by Rumer Godden
‘Kuku not up yet?’ asked Auntie Sanni. ‘She should be.’
‘Let her sleep,’ said Hannah, ‘for all the good she is.’
Mary wanted to sleep too but, ‘Wake up,’ came Blaise’s voice. ‘Tea. We’re going to have a swim before breakfast.’
Their tray had been set down on the verandah table; rolling over, Mary could see the teapot in its cosy, the pile of toast, bananas, and thought of the bedside Teasmaid of the hotel in Ootacamund and smiled. She was too lazy to get up and lay blinking in the light – Blaise had opened the half doors, sunshine lay on the stone floors and Blaise, holding his cup of tea, was in his bathing shorts. ‘Come and swim.’ Generously he made no allusion to the night before. ‘Come on.’
‘No, thank you,’ said Mary. She was lying on the far side of the bed, the furthest she had been able to get from him but, by his friendliness, he seemed to have forgotten everything or decided to put it out of his mind – he had been asleep when she came in.
Now, as she lay, she was still filled with the happiness and ease of the grove and, ‘Krishnan, Krishnan,’ she whispered into the pillow.
‘Mary, a good swim . . .’
‘No, I don’t want to have this buffeted out of me,’ but she could not tell that to Blaise and, ‘You go,’ she said, trying to sound half asleep.
‘Right, I will.’
Beyond the partition, Olga Manning had been listening to the news. She clicked the transistor off and, standing in the doorway, looked at the waves. She could not see them though; her eyes were blind with tears. As if she had to prevent them spilling down her cheeks, she clenched her hands hard.
A furious altercation broke out on the beach.
‘Sahib wish to swim?’ Thambi had come up to Blaise. ‘I call Somu.’
‘Somu?’
‘Lifeguard. Very good young man. He swim with you.’
‘For what?’
‘At Patna Hall,’ said Thambi, ‘no guest swim in our sea alone and must wear helmet, Sahib.’ He showed the pointed, strong wickerwork cap. ‘For break waveforce. Necessary, Sahib.’
‘Absolute bull! Don’t be silly, man. The sea’s perfectly calm.’
‘Look calm,’ said Thambi, ‘but deep, has currents, waves in one minute get too strong. Sahib, please to wait while Somu come.’
‘Why should I wait? I swim when and how I want.’
‘No, Sahib.’ Thambi stood firm. ‘It is rule. No guest swim alone. I call Somu.’
‘Damned impudent cheek!’
Blaise was back in the bedroom putting on his towelling bathrobe.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To have this out with Mrs McIndoe.’
‘Auntie Sanni?’ Mary had been listening, willy-nilly: Blaise had been shouting. ‘Blaise,’ she tried, ‘why not just do as they say? Wouldn’t it be more simple? When they see what a strong swimmer you are, of course they’ll let you be alone.’
‘I won’t take this from anyone,’ declared Blaise.
Mary had to sympathise. His swimming was the thing of which Blaise was most proud and with reason; she remembered him in Norway and how impressed she and Rory had been. ‘Blaise,’ she began again but was not surprised to find that he had gone.
‘Mr Browne, my grandfather kept the rule and so do I,’ said Auntie Sanni. ‘Each bather takes a man, sometimes two, and wears the helmet. It is wise.’
‘Quite, for most people. I don’t want to boast, Mrs McIndoe,’ said Blaise, ‘but I was chosen for training to swim the English Channel.’
‘The English Channel is not the Coromandel coast, Mr Browne.’ Auntie Sanni was unimpressed. ‘I am sorry to disappoint you but no visitor swims alone from our beach.’
‘Then I’ll go further up the beach.’
‘If you like.’ Auntie Sanni’s singsong was calm. ‘Patna Hall beach is netted and enclosed far out to sea. Elsewhere there are sharks. That is why the fishermen go out four at a time,’ and seeing Blaise look like a small boy balked, echoing Mary she coaxed, ‘Mr Browne, why not, this first time at any rate, go in with Somu? I expect you swim like a man but he swims like a fish, in-stinc-tive-ly. Try him this morning, Mr Browne, then if he and Thambi think— ’
‘How kind!’ said Blaise, which irony was lost on Auntie Sanni. ‘I prefer not to swim at all.’
The lorry could not have been better: like all Surijlal Chand’s possessions it was flashy, painted bright yellow, ‘For-tun-ate-ly one of our party’s colours,’ crooned Mr Srinivasan. Green was provided by mango leaf garlands, the white by the background of the posters, of Krishnan’s symbolic three cows among stylised flowers.
‘It could not be more eyecatching,’ Dr Coomaraswamy had to admit both of the lorry and symbol. Two loud-speakers were connected to a battery; in case it failed, there was a megaphone. Dr Coomaraswamy was to stand on the tail of the lorry. ‘Yes, I myself must speak all day, since Krishnan . . .’
The pandal’s throne seat was raised, ‘So everyone can see him,’ said Sharma, and was handsomely set off by whole banana trees, their wide long leaves fresh; their stems were swathed in yellow and green. When Krishnan took his seat, naked except for a small loincloth, his skin shining blue-black – Sharma had used plenty of oil – his face painted, the U mark of Vishnu on his forehead, the garlands round his neck – white mogra flowers that had a heady jasmine scent – he looked a veritable god.
He sat in the lotus position. ‘You will get cramp,’ Mr Srinivasan predicted.
‘I never get cramp,’ wrote Krishnan. He had a pad and ball pen beside him on which he put down his orders.
Everyone was ready. ‘But will the people take it?’ the Doctor worried – ‘buts’ were flying about like vicious small brickbats.
‘Surijlal took it,’ said Sharma.
With a sense of occasion he had found a conch; as the lorry swept out on the sandy road outside the grove, followed by a small fleet of jeeps, motor bikes and Ambassador cars filled and spilling over with the disciples. ‘Ulla, ulla, ullulah.’ The conch sounded its holiness as the cortège drove past Patna Hall, then slowly through the village. ‘Through all villages we must be slow, then away to Ghandara, slow through the bazaar, then other villages, other towns,’ cried Sharma. ‘Ulla, ulla, ullulah. Ulla.’
‘What shall we do?’ asked Blaise after breakfast.
‘It was a glorious breakfast,’ said Mary. She had eaten papaya, a luscious fruit, large as a melon but golden-fleshed, black-seeded, then kedgeree and, at Samuel’s insistence, bacon, sausages – ‘At Patna Hall we make our own’ – with scrambled eggs, which Auntie Sanni called ‘rumble-tumble’. Finally, toast and marmalade, all with large cups of coffee.
‘I’ve never seen you eat like this,’ said Blaise.
‘I’ve never eaten like this.’
‘Are you sure you’ve had enough?’ he teased as she laid down her napkin. ‘Well, what can we do today?’
‘I’m too full to do anything,’ and not only with breakfast she could have said. ‘I’m going to lie on the beach in the sun like a lizard.’ These dear little Indian lizards, thought Mary . . . There was one now, climbing up the dining-room wall – she had heard that if anyone touched their tails, the tails would fall off . . . I don’t want anyone to touch me, thought Mary.
Back at the bungalow, she took a towel, spread it on the beach and lay face down, basking.
‘I think I’ll play golf.’ Blaise’s bag of clubs was bigger than Mary. ‘The brochure says there is a golf course.’
He was soon back, disgruntled. ‘Call that a golf course. Absolute con! All on sand! Not even nine holes.’
‘Better than nothing.’ Mary was half asleep.
‘Anyhow I can’t play alone.’ Blaise sounded lost. ‘Sir John won’t come out. I tried Menzies but he’s at his bloody typewriter. Mary, I’ll give you a lesson.’
‘No.’
‘Merry . . .’
‘I can’t.’ Mary shut her eyes and her ears. ‘I can’t.’
Blaise was redu
ced to putting on the flattest sand-green he could find.
Mary lay idly watching the small crabs that scuttled down the beach to meet the highest ripple of each wave; each crab threw up a minute flurry of sand. Crabs, lizards, the elephant Birdie, the sea and the sky seemed to merge and come into one, be ‘cosmi’, thought Mary. That was a big claim yet true. I am cosmic, she thought, so is a crab or a lizard. If she shut her eyes she seemed to see circles of light that moved, changed and fused. Cosmos, thought Mary, or is the plural ‘cosmi’? But ‘cosmos’ can’t have a plural, you silly. She went back to being a lizard and was soon asleep.
Mary was woken by Hannah planting a beach umbrella beside her in the sand. ‘Not good, baba, to lie in sun too long. You have sunstroke, brain fever. Too hot.’ She opened the umbrella. It was true, Mary was too hot and was grateful for the shade. ‘And you drink,’ commanded Hannah. Besides the umbrella, she had brought a jug of still lemon. ‘We make our own lemonade . . . drink, baba.’
It was plain that Hannah, Samuel and now Thambi, who had come up too and was smiling down at her, had a conspiracy to look after her but ‘baba’, thought Mary sitting up, her arms round her bare knees. Baba, child. Yes, I am behaving like a child. She put a lock of hair behind her ear; her hair felt soft, like a child’s but, ‘You must try to be older,’ she told herself sternly. ‘You’re a married woman. Be generous.’ That was a word she had not used before and as Thambi asked, ‘Missy swim?’ she said, ‘I must go and tell my Sahib,’ got up and went to look for Blaise.
They swam. ‘Sahib strong swimmer,’ Thambi said in admiration but Mary noticed the young Somu swimming beside Blaise.
Moses and another fisherman held Mary, diving with her under a towering wave. For a moment she felt her feet standing on a floor of sand – the sea floor? – then they swept her up through the wave; it fell like a weight of thunder on her head but the point of the wicker helmet pierced it and she was up; deftly they turned her, their brown hands strong and quick, then, with them, she was riding in on the crest. On the shore they let her go as, gasping, laughing in exhilaration, the wave trundled her up the beach. ‘I’ve never felt anything like this,’ she called to Blaise.
‘I must say the bathing is marvellous,’ he shouted back above the noise of the surf. For the first time at Patna Hall he looked happy . . . as a sandboy, thought Mary – he was covered in sand. ‘Let’s go in again.’
‘Yes,’ called Mary. He dived back into a wave, followed at once by Somu while Mary held out her hands to Moses and the fisherman.
Towels round their necks, she and Blaise walked back to the bungalow, then up to the house for lunch in friendliness.
They played tennis all afternoon.
‘Isn’t there something very dear about this place?’ Mrs Glover asked the other ladies, stretching her feet luxuriously as she sat in the comfortable verandah chair. ‘Unlike the other hotels we’ve stayed at, coming back here in the evening is like coming home.’
The group had spent the day driving out into the hills to see the newly discovered cave paintings; now they were resting on the verandah and, ‘Yes,’ said Mrs van den Mar in content, ‘it is like coming home! Such a welcome.’
‘That nice Hannah made me sit down, took off my shoes and massaged my feet,’ said Mrs Glover, ‘pressing them, pulling out the toes. Exquisite.’
Mrs Schlumberger shuddered. ‘I can’t stand her bangles, rattle, clink, chink. Anyway, she never came near me.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ but Mrs van den Mar refrained from saying it.
‘And my feet are more swollen than Mrs Glover’s. There was far, far too much walking.’ Mrs Schlumberger glared at Professor Webster.
‘But those cave paintings, those colours still there after all these centuries.’ Miss Pritt was rapt. ‘The old true colours, crimson and brown madder and turmeric, indigo – those violets and greens.’
‘They looked very dirty to me.’ Mrs Schlumberger was still cross. ‘Shabby and old.’
‘Old! I should say! Two thousand seven hundred years!’ Dr Lovat had been as moved as Miss Pritt.
‘Maybe later, second century BC,’ Professor Webster had to caution.
‘Before Christ! Think of it! And as your eyes get accustomed, the faces seem to speak to you, so expressive, witty and eloquent. Those apsaras! The heavenly dancing girls, the verses in their honour scratched on the walls.’ Professor Webster had translated them and Dr Lovat quoted: ‘The lily-coloured ones. The doe-eyed beauties . . . Mystical!’
‘Mystical! Utterly disgusting. Obscene! That multiple sexual intercourse!’ Mrs Schlumberger said in outrage. ‘How dare Professor Aaron expose us to such things?’
‘Multiple intercourse was supposed to be the paradigm of ultimate bliss.’ Dr Lovat was deliberately taunting Mrs Schlumberger. ‘It’s an allegory for the way sex is revered in Indian culture. That’s why the girls are enchanting,’ and she quoted, ‘If the senses are not captivated the lure will not work.’
‘Lure! I’m surprised at you, Julia.’
‘But did you see those student workers?’ Mrs van den Mar skilfully changed the conversation. ‘Students cleaning those wonderful murals with acetone. By order!’
‘Yes,’ Professor Webster was wrathful, ‘the colours will be ruined. I shall write to the Department of Archaeology.’
But Miss Pritt was not concerned with departments. ‘Those paintings seemed to distil all these centuries of art as if they had been five minutes.’
‘Centuries in which, by comparison, we have gained nothing, nothing,’ said Mrs Glover.
‘Something happened to painting,’ said Dr Lovat, ‘when it came off the walls. With murals and frescoes it was pure.’
‘You mean, as soon as it turned into pictures, buying and selling came in and something went out,’ said Ellen Webster.
‘Joy and, yes, awe, you’re right,’ said Dr Lovat.
‘Just as something happened to men’s minds when they built office blocks higher than a spire . . .’
Kuku gave an enormous yawn.
It was towards dusk when Mary and Blaise were leaving the tennis court that they heard the soft beating of drums and with them a chanting; looking up, Mary saw lights moving, people carrying lit torches. A procession was coming down the hill beyond the village. She could make out men in white – they carried the flares – and, less distinct because of their coloured clothes, women who seemed to be carrying round baskets on their heads heaped, she saw when the torchlight fell on them, with fruit and flowers. The light fell, too, on chests carried on poles laid each side of them and painted scarlet. ‘Marriage chests,’ said Olga Manning.
She had come out in the late afternoon to watch them play. ‘Uninvited,’ Blaise had muttered. As soon as they came off the court she had come up to them whereupon he had picked up the racquets and presses and left.
Olga had taken no notice. ‘It’s for a wedding,’ she explained to Mary. ‘There must be one near, in some village. This is the bride’s dowry being brought down to the bridegroom’s house. She must be a hill girl. Poor little thing, probably married to a man she doesn’t know,’ and Mary, startled, thought, I’m married to a man I don’t know. Almost she said it aloud but, as if she had, Olga said with curious passion, ‘None of us should marry, unless we love a man so much we would go through hell for him, which we shall probably have to do.’
‘Well, Hari, how did it go?’ Sir John asked on the verandah that evening.
‘It did not go. Not at all. Not at all.’ Dr Coomaraswamy again was in despair. ‘Everywhere we went Padmina Retty was before us, so skilfully she had arranged it. She is eloquent, so eloquent.’ Dr Coomaraswamy had tears in his eyes. ‘They tell me one speech lasted over an hour, while Krishnan— ’
‘A contrast indeed!’
‘Everyone was so much astonished,’ came Mr Srinivasan’s moan.
‘Good,’ said Sir John, ‘good.’
‘What good?’ Dr Coomaraswamy had become angry. ‘What if they are asto
nished into inertia? Inertia! I myself spoke and spoke but I am no match for Padmina. They did not listen, only looked.’
‘Isn’t that what they were supposed to do?’ asked Sir John.
Lady Fisher, changed for dinner, came out and sat by Sir John. She was smiling. ‘Kuku’, she told him quietly, ‘asked me if there were really a man’s club in London called the Savage.’
‘How did she come to hear of it?’
‘Apparently Mr Menzies gave it as his London address. I think she had a vision of men in skins, tearing meat with their hands and teeth.’
As if she had fathomed Kuku’s dearest longings, Lady Fisher had given her, to Hannah’s intense disapproval, a pure silk sari. ‘Even sent to Ghandara for it. Sharma bought it,’ Hannah told Samuel.
‘That was dear of you, Alicia,’ Auntie Sanni had said. ‘I am most glad.’ In consequence Lady Fisher now was Kuku’s confidante.
‘The Savage Club is real enough.’ Sir John was thoughtful. ‘I’m not as sure about Menzies.’
‘Mr Menzies has been at least half an hour on the telephone,’ an indignant Kuku told Auntie Sanni. One of Patna Hall’s two telephones was in a kiosk that stood in the hall; the other in Auntie Sanni’s office was available only to her and Colonel McIndoe. ‘I needed urgently to order a few stores. Twice I came back. He was still there. When I stood to show I was waiting, he shut the door.’
‘I expect he had some business to do.’ Auntie Sanni was not disturbed.
The International Association of Art, Technology and Culture was having a lecture that night given by Professor Webster. ‘And they have been out in the hills since eight this morning. Where do they get the appetite?’ Auntie Sanni marvelled as she marvelled each year. ‘Kuku, you must warn Mrs Manning – I’m afraid she can’t have the drawing room tonight but tell her that, though the lecture is for the group, anyone who cares to is welcome to come.’
‘No, thank you,’ was Olga’s answer, ‘and, Kuku, will you tell Auntie Sanni I have to go to Calcutta in the morning and, please, order a taxi for the station.’