The Pavilion in the Clouds

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “Not much hope then,” said Virginia. “They must have hidden it somewhere.”

  “Yes,” agreed Heather. “But Bobby did not want to give up. It was a good watch, apparently, and had been given to him by his wife on their tenth anniversary. It had sentimental value.”

  “Understandably.”

  “So Bobby reported it to Mr Vandersan. He was livid. Bobby said he could almost see the smoke coming out of the top of his head, to which the panama hat served as a sort of chimney top. It must have been a real sight.”

  “Mr Vandersan said that he would deal with the matter and was confident he could get the watch back. Bobby was grateful but couldn’t really see what could be done. The watch would have been spirited away, and the boys would probably wait a while before they tried to sell it. But you know what? Two days later he got a telephone call from Mr Vandersan to say that the watch was waiting for him in the club office and that he could collect it whenever suited him. And do you know how he did that?”

  Virginia shook her head. “No, no idea.” She was impatient. She wanted to get back to the subject of Miss White: she was not interested in club gossip.

  Heather laughed. “It’s very funny, actually. Mr Vandersan told the boys that he knew a very powerful astrologer. He said that this man had mantras for all purposes – including one specially designed for putting an evil spell on boys. He said that if the watch did not find its way back to the club office, he would have a word with this astrologer and have a spell put on all four boys – innocent and guilty alike.”

  Virginia nodded. “The Tamils love their spells, don’t they?”

  “They do, and there’s no better way of scaring the living daylights out of a Tamil than to tell him he’s had a spell put on him. Their hair stands on end. They really believe it, and they’ll rush off to get some mantra to ward off the evil eye. Those boys will have been quaking in their boots. Of course, the watch was found and returned.”

  Heather refilled their teacups. “Sorry. We need to get back to your glass of water. Did you drink it? Any ill effects?”

  Virginia explained that she had discreetly left it untouched.

  “Good,” said Heather. “Of course, you can’t be sure it was tap water, can you?”

  Virginia looked puzzled. “But I told you: it was warm.”

  “What if the fridge wasn’t working?” asked Heather. “Or if she had left the water jug out of it?” She gave Virginia a challenging look. “Possible, don’t you think?”

  Virginia had not thought of that, and now, as she did so, she felt a flush of embarrassment. It was such an obvious possibility that she felt ashamed to have failed to ask it. It was a demonstration, she decided, of just how excessively suspicious she had become.

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” she said, lamely. “It’s quite possible, I suppose, but I just wasn’t thinking.”

  “On the other hand,” said Heather, “she could have tried to poison you. I’m not saying it’s impossible.”

  Virginia sighed. “I don’t know what to think. I’m all over the place.”

  There was something in her tone that evoked Heather’s sympathy. “Darling,” she said, “you have every reason to feel a bit cut up over all this. You had a nasty, unexplained accident that might have been something to do with that woman – who knows?” She made a gesture of unknowing. “You’ve had to deal with a husband who might have a roving eye. You have no idea what’s going on in your child’s head – she might have seen something, you never know.”

  The litany of burdens was to grow longer. “And now you’ve got an aggrieved governess on your hands with whom you’re going to have to put up over the next couple of weeks. None of that is simple – none of that is easy.”

  Virginia knew that; she wanted guidance, which Heather seemed unwilling to give. “So, what do I do?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” said Heather. “But you do nothing very carefully.” She lifted her teacup, looking at Virginia over the rim. She had more to say, but she wanted to say it as gently as possible.

  She started with an enquiry. “Are you sure about what Henry’s thinking?”

  Virginia looked puzzled. “About this? About Miss White?”

  Heather lowered her teacup. “Not just that. About everything.” She fixed Virginia with a penetrating gaze. “Sometimes we don’t really understand men. We think we do, but we don’t.”

  “You’re talking about women? About wives?”

  Heather nodded. “They’re a different breed, you know.” She smiled. “There are people who say that there’s no difference between the way men and women think, but I can tell you there is. There’s every difference in the world. You know that. I know that. Anybody who’s ever lived with a man – anybody who’s actually had a son – knows all about the differences.”

  Virginia hesitated. “Maybe . . .”

  “No, definitely,” Heather interjected. “The people who say that men and women look at things in the same way haven’t got a clue – not a clue. It’s wishful thinking on their part. Certainly, women who say that do so because . . .” She paused, looking for the right words. “Because they want that to be the case. Yes, that’s it – they want to do the things that men do, and so they claim we all think the same way.”

  “You can see why . . .” Virginia began, only to be interrupted once again by Heather.

  “Oh yes, you can see why they want that – and what woman wouldn’t? What woman – whatever she may say to please her husband – doesn’t want to be free to do the things that men do? To have the same chances in life?” She smiled. “I’m sounding a bit like a suffragette, don’t you think?”

  Virginia said that there was nothing wrong with that. “They had every reason to feel the way they did. And who would argue with them now?”

  “Of course they did,” agreed Heather. “Women are entitled to do the things that men do – of course they are. Men won’t let us, of course, but we’ll get there, I think. One day there’ll be more women doctors and lawyers and others, and we won’t have to sit here on lawns and drink tea and eat cucumber sandwiches.”

  “And egg and cress.”

  “Yes, and egg and cress.”

  They both laughed.

  “But the point is,” Heather continued, “that even if we claim what is owed to us, even if we stand up to men who belittle us, the fact remains that there’s a big gulf between men and women in the way we think about things. There are plenty of things that men just don’t see – they don’t see them. And I suppose, to be fair, there are things that men see that we don’t. A man can look at something and say, Oh yes, such and such is going on, and a woman can look at the same situation and see something completely different.”

  Virginia said that she thought that was probably right. She added that it had always been like that, and it would probably remain that way.

  “The reason why I bring this up,” Heather explained, “is that things can be going on in a husband’s mind that his wife is simply unaware of.”

  Somewhere above their heads, in the overhanging boughs of a tree, a bird cackled in protest. They both looked up. Virginia said, “I love to hear the birds. That’s one of the things I love about this country. The birds. And then I love the flowers and the greenery and the hills.”

  Heather glanced at her friend and then gazed up into the tree. “Yes,” she said. “But you know that I want to be somewhere else. I want to go home, Virginia. I want to get back to where . . . to where you and I belong. We don’t belong here, do we?” She paused. “You came here when you were tiny, I know that, but that doesn’t mean that you belong here, does it? We’ve come here, we went to India, we went all over the place, and thought that we owned the place, but we don’t really, do we? And when we go, we know what will happen. We know, don’t we?”

  She pointed towards the club house, to the tennis court, to the tea gardens that could be seen on the nearby hillside, neat lines of green. “All that, you see, all of that will go. And
the jungle will come back and cover it all.”

  Virginia shook her head. She did not disagree with what Heather had said about not belonging, but she was not so sure about the jungle. “I don’t think so. I think that there’ll be people who’ll just step into our shoes.”

  Heather looked surprised. “Do you really think so? Do you think there’ll be people who can actually be bothered?”

  “Yes. The Sinhalese are clever people. Some of them rather look down on us, you know. And you’ve got the Burghers too. Look at them.”

  “Oh well,” said Heather. She picked at a sandwich. “Men, though. What about men? The reason why I raised the subject, I suppose, is to ask you whether you are sure of Henry. I don’t mean to be nosy – I really don’t. I just feel that you need to consider whether something might be going on that you haven’t picked up on.”

  “An affair? That he’s getting involved with that woman?”

  Heather did not reply immediately. She lifted a corner of the sandwich to examine the slices of cucumber within. “What I was wondering,” she said, “was whether there was any possibility that Henry and Lavender White were acting . . . well, acting together. Acting to . . .” She held the sandwich in one hand; the other hand she waved in the air. “Whether they have something in mind?”

  It took Virginia a few moments to realise what was being suggested. Then, “Plotting against me?”

  “I didn’t want to say that,” said Heather. “But yes. And I’m sure the answer is no. I’m sure that Henry wouldn’t . . .”

  She left the sentence unfinished. She had spotted Mr Vandersan, who was walking purposefully across the lawn towards them. As he approached, he lifted his hat. “How nice to see you two ladies,” he said. “Is everything satisfactory?”

  Heather beamed at him. “It certainly is, Mr Vandersan. Lovely sandwiches.”

  Mr Vandersan beamed. “Cook is a wonder – even with sandwiches. We are very lucky to have him.”

  “You must hold on to him,” said Virginia.

  “Indeed we must, Mrs Ferguson. You’d be surprised at how many members try to poach him from us. Oh, my goodness me, I could tell you a story or two. Shameless attempts at enticement of an employee. It should be a criminal offence, in my opinion. Well, perhaps that’s a bit extreme, but it’s certainly bad behaviour. How would they like it if I came and pinched their tea pickers? Or their own cooks, for that matter?”

  There were a few remarks about the tennis court and the cutting of the lawn, and then, lifting his hat a final time, he returned to the club house.

  “A very fine man,” said Heather. “I’ve always liked him.” She glanced at her watch. “Time marches on, I’m afraid.”

  “I must let you get back.”

  Heather rose to her feet. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said what I said. I don’t want to alarm you.”

  Virginia rose too. A small beetle had dropped down from the tree onto her skirt. She brushed it off in spite of its attempts to hang on to the material.

  “I wouldn’t think too much about all this,” said Heather. “The situation is going to resolve itself soon enough. Two weeks is not a very long time.”

  They walked together to the car park. Mr Vandersan watched them from the window of his office. Spotting that they had noticed him, he raised a hand to wave, a gesture that seemed almost like a benediction.

  11

  Bill Was Weak

  M iss White was scrupulously polite over the days that followed but was clearly upset at the prospect of leaving early. While she had been in the habit of having dinner in the main bungalow on four days of the week, eating alone in her own dining room on the other days, now she excused herself from those social occasions. She did this on the pretext of having a great deal to do. “I have much to arrange between now and then,” she said to Virginia, emphasising the then as if it were some day of reckoning that was fast approaching. “I have an entire household to pack up, and much else to do besides. So, if you’ll forgive me, I shall not be having dinner with you.”

  Virginia made a half-hearted attempt to persuade her to do otherwise, but both women knew that neither wanted to sit together at the same table.

  “If there is anything I can do to help,” said Virginia, “I’m at your disposal. You know that, of course.”

  Miss White inclined her head almost imperceptibly. “You’re very kind, but I think that everything’s under control.”

  It was a favourite expression of hers – everything’s under control – and Virginia had always found it vaguely amusing. She had a vision of things going haywire, and of Miss White trying to bring them back under control, running backwards and forwards in an increasingly desperate attempt to restore order.

  “Henry can arrange with the agent down in Colombo to make bookings,” Virginia offered. “Mr Pessoa is very good at these arrangements.”

  Mr Pessoa was a member of an old trading family, formerly spice dealers, who, when not attending to his business in Colombo, lived in a rambling merchant’s house in the old fort at Galle. This house was run, it was said, by one of the last eunuchs from the defunct Ottoman court.

  “I’m sure he is,” said Miss White. “But I have already sent a telegram to my friend down there asking her to arrange my passage to Calcutta.”

  “You’ll be looking forward to that. You’re fond of Calcutta, aren’t you?”

  Miss White pursed her lips. “I hadn’t anticipated being back there so soon,” she said. “But, be that as it may, I shall enjoy seeing old friends.”

  Again, the emphasis was pointed: friends, as if it were reliable friends who were currently in short supply.

  Virginia ploughed on regardless of the implicit rebuke. “Will you be looking for a governess’s post? Presumably there will be many families only too keen to have you.”

  Miss White shook her head. “Education has its rewards, undoubtedly, but it also has . . .” She paused, and looked directly at Virginia before adding, “its disappointments.”

  Virginia pretended not to pick up the reproach. If anything, this exchange confirmed her view that she simply could not have Miss White about the place much longer. Calcutta could not beckon too early, she felt.

  Bella’s lessons continued during this period, although Miss White seemed to make less effort. Mistakes in the work-books in which Bella did her mathematics or wrote her English essays were left only partly corrected: whereas in the past Miss White would have written out a misspelled word in red ink in the margin, now she simply put a small cross against the world and wrote dic beside it – an instruction to go to the dictionary and check the right spelling of the word in question. French was entirely abandoned, apart from the occasional bonjour, and mathematics suffered a grave reduction in the number of men set to their Sisyphean task of digging ditches.

  Arrangements had now been made for Bella’s trip. Heather would be taking Richard back to school and would be happy to have Bella accompany them. She would be going to Edinburgh anyway, on her way to settling Richard in, and it would be no trouble, she said, to hand Bella over to her aunt. Ideally, Virginia would have accompanied her on the voyage and seen her safely set up with Henry’s sister, but Heather’s offer would mean that she would not have to leave Henry alone for two or three months.

  There were reasons why she did not want to do that. There were stories that circulated of what might happen during a wife’s absence – stories of flings with other men’s wives, conducted on trips to Kandy or Colombo – or of liaisons with local women that blew up spectacularly on the wife’s return. In one case, the wife was said to have returned early and to have discovered the local woman actually living in the house, her clothes hung alongside her own outfits in the wardrobe. The shame of that must have been unbearable, thought Virginia: how could anyone recover from something like that? Of course, it might have been no more than one of those stories that are embroidered or even invented by people who had nothing better to do than to pass on idle gossip, but even if it was apoc
ryphal, it was a warning to any wife who would spend too much time away from home.

  No, this was not a time to leave Henry alone for several months, and so she gratefully agreed that Bella should travel with Heather and Richard. Packing began, along with the commissioning from the local tailor of new clothing for the voyage.

  “You’ll look very smart in your new outfits,” said Virginia, and fought back a surge of emotion. This was her child she was sending off to the other side of the world – the child who had been at her side for all her eight years of life, the child she had kissed each night at bedtime, the child whose entire life had been lived under her care. She was sending her away because that is what you did, no matter how unnatural, how cruel it seemed. This wretched empire! Why did we have to have it, if it split people from family in this way? Other peoples did not have to do any of this. The Italians did not deprive themselves of their children in this way, nor did the Norwegians or the Austrians, or anybody, really: just the British, and the French and Portuguese, to a degree, because of their rambling, far-flung empires that were going to come to an end at some point, surely, because all empires in history did that – sooner or later.

  She almost spoke to Henry about it but held herself back at the last moment. She wanted to say to him, “Couldn’t we just sell up and go back to Scotland? Wouldn’t it be somehow simpler?”

  That was the problem. It would be far simpler not to hold on to far-flung possessions and cultivate one’s own backyard for a change. You would not need a vast army for that; you would not need all this loneliness and separation and . . . what else was there? Fortitude. Suffering. She knew a little bit about Buddhism – one could hardly be unaware of it in Ceylon – and she knew that it counselled against the tyranny of possessions. If you had only those things that were required for your immediate needs, you would enjoy far greater freedom than those who had a great deal. And surely there was something to be said for not having to worry about what was happening in the tea factory or the amount of cash available to pay the workers, or to buy fuel for the generators that produced the electricity that dried the tea, that made the money for all of these things. Freedom from the bondage of material things – that surely was a goal worth pursuing, even if you ended up donning saffron and chanting.