by Helen Harris
Ravi finished his last paper at five o’clock on a sweltering afternoon. He wrote his last sentence almost without realising it, superstitiously perfected his punctuation and when the invigilator announced that the time was up, left the hall in an estranged daze. Across the hall Dev signalled to him jubilantly and, out in the corridor, they hugged each other and beamed. Feeling almost hollow from fatigue and exhilaration, Ravi walked outside. On the steps, his friends were waiting to meet him. Still oddly drained of emotion, Ravi walked over to them. Their babble of greetings and congratulations broke over him, but for a moment he just looked blank and almost puzzled. Of course one of them was Sarah, but in his peculiar numb state somehow he could not single her out and put his arm around her. Nanda had to push her forward bossily and say to Ravi, ‘There’s someone here who’s got something to say to you.’
‘Quite dazed, my poor Ravi,’ Sarah said, taking him in her arms and he let himself be taken as if he were paralysed. All the others cheered and Sarah lifted the foaming mouth of a bottle of champagne to his lips and fed him with it like a doll.
Gradually, his trance cleared. The joy of achievement dawned on him and celebrations started to fill the void left by the exams.
Ravi’s tutor, Professor Elstree, gave a party for his third-year students and halfheartedly Ravi went along. He had never had much time for the professor, whom he considered pompous and insincere. Although he had not told Sarah about it, Professor Elstree’s reaction when he discovered that his Indian student had an English girl-friend had filled Ravi with an unforgettable rage. Sarah had been introduced to the professor at Christmas at a drinks ‘do’ he had held for his students. Ruddy and genial as always, he had shaken hands with her and later in the evening, when the mulled wine had dissolved his reserve, he had come across to Ravi – quite bluff and congratulatory – and, clapping him on the shoulder, had nodded at Sarah who was talking animatedly to his wife and declared jokily, ‘You’ve done very well for yourself there, Ravi my boy!’ The implication, as Ravi promptly saw it, that he should be grateful for having won Sarah, that she was somehow a trophy he should acknowledge with humble pride, had cut him to the quick. He had looked back at Professor Elstree with a frozen face and wished he could vomit the Christmas cake and the mulled wine, vomit the party from his consciousness. Since he told no one about this incident, it rankled with him for a long time and although Sarah never knew about it and certainly could not have been held responsible, it came between them insidiously.
The party for the third-years was held in the garden of Professor Elstree’s sprawling, suburban house; there were jugs of fruit punch on a table covered by a floral cloth and, in the dining room, a buffet of cold meats and flans. ‘Hey, a great spread,’ Sarah murmured to him as they were shown through into the garden. When the time came, she heaped her plate with game pie and multi-coloured salads and Ravi, who helped himself rather frugally as a matter of pride, found the sight of her sitting on the verandah steps and tucking into Mrs Elstree’s handiwork unreasonably annoying. He could hardly blame her, of course; he had not explained to her that she was feasting on an enemy’s offerings. But quite unfairly, he was prepared to find her irritating.
Professor Elstree came up to them as they were eating and boomed, ‘Well, what are you two going to do?’
‘I’m going back to India,’ Ravi said quickly.
And Sarah had to chip in, ‘And I’m going out there in the autumn.’
‘Are you?’ said Professor Elstree. ‘How fascinating!’ He turned to Ravi and asked, ‘What have you got in mind? The Civil Service?’
Although Ravi had of course considered taking the Civil Service exams, he found the assumption that he would be such a run-of-the-mill conformist rather galling. ‘No,’ he answered impetuously, ‘I was thinking of giving journalism a go.’
He sensed Sarah looking round at him in surprise. ‘It’s one of several ideas I’m playing with at the moment,’ he went on airily. ‘It all depends which way the wind’s blowing when I get back.’ It pleased him to imply that there were things about India that Professor Elstree could not understand.
‘Really?’ Professor Elstree said. ‘But it’s definitely to be India, is it? No question of staying on, as it were?’
Ravi’s toes curled with relish at the possibility of snubbing Professor Elstree. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘I think three years here is quite long enough.’
If he was slighted, what with bonhomie and punch, Professor Elstree gave no sign of it but laughed heartily and soon moved away to another group.
‘Honestly!’ Sarah said to Ravi afterwards, ‘did you have to say that to Professor Elstree? You might need him for a reference one day, you know.’
Although the thought did give Ravi a momentary qualm, he answered hotly, ‘Professor Elstree’s one of the main reasons why I shall be glad to shake the dust of this place from my feet.’
Their last afternoon in Oxford was spent, as Sarah had once sadly predicted, packing Ravi’s stuff. Mrs Livingstone had driven up to collect Sarah’s belongings the previous day and commented wistfully that it seemed only yesterday when she had brought her there for the first time. Querulously, she expressed concern that Sarah should be leaving the university with her future so undecided. Sarah was rude to her, annoyed that her mother should have identified her own worry so accurately. She helped Ravi sort his belongings into those worth packing and sending home and those to be left behind. He did not suggest that she took anything as a keepsake, but then that was not his way. And what would have been the point, anyway, when they were only parting until the autumn? Both of them hated sentimentality, above all. Sarah had to wait until Ravi was temporarily out of the room in order surreptitiously to retrieve a slightly torn silk kurta from the discarded pile and slip it into her handbag. Mended, she would wear it as a nightshirt until October.
In the evening, of course, they went to the Shah Jehan: Ravi, Sarah, Sunil, Dev, Dilip, Rajiv and Nanda. Sunil, wonderfully recovered, had been offered a grant to stay on and study for a doctorate. He viewed everyone else’s emotion at leaving with patronising phlegm; he had evaded the future which terrified him. Dev was going to America. He would stay for a while with his married sister in Washington and then he planned to travel for a bit, to see something of the world. Dilip, Rajiv, Nanda and Ravi were going home. And although this struck Sarah as the most cowardly option, she noticed that they seemed to treat the others with a kind of contempt, as though they were the cowards dodging the issue, while the four of them had taken up an invigorating challenge. Nanda was going to be a teacher (the most unadventurous profession imaginable, Sarah thought) and yet she seemed the most stridently convinced of them all that her path was the most challenging, the most irreproachable. It was almost excessively tolerant, Sarah thought, the way no one disagreed with her. When they had had some wine and lager, because it was their very last evening, Nanda even became rather shrill, shrieking, ‘Rats! Rats leaving the sinking ship!’ and giggling hysterically.
Sunil said, ‘Ah, you’ll all end up wishing you were me, well out of the hurly-burly in my little academic niche.’
Dev clapped him on the shoulder. ‘That’s right, you’ll be our shining star, Mr Sircar, a scholar of world renown. We shall look out for your name in the newspapers.’
‘Rat!’ giggled Nanda. ‘Rodent!’
‘You mustn’t have any more wine,’ Sarah said to her with mock solemnity. ‘You’re becoming an embarrassment.’
‘Oh, leave her alone,’ said Ravi. ‘She’s not doing anyone any harm.’
‘He springs to my defence!’ Nanda boasted. ‘He’s not a rat.’
‘No, he’s a lizard,’ Sarah said, ‘wriggling quickly out of reach because he’s frightened of being caught and losing his tail.’
Those who had heard burst out laughing and Ravi flushed with annoyance.
‘Talk about the pot calling the kettle–’ he said to Sarah. ‘How much have you had to drink?’
‘Only enough to
dull my feelings,’ Sarah said, ‘only enough to drown my sorrows.’
Dev said he would come back to India around the world, via California and the Pacific.
Sunil looked pensive. ‘Maybe when I’ve done my doctorate I’ll get a fellowship in the States,’ he said. ‘Do you think Berkeley would be interesting? Or better, Harvard or Yale?’
For a moment Nanda, Dilip, Rajiv and Ravi looked at him enviously. But then Rajiv crowed, ‘Sold your soul, old boy! Sold your soul.’
*
And then, the next day, Ravi and Sarah caught a train to London. They walked to the railway station holding hands and sat side by side for the short journey, not saying much. Still, they could not believe that this was the end. Still, it seemed, they would take up again in the autumn – not there maybe, but only somewhere else. Later on they would not be able to remember that departure; sometimes it is not the real events which remain, but the accompanying irrelevances which linger unwanted for years. It was a hot day and the caked train window was jammed shut. Ravi kicked off his sandals and put his feet up on the empty seat opposite them. Half-way to London, a ticket collector pulled open the door of their compartment and looked down at Ravi with distaste. He was lolling back with one arm around Sarah and simply held out the other to offer the man their tickets. ‘Feet off the seat, if you please,’ the man snapped. ‘We don’t do that in this country.’ The shock stopped either of them from expressing their rage and the ticket collector was gone with a vicious bang of the door before Sarah thought of exclaiming, ‘Bloody racist!’ and Ravi shrugged disdainfully, ‘Ignorant peasant.’
They had a month. As a concession to Sarah, Ravi was staying on in England for four extra weeks. There were ways in which he could easily explain this to his parents: waiting to hear his exam results, clearing up business matters and belongings, saying goodbye to friends. At some expense, they rented a rather unpleasant little room in South London, for it would have been intolerable to spend those last weeks at Sarah’s parents’ house. Her parents accepted this, perhaps dimly hoping that the dilemma might be resolved in favour of their daughter. The one dinner at the house in the white crescent which Ravi came to during that time was still an awful experience; he sat under what he felt to be their silent reproach and could barely chew his chicken. Mr Livingstone made one or two bluff male attempts to pretend that this was not the case, that of course Ravi was under no pressure at all, but his ham-handed questions – ‘Well, what will be your fondest memory of England, visually speaking?’ – only left worse silences in their wake. Mrs Livingstone said goodbye to him with large and what he imagined to be imploring eyes; at the door, she actually darted forward and gave him a little kiss, saying, ‘Now, you know you’ll always be welcome here.’ They were glad to go back to their gloomy room. ‘I’m sorry they were like that,’ Sarah said to him. ‘Honestly, if I’d known, I would never have gone.’
In different circumstances, they could have enjoyed playing house in their poky room. But the communal kitchen was unappetising and, in any case, they did not feel like creating a cosy domestic illusion. They had very little money, so they could not eat out every night, which would at least have given them the impression of extravagance, going out on a high note. They ended up bringing back take-away meals – neon-pink Chinese food and suspect kebabs – and eating them on the bed because there was no room on the table. There was no proper way to do their washing either. Although Ravi had suggested it, pride stopped Sarah from taking their laundry home to put it in her mother’s washing machine. Instead, they resorted to washing things in bits in the wash-basin and hanging them precariously around the room to dry. The bathroom at the end of the corridor was something of a joke; it was so nasty that they pretended to be frightened to use it. In fact they were frightened of being infected by the house’s gloom.
They only had a month, so they tried to enjoy it. During the day, they went to one of the parks or to an exhibition. Sometimes they met up with Sunil, who was also staying in London until the results came out, and the three of them talked idly for hours. They went to pubs and cheap cafés. Sarah could not help feeling it was a bit of a shame to be in London in the summer. She would have preferred to be at the cottage in Wales. But Ravi needed to be there to arrange his departure. Every day there was something connected with it which had to be done: luggage to be registered, final gifts and unobtainable medicines to be bought. A spate of imperious letters arrived from Lucknow requesting essential items which Ravi was to bring. They were addressed to the family with whom Sunil was staying, where every few days Ravi and Sarah went to collect them. Usually Ravi read them aloud, chuckling and raging, ‘Five badger shaving-brushes! Badger? What am I supposed to do? Organise a hunting safari?’, but one day, he did not read the letter and flung it aside in a rage.
‘What do they want now?’ Sarah asked. She was beginning to resent these querulous, almost daily reminders that Ravi’s duty lay elsewhere. ‘What do they want now?’
Ravi dismissed the letter with a disgusted gesture. ‘It’s rubbish.’
‘Who is it from? What do they say?’
‘Oh, never mind.’
‘No, go on, tell me. We’ve got so much to get anyway.’
‘I said, never mind. It’s not about shopping.’
‘What is it about then? It’s from your father, isn’t it?’
‘Look Sarah, forget it, it’s of no interest.’
‘It’s of interest to me.’
‘Well, you’re mistaken. It’s just a stupid crackpot idea he’s come up with, which isn’t worth explaining.’
‘I think it’s a bit much, when I’ve spent all this time traipsing around the shops with you getting things for them and then when I ask you one simple question, you won’t answer it.’
Ravi considered her flushed face across the room. For less than a second, he wondered what her reaction would have been if he had picked up his father’s letter from the floor and read out to her: ‘Upon your return, I propose that we have a discussion on certain pressing matters, of which you are well aware. I am sure that you have not forgotten Major Mehrotra’s charming and sweet-natured daughter …’ But of course he just shrugged and sighed and for the rest of that day, Sarah noticed, he seemed sullen and depressed.
Perhaps Ravi slightly resented that extra month he had given Sarah – for that was how he saw it. It was not that he was raring to go home; the letter had reminded him that, God knows, there would be problems enough for him to face there too. But he found it infuriating that, having extracted this month from him, Sarah was now spoiling so much of it by bickering and grumbling.
Imminent separation exaggerated everything, of course; this was the last week, the last weekend, the last chicken curry, the last sex. Walking through the streets of London, Ravi saw them very clearly because he was about to leave them for good. He supposed the same must go for Sarah too. He certainly saw her very acutely during those last few weeks, though whether that was just because she was behaving more noticeably, he could not tell. Of course, he was going to miss her a lot. Her lovable qualities were highlighted, as well as her cantankerous shrillness. But since they had to part, he told himself there was no point in dwelling on those. Did he ever question that necessity, ever wonder privately if perhaps he was wrong to be so adamant? Maybe, who knew, perhaps their crazy experiment could work after all? Of course, awake in the middle of the night, eaten up with regret and guilt, he tried to imagine it. Sarah was sitting up beside him, painstakingly memorising his face in the dark, and this proof of the scale of her love devastated him. He wanted to open his arms and take her, saying, ‘All right, come with me, let’s give it a try.’ But just as he began to open his eyelids, panic seized him and he thought, ‘My God, I’m out of my mind. What am I doing?’ and he forced his eyes to stay shut, pretended to be fast asleep, with a harsh expression on his face. Their parting was going to be hard enough, without his adding to the anguish.
*
She was looking forward to
her trip already. Without the promise that in the autumn she would be going away – not just away to Ravi, but away from England as well – she would not have known how to face the future. What was there in England, for heaven’s sake, as exciting as Ravi Kaul? What was there in the tiny world of English job options that her friends were now entering, which could compare with the prospect of travelling four thousand miles to a different life altogether? She relied on her dream and she clung to Ravi because at any moment he might disappear.
She knew by then – had long known – that Ravi Kaul could get on fine without her. Sometimes she imagined herself injured, drowning in front of him, so that he would be forced to act and to show that he cared about her. But it was ridiculous after all to expect him to want her as much as she wanted him. Things were different in India and it would have been presumptuous to expect Ravi, who had grown up with a different set of rules, to convert to hers just like that. So she explained to herself what sometimes looked like indifference. And even if really, deep down, he had wished himself rid of her, her dream actually no longer needed reciprocation. It could sustain her love by itself.
They decided to do something really lavish on their last evening. Otherwise, it had been an unremarkable day. They had packed, argued over the size and quantity of Ravi’s suitcases and remembered, in a panic-stricken rush, to reconfirm his flight. In the early afternoon, Sunil had turned up and sat slightly irritatingly with them as they finished packing, a wistful expression disguised as wry irony on his face. ‘Homeward bound,’ he murmured, shaking his head at the expanse of hand luggage and wide-open suitcases. Sarah did her best to turn her back on him, not in the mood for a facetious exchange, but Ravi – unaccountably smug – looked up from where he was squatting, rolling a gift cassette recorder inside a pair of jeans, and joked back, ‘You’re green with envy!’