,” said Tor, standing up. “But first I need to get us all another drink and powder my nose. Will you come with me, Viva?”
As they stood side by side in the bathroom, Viva saw Tor was both tipsy and happy. She thanked Viva twice for bringing her here and walked with particular care, as if she were on castors, back through Daisy’s sitting room and onto the balcony again, into the milky softness of the night.
“A wonderful, wonderful party,” she said on her way through. “The strangest thing—I’ve hardly given Ollie a thought all evening. It’s such a relief.”
“I’m glad, Tor.” Viva, who’d been glancing toward the door all evening, felt like a complete hypocrite. She checked her watch surreptitiously one more time. Eleven thirty-five. Frank wouldn’t come now. Too busy after all maybe, or perhaps not busy at all but writing to some girl in England she knew nothing about, who he was madly in love with, or out at another party. There were always so many reasons for things not happening in the way you thought they might.
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