Writing on Skin

by Sara Banerji

  ‘The wound on my scalp is now fully healed.

  ‘The gang is back inside and Mary is to be put on probation for her part in the matter.’

  Hermione also received a letter from Lalia saying, ‘Anne has tendencies towards polystyrene, a substance to which I suppose she grew accustomed in her Waswar years. She plans to paper your hall and tile your kitchen with twinkling plastic pimples. “This is Hermione’s home, dear, not yours,” I told her, but she said she felt sure you would be delighted with her hygienic improvements. She has no money and plans to get a bank loan for the work. Hopefully, however, the bank manager will refuse her. But don’t worry, dear, I will defend your property from this genteel vandal, and may even manage to persuade Anne of the virtues of what she calls Victorian grot.’

  ‘I honestly don’t think polystyrene-fitted wardrobes in the bedrooms would be the thing at all, dear,’ Lalia was saying to Anne even as Hermione was reading the letter. ‘Not the period, you see…’ But her gentle protest was interrupted when the phone rang.

  Anne answered and said, ‘Oh’ in three different voices, each one more subdued than the one before, then put down the receiver and silently gazed at Lalia, her mouth open.

  ‘What is it?’ said Lalia, knowing something awful had happened.

  ‘Edward … is dead, Lalia,’ said Anne. ‘Heart attack. Doing press-ups. He was rushed into intensive care but was dead on arrival. I’m so very sorry, darling.’ Her arms were already open for Lalia to avail herself of the bosomy consoling hug in which she specialized.

  Lalia stood up swiftly and ignoring Anne’s open arms rushed out of the room and into the garden. As she fled over the lawn towards the pond that she and Hermione had created, she was vaguely aware of Anne’s face watching her in bewilderment from the window. Anne had been so taken by surprise by Lalia’s rapid departure, that she still held her arms out for embracing.

  Lalia sat down on the bench by the woodland pond and tried to sort out her thoughts. She had married Edward supposing he was like Daniel. And she had thought Edward was like Daniel because she had not known who Daniel was.

  ‘He’s gay,’ Edward had told her.

  Later Daniel had asked her to marry him and she had realized it was not true. When she had stopped being astonished she had said, ‘Edward would crack up completely if I left him. Would you like that to happen to your own brother?’

  But now Edward was dead and the pain that he had called life was over.

  A pair of wild ducks skidded hissingly over the water before landing. Lalia felt too sad even to cry as she watched them settle down and start to preen each other.

  Just as she’d expected, Daniel rang her the moment he heard about Edward.

  ‘I do mind. Of course I do,’ Daniel said. ‘Most terribly. My own brother. The trouble was he was jealous of me. It was difficult to get past that and have any sort of easy relationship with him. “I think it is most unreasonable the way Mother loves you the best,” Edward would say to me. “I do everything for her, have even arranged that she should come and live with us when she gets past coping on her own … Horrific how she forgives your aberrant behaviour. Father was so hurt …” I understood the unspoken accusation that it was my defiance that killed Father, and I was too proud to try to justify myself to Edward, who wouldn’t have believed me anyway. But actually my affair with the lyric writer had no more significance than that to which Father hinted at enjoying with Bunty Lewis during their schooldays.’

  ‘Give me a few days to get myself together, darling,’ Lalia said. There was a funny note in her voice, a sort of choke. It must have been of hope, thought Daniel. Like him she must be trying to balance the sorrow with the joy. His own heart felt like a gas balloon of joy straining against the ropes of suitable mourning.

  He was happy to wait a while.

  Hermione heard of Edward’s death in her hotel in Delhi, where Lalia tracked her down and rang her.

  Dizzily she realized it was something she had always expected. Edward had been her first child and in the womb the nourishment that passed from her body into his had been warped with fear, so that even after birth he had had to steep himself in heroin to find the strength to face the world.

  Shivering, she leant against a cushioned sofa and waited for something to happen in her heart.

  Three sons: Rupert trapped in Waswar; Daniel expecting happiness because he did not yet know about Lalia; and Edward … dead.

  A small dry rustling passed over her like the sliding of serpentine scales over shed leaves.

  Hermione pressed her palms together with the gesture of strangling. She felt full of a dry hopelessness at the way happiness was always crushed … like the flowerbeds and shrubberies through which the gang had roared on motorbikes.

  Edward had not died of drugs, he had not died of AIDS. Edward had died the death of a middle-aged man with a busy life and a hopeful future.

  Chapter Fifteen

  As Rosie was driven the fifty yards back to her home after sacking Unity and Eshak, she let out so many small screams that her driver and his young assistant became quite alarmed, wondering if they were going to make it before she erupted completely. They were greatly relieved to get her before her own front door at last.

  The driver stopped, gave two toots of the horn to alert the inside servants, then went with his lad to open the car door. They reached inside to retrieve the vast perfumed bulk of their mistress. When she was upset she always sat waiting for her servants to transport her. She considered that in the early years of her life she had suffered quite enough doing everything for everybody, and now she had earned the right to be a passive burden when it suited her.

  Rosie liked to be carried as she had been thirty-five years ago when she was a cute and tiny child with chubby cheeks, a round rosy mouth, sparkling dark eyes and tumbling curls. Adults in those days had treated her as though she were an inanimate doll, turning to Mother or Ayah to ask, ‘What a sweet little thing. May I carry her?’

  If Rossama, as her name had been then, had known that one day she would become so large that two well-muscled men could not raise her without giving themselves hernias, she would not have wasted so many childhood opportunities. As it was, when she was about seven she began to evade the loving adult hands or, if captured, squirm and writhe when cuddled. So that gradually, in spite of her continuing sweet looks, the grown-ups stopped picking her up. There is no satisfaction in cuddling something unless it lies supine, be it cat or dog or child.

  She had not known about the cradling and cuddling of men until her last husband had died. She had seen the video of Gone with the Wind and had for the first time properly understood the things Western men did to Western women. Her greatest desire had become to be swept up in a man’s arms, and raced into her bedroom. Once in the bedroom the lifter could put her down and depart, for she did not wish to be made love to. She had had enough of sex with her three husbands. One had been a Muslim, one a Christian and one a Hindu, but all three had called upon the ethics of their religions to use Rosie’s body as an object for their convenience.

  Probably because of this she had found the sexual process boring and uncomfortable, though after she became a triple widow she discovered how to give her body pleasure herself. She would, she sometimes thought, have got more satisfaction if it had been possible to lift herself too.

  Her servants, as they hauled her from the dark recesses of her limousine, groaned and grunted. And her butler, supported by his posse of minor servants, moaned softly as he took over from the drivers and hauled her into her home. She was heavier than usual today because of the extra anguish she was suffering.

  ‘Now what will happen to our poor patients at the village clinic?’ mourned Eshak. The people of the village had accepted him in a way that the clinic patients had never done. The peasants had called Eshak ‘Brother’ as if they sensed that he, in spite of his grand clothes and good nourishment, had suffered discrimination just as they had. It was as though in Doctor Esh
ak’s dark confidence they saw something to give them optimism.

  Unity sighed, remembering Kumkum. She was ten and an eye infection had deprived her of sight since she was three. Unity had performed the first part of an operation on the girl’s eyes, but if she and Eshak had to leave she would not be able to complete the treatment and Kumkum would remain blind for the rest of her life.

  ‘I’ll go and see Rosie. I’ll ask her to keep us on. I’ll apologize. Don’t worry,’ said Unity, springing up.

  ‘What, into the lion’s cage? I’ll have to come with you to protect you.’

  ‘No, you stay and look after the children. I won’t be long.’ Unity had sensed, with suspicion and fear, the other woman’s complicated mixture of disgust and attraction towards her husband.

  Rosie was sitting at her dressing table applying hydrogen peroxide to her hair when the servant said that Dr Unity had come to see her. Bleaching her black roots was a chore that always comforted Rosie, giving her the feeling that she had control not only over her life and her finances but also over her nationality – a satisfying sensation for a woman who had been, for all the years of her thrice-married life, helpless and dependent.

  With a towel across her shoulders to protect her frock, she carefully combed through the newly emerging darker hair levering out the Indian and allowing the red lights of Europe to emerge.

  Her Muslim husband would have been pleased with the reddish colour, because Muslims redden their hair with henna in India. She could imagine him saying, ‘Ah, Rossama, now you look like a proper Muslim. I am glad!’

  Rosie would not have liked her husbands to be glad about anything, for she still felt resentment at having had to allow them to invade her body without being able to protest in case they abandoned her and left her destitute.

  Once, in her presence, the Christian husband, who was drunk at the time, had picked up a soft milk sweet called rosogulla and, thrusting his finger into its sticky centre, laughingly told his friends, ‘That’s what it feels like to fuck Rossama.’

  The episode had made Rosie so angry that she had purposely spoiled the cooking for the next three weeks so that for the rest of her life she associated the taste of charred food with the rudeness of Christianity.

  The Hindu and the Muslim husbands differed from the Christian one in a single respect. Though they had many faults, had hit her and deprived her, they never referred to the subject of sex at all, not even while they were engaging in it with her, and would not have dreamt of joking about it to outsiders. In fact, although they did it with great speed and frequency, neither of these two husbands would allow themselves to be seen in her company when she became pregnant in case her condition should bring to other people’s minds the fact that they had fucked.

  Now, when her butler told Rosie that Unity was waiting below, a surge of satisfaction rushed through her, and for a moment soothed the pain that she felt.

  ‘Tell her to wait. In the hall,’ said Rosie, and then went on, very very slowly, applying the peroxide to her hair.

  After fifteen minutes the butler returned. ‘The English doctor lady says shall she come later if this time is inconvenient.’

  ‘Tell her to wait,’ cried Rosie, bubbling with comfort. The eyebrows were the tricky part. It was important to do them just right, and not to allow the bleach to drip or trickle on to the skin. Maximum concentration was needed. As she swished the chemical across with an artist’s brush, she was pleased that in spite of all her nervous agitation her hand was not shaking. That was a good sign, it meant she was going to be able to deal with Unity.

  The lashes were very complicated and she decided to leave them for a time when she felt completely calm.

  Satisfied at last, her Indian skin written with England, she rose from her dressing table, and went to her bed to lie down and allow the chemicals to take effect.

  After half an hour, sweetly bleached, wearing her satin negligée and the fluffy pink mules that her sister, who lived in London in the Bayswater Road, had given her last Christmas, she rang her bell and told the butler to send the lady doctor up.

  Rosie was lying back, illuminated by the glow of candles, when Unity knocked. A power cut had deprived them of electricity.

  Rosie allowed the doctor to knock three times before saying, ‘Enter.’

  The door shot open.

  ‘I would like …’ Unity began.

  Rosie, her eyes closed, raised an imperious hand. ‘Please be silent a moment. I cannot tolerate sudden loud sounds immediately on waking.’ She closed her eyes again, and breathed softly for quite a long while during which she could feel Unity glimmering with agitation. Every now and then she peeped, while keeping up the appearance of repose, at the waiting doctor. How wonderfully strange, she reflected, that she who had been born an Indian should look so English, and this foreign lady who had been born English should look so Indian. The thought made Rosie chuckle inside.

  After a succulently long period, Rosie slowly opened her eyes and murmured, ‘You may now speak.’

  ‘I only want to apologize to you for my outburst…’ said Unity swiftly. She could not endure humiliation and was only managing to grind back her rage and frustration because of the thought of her poor patients being abandoned.

  Rosie looked down at the outspread fingers of her plump and jewelled hands, revelled in the golden smoothness of her skin, and felt a stab of pity for the black husband who had perhaps never known the comfort of a true soft woman.

  Unity was talking, and Rosie, who knew what she meant, did not bother to listen.

  An idea was forming in her mind.

  One of the things that had reconciled her to the employment of Eshak was his strength.

  Bengali men were on the small side and until Eshak arrived Rosie had never met a man who would be able to lift her like Clark Gable, on his own, though something about Unity’s prominent regal nose and chill grey eyes had always prevented Rosie from expressing her desire regarding Eshak. Until now.

  Now the idea came to her that the kalo might even be grateful for her own voluptuous curves that contrasted so favourably with the bony body of the ophthalmic doctor.

  She interrupted Unity suddenly, just as the doctor was forcing herself to say, ‘Perhaps you could put it down to the fact that I have been working very hard lately. I will go personally to all your patients and explain, and apologize.’

  ‘Look, I cannot listen to all this now. I am busy. If you wish for further discussion you can send your husband to see me. Later.’

  ‘My husband?’ gasped Unity, amazed.

  ‘Yes. Now please go,’ said Rosie sharply.

  Unity went home to tell Eshak. ‘She didn’t seem all that furious after all. Perhaps everything is going to be all right. She says she wants to see you. Later.’

  ‘Me?’ Eshak was almost as astonished as Unity.

  ‘I mean she almost seemed to be quite carefree about it …’ mused Unity, feeling her anxiety start to lift.

  Hermione, in her little hotel, made up her mind.

  She saw she must make a move, it hardly mattered where, but she would never find the healing yogi for Lalia by staying put. The food was upsetting her stomach; and the concern of the hotel staff, her soul. In all India there was only one person she now knew well. And that was her own daughter. How perfectly astonishing, she thought, remembering all those years of parties, friends and balls. Where were all the people she and Hugh had known during their long Indian experience? Bunny Desai and Boogies Banerjee, the Raja of Satwa and the Maharani of Tipoomisoor? Was there any way of locating Tiger Timaya who had stayed with them for six months in England and had sworn every kind of Indian hospitality to herself and Hugh in return. ‘I’ll give you the works, my dears. We’ll go on a pukka tiger shoot, old chap. Bag them from the back of an elephant.’ And where did Minoo Kapoor live? They had driven her all the way to Heathrow, and on arrival discovered that she had left her ticket and her passport behind. What about Ramaswami Ayengar, who had fallen ou
t of a punt on the Thames when he came to see them? And the Nawab of Attar who had promised them the most wonderful holiday of their lives in his palace on a lake. Which lake?

  Where were all those people who had stayed with them over the years in England?

  She felt that if Hugh were there he would pull out some little notebook filled tight with addresses, would waft her round the country from ambassadorial residence to palace to big shot’s luxury bungalow. He would escort her to clubs where they would both be instantly recognized and feted.

  But Hugh was gone and with him all knowledge of their Indian friends.

  Tomorrow she would start to make arrangements to go and stay with Unity.

  In Hermione’s English garden it was still day as late evening descended in India.

  Slug was having a photo taken of himself standing by a golden bed that he had planted. He had visualized what it would be like from the catalogues Gerald had read to him, and reality had exceeded his expectation.

  ‘You’ve got to take the pic today,’ he told Gerald. ‘It’s got to be against a blue sky.’

  ‘I haven’t got a film,’ said Gerald. ‘Let’s do it tomorrow.’

  ‘I won’t be wearing my fringed jacket tomorrow,’ said Slug reasonably.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s Thursday,’ he said in an aggrieved voice, hurt that Gerald did not remember.

  Gerald did not. He raised an enquiring eyebrow.

  ‘Dry-clean day,’ said Slug almost snappishly. He waited for Gerald’s expression of comprehension and, when it did not come, elaborated, ‘Leather-refresh day. My jacket! First Thursday of every month. Dry cleaners.’ He paused, waited, then added, ‘Ready in twenty-four hours.’ Slug had taken up cleanliness for Gerald’s sake, and Gerald had forgotten. Slug felt hurt.

  ‘Oh yes, of course,’ said Gerald hastily. ‘But,’ he shrugged, ‘no film so what shall we do?’

  If he was honest he was not much impressed with Slug’s concoction of ginger mint and golden marjoram, yellow hosta and pinched-out robinia, golden privet cut in the shape of distant mountains – out of which thrust the spires of yellow red-hot pokers, and mullein.