Coromandel Sea Change

by Rumer Godden

  Auntie Sanni did not say ‘you’. It was as if she knew that, in her mind, Mary had handed Blaise back to the Brownes.

  Overnight he had lain in the chapel Samuel and Hannah had hastily improvised. They knew what had to be done. A coffin was produced – ‘It was to have been mine,’ said Auntie Sanni. ‘The Colonel and I have always kept ours handy. Coffins do not exist in Shantipur, not even in Ghandara.’

  It was put on trestles in the centre of the room, a wreath laid on it – Hannah would have liked a cross; candles in tall candlesticks were lit on each side to burn all night; there were cushions to kneel on and, ‘I’ll watch with you,’ Hannah told Mary.

  ‘Watch whom?’ said Mary’s puzzled look.

  ‘I shall watch,’ said Kuku who had stolen in to look.

  ‘That Miss Sanni will never allow.’

  ‘Kuku shall do as she likes,’ Mary was firm, ‘but if it had been me . . .’ she looked at the candles, the shut room, ‘I should have liked to be burned on my bier on the beach.’

  Kuku was shocked. ‘English people do not do such things.’

  ‘Shelley did,’ said Mary.

  ‘Shelley?’

  ‘But he was a poet,’ Mary went on, ‘Blaise wasn’t.’

  No Episcopalian priest was near enough. ‘He would have had to come from Madras.’ There was a priest at Ghandara, Father Sebastian Gonzalives was chaplain at the convent but, ‘Roman Catholic,’ said Sir John. ‘Better not. The Brownes might not like it.’

  ‘Why do religions have to have edges?’ asked Mary.

  Surprisingly, Colonel McIndoe, not Sir John, read the burial service and led the prayers. All Patna Hall’s staff was there except Kuku: ‘I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t,’ she had wept. Olga Armstrong, as she was beginning to be called, was beside the Fishers. The servants stood in a circle, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, every one of them from Samuel down to the sweepers including the two women who had cleaned up Slippers’s ordure but, as untouchables, they had to stand apart, especially from the gardeners who were Brahmins – More edges, thought Mary.

  I suppose Slippers has been taken away. Do they have knackers in India? She shivered. I wonder, she thought dizzily, if he and Blaise will ever meet – would it be in heaven? The next world? Another world? Or would it be in what, I think, they call limbo? And what would they say to one another? You’re supposed to forgive and the thought struck her, How surprised Blaise will be to find a donkey in heaven. To me, it wouldn’t be heaven without them. She came back to the funeral and listened as Colonel McIndoe’s voice, modulated and clear went on, ‘. . . We therefore commit his body to the ground, dust to dust . . .’ But here it shouldn’t be dust, she thought, it should be sand. If it had been the sea – this time she did not shudder.

  Of his bones are coral made,

  Those are pearls which were his eyes . . .

  That would be right for Krishnan. Krishnan had had to go back, after all, thought Mary, there is still an election. She looked up at the spreading gūl-mohr tree; Blaise would have liked an apple tree or a rose bush. The sound of the waves was too loud now. He was stunned by the waves – mercifully. ‘Oh, God, stun me,’ prayed Mary.

  ‘Mary. Mary, dear. They want you to sprinkle a little earth on the coffin. You have to be the first.’ All of them sprinkled, the servants salaaming when they had done it. Samuel and Hannah made the sign of the cross. Then the grave was closed.

  ‘Kuku, you will get up im-med-iat-ely.’ It was after the funeral breakfast which Samuel, to fit the occasion, had served at one large table, a breakfast even more lavish than usual though nobody ate more than a little. Kuku had still not appeared. ‘Now, get up. Dress yourself properly and come and do what you are here to do.’ Auntie Sanni was stern.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘There is much work. Everyone is leaving after lunch. Sir John will want his account, also Dr Coomaraswamy. That will be large because of all the young people in Paradise. Let the Brownes’ bill rest. I expect Mr Browne Senior will settle that.’

  ‘The Brownes’ bill? Blaise’s! How can you be so heartless?’

  ‘We are running an hotel. The accounts must be done. We must go through the register and allot rooms. Other guests will be arriving.’

  ‘Other guests.’ Kuku sat up. ‘Haven’t you any feeling?’ she demanded. ‘If not any respect? Out of respect, surely, we should close for tonight.’

  ‘And inconvenience and disappoint several people who are coming, maybe have already left home, hoping for a little rest and peace? I will give you half an hour,’ but in the doorway Auntie Sanni stopped and said more kindly, ‘It is time to stop crying, Kuku. I have been running this hotel for fifty years. In that time, of course, all kinds of things have happened, small things, big ones, bad and good, happy and tragic, but Patna Hall has never closed,’ said Auntie Sanni.

  ‘Mary, would you like me to help you pack?’ asked Olga.

  ‘Pack?’ It had obviously not occurred to Mary.

  ‘Yes. Say if you would rather I didn’t but today is Saturday, change-over day. Hannah is too busy to do it for you. I don’t know if your room in the bungalow is let or not but in any case I thought packing might be painful for you, especially Blaise’s things, and being in the bungalow alone.’

  ‘I don’t want to be in the bungalow at all.’

  ‘These things have to be done.’ Olga was kind. ‘If you let me help you, it can be very quick.’ As Mary still did not answer, ‘I assume you will be going away like the rest of us.’

  ‘You?’ asked Mary.

  ‘Yes. I can’t trespass on Auntie Sanni’s kindness any longer.’

  ‘Where will you go?’

  Olga shrugged. ‘Somewhere, probably in Calcutta. I have been offered work – of a sort.’

  ‘I was going to tell Blaise I would stay on here with Auntie Sanni without him,’ said Mary. ‘Now that I’m without him, I can’t stay.’

  Samuel had not thought it respectful to put on the radio during the funeral breakfast so that Dr Coomaraswamy and Mr Srinivasan had to follow the news in the papers.

  ‘Krishnan Bhanj triumphs in Konak.’ ‘A landslide victory for Krishnan Bhanj.’ ‘Though counting is still going on, Krishnan Bhanj and the Root and Flower Party already have a majority of some hundred and forty thousand votes over the other candidates, a near record for any candidate in elections anywhere in India.’ Dr Coomaraswamy, marvelled ‘A hundred and forty thousand plus! Even the great Aditya family landowners have forsaken Gopal Rau and come over to Krishnan.’

  ‘Mrs Padmina Retty, eighty-nine thousand.’

  ‘Gopal Rau, fifty.’

  Every fresh paragraph was balm to Dr Coomaraswamy – Uma cannot say now I should not meddle in politics.

  There were, of course, other headlines. ‘Young English diplomat drowned . . .’

  Dr Coomaraswamy hastily folded the papers.

  Though he and Mr Srinivasan had been up all night they had come from Ghandara for the funeral. ‘When we have so much to do,’ complained Mr Srinivasan.

  ‘It is only seemly. We have been, after all, staying in the same hotel, Mrs Browne has taken part in the campaign. Above all, Sir John Fisher would expect it. In any case we have to leave. There is packing up, accounts to settle – I must leave you to do that and we must prepare for this afternoon. We are holding a victory celebration,’ he had told Sir John. ‘But before anything else,’ he said to Mr Srinivasan now, ‘we must pay condolence respects to Mrs Browne.’

  ‘Is she able?’ asked Mr Srinivasan.

  ‘Probably she will be lying down but still . . .’

  ‘When my daughter had the measles,’ Mr Srinivasan was filled with concern, ‘we caused her to lie on a mat on the floor, a mat woven of grasses and dampened for coolness – to cool the fever,’ he explained. ‘Also, we surrounded her with fresh neem leaves. Neem is so very soothing.’

  ‘Mrs Browne has no fever,’ but, Dr Coomaraswamy was distressed, ‘She is so young to be widowed. I do not know
what to say.’

  To put off the moment, they lingered on the verandah and leafed through the papers again until, at last, ‘Speak from the heart,’ suggested Mr Srinivasan, ‘then you cannot be wrong,’ but Dr Coomaraswamy’s heart was elsewhere.

  He had not lingered only from embarrassment; in spite of all resolutions he had been waiting, hoping – A last glimpse, he told himself, though to Sir John, ‘I, myself, must go straight to Delhi and make my report,’ he had said, ‘also see Krishnan’s father. I expect he and Mrs Bhanj will come here. Then I must return to my neglected work and, of course, to my beloved wife, Uma,’ but, as he said it, the heart Mr Srinivasan had spoken of felt like lead. He saw his clinic – he had been so proud of it – with its spacious grounds, its chalets, communal lounges and dining room, the big medical building, and it all seemed sterile; even the corridors were sterile, everything arranged according to Uma. Outside the clinic windows would be neat gravel walks, no vista of green lawns, white sands, blue sea, colours of flowers; no blooms of jasmine to put in someone’s hair. There would not be the teasing voice, the laughter, even if the laughter, the teasing were not for him.

  ‘It’s getting late,’ Mr Srinivasan reminded him and Dr Coomaraswamy was forced to ask Samuel, ‘Where is the little Memsahib?’

  ‘She helping Miss Sanni with the accountings.’

  That shocked both the Doctor and Mr Srinivasan.

  ‘Surely she should be weeping?’

  ‘A widow should weep.’

  ‘She is in the office,’ Samuel assured them.

  Mary had never seen Auntie Sanni as pressed – Come to that, I have never seen her pressed at all. Now she was busy in her office, busy at reception, in the linen and store rooms.

  Olga had been right: the packing had not taken long, the luggage was soon ready, Mary’s separate from Blaise’s, ‘. . . which will go to England if his father and mother want it.’ Mary looked at the golf clubs in their heavy bag, the tennis rackets in their presses, the camera, and turned away. His watch had gone; the signet ring she had put in the pocket of her shorts. Then, going to find Auntie Sanni in the office, seeing her desk littered with papers, account sheets, stacks of small signed chits on different spikes, ‘Can I help?’ asked Mary. ‘I’m quite good at accounts.’

  ‘That’s more than I am.’ Auntie Sanni laid down her pen. ‘Kuku says we should have a computer but who of us knows how to work one? There is a calculator but I don’t know how to use that either,’ she sounded in near despair, ‘and there are all the flowers to do. I cannot arrange flowers.’

  ‘Where is Kuku?’

  ‘Lachrymosing.’ Mary had not heard Auntie Sanni be as cross.

  ‘If that one takes on so much over what is nothing to do with her,’ Hannah with two houseboys, their arms full of folded sheets, pillow cases and towels had brought the key of the linen room to Auntie Sanni, ‘what she do’, demanded Hannah, ‘when she have real sorrow?’

  ‘Perhaps it is real sorrow,’ said Mary.

  ‘Pah!’ Hannah sounded as if she spat.

  ‘If you really could do these accounts,’ Auntie Sanni wavered, ‘but it doesn’t seem fitting.’

  ‘It is. It is,’ urged Mary. ‘I should be better with something to do. Please.’

  ‘Well, then. Here are the account forms. You see they are divided – hotel accommodation and board, telephone, laundry, drinks – each room has its chits. You check them and enclose them with the account. For Dr Coomaraswamy there is another account for the young people in Paradise, they only had half board and then,’ Auntie Sanni said of what evidently defeated her, ‘you have to add them all up to a total.’

  ‘I think I can do that.’

  ‘You enclose them neatly in an envelope, sealed,’ Auntie Sanni specified. ‘Kuku wanted to add ten per cent for service charge but no, we would not do that. Guests give or not give as they choose.’

  It was peaceful working in the office; the doves’ cooing seemed gently healing. The stack of envelopes – sealed, thought Mary with a smile for Auntie Sanni – grew steadily. By noon she had almost finished. ‘Perhaps I can do the flowers as well?’

  When Sir John had seen Mary come up to the Hall and go in to Auntie Sanni, he went down to the bungalow. Olga, dressed to travel, was sitting on the little verandah. ‘May I join you for a moment?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Mrs Armstrong, Olga, would it be an intrusion if I asked you what you are planning to do?’

  ‘I must do what I can.’

  ‘Alone in Calcutta?’

  ‘Well, I don’t see people now or expect them to see me, I shall have to earn, of course, some kind of living. Colin, naturally, has had no salary these past two years. There is a clinic I worked for in Calcutta, a poor one, not like Dr Coomaraswamy’s,’ she smiled, ‘in the slums. They will take me back and provide a room but, at the moment, we’re penniless.’

  ‘Then I suggest you let me give you this.’

  Startled, she said, ‘Oh, no!’

  ‘Oh, yes! Alicia and I have worried about you.’

  ‘Worried about me?’

  ‘Is that so unusual?’

  ‘Most unusual, I have found . . .’ She could not go on.

  ‘Then . . .’ and Sir John put a folder on the table.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘An air ticket to London – London’s a good starting ground – and a little wherewithal to help while you find your feet. We, Alicia and I, want you to take it. Will you?’

  She was silent, looking at the folder, struggling, then, ‘I can’t find any words,’ she said.

  ‘It doesn’t need words. Take it.’

  ‘Colin would tell me to accept.’

  ‘Well, then?’

  ‘I can’t, Sir John.’ The eyes lifted to his were full of tears. ‘There are no thanks good enough, grateful enough to you and Lady Fisher but I can’t. I must stay as close to him as I can.’

  ‘For twelve years?’

  ‘It may not be twelve years. He may get remission but, if need be, for ever.’

  ‘They will only let you see him once a month.’

  ‘I shall still see him once a month.’

  Sir John put his hand on hers. ‘And I thought . . .’ he said, ‘I thought I knew something about loyalty and love.’

  ‘It makes one do silly things, doesn’t it? Like staying in abominable Calcutta. Never mind.’ With a smile, she gave the folder back to him. He had not seen her smile before; it transformed the ravaged face and lit her eyes to a luminous brown. ‘Please don’t feel badly. One day, even if it’s not for twelve years, I may come and ask you for other air tickets – for two.’

  ‘I go to my beloved wife.’ Dr Coomaraswamy had repeated that when he had made his farewell speeches, flowery to Auntie Sanni, more flowery to Mary, ‘My beloved wife,’ but could not stop himself saying, ‘Miss Kuku, I think, is not appearing . . . No?’ asked wistful Dr Coomaraswamy.

  ‘Our Doctor,’ said Auntie Sanni when Mr Srinivasan had escorted him away, ‘our dear Doctor, fancies Kuku. I say “fancies” because he will never get as much as a glance from her, poor man. His wife is a gorgon. Yes. Poor man.’ Auntie Sanni sighed.

  Poor Kuku, Mary wanted to say but instead, ‘Auntie Sanni, may I go up and see her?’

  Auntie Sanni gave Mary a long and penetrating look. ‘I’m sure you will be kind,’ she said.

  ‘Kuku?’ Mary knocked again.

  ‘Kuku?’

  ‘Go away. I don’t want any of you to come in,’ cried a hysterical voice.

  ‘I’m not “any of you”,’ said Mary and pushed – the door had no lock.

  Kuku was lying on the bed as dishevelled as when Mary had last seen her at the foot of the bier. Her sari was half off and rumpled, her face so swollen with tiredness and crying that she looked almost ugly. Has she watched all night? wondered Mary, who had not gone near the chapel but stayed, watching, in her room.

  ‘And of them all,’ snarled Kuku, ‘the last person I want
is you.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Then why force yourself on me? What do you want?’

  ‘To give you this.’

  Mary took the signet ring out of her pocket and held it out. ‘It was his.’

  ‘His?’

  ‘Yes. Didn’t you notice? He always wore it on the little finger of his left hand.’

  ‘The finger that the shark . . .’

  ‘Yes.’ Mary hurried on. ‘Look. This is his crest, a stag’s head. He was proud of that.’

  ‘Most people not having a crest?’ Kuku whispered.

  ‘Exactly.’

  Kuku seemed stunned by wonder. She held the ring close, turning it, turning it; her own little finger traced the stag head. ‘He should have been proud. His ring – and you want me to have it.’

  ‘Yes. I think you should.’

  ‘What do the words mean?’

  ‘They’re French. Loyalty and truth. You should have it. You were more loyal than I and you loved him.’

  Kuku was driven to be honest. ‘Mary, he didn’t love me. He . . .’ she brought herself to say it, ‘for him, I didn’t exist . . . until the end.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. You loved him.’ Mary closed Kuku’s fingers over the ring.

  ‘Mees.’ As Mary came out of Kuku’s room, an apparition startled her, as did the urgent voice. ‘Mees.’

  Kanu, in his haste to reach her, was scrambling on all fours to the door opening on to what had been Mr Menzies’ room. His red shirt was as rumpled as Kuku’s sari had been; his face, too, was swollen with tears. He has been hiding under the bed, thought Mary. Behind him, the room was empty, clean, swept, dusted, the bed freshly made up; towels, drinking water, flowers, ready for an incoming guest.