Meet Me in Bombay

by Jenny Ashcroft

  “No one is asking you.”

  “A surgeon, too. Think what he can do with his—”

  Maddy kicked her.

  “Ouch.” Della laughed, reached for her shin. “Fine, I’ll stop.”

  “Thank God.” Maddy flicked her cigarette out to sea, and looked back, up toward the club, the drifting music of the ragtime band. “Ready to go?” she asked.

  “We probably should,” said Della. “I’m starting to worry Peter might have gone home after all to fetch me.”

  * * *

  Peter hadn’t gone home to fetch her. (“What a rotter,” breathed Della.) He was still outside, drinking at one of the round tables with his usual crowd. Maddy recognized nearly all of them from evenings and weekends spent at the city’s various clubs; the Bombay social scene was as small as it was hectic. She’d danced with most of them that night. There was only one there she didn’t know: Peter’s friend. He sat just back from the table, his face hidden from the glow of the flickering lanterns. Unlike all the other men, he wasn’t in evening suit, just trousers and a shirt, a linen jacket. It made Maddy look twice, wonder afresh who he was.

  He turned, as though sensing her curiosity. She flushed, feeling caught out, and switched her attention to Peter, who stood as she and Della approached.

  “Della Wilson,” Peter said. “I don’t even want to know that you were just down there smoking.”

  “I—” began Della.

  “No, I insist you don’t tell me. That way I won’t have to lie again when our mother wires to ask how you’re behaving.” He shot Maddy a despairing look. “I’ve never told so many lies in my life.”

  Maddy laughed, a little self-consciously; she had the strongest sense the man in the linen jacket was still looking at her, probably wondering why she’d been staring at him.

  “I was going to say,” retorted Della, “that I can’t believe you just left me at the villa.”

  “I knew you’d be all right.”

  “I might still be there. I could have missed the whole party.”

  “And yet,” Peter said, “here you somehow are. Maddy, come here.” He reached forward to kiss her still-flushed cheek. “You’re very warm,” he said.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You need champagne,” he said, and turned to the table in search of a bottle. “Any New Year’s resolutions?” he asked.

  “I haven’t thought,” Maddy said.

  “Untrue,” said Della. “You’re going to try and not be homesick.”

  “But that’s no good,” said Peter, handing them both brimming glasses.

  Maddy had to ask. “Why not?”

  “Because resolutions never stick,” he said.

  “That’s rather negative,” she said, and, from the corner of her eye, caught the turn of the stranger’s head. He was still too far back for her to see him properly; she more felt than saw his smile.

  “Just candid,” said Peter. “They really never do.”

  “Well,” she said, one eye on his friend (had he smiled?), “since it’s not really my resolution, perhaps it will.”

  “That,” said Della, “makes no sense whatsoever.”

  “A truth,” agreed Peter. “However,” he raised his drink, “since it’s New Year’s, let’s forget Maddy said it, and drink up. Oh, look,” he said, distracted by a pair of Indian waiters circulating the terrace with trays of kebabs, “sustenance. I’ll be back. Be good now.…”

  And with that, he was off.

  As he went, Della declared that she was keen to go herself, see how things were inside. A couple of the others at the table protested (“Stay, have more champagne. Don’t leave us here alone”), but Della was unmoved, and Maddy, finding no reason not to, agreed to press on.

  “Break our hearts, why don’t you?” an officer called after them as they left.

  Confident that no one’s heart was in any real jeopardy, Maddy felt not a mite of guilt. And it wasn’t that officer she found herself glancing back at, on her way across the muggy, dark terrace. It was the stranger in the linen jacket. She wasn’t sure why she did it, and she wished she hadn’t, because, just as before, he turned, his face a shadow above the white of his clothes, making her look away too quickly, and feel foolish all over again.

  “Who was that?” she asked Della, talking through her embarrassment.

  “Who was who?”

  “That man,” Maddy said. “The one Peter brought from the Taj.”

  “I don’t know,” said Della, looking over her shoulder. “Why? Was he there?”

  “Yes,” said Maddy, and then, before he could see Della trying to spot him, “It doesn’t matter.”

  It didn’t, of course.

  “Typical of Peter not to make introductions,” said Della.

  “I suppose,” said Maddy. Then, as they carried on, back into the humming ballroom, the light, music, and laughter, she let the stranger slip once more from her mind.

  The dance floor was, if such a thing was possible, even fuller than it had been before, and hotter. Della disappeared onto it within seconds, on the arm of a sergeant major, and Maddy, glimpsing her father and his polka dots at the bar—remembering how downhearted he’d looked before—made a beeline for him, dragging him onto the sweaty floor in just the same way as he’d tried to drag her mother earlier, assuring him that of course he wouldn’t be cramping her style. “Well, perhaps we could do without the hat.…”

  He wasn’t a particularly adept dancer, certainly not what you’d call smooth, but what he lacked in skill he made up for in gusto, swinging them both around the floor. As they dodged other couples, narrowly missed a collision with the banana and mango Christmas tree (“We’ll try harder next time,” he said), Maddy laughed up into his smiling face and almost managed not to notice her mother on the periphery of the floor, observing them both, her expression unreadable. Baking as Maddy was, she didn’t hesitate when Richard asked her to dance again.

  From then on, she didn’t leave the floor. Men at the party outnumbered the women two to one (as was always the case in India), and a song barely ended before someone else came forward, asking her to do the charitable thing and go again. She danced with Richard’s secretary (“Will you risk it, Maddy?”), then more of his staff, and the sunburned naval captain again. Della’s card was just as full, and Maddy stopped trying to keep track of all her partners. The band played on, and more and more people moved in from the terrace, packing the glowing room until it felt as though there were no space left for anyone else, no steamy air left to breathe. Maddy’s skin ran slick; her hair, loose of its pins, fell in damp waves on her neck—as chaotic, she was sure, as Della’s own brown curls had become.

  It was at just before midnight that she finally stepped back from the floor, clutched a stitch in her waist, and thought she might just expire if she didn’t cool down before risking anything with anyone again. Since Della was still merrily pegging it across the boards, she didn’t waste time telling her where she was going, but headed back outside alone.

  It was blissfully quiet on the terrace, all the previously full tables deserted. Some of the lanterns had burned themselves out, making it even darker than before. Leaving the music behind her, Maddy walked on, toward the sea, and leaned against the wall, feeling the pressure of the stone through her skirts. She smiled, seeing that the children were still down below, playing. Farther out on the still water, hundreds more boats bobbed; the voices of the people on them lilted across the waves, the scent of food grilling on charcoals, too. Maddy drew a long breath, soaking it all in. She wondered if she had time for a cigarette, decided she did, then cursed, remembering her dropped matches.

  Returning to where she’d left them, she crouched on the cobbles, skimming the black stones with her hands. Finding nothing, she knelt properly, bending down to see. But no, they really weren’t there.

  “How bizarre,” she said, and as her voice broke through the night, conspicuously loud in the silence, she realized that the music inside had stopp
ed.

  She looked back toward the club’s illuminated doors, the silhouettes of the crowd within. Everyone appeared to be facing the clock. She could almost feel the press of bodies, the sweaty anticipation, and, tempted as she was to stay outside, she told herself that it really would be too sad to see the new year in alone, and that she’d better hurry if she wasn’t to miss midnight. She gave the floor one last, hopeless scour, and, with a sigh of exasperation, stood and recrossed the shadowy terrace.

  She could never say, afterward, what made her pause in her tracks, step sideways, and go by the table Peter had been at. Or why she reached out and touched the back of the chair his friend, the stranger, had sat in, remembering him all over again.

  But, as her fingers closed around the wooden frame, she jumped, shocked by a surge of explosions—out at sea, along on the nearby beach, behind her in the city. She looked up, around, eyes on the fireworks everywhere, filling the air with smoke, the sky with cracking flashes of color.

  Oh dear, she thought, midnight, then laughed anyway. Because it didn’t feel sad to be outside, alone, not at all. It was far, far too beautiful for that.

  From inside the club, cheers carried; the opening chords of “Auld Lang Syne” quickly followed. She didn’t rush to leave, though, to join in. She didn’t go anywhere. The fireworks kept coming: her own private show.

  Had she noticed him already? Was that part of what made her stay?

  She often wondered that, in the weeks ahead.

  She didn’t know. She wasn’t sure when she first became aware of the outline of him there, a hundred or so yards away on the promenade, face toward her, hands in his pockets, linen jacket moving in the breeze.

  But with the fireworks still exploding above, she felt her attention move toward him. Slowly, she brought her gaze down, tilted her chin over her bare shoulder.

  Her eyes met his through the blackness, and this time she knew he smiled.

  He raised his hand in a wave.

  Not stopping to think, she raised hers.

  It was a space of moments.

  But nothing was ever the same again, after that.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Maddy waited for him to come back to the club’s terrace, close the distance between them, let her see his face. Hello. She thought, from his wave, the slow way he dropped his hand, that he wanted to do that. She almost set off toward him. She even took a step, felt her muscles tense in anticipation of … something.

  But then noise flooded the silence behind her, voices and laughter. She jolted, disorientated by the interruption. She’d all but forgotten that the party was even happening. Within a breath, she was surrounded by everyone spilling from the ballroom, their eyes to the igniting sky: no longer her own private anything.

  “Maddy,” her father called from the terrace doors. “There you are. Hurry over here and wish your old papa a happy new year. I’ve missed the last fifteen.”

  She didn’t hurry anywhere. Distracted as she was, she barely managed a nod, a quick smile in her father’s direction, before returning her attention to the promenade, just in time to see the stranger turn from her, walk away toward the city.

  He was going?

  Gone?

  “Maddy,” Richard called again. “What are you doing?”

  She stared after the stranger a second longer, sure, even now, that he’d change his mind, turn around.

  But he kept walking, into the darkness. Her brow creased.

  “Maddy?”

  Forcing herself, she dragged her gaze from the promenade, and went to join her father, back into the thick of the hot crowd.

  She couldn’t help but steal a final, curious glance in the stranger’s direction, though. He’d already disappeared. She imagined him, just beyond her vision, pausing in his tracks, looking toward her. She really felt like he might be.

  Why did he go?

  She couldn’t think. Or why it should matter to her so much. She only knew that it did. She didn’t attempt to understand it.

  It was simply the way it was.

  * * *

  She struggled to get back into the swing of things in the hour that followed. She’d barely been aware of the stranger’s presence and yet, now that he was gone, she felt it. She couldn’t even find Peter. She went in search of him—just as soon as she’d wished her father a happy new year—impatient to find out whatever he could tell her about his friend (who he was, for instance), but all she could discover was that Peter had left, too, off to another party.

  “Social butterfly that he is,” said a puce Della, still on the dance floor.

  “Is he coming back?” Maddy asked, her voice flat to her own ears.

  “I don’t think so,” said Della, pressing the heel of her hand to her dripping forehead. “He said he’d asked your papa to take me home. Now, are we going to find you someone else to dance with?”

  Maddy wasn’t sure she had it in her. Her feet suddenly felt too sore in her tight slippers, the heat oppressive.

  When her mother came over not long after, telling her that she was going home, but that Richard would bring Maddy and Della later, Maddy found herself saying that if Alice didn’t mind, she’d go with her now.

  “Really?” said Alice, visibly surprised.

  Maddy could hardly blame her. She was rather surprised herself. She did, after all, normally avoid being alone with her mother whenever possible. Those awful silences …

  But, “Yes,” she said. “I’m ready, I think.”

  She was. And even though one of the usual silences stretched for almost the entire journey home (tense, entirely uncompanionable), for once the awkwardness didn’t bother her. Or at least, not as much. As the chauffeur drove them through the dark, tree-lined streets of Bombay’s center, past the sandstone telegraph office, the grand British municipality buildings, the hidden alleyways where families lived ten to a room, jammed together in this city that never stopped and had more people than space, she stared sightlessly into the musty breeze, replaying his wave over and over again.

  So lost was she in her reverie, it took her longer than it should have to realize that Alice was looking at her, an expectant expression on her shadowed face.

  “Sorry,” said Maddy, “did you say something?”

  “I asked if Guy found you,” Alice said.

  “Guy?” said Maddy stupidly.

  “He was looking for you,” said Alice.

  “I didn’t speak to him all night.”

  “I think he wanted to dance.”

  “He didn’t say,” said Maddy.

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “A shame,” said Alice.

  “Yes,” said Maddy.

  So polite, both of them.

  There was a short pause.

  Maddy, thinking that must be it, turned, ready to resume her vigil of the black streets.

  But, “Did you enjoy the fireworks?” Alice asked.

  “I did,” said Maddy, guarded now. Had Alice seen her, out there on the terrace? Seen him?

  If she had, she gave no sign. “You used to love them,” was all she said, “when you were little.”

  “Yes?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Maddy. She’d been so young when she left, not even eight; there was so much that was hazy. “I remember Bonfire Night, in Christchurch Meadows—”

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” said Alice, cutting her off.

  It was her short tone, the look in her blue eyes. Maddy realized too late that it had, of course, been a mistake to mention Oxford. She felt like she should apologize.

  But before she could, Alice leaned forward, tapped the driver on his shoulder, and told him to hurry along.

  Another silence followed. Maddy couldn’t ignore this one, or the set of Alice’s slight shoulders beneath her shawl. She tried to think of something to say that might soften the new tension, but when she tentatively reopened the subject of the fireworks, asking, “Did we wa
tch them here, in Bombay?” Alice’s forehead pinched. “It really doesn’t matter, Madeline,” she said.

  Maddy was relieved when they finally left the city behind and started the gentle coastal climb to the quieter, leafy roads of Malabar Hill, where so many British lived. Her parents’ own villa—a cream three-storied mansion that was as beautiful as it was lonely, with wide verandas, balconies at every window, and palm-fringed lawns—was one of the largest, toward the top of the hill. She rested her head against the window, eyes blurring on the still sea below—invisible, but for the reflection of the moon, the stars—and waited to be back there. It didn’t take long; free of any traffic, they sped past the other lantern-lit villas nestling in the jungle foliage, the odd late-night rickshaw, then slowed, pulling through the villa’s iron gates, along the curved driveway. Alice sighed as they drew to a halt, apparently happy to be home, too. Maddy wasn’t sure who, of the two of them, was out of the motor first. Neither of them paused for more than a brief good-night before taking the candles left on the porch and heading to their rooms.

  Maddy closed her door, leaned back against it, and exhaled. At last. Crossing over to her bed, she set her candle down, drew back the folds of her mosquito net, and fell on the soft mattress. Outside, the cicadas clacked, the trees shivered. She pressed her hand to her rib cage, feeling the give of her corset, and closed her eyes. The instant she did, she saw him there again, on the promenade, as though he’d been waiting, just beneath the film of her subconscious.

  Why had he left like that, so quickly, without a word?

  Ridiculous, probably, that she was thinking of him as she was, when he had.

  And yet … that wave.

  Was he thinking of her, too?

  * * *

  Her mind was still whirring when she woke the next morning, a pink dawn breaking through the shutters.

  She rolled over, listening to the peacocks call in the garden, the repetitive swoosh of someone sweeping the veranda below. It was early, too early to be awake; she could tell from the muted light, the heaviness in her warm body. She stared through the rose-tinted veil of her mosquito net, considered trying to get back to sleep, then, knowing she’d never be able to, pushed herself up, dressed, and crept quietly downstairs.