by Paul Scott
Somewhere like bloody Stevenage was where Feibergerstein Industries of Boston, London and Amsterdam had acquired Smith, Brown & McKintosh’s interest in a pharmaceutical company. Feibergersteins were also big in the chemical fertilizer industry. They had also recently acquired control of Smith, Brown & McKintosh, who had run a shipping and general merchandise agency in India for over 80 years, and employed Tusker on his retirement from the army for ten of them as their administrative manager, at a salary that had sounded to Lucy glamorous in comparison with his army pay and which, together with the paid-for business trip home in 1950 and the prospect of more to come had accommodated her to the idea of staying-on yet again; until she realized that Tusker’s personality change on leaving the army involved him in spending money like water, gambling, drinking, getting involved with the tax-authorities, the customs and with the police over the Bombay liquor laws; and finally, it seemed, with Mrs Poppadoum.
In her heart Lucy had never believed that Tusker had misbehaved with Mrs Poppadoum. The Mrs Poppadoums of this world were beyond old Tusker’s reach. Sigrid Poppadoum was young, Swedish by birth, a tall blonde beauty who (Lucy was convinced) made eyes at everything in trousers to annoy her prickly little Indian husband (whose third wife she was) who could steer government contracts the way of Feibergerstein and Smith, Brown and McKintosh, and whose nephew, trained at a business school in the States, had become a protege of Solly Feibergerstein and been placed by him at Smith, Brown and McKintosh in Bombay as a young but senior executive. Mr Feibergerstein’s wife, Mary-Lou, had said to Lucy when visiting with him in Bombay, “Solly railly berlaives in Indian-ah-zaershun, which ah guess you British never railly did.”
For years now it had been clear to Lucy in retrospect that poor old Tusker had been for the chop the moment Solly Feibergerstein set eyes on him and had seen nothing but an old dug-out, an old Sahib whom Smith, Brown and McKintosh should never have employed when there were competent young men looking for jobs. But at the time it had simply seemed to her that Tusker was digging his own grave, complaining that that “young twit Poppadoum’s nephew” was after his job, that he wouldn’t trust Solly Feibergerstein farther than he could throw Poppadoum, but doing nothing to prove Mr Feibergerstein wrong in his assessment of Tusker’s own capabilities. The opposite in fact.
And today, drinking another gulp of gin and lime, still shaking from the effort of having thrown the poaching pan at him, she still could not forgive him for the débâcle. There had been that incident at the Taj, when – half-cut yet again – he had bitten Mrs Poppadoum’s ear, spilt his wine and said “**** it,” which had made Sigrid Poppadoum laugh and laugh but caused her husband great offence, and Solly and Mary-Lou (and Mr Sylvester, the Managing Director of Smith, Brown & McKintosh) to smile bleakly in that way Lucy remembered the old race of British Sahibs and Memsahibs smiling if you did anything not quite pukka. For this smile to be effective and eloquent the lips had to twitch but turn down at the corners and the eyes be cast down for no more than a couple of seconds, and then raised and a new topic of conversation then introduced. Watching them, Lucy realized that nothing had changed for her, because there was this new race of sahibs and memsahibs of international status and connexion who had taken the place of generals and Mrs Generals, and she and Tusker had become for them almost as far down in the social scale as the Eurasians were in the days of the raj.
“Tusker’s worth the lot of them put together,” she had thought but the thought had lasted only a moment and the ghost of it, returning to haunt her now, gave her no comfort. He had been the most awful bloody fool. You simply couldn’t survive in the world by speaking your mind and acting as you felt, moment by moment. It was all wrong, wrong. There were times for this, conditions for that. Of this timing Tusker had long ago lost his intuitive awareness. He had thrown his bonnet over impossible windmills. His unreasonable rage, when faced with the consequences, was the rage of a child.
He was right in one thing, though. It had been attempted blackmail: the choice offered of going home to work out the last year and take a pension, or of taking almost immediate separation in India and a piddling sum by way of compensation for loss of office. He had taken the compensation.
She had had no say in it. She had protested. She had cried. She had beaten him over the head with a newspaper. It had been like trying to knock sense into something composed only of temper and vapours and obstinacy and stupidity. And where had the compensation gone? It had gone – most of it on that absurd extravagant trip round India which had ended in Pankot. “One last look,” he said. They were still looking. But the rest of it had gone too. Like his compensation from the army. How was it possible for money to go so quickly?
And where was the written statement she had asked for during their last quarrel? The clear statement of the position she would be in if he dropped dead? Where was that? She drained her glass and left the kitchen in a mood to demand it again; but on the way through the living-room something caught her eye at last: a piece of paper stuck under the telephone. The writing was in block capitals so she did not need her spectacles. It was Tusker’s hand. The note said: David Turner. Ranpur 34105.
At that moment Tusker came in carrying the poaching pan. He went to the kitchen and started to clatter. A tap was run. A saucepan fell. He swore. She went in to him.
“For Heaven’s sake, Tusker, go out and sit down and stop this absurd display of sulks. I’ll poach your silly egg.”
“I can poach my own silly egg. I’m not a fool. And I don’t like being made a fool of.”
“Who in Heaven’s name is making a fool of you?”
“You for one. By that for instance.” He pointed at the telephone note, then picked up another saucepan. “Made me sound a proper Charlie, didn’t you? May I speak to Mrs Smalley, he says. She’s out I say. Is that Colonel Smalley, he says, this is David Turner. Who? I say. Turner, he says. So I say, What? And he says Turner. David Turner. Guy and Sarah Perron’s friend, so I say are you sure you’ve got the right number because I don’t know anyone called Guy and Sarah Perron, this is Pankot 542. Yes, that’s the number I have, he says. So I took his.”
He looked absurd, standing there at the sink, holding a pan under the running tap and not looking at what he was doing, looking at her instead, accusingly, so that suddenly the water caught the rim of the pan and sprayed out, drenching his bush shirt. He flung the pan in the sink but it fell on its side and so he got drenched again before turning the tap off.
She sat on a stool, both hands clasped to her mouth, the telephone note crumpled between them, trying to stop herself laughing out loud.
He grabbed a towel, rubbed his shirt, grabbed a glass, poured gin, then lime, and stalked out, leaving her amid the ruins of an abortive attempt to cook an egg. She cleared the mess up, dried a saucepan, felt the hot-plate by putting her hand near it. It wasn’t even lukewarm yet. She put some butter into the pan, then beat up two eggs in a bowl; left bowl, pan, salt and pepper and milk ready on the draining board; poured herself another gin and went out to join him.
She sat down. “I was going to explain about Mr Turner today or tomorrow, but he’s earlier getting in touch than I expected, so let me tell you about him now.”
“No need. Told me himself.”
“Yes, I see.” She sighed – sitting there, ankles neatly crossed, glass held in two hands resting on her lap. “It’s another of those mornings when I have to be endlessly patient. I mean with myself. I mustn’t let myself become frustrated by evidence of my increasing inability to comprehend what is said to me.” She gave a little laugh. “Do you know, Tusker, it’s so strange? I’d somehow managed to get the impression that a young man unknown to you had telephoned, that you had a short conversation with him which ended abruptly with your taking his number and subsequently becoming crosser and crosser at the thought that he might have put the phone down imagining he’d been talking to someone not fully in possession of his senses and that this was entirely due to the fact that you
r wife had forgotten to warn you about him and therefore made a fool of you? However did I get that extraordinary idea?”
“Irony doesn’t suit you.”
“Nothing does. I’m coming to that conclusion. Nothing suits me. Since I apparently can’t tell you anything about Mr Turner you don’t know, however, and you’re obviously not in a mood to tell me what you do know, I think I’ll go and ring him now.”
“You can’t very well, can you?”
She thought that out for a few moments. “You mean he’s not in for the rest of the day? Something like that?”
“I mean you can’t ring him because you haven’t got his number.”
She closed her eyes, gently.
“I’m sorry, Tusker. I’m afraid I didn’t have my spectacles on again. All I could read was a telephone number in Ranpur, written in block capitals with the little Biro I gave you for your birthday. I must have failed to notice something written in smaller print. For example something to the effect that the Ranpur number is the one to reach him on a certain date but not before because he is in transit just now?”
“He’s not in transit. He’s in Delhi.”
“He rang from Delhi?”
“He said he was in Delhi. Presumably he rang from there.”
“I know he was in Delhi because he wrote to tell me so. He said he expected to be in Ranpur on Tuesday and would ring me then, which is why I said he’s a day or two early getting in touch.”
“So what are you making a fuss about?”
“I suppose it’s my stupid little way. Just as it’s your stupid little way to obfuscate. So shall we take a short cut and try to establish between us some mutual understanding about the reason he left his Ranpur telephone number, for instance whether we are to ring him, or he is to ring us, and what his intentions are about arriving in Pankot, and when, and whether he wants us to make his hotel booking for him?”
“Which of that lot do you want establishing first?”
“I have no particular preference, Tusker. It seems to me a simple enough list. But if it confuses you let’s start with his expected time of arrival in Pankot.”
“Wednesday morning.”
“Good. That means he’s coming on the night train and since the night train comes up from Ranpur we can take it he’ll be in Ranpur by Tuesday evening at the latest.”
“Tuesday morning.”
“So some time on Tuesday I can ring this number in Ranpur should I wish. Either that or he may ring us. Now, Tusker, perhaps the only remaining point to be settled is the reason why he may want to ring us or us to ring him. Let me hazard a little guess. Could it be he’ll want to know whether we have been able to book his hotel room? Perhaps, since you seem to have had such a long and friendly conversation with him after all, you even volunteered to do that and it’s just a question of letting him know by phone on Tuesday whether he should tell the taxi to bring him to The Shiraz or to Smith’s.”
“He said he’d prefer Smith’s because he’s heard all about it from Sarah.”
“Yes, that fits in, Tusker. That’s also why he’s chosen to come by train. He wants to do everything in the old way. How long is he staying?”
“Two nights.”
“That’s about what I thought. I hope you agree, Tusker, that although we can’t put him up here, we must still treat him as a guest, and pick up his bill. And that one, sometimes both of us, must give time to him and take him around and see that he’s fed. We must treat him as the friend of an old friend, because that’s what he is.”
“Ha!” he said. “I suppose you mean Sarah. You used to criticize her. You used to suggest she was unsound.”
“There was a time when she gave one cause to wonder. She more than made up for it later by standing by her family through all their little troubles. I’m not going to discuss that with you, Tusker. I hope you’ve said nothing to Ibrahim?”
“I haven’t said anything to Ibrahim.”
“He would only tell Minnie and I want it to be a surprise to her. Mr Turner is bringing her a present from Sarah and Sarah’s sister Susan.”
“He’s got your blue rinse too.”
Her cheek became a little warm. “How nice. Lovely. Susy can use the whole of my very last packet and not just the halves we’ve been using to eke it out.”
“Perhaps you’d get to the point.”
“I’m glad you realize there is a point, Tusker. The point as I see it is that I don’t see how we can afford to pick up Mr Turner’s bill at Smith’s and feed him at the Club or at the Shiraz, both of which are so much more expensive than our eating arrangements with Smith’s. You’ve said that you will never eat in that dining-room again, nor have trays sent over from that kitchen. Now I’m quite prepared to humour you tomorrow by somehow rustling up in our own kitchen a dinner for Father Sebastian and Susy. It will be difficult, but not utterly impossible. What will be utterly impossible is attempting to do the same for Mr Turner to whom I’ll have to devote quite a lot of personal attention. While he’s our guest we shall either have to have trays sent over or keep him company in the dining-room. He will think it very odd if you don’t join us. He will think it even odder if I meekly accept your unexplained and incomprehensible statement about no more trays and no more visits to the dining-room and he finds himself eating alone while you and I exist on a diet of poached eggs here at The Lodge.”
He did not reply but continued to stare at her. She drank what was left of her gin and got up.
“Where are you going?”
“I am going to scramble your egg.”
“I don’t want an egg now. I’m past eating.”
“In that case, Tusker, since I am not I’m going now to have my chicken pulao, late as it is. Perhaps later today you’ll let me know whether you can afford to feed Mr Turner elsewhere as well as pick up his bill at Smith’s. I have no idea how near or far we are from bankruptcy, moreover” – she hesitated, felt for the brooch in her lapel, for courage – “I still have not had the clear statement I asked for some time ago about the position I’d be in if left alone. So you see my difficulty. I have tried very very hard, Tusker, to go along with you and to make things as comfortable as I can for you, and I am old enough not to worry much that the clothes I’m standing up in are the only decent ones I have. You are just as shabby. I’m not complaining about the past, but I am frightened about the future because it’s an unknown quantity, chiefly because you have never shared your hopes and fears with me but have simply taken your anger out on me without my knowing why or what causes it, which can only leave me feeling that I’m the cause and it seems awfully unfair after more than forty years of marriage.”
“Why are you crying?”
“I’m not crying. If I were I’d have a perfect right to. For the last time, Tusker, do you want an egg?”
“No. I told you, didn’t I? I’m past it.”
“Then I’m past cooking it for you.”
She went to the head of the steps.
“Where are you going?”
“To get my chicken pulao, and to make Mr Turner’s room booking. He can at least be assured of bed and breakfast even if the bed strikes him as motheaten and the breakfast as rotten and the bathroom as disgusting.”
She went down the steps, still holding the brooch. With her other hand she shielded her eyes from the glare and walked, thus, down to the hotel compound. The lame one-eyed mali who had been old mali‘s assistant was crouched over one of the pots of starveling plants. The grass on the verge of the path needed trimming. She entered the hotel. The place smelt of stagnant water and ancient damp: pervasive smells that attached to everything – the cane chairs, the faded cretonne-covers of the ruptured sofas, the potted palms, the cloths on the tables in the dining-room. Only one table was occupied – by two men who looked to her as if they had escaped from the Shiraz to discuss a deal and not be overheard. Having given her a brief glance they resumed their muttering and their chicken tandoori.. She took her usual place and banged th
e brass-bell. After a while old Prabhu padded in.
“Good morning, Prabhu. I’ll have a gin and lime and then the chicken pulao.”
“Sahib not coming?”
“Not this morning.”
Prabhu went. She asked herself: How many years have I sat at this table and watched the hotel settle imperceptibly on its own foundations? So much weight. Too much weight. The foundations must have sunk by now at least a foot.
Someone opened a door. Someone passed by. She looked up and recognized Mrs Bhoolabhoy’s lawyer’s clerk, Mr Pandey, who sketched a bow and went into his room. The gin and lime came. It might be bad for her to have another one. She didn’t care. It might be fun to get a little merry.
The chicken pulao came. Here in India it would feed several starving families. A jug of water came. She sent it back. The jug had smears on it. She began to tuck in. After the second or third mouthful there was an eruption – a shriek from within, a great draught as the door opened and Mrs Bhoolabhoy emerged, a moving mountain of flesh in pale salmon pink and clacking sandals that billowed past, pushed into Mr Pandey’s room waving a sheaf of papers. The door banged shut. More shouting. Then silence. A minute or two later when Mrs Bhoolabhoy came out again she and Lucy were face to face.
“Oh, Mrs Bhoolabhoy,” Lucy began, “we’re expecting a guest on Wednesday. I wonder if you’d kindly book a room—”