Dishonored

by Maria Barrett

  “What? Like some kind of trail?”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps a book of verse and illustrations. I don’t know, that is up to you, Ramesh. But it must be ingenious, that is why I have asked you.”

  Rami bowed his head and smiled tensely, acknowledging the compliment. “Can I use someone to help me? If I were to make a book of some sort?”

  Viki’s face darkened. “You must think carefully, Rami, it has to be someone you would trust your life with.” He stubbed out his cigarette. “That is what you would be doing.”

  Rami nodded and fell silent again. The burden of what he had been asked to do was enormous. He looked at Shiva. It was a burden but it was also a challenge and already the swift intellect of his mind had risen to that challenge. It was the chance to prove himself, to be a bonus to his grandfather. It was a task that no one else could do. He looked again at Shiva. “Dadaji?”

  “It is a great honor, Ramesh, you do not need me to tell you that,” Shiva said.

  “No.” Then he looked across at Viki and realized that this responsibility was only a small portion of what the maharajah had to bear. And for the first time in his life he clearly saw Vikram Singh, Maharajah of Baijur, behind the charming, easygoing Viki. He was an Indian; he knew what he had to do.

  “I will be happy to serve you always,” he said quietly.

  Viki leaned forward and touched his arm. “Thank you, Ramesh.” He smiled briefly for the first time since they had sat at the table. “I knew that I could trust you.”

  15

  JANE CAME OUT OF THE BUNGALOW AND WAVED TO KHANSAMA, holding her small packet up in a gesture of thanks. The cook waved back, smiling and nodding, and as Jane placed the waxed paper bag in her basket, he opened the kitchen window and called, “Namaste, memsahib!” standing with two house boys to wave her off. Jane grinned, climbed on to her bicycle and adjusted her hat, making sure it was quite secure on her head. She had this procedure every morning, with one or another of the servants waving her off, but it never ceased to delight her. Turning her bike around and setting her feet on the pedals, she glanced back, waved a final time and cycled off down the drive, out on to the main driveway to the palace and then toward the city.

  Ramesh was early in the city. He stood outside the bookshop waiting for the man to open it, and watched the business of the street going on around him. He was in the poorer section of Baijur; it was the only place a poetry bookshop could afford to have premises and he stared at the day-to-day living of the people as they started another day of life on the pavements—their cooking over small charcoal fires, their washing at the taps on the street corner, the rolling up of their bedding and the repairs to the plastic sheeting, the strips of canvas that covered them at night, as they started another day of life on the pavements. It wasn’t unusual, it was a sight to be seen all over Baijur, all over India, with so many people living on the streets but he had been away for too long; it shocked him every time he saw it, and it filled him with helplessness.

  Turning away toward the bookshop, Rami looked at the posters pasted across the window to take his mind off the scene behind him but it was impossible; the noise level was a constant reminder. He listened to the din, the loud incessant chatter, the shouts and laughter of the children, the motor rickshaws, cars and cattle, and in the end gave up trying to distract himself. He turned, leaned back against the wall and watched.

  The next thing he saw made him stand bolt upright,

  “My God!” He stepped forward and waved his arms in the air. “Jane? Jane! Over here!” He hurried to the edge of the road and called her again. Finally she looked up.

  “Rami! Hello!” She straightened and put her hand up to her eyes to shield them from the sun. “Wait there! I’ll come across.” She said something to the woman squatting on the pavement, who smiled and reached out to touch her hand, then she wheeled her bicycle to the edge of the road, waited for a break in the traffic and crossed.

  “Good morning, Rami!” Jane propped her bicycle up on the curb. ‘What are you doing here?”

  Rami glanced behind at the poetry bookshop. “I came to buy a couple of books.” He looked at her face and smiled. Every time he left her he expected that she would be different the next time he saw her but she wasn’t, not ever, she was always exactly the same; the honesty of her smile, the clear, open look of her face charmed him. “What about you? What are you doing here?”

  Jane took off her hat and dropped it in the basket. She flicked her hair back in an attempt to make herself look a little more appealing. “I come here to draw, quite often.” She had forgotten how attractive Rami was, or maybe not forgotten, she thought, avoiding his gaze, deliberately ignored. “I’ve made a few friends,” she said, glancing back at the woman she had been talking to. “People pose for me, I give them a few rupees.” She blushed as she said this, waiting for Rami’s disapproval.

  “That’s very kind,” he said.

  Jane looked at him. “Phillip says it’s stupid. He says it’s not my problem.” She dug her hands in her pockets and glanced away again. “I bring a bit of food most days, for the children, a few sweets, some fruit, khansama packs me a little bag.” Her cheeks were burning but she felt she’d been caught out so she might as well confess the whole thing. “I don’t tell Phillip, I don’t think he would understand.”

  Rami was silent for a few moments, then he said, “You would make him feel ashamed, Jane, as you do me.”

  Jane looked up and Rami smiled at her. “I think—”

  “Mrs. Mills, Mrs. Mills!”

  They both swung around.

  “Mrs. Mills, Mrs. Mills!” A small gang of children chanted at Jane from across the road, breaking off into fits of giggles. Jane laughed. “Wait there!” she called across. “I have something in my basket for you!” She turned to Rami. “If you’ll excuse me?”

  He grinned. “Of course!”

  Jane reached into her basket and took out the bag, glancing across the road as she did so. “No!” she shouted at a little girl who had jumped off the pavement. “Wait there! I am coming across to you!” She hurriedly looked right and left but couldn’t see a break in the traffic.

  “Usha! Wait there!” The little girl had darted into the middle of the road and was waiting to run across to Jane. Jane stepped off the pavement but the traffic was relentless. She saw a break, a van some way off, and hurried forward. She didn’t look left and nor did the little girl who had seen the same break. She was two paces away when she heard Rami’s voice. Glancing back, she saw his face, the look of horror, then turning her head sideways she caught sight of the truck. It was the last thing she saw. Diving forward, she caught the child off balance and pushed her back with such force that the little girl’s body cracked as it hit the ground. The child screamed. The screech of brakes, the scream and Rami’s voice were all she remembered. Then she felt a thud, then nothing. The sky went black.

  “Oh my God! Jane!” Rami had run out into the road but it was too late. He heard the wailing of the child, saw her mother scoop her up, but Jane lay motionless, inches away from the truck. He knelt, his hands shaking, and gently brushed the hair from her face. He put his fingers on her neck, felt her pulse and, moments later, bent his head. “Thank God for that,” he murmured. He looked up at the crowd that had started to form. “She’s alive! You, run into the bookshop and get the owner! It’s over there.” He pointed behind him and took his kurta off, rolling it up and gently placing it under Jane’s head. “Hurry!” he shouted after the man.

  Seconds later the owner ran across the road to Rami. “Rameshji! Who is it? A friend, eh?” He knelt by Rami’s side.

  “Yes. Ashok, call the palace, they will take care of it, tell them I am here and it is Mrs. Mills. They will send an ambulance right away.” The bookshop owner scrambled to his feet and set off. The traffic had stopped and people began to press around to see what was happening. The crowd had doubled. “Ashok?” Rami shouted. “Tell them there is a child as well, they will need transpor
t for her! I will take care of it, tell them that I will pay!” The man held his hand up in answer as he ran. “And hurry,” Rami murmured under his breath. “Please, please hurry.”

  It was dark when Jane came around. The day had disappeared as it always did, quickly and without twilight, and Rami stood at the window, staring out into the grounds of the clinic, looking at the dark shapes of the trees against an ink-black sky. He turned as he heard Jane sigh and was looking at her as she opened her eyes.

  “Ramesh?” She moved her head toward him and lifted her hand. “Ouch, that hurts!”

  “Jane!” He hurried to the bed. “Thank goodness!” The relief in his voice made her want to smile but her face was too sore. “How do you feel?”

  Jane frowned and rolled her eyes upward. “Do I have a bandage on my head?”

  He smiled. “Yes, you have a cut on your forehead and a broken nose.”

  “Oh God!” She groaned. “I must look wretched!”

  “You also have a bruised shoulder and a sprained wrist, on the left hand, thank God!” She was right-handed. “You were very, very lucky!”

  “What happened? I got hit, yes?”

  He nodded.

  “By a car?”

  “No, a truck. You managed to get the child out of the way but—”

  “Usha?” Jane’s face creased with worry. “Is she all right? What happened to her? She’s not—?”

  Rami lay his hand over Jane’s. “She’s here, in the clinic. She’s fine.” He squeezed her hand. “You saved her life,” he said. “She would have been killed by that truck.”

  “I did?”

  He laughed quietly. “Yes, you did.”

  “So where am I? And what time is it?”

  “You’re in a private clinic, one that the maharajah uses.” He glanced at his watch. “And it’s seven P.M.”

  “God! Seven o’clock!” Suddenly Jane tried to lift her head off the pillow. “Phillip! What about Phillip? He’ll be worried sick!”

  Rami gently pushed her back down. “Phillip knows where you are, and what has happened. Relax, you must not get excited.”

  “He does?”

  “Yes, he…” Rami broke off as Jane looked away. He saw her eyes fill with tears. “He rang to see if you were all right.”

  Jane nodded, bitterly disappointed, and her tears ran down to stain the crisp, white, cotton pillowcase. “I’m sorry, it’s the shock of the accident,” she said, but it was more. It was the terrible, sick feeling that Phillip didn’t care, that he should have, could have been there but he chose not to be. She turned her face right away so that Rami couldn’t see the extent of her distress.

  “He is in a very important meeting, Jane, he really couldn’t get away,” Rami lied, cursing himself for being so tactless. Phillip had rung but once he knew it wasn’t serious he told the nurse he would see Jane in the morning, when she felt better. “He thought you should rest,” he finished lamely and turned away. Taking his bag off the chair, he said, “So, you’ll have to make do with me, I’m afraid, if you are not too tired, that is.”

  Jane brightened slightly. He really was so very kind. “No, I’m not tired at all, just a little sore.”

  “Well, I have just the thing to take your mind off your aches and pains,” Rami announced, taking a box from his bag. He sat down and pulled the table up to Jane’s bed. “There were two things that I learned in England that proved invaluable while I was there.”

  Jane smiled. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. The first,” he said, standing to pour her some water, “was to always carry an umbrella, whatever time of the year, whatever the weather.” He held the glass for her and Jane took a couple of sips.

  “The second?” she asked, lying back.

  Rami produced the box and laid it on the table. “Scrabble,” he said. “Part of the English way of life.”

  Surprised, Jane started to laugh, but it hurt too much. “Please, don’t make me laugh! My face feels as if it’s done ten rounds with Cassius Clay!”

  “Oh dear, oh dear me, Mrs. Mills, I am so sorry to be making you laugh!” Rami pressed his palms together and nodded his head as he spoke in his Delhi accent. He smiled as Jane moaned through her giggles. “Now, the game!” He took the board and felt bag of letters out of the box and began to set the Scrabble up. Jane watched him and thought how considerate and gentle he was, how different from Phillip. Suddenly, she didn’t mind about Phillip, well, not as much as she had.

  “Jane?” Rami glanced up, his face suddenly serious. “Remember to remind me that I have to ask you something when you are feeling a little bit better. For some help with a task I have to do. Please?”

  She nodded. “What task?”

  He smiled. “When you are feeling better.”

  “Is this to make me recover quicker? Or else be consumed with curiosity?”

  “Perhaps.” He finished organizing the game. Sitting by her side that afternoon, he had decided to ask her to help him with Viki’s work, to illustrate what he would write. He had decided, without knowing why, that he would trust Jane Mills with his life. “Shall we start, Mrs. Mills?” he asked.

  “Yes, if you like, Mr. Rai.”

  He held out the bag. “There is something I had better tell you, before we play.”

  Jane’s face fell. “Oh?”

  He smiled. “Yes. That I am excellent at Scrabble and you will never beat me.”

  “Oh really?” Jane took her letters.

  “Yes, really.” Rami took his. “Oh.” He had three Us, a Z and a Q, and two Ts. “Except on a Tuesday,” he said, “I never play well on a Tuesday.”

  Phillip knocked lightly on Jane’s bedroom door and glanced quickly at his watch as she called out for him to enter. It was nine-fifteen and he was due in a meeting with Viki at half-past. He had ten minutes to spare. Shouldn’t take longer than ten minutes, he thought, fiddling with the rose on her breakfast tray, he was, after all, her husband and his word would be final.

  “Hello, darling.” He crossed to the bed, carefully placing the tray on the bedside table and leaning in to kiss Jane’s cheek. She turned the better one toward him and he kissed the only patch of skin that wasn’t discolored with bruising. “How are you this morning?”

  “Fine, thank you, Phillip.” Jane sat up and tensely pulled her robe in a little closer, covering her chest. Ever since the accident, since his obvious lack of concern, she had really begun to find his company irritating, insincere more than anything else and this made her uneasy. She had also begun to lose patience with him; she didn’t bother to cover her feelings up quite as carefully as she might have done.

  “What can I do for you this morning?” she asked curtly.

  Phillip poured her tea, then handed her the tray. “Janey, I want to talk to you, about this dinner tonight,” he said. “Sugar?”

  Jane shook her head. “Just lemon. And the answer is still no, I don’t feel ready to face anyone yet.”

  Phillip plopped a slice of lemon into the cup. “You look perfectly all right,” he said tersely. “There’s nothing wrong with you that a little bit of makeup won’t cover.”

  Jane clenched her jaw. “Phillip!” She turned her face full on to him. “Look at me, for goodness sake! I have the remains of two black eyes and most of my face is bruised! Not to mention the scar on my forehead!”

  Phillip averted his eyes from her face. She was right, he thought grudgingly, she did look a bit of a mess. “No one will be in the slightest bit bothered about what you look like, Janey,” he said, more kindly. “It’s just an evening with old friends, Johnny and his wife are desperate to meet you and you’ve only been to the club once in the whole time we’ve been here.” He handed her the tea. “Please, Jane, it would mean a lot to me.”

  Jane looked away. “I’m sorry, Phillip, but no, I’m really not up to it.”

  “Well, you’ve been quite up to gallivanting about with that bloody Indian fellow! Every day for over a week now you’ve been out with him and
you say you can’t face a dinner with friends! What’s he got that I haven’t, Jane?”

  “That is totally uncalled for!” Jane shoved the breakfast tray to the side and stood up. “I think you’d better leave.”

  Phillip turned angrily away. He put his hands up to his temples and took a breath. “Look, I’m sorry, Jane, you’re right, it was totally uncalled for.” This was his last chance to have dinner with Johnny and Hannah Wakeman and he was sick of making excuses, sick of missing out on what was going on at the club because Jane refused to go. “It is odd, though,” he said, “that you are fit enough to go out and about with Mister Rai but not to go out in the evenings with me.”

  Jane sighed. “Phillip, we’ve been through all this! I told you, I go out for a couple of hours and draw, I’m helping him with a book he’s writing, that’s all. I don’t have to make polite conversation or be witty or social, I don’t have to face anyone except Rami. It’s completely different to being seen at the club!”

  “Is it?”

  Jane suddenly slumped down on the bed; she was tired of all this, this was the third time it had come up and she had lost the energy to fight anymore. She simply couldn’t be bothered. “Look, if it really means that much to you, Phillip, I’ll come.”

  He saw her face, miserable and exhausted, ashen behind the angry purple, blue and yellow bruises but he was unmoved by the sight. “You promise?”

  Jane looked up at him and suddenly it hit her. It was more than irritation, more than lack of patience. When had it happened? When had they lost touch, stopped liking each other almost? She supposed it must have been the accident, she couldn’t think of any other explanation for it. Miserably, she nodded. “Yes, of course, if you insist,” she said. As if she would go back on her word!

  Phillip turned toward the door. It was only a dinner, an evening at the club, for Christ’s sake, why did Jane have to make such heavy weather of it? It wasn’t as if she were any beauty, devastated at losing her looks.

  “Right then,” he said coolly, glancing back, his hand on the door. “I’ll see you tonight. We’re expected at eight.”