Desert Barbarian

by Charlotte Lamb

  Clare sighed and exchanged a look with her daughter. It sounded like another dead end.

  The car drove along a narrow marsh lane, winding between ditches and reedy banks, with sheep cropping the soft turf in the fields on either side. The estate agent stopped outside a small blue wooden gate. A crooked sign hung on it. Clare leaned forward to read it and laughed.

  'Tom Tit Cottage? How charming!'

  Through a tangle of old apple trees Marie saw a thatched roof and faint glimpses of old red walls. They moved to the gate and stopped dead, staring in enchanted silence at the low, rambling little cottage. It was perfect.

  'I'll buy it,' said Clare on a breath.

  The agent looked taken aback. 'You haven't seen it yet.'

  'I've seen enough,' Clare said. 'Enough, that is, to know I want it.'

  'I think you ought to look round first before de­ciding,' the agent pressed her uneasily. 'You'll need a surveyor's report first, anyway.'

  Clare opened the gate without taking any notice of him, walked slowly up the narrow rose-fringed little path, which was paved with black and white tiles. A bird-table stood in the centre of an uneven lawn. Blue-tits flew busily around a string of nuts hanging from a tree. Hidden behind high hedges, the garden had a dreamy air, like the' garden in a fairy tale. The lead diamonds of the windows glittered in the sunshine.

  Suddenly from behind a row of runner beans strung to a string trellis, a head popped up; very short straight fair hair poking out from beneath a wide-brimmed Mexican straw hat, piercing blue eyes and a brown complexion.

  'God! I'd forgotten about you coming…' said a deep, horrified voice.

  Clare stared, her eyes narrowing. The estate agent smiled uneasily, shifting from one foot to the other, as though his client embarrassed him.

  'This is Mrs Cunningham, the owner.'

  'Jess Cunningham,' Clare cried in a triumphant voice. 'Fancy it being your cottage!'

  The owner came slowly out of her hiding place, star­ing at Clare. 'I don't think I…' She broke off with a gasp. 'Good lord! It's Clare. Clare Sebastian! Do you mean that you and Arturo are thinking of settling down in England? My dear good woman, you'll hate this place. It's far too remote. You aren't cut out for country life.'

  The agent gave a muffled groan of despair, but Clare merely laughed.

  'Arturo is dead, Jess,' she said simply. 'Dead three months ago. I'm just getting married again.'

  The artist pushed back her straw hat with a gesture of profound amazement. 'Do I know the new one?'

  'I don't think so,' Clare said lightly. 'He was my first husband. We're remarrying.'

  The artist stared at her in a fascinated silence, then said with a shrug, 'Well, I hope he likes country life, because there's nothing to do around here but paint or catch fish. It suited me for years, but I've just got a commission to go out to India and paint the illustrations for a book on Indian wild life, fascinating stuff. It will take the best part of two years to do the job properly, they think, so I have to sell. Anyway, I think I've had enough of Sussex. When I come home I'll buy a house somewhere more remote—Wales or Cornwall, perhaps.'

  'It sounds fascinating,' said Clare. 'Will you show me round the cottage, Jess?'

  'Of course. Come along in and have some coffee.'

  Clare introduced Marie to her, and Jess shook her hand with a friendly smile. Marie realised that she was older than she had looked at first. Her casual clothes, old blue jeans, white shirt and a vivid green handkerchief knotted around her brown throat, had made her look young, but in fact she was more or less the same age as Clare.

  They entered the cottage and went first into the tiny kitchen, a rectangular room with deal panelling on the walls and blue Dutch tiles set into the worktops. Every­thing was very modern and bright, scrupulously clean.

  'This is the only room I've spent money on,' Jess shrugged. 'The rest I left as I found it. It suited me.'

  There were three small rooms downstairs besides the kitchen. One was a square sitting-room, rather dark and old-fashioned, with heavy dark furniture and ornate wall­paper. The second was a tiny room with white walls which contained only an easel, a camp stool and a stack of canvases facing the wall. 'My studio,' Jess said calmly. 'It was originally a larder, hence the white walls. I stripped off the shelves and enlarged the window. It faces south, so the light is good.'

  The third room was a dining-room, containing just an oval table and chairs and a large Victorian sideboard on which stood a silver fruit bowl and some candlesticks.

  'As you see, it only needs a little money spent on it,' the agent said optimistically.

  Clare eyed the furniture with horror. 'It needs a great deal of work,' she said firmly. 'And that's what it's going to get.'

  Jess eyed her. 'Going to take it, Clare?'

  'Yes,' Clare said certainly. 'I knew that the moment I set eyes on it. The interior is a mess, but the house itself is adorable. I know James will love it.'

  'James? Where is he, anyway? In London?'

  'He's been ill,' Clare told her. 'Very ill. That's why we want a quiet cottage to live in—James needs some peace.'

  'What about upstairs?' asked the agent. 'Shall we take a look up there?'

  'Of course,' said Claire, moving towards the narrow, rather crooked stairs with eagerness.

  'I'll make the coffee,' Jess Cunningham said. She smiled at Marie and asked, 'Like to help me make it?'

  Marie followed her back to the kitchen and helped to get out the cups and saucers while Jess put on the coffee and found some shortbread in a tin.

  'How do you feel about country life?' Jess asked her.

  'I'm not sure,' Marie confessed. 'Actually, I was think­ing of getting a job. I've never done any work, but I think it's time I started. The trouble is, I've had no train­ing at all. I've a sound education, but in the practical sense I have very little to offer an employer. Perhaps I'll learn shorthand and typing.'

  Jess turned to study her thoughtfully, the shortbread tin open in her hand.

  'Do you like kids?'

  Marie looked blank. 'I suppose so. But I couldn't teach—I wouldn't know how.'

  Jess shook her head. 'No, I'm not looking for a' teacher —just someone to look after Jeremy while I work.'

  'Jeremy?'

  'My little boy. He's four years old, too young to go to school, but too active to be left in the care of anyone like my mother, who's seventy years old and past child care.' Jess grimaced at her. 'You see, I made the mistake of getting pregnant a few months before my husband was killed in a car crash. I'd barely got over the shock of being pregnant when my husband was killed. We'd been married for years and frankly I thought I couldn't have kids. I was too busy to worry about it much, but Dave always wanted a child, and I was glad for him that I was going to have one. Then he was killed and I had to bring up Jeremy on my own. Out here in the country that wasn't too hard. I looked after him myself when he was a baby. It was easy to paint while he slept in his pram.

  Once he started getting about under his own steam it got more difficult, then a woman in the village half a mile away offered to have him for a few hours every day. He goes down to her at ten o'clock and I fetch him back at four, so that gives me a clear working run of six hours. She has two kids of her own, so I think he enjoys it more there anyway. He likes company.'

  'Children do,' Marie agreed.

  Jess sighed. 'Yes, but the trouble is, what happens when I go to India? I can't leave him behind. I would hate to do that, anyway. I thought I might find someone locally to look after him, but if you would consider the job I would be very grateful.'

  Marie stared at her incredulously. 'You want me to look after your son while you're in India?'

  Jess nodded. 'You could share our house. They're giving me a house of my own, they tell me. I would pay you, of course. I don't know what the market rate is for jobs like that, but we could find out.'

  Marie thought about it and felt a sudden excitement at the idea. She had never
been to India. She would love to see it, to live there and be part of the life for a while. Cautiously, she said, 'I've had no experience, you realise.'

  Jess shrugged. 'Neither had I had when I had him first. I was a total novice, but I managed. It's common sense, that's all. You just keep him busy and amused all day. Your evenings will be your own, of course—I'll take over whenever I'm not working. There'll be no housework to do because they've promised me someone to do all that.'

  'They?' asked Marie curiously.

  Jess laughed. 'I'm sorry, I forgot you don't know. I'm going out there at the invitation of the King of Jedhpur. He's just opened a National Wild Life Park on the plain of Massam outside his capital, Lhalli, and he's paying me to paint these pictures. He intends to publish a glossy book on the subject, and also hopes to sell prints of my pictures to the tourists they hope to attract.' She grinned. 'He's a very ambitious young man. His country is poor, but he thinks they can make money through this Nat­ional Park.'

  'And you'll live out in the park?' Marie was not sure she liked the sound of that. It sounded rather dang­erous.

  Jess shook her head. 'No, I'll have a house in Lhalli, they say. But there's a stilt house out in the marshes by the river which I can use to do sketches in… they have it all worked out.' She smiled at Marie. 'Well? What do you think?'

  Marie took a deep breath. 'I'll come,' she said.

  Jess gazed at her, amused. 'You make decisions as sud­denly as your mother!'

  'Why not?' Marie said lightly. 'I need a job. I need to work, and I believe in fate. You've offered me just what I was looking for.'

  'All the same,' Jess warned, 'you'd better discuss it with your parents before you give me a firm answer.'

  'I will,' Marie promised. 'I'll talk to them when they're together. Don't mention it just yet. I'd rather tell them my own way.'

  Jess eyed her thoughtfully. 'I see. Just as you say…'

  Clare came down a few moments later, drank coffee, refused a piece of shortbread and had a short discussion with Jess over the price of the cottage. By the time they left the deal was settled. Tom Tit Cottage had changed hands, bar the shouting.

  Next day, as Clare poured out the details to James in his room at the nursing home, Marie listened patiently, awaiting her chance to break her own news to them.

  When she did tell them, Clare was visibly shocked. 'But you can't leave home just when…'

  James watched his daughter carefully. 'Why do you want to go, darling?'

  'It's because of me,' Clare burst out huskily.

  'No,' Marie assured her, smiling at her. 'I'd already decided to get a job before I got back from my holiday. I'm tired of doing nothing, tired of drifting. I want to work, to do something. Jess offered me a change of scene, a chance to do something useful, a chance to learn some­thing about myself and the world…'

  'But we want you with us,' Clare said shakily, grasp­ing her hand.

  James said softly, 'Aren't I enough for you, Clare?'

  She looked at him, her blue eyes wide. 'Of course you are!'

  'Then let Marie-go. She's right—she has been too sheltered up till now. She needs to find out more about life. I've wrapped her in cotton wool. There's a great big world outside there and she wants to find it for herself. It would be selfish of us to try to keep her. Tom Tit Cottage sounds a paradise to us, but to a young girl such isolation would be very boring. Marie isn't ready to retire from the world yet. Her life is only just beginning.'

  Clare sighed. 'Very well, James, I suppose you're right.'

  'You know I am,' he said teasingly. 'Weren't you hungry for life at her age? We all have essential stages in our lives. When we're young we need to open out to life. Later on we know what we are and we know what we truly want—then we tend to make our own little place in the world and stay there. Marie has to find her place.'

  'I'll always have Tom Tit Cottage to come back to,' Marie pointed out gently.

  Clare smiled at her. 'Yes, promise you'll do that, if you ever need us.'

  'I'll be back,' Marie promised.

  'When does Jess leave?' Clare asked her.

  'Next month,' said Marie.

  'Then when you've gone to India, Clare and I will take a long cruise to the sun while the cottage is put in order for us,' said James. 'How about the West Indies, Clare?'

  'That would be fun,' she agreed. 'But first I must plan the decor and furniture for the cottage.' She gazed at him thoughtfully. 'I think I'll throw all those rooms down­stairs into one huge lounge.'

  'Not all of them,' James demurred. 'Keep the little studio as an escape hatch. You never know when you'll need somewhere quiet to be alone. I suggest you make the two main rooms into one…'

  Marie tiptoed out and left them to talk it over. She was filled with excited anticipation of her visit to India. This time she would not be living in a luxury hotel behind safe plate glass. This time she would be living among the ordinary people, sharing their daily lives. She must get some books on the little state of Jedhpur. She had barely heard of it.

  A few days later she sat poring over a pile of books, learning that Jedhpur was an ancient kingdom in the northern hills of India's continent, ruled over by a dyn­asty of kings descended from a barbaric creature called Jai. The country was mostly mountainous, barren and stony, but there were fertile plains around the river Mas, and it was the Massam Plain which had been turned into a National Park to preserve both animals and countryside from the encroachments of civilisation, and, of course, to attract tourists. There had been some trouble politically over the new park since local farmers had resented the idea, but the King had allowed most of them to continue to farm their land, although it overlapped the area of the park, since they had done so from time immemorial.

  The language they spoke in Jedhpur was a dialect, Marie learnt, difficult to comprehend in the rest of the country. English was also used in the capital, Lhalli, for official communications since the King had been to school in England, and some of his subjects had formed a regiment in the British Army before independence.

  Clare was with James in the nursing home on one of her daily visits. She had left with an armful of scarlet gladioli, the long sheaves lying against her breast like spears. Together in front of the mirror in the hall, Marie had thought, they looked like sisters. When she told Clare that, her mother had smiled radiantly, the blue eyes childlike with pleasure. Age still held its terrors for Clare, despite her new content.

  Mrs Abbot opened the sitting-room door and looked across the room at her. 'I'm just going out to do some shopping. Would you like me to get anything for you?'

  'No, thank you,' Marie smiled.

  'You'll be in for lunch?'

  'Yes.'

  'I was going to get lamb chops. Is that all right?'

  Marie was surprised. Mrs Abbot rarely consulted her about the menu, despite the myth that Marie ran the household. 'That will be fine,' she said warmly.

  Mrs Abbot hesitated. Marie sensed that she was about to ask her something, and looked at her encouragingly. Mrs Abbot took a deep breath. 'Do you think you could take over running the flat if I left? Or do you want me to find someone else to take my place?'

  Marie stared at her. 'Are you giving in your notice?'

  Mrs Abbot shrugged. 'Things have changed, haven't they? I'm not needed here any more. I thought I'd buy myself a little bungalow down at Southend. I've seen one I like, but I have to make up my mind now, as the owners are in a hurry—they're emigrating, and they want a fast sale.'

  'I shall be sorry to see you go,' Marie said gently. 'But you must think of your own future. Of course you must buy the bungalow, if that's what you want. We'll man­age. My parents are going on a cruise when Dad comes out of the nursing home, and I'll be going to India, of course.'

  Mrs Abbot looked at her, smiling wryly. 'You can never be sure of the future, can you? Out of a clear blue sky something falls wham! And everything falls to pieces.'

  'I'm sorry,' Marie said shyly. 'I'
m very sorry.'

  When Mrs Abbot had gone she lay on the carpet, gazing at the full-colour pictures of Jedhpur; white-capped mountains, brown fields and a winding river running between marshlands rich with birds and animals.

  The doorbell rang, startling her, and she glanced at her watch. It couldn't be Clare back already? Or had Mrs Abbot forgotten her key?

  When she opened the door she stared in disbelief. 'Stonor! What are you doing here?'

  The dark eyes were unsmiling as he surveyed her, leaning on the door-frame with the casual grace which was his birthright.

  'I came to see you, surprisingly enough,' he drawled.

  'Oh.' For a moment Marie could only stare at him. 'I hadn't expected to see you again.'

  'Obviously.' His voice was irritated. 'Aren't you going to ask me in?'

  She glanced helplessly back into the sitting-room, lit­tered with open books. 'I suppose so…' She stood back.

  'Such eagerness is very flattering,' he drawled, moving past her with an angry glance.

  'You took me by surprise. I'm afraid the flat is very untidy this morning.' Hurriedly, with flushed cheeks, she began to pick up the books, wishing she had known he was coming. She would not be wearing dusty pink denims and a short-sleeved white blouse if she had had any idea she would be seeing him. She was angrily aware of her disordered hair, the fact that she was barely wearing any make-up, merely a quick dusting of powder and the palest pink smudge of lipstick.

  He bent to pick up one of the books and glanced at it with raised brows. 'Don't tell me you're planning a holiday in India, now? Still chasing the romantic dream?'

  She piled the books on the table and faced him, chin defiant. 'No. I'm going out there to work.'

  He stood very still, staring at her, frowning. 'Work? You? What on earth do you mean?'

  'I've got a job in Jedhpur,' she said carelessly, her pride hurt by his look of disbelief.

  'You've never done a day's work in your life,' he said brutally. 'What work could you do?' The dark eyes nar­rowed. 'And who would be fool enough to employ you?'

  'I'm perfectly capable of working,' she said angrily. 'It's none of your business, anyway.'