Daughters of India

by Jill McGivering

‘There.’ Edward. ‘Gone.’

  ‘Our marriage is a sham. I’ve seen you two together. I’m not blind.’

  ‘Stop it, Whyte.’

  ‘Have her, if you like. I don’t care. Perhaps you already have.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd.’ The clink of glass again as another drink was poured.

  Jonathan gave a sharp laugh. ‘Truth is, I can’t stand the sight of her.’

  Edward sighed. ‘You married her, Whyte.’

  ‘I had to marry. Don’t you see? A man without a wife, people talk.’

  Isabel tried to get to her feet. Her legs buckled under her. Her face was hot. She would pack her bags. Go back to Delhi. What else could she do? She thought of her parents, of the scandal for them both if she reappeared on their doorstep.

  Jonathan’s voice sounded thick. ‘I won’t give her a divorce. I don’t care how bloody miserable she is. I’d be finished.’

  She reached the doorway. Jonathan sat in the planter, a glass of Scotch in his hand. He drank it off, reached for more. His face was slick with sweat.

  ‘Why do you think I ended up in this godforsaken place? No one’s sent to Port Blair unless they want rid of them. That’s one thing I’ve got in common with the bloody revolutionaries.’

  ‘That’s what you’re really worried about, isn’t it?’

  Jonathan turned his head as she entered the room and went to stand squarely in front of him.

  ‘That if there’s a scandal involving your unhappy wife, they’ll gossip about you again,’ she said.

  Jonathan’s eyes took on a hunted look. It emboldened her to carry on.

  ‘You abuse that wretched houseboy, don’t you? That’s why he cries in corners. He’s afraid of you. And what you do to him.’

  She was right. She saw it in his face at once as the shaft went home. He raised the glass to his mouth and drank. The glass juddered against his teeth.

  ‘Don’t, Isabel.’ Edward tried to lay a hand on her arm. She shook it off.

  ‘That’s why you married me, isn’t it? You thought it would stop tongues wagging. Make a respectable man out of you so you could get promoted away from here. You didn’t care a jot about me.’

  ‘It suited you well enough. Solutions all round.’

  He seemed to shrink in front of her eyes. She saw again the bullying schoolboy who tried to hurt her all those years ago. She shook her head.

  ‘Isabel.’ Edward was at her side. He didn’t look shocked, just terribly sad and the gentleness in his eyes made her want simply to cry. They stood still, reading each other’s faces.

  ‘Take me back with you.’

  He looked confused. ‘Take you back?’

  ‘You need help there, don’t you? Just for a while.’

  Edward frowned. ‘I don’t think—’

  Jonathan said: ‘Take her. Do me a favour.’

  Edward turned to Jonathan. ‘She’s not a parcel, Whyte.’

  Jonathan slumped in his chair. ‘I’ll say she’s helping with the Mission School. Everyone knows you’re short. Send her back when you’ve had enough.’

  ‘Apologise for that.’ Edward tensed. ‘You’ve no right.’

  Jonathan shrugged. ‘I’m her husband. I’ve every right.’

  ‘Don’t listen to him.’ Isabel touched Edward’s shoulder. ‘Let me come. I’ll teach. Nothing wrong with that.’ She paused, willing him to agree. ‘Jonathan and I will tear each other apart if I stay.’

  Edward didn’t speak. He stared down at his hands. He can’t want me there, she thought. Then: I don’t care. Whatever happens, I need to be with him.

  ‘It’s settled, then.’ She became brisk, trying to bundle him into agreeing. ‘They’ll have room for me, won’t they? On the ship?’

  She left to pack without giving him time to answer.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The steamer was a weathered Portuguese cargo vessel. The captain, a European with multicoloured tattoos, showed Isabel to a stuffy cabin on the upper deck. She lay awake for some time after their departure, listening to the shouts of the crew, the creak of wood and the low slap of the waves. Eventually she wrapped a shawl round her shoulders and ventured up onto the deck.

  The night sky was cloudy. Black water stretched endlessly on all sides, pockmarked by lightly falling rain. The air was heavy with petrol fumes and sea salt.

  Her head was filled with images from the final hours in the house. Jonathan’s flushed face as she accused him of mistreating Bimal. Edward’s troubled look as she pressed him into taking her away. The breeze was cold and she pulled her shawl more closely around her body.

  Jonathan never cared for her, then. It was all pretence. She wondered how many people knew. Lady Lyons suspected, she was sure. The servants must gossip. Perhaps she had known herself, from the first time she found Bimal in tears, and been too afraid of the truth to confront it. She thought of Jonathan’s one, awkward visit to her bed. They had lived together as man and wife and yet already she felt far closer to Edward than she ever had to her husband.

  Her cheeks became numb but she stayed at the rail, facing down the wind and rain. Sanjay Krishna was out there somewhere, unseen, running for his life. Had he played her for a fool? Even now, she didn’t regret writing to him.

  As dawn slowly broke, the deck grew busy with European and Indian sailors. The wind drew silver ridges and troughs across the surface of the waves.

  ‘Did you sleep?’ Edward appeared at her side. His clothes were dishevelled and his face unshaven. ‘Do you want breakfast?’

  He came back with two glasses of milky tea.

  ‘There aren’t comforts, you know. On Car Nicobar.’ He sounded worried.

  ‘I’ll manage.’

  The prow veered to the right, sniffing out jungle, feeling its way in the dull morning light.

  Edward lifted his arm and pointed. ‘Almost there.’

  She strained to see land. Car Nicobar made barely a smudge on the water’s surface. They were almost upon it before she made out a low green bank with only the faintest white fringe separating it from the sea. The ship slowed as they approached dark lines of jagged, black rocks, which protected the island as effectively as teeth.

  ‘Where do we dock?’

  Edward gave her a wry look. ‘We don’t.’

  A row of dull-brown shapes stood on a white-sand beach. Beyond stretched jungle. A deep shudder rose from the bowels of the ship as the captain had dropped anchor. Behind them, deckhands brought their belongings out on the deck and stacked them in piles: Isabel’s hastily packed bag was dwarfed by Edward’s trunk, boxes of dried goods and the crate of Bibles.

  Edward pointed and she turned to look. Young black men, wearing nothing but loin cloths, were racing into the surf, propelling half a dozen dugout canoes. The flimsy boats tossed as the men pressed them into the waves. When the water reached chest height, they hauled themselves aboard and paddled furiously towards the ship.

  The boats were little more than hollowed-out logs, balanced by outriggers of light wood lashed to bamboo struts. The men had stout muscular bodies. Their black skin glistened with spray. As they came closer to the vessel, she made out their bead necklaces and bracelets.

  The sailors lowered their luggage on ropes over the side of the boat. Each piece swung as it waited for a canoe to battle against the swell and position itself beneath, then for hands below to guide it in. Within ten or fifteen minutes, four were loaded with their belongings and the natives fell again to their frantic paddling as they drew away from the vessel, changed direction and headed back to shore.

  ‘We go next.’ Edward crossed the deck and started to climb down the slippery gangway that stuck out into nothingness. A rope, running along both sides of the gangway, formed the only barrier between them and the flecking foam below.

  Edward hesitated, judging the rise and fall of the canoe beneath. At one moment, it rose so high that he could have stepped into it with ease. A moment later, the sea snatched it away again, leaving a yawnin
g vacancy. He reached back for her hand and drew her alongside him. Her face stung with salt spray and her legs juddered under her. The water bubbled far below.

  ‘Ready?’ Edward shouted to make himself heard above the sound of the waves. ‘Now!’

  They fell through nothingness, stranded for a second in some unknown place between ship and water. Black hands caught her, steadied her as she fell forward into the canoe. A man with stained teeth and dark eyes deposited her on a narrow bamboo seat, even as the canoe whipped round and rose steeply on the mountain slope of the next wave. The bottom of the canoe sloshed with seawater. Cold seeped through her boots. Empty air rose around her as they crested the wave, then crashed with a bang down the opposite side, knocking her breath from her body.

  The endlessly tossing boat seemed no more substantial than a splinter on the ocean. When the swell reduced a fraction, a line of black rock streaked past the bow and a white-sand shore rushed towards them. The canoe rode a final breaking wave onto land and the men leapt out at once on both sides, seizing the wooden edges of their boat and dragging it to safety, out of the reach of the next roller.

  Her knees gave way, pitching her forward into soft, warm sand. She lifted her head to see a group of black, half-naked men, women and children who stood at a distance, their eyes fixed on hers.

  Edward was swamped at once by a cloud of small black children with bone-white teeth who jumped round him, swung from his arms and climbed his thighs. He smiled and wrestled with them, then gestured to Isabel to follow and headed into the jungle, picking his way along a narrow path through the dense undergrowth.

  It was a peculiar procession, first Edward and his cluster of bounding children, then Isabel, picking her way through trailing creepers, her wet boots whitening with creeping salt stains, waving flies from her face. The native women crept close behind her, whispering and pointing. Finally the men, shouldering the luggage, brought up the rear.

  The cool breeze from the sea disappeared once they entered the jungle and the interlaced canopy prevented the slightest stirring of air. The vegetation sweated, raising the temperature with its own body heat and filling the air with the fetid smell of dank, rotting greenery. Isabel’s cotton slacks and shirt stuck to her skin.

  Just as she was starting to tire, the jungle broke open and they emerged into a clearing. A pack of dogs rushed barking to throw themselves on Edward and the children. Behind them, chickens ran in squawking circles, disturbed by the general commotion and a family of bristly pigs snuffled and grunted.

  The clearing was filled with ten to twelve primitive stilted houses, the shape of giant beehives, woven from coconut matting. A boy, perhaps eleven or twelve years old, ran forward with a young coconut and solemnly presented it to Edward. He had the air of a child who has waited a long time for his moment of glory.

  ‘This is James.’ Edward ruffled the boy’s hair. ‘My shadow.’

  James pressed close to Edward’s side. His eyes followed every movement as Edward took a machete and sliced off the top of the coconut.

  ‘He’s Sami’s boy.’ Edward drank off a little coconut milk, then gave it to James who carried it carefully to Isabel. ‘His father drowned, fishing. I try to make it up to him.’

  They perched on a fallen tree trunk. The coconut milk was cold. As she drank, dribbles of watery milk spilt from her lips and trickled down her chin. The natives gathered round her to watch.

  Edward motioned forward one of the women. Her figure was tall and slender with swaying, bare breasts.

  ‘And this is Sami. She helps at the school.’

  Edward spoke to her in a curious language, punctuated by hard consonants which seemed to catch in his throat.

  ‘Is that Nicobarese?’

  He laughed. ‘I was just saying that you’ll teach.’

  Isabel smiled. Sami did not.

  ‘Does she speak Hindustani?’

  ‘No. The children speak some English.’ He looked her over. ‘I expect you need to rest now?’

  Isabel looked round at the curious faces. ‘I’d rather get started.’

  Edward nodded. ‘Sami will take you to see the school.’

  She expected the school to be a building. In fact it was an empty space a few minutes further into the jungle, cleared for learning. Sami rounded up ten children of different ages and sizes, all with the oiled hair and black skin of the Nicobarese. They sat cross-legged on the ground and fixed her with brown eyes as Sami picked up a whittled stick, handed it to Isabel and gestured to the dirt which served as blackboard and easel.

  Isabel took a deep breath, smiled round at the watchful children and started to chant the times tables, clapping her hands to the rhythm. One or two pupils haltingly joined in. Sami, arms folded, stood silently at the back.

  By late morning, the smaller children slept in the laps of older brothers and sisters, and simply wandered away from the class. When they got hungry, the older children too got to their feet, one by one, and disappeared. When only two remained, Isabel handed the stick back to Sami and they trailed back through the jungle to the circle of houses.

  Women crouched at the foot of the beehives, stirring blackened pots over open fires. Children sat around them, eating a mess of rice porridge and vegetables with their fingers from leaves. The smell of simmering rice saturated the humid air.

  One of the women beckoned to Isabel and ladled steaming rice onto a leaf, then handed it to her. The leaf was porous and the food leached through to heat the palm of her hand. She lowered her lips to the leaf and ate directly from it, as the children looked on and giggled.

  Edward reappeared late in the afternoon, his clothes soaked with sweat. Isabel sat in the shade as he fetched water from a wooden trough and washed himself, then put on a clean shirt. The Nicobarese women again began to cook and the air soon swam with woodsmoke.

  He sat beside her. ‘How was school?’

  ‘Informal.’

  Edward gave her a quick sideways look. ‘We can go to the shore tomorrow morning, if you like. To bathe.’

  She nodded. Her hair was itchy and her skin frosted with salt. They sat quietly for a moment, watching the bustle of the camp.

  ‘Where are all the men?’

  ‘Fishing, probably. Or cutting coconuts.’

  The heat eased as the sun fell and the light turned yellow with early evening. The jungle settled around them. A haze of green-winged birds rose, cawing, and wheeled through the sky, disappearing at last behind a distant clutch of palm trees.

  Edward turned his attention to one of his boots, unlacing it and easing the leather along the side of his foot.

  ‘Edward, I am sorry. About the letter.’

  He didn’t look up. His hands stayed on his boot, threading the lace through the eyes with deft, even tugs.

  ‘But I don’t regret sending it.’

  His fingers paused in their work. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘He needed to know. We’re not all heartless.’

  He pulled again at the ends of the lace and knotted it with care. ‘You used me, Isabel. Worse than that, you used the Bible.’

  She lowered her head. ‘I just thought—’

  ‘Perhaps, next time, Barnes won’t let me hand out Bibles at all. Had you thought of that?’

  She shook her head. Her feet, in their Delhi-made boots, made dents in the dirt.

  ‘If I compromised you in any way, I am sorry. That’s the last thing …’

  He sighed and made to get up. She caught at his sleeve.

  ‘You don’t mind, do you? That I’m here.’

  His eyes were sad. ‘It’s a bit late for that. There isn’t another steamer for a month.’

  That night, she slept in a one-room hive with Sami, her elderly mother and four other women, three snuffling infants and two dogs. The crawl-hole stank of dried leaves and the coconut oil with which the women rubbed their limbs and dressed their hair. The only gap was the hole in the base, accessed by a spindly bamboo ladder. She lay awake for some time, sw
eating, nipped by a cloud of flies, wondering how she’d come to be here.

  She woke, disorientated, to the sound of stealthy movement. A soft rustling of feet creeping across coconut matting. A subtle creak. Slivers of light rose through the pitch darkness from the open trapdoor. A tall, slender body, Sami’s, was making its way between the sleeping bodies towards her. Isabel closed her eyes.

  The footsteps stopped by Isabel’s side. Warm, spicy breath fell on her face. Isabel lay rigid, pretending to be asleep. After a time, Sami retreated. The slightest creak suggested that she was again settling to sleep. Isabel lay awake for sometime, listening for further movement but none came.

  Her feet sank into the moist sand at the very edge of the dispersing waves. The water bubbled, sucked softly around her toes and pulled sand from under them. Ahead the sun shattered into fragments across the surface of endless crystal waters.

  Edward stood beside her in his bathing suit. ‘Don’t stray too far left. The coral’s sharp as a razor.’

  She dipped, scooped up a handful of foaming water and threw it at him.

  ‘Stop worrying.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘I haven’t mentioned the sharks yet.’

  She ran out into the water, the tide slapping at her ankles. The beach shelved gently and the lengthy shallows were as warm as a bath. Finally it grew deep enough for her to fling herself forward onto her stomach and swim. The water reached for her, washing off the filth and sweat of the last two days, cradling her as she struck out towards the horizon.

  From the sea, the shore looked a paradise. The sand was bone-white, the jungle a thick screen of painter’s green. There was no sign of human, even animal, existence. The only noise was the swish of water in her ears and the dull thud of waves breaking.

  The vastness of the landscape shrank her to nothingness as she floated, surrendered to the power of the waves. She felt an odd sense of detachment, as if she could look back at her life on land and realise how insignificant her own troubles, her own happiness really was. As if there were no protests and riots and struggles. Only this life, here and now, of endless sea and sky. She lay back and let the water fill her ears.