Meet Me in Bombay

by Jenny Ashcroft

  It took him less than a minute to sew the doll’s ripped fabric back together. Iris stood next to him as he worked, watching every move he made: the happiest operation he could remember doing in a long time. Alice came and sat by them, too, running her hand around Iris’s waist. Guy, pulling the needle, watched her kiss her granddaughter’s head and felt a rush of contentment for her. She’d been lonely too long, suffered too much; it was wonderful to see her surrounded by family again. She was almost like the woman he could recall chasing Maddy around the garden. (Not, of course, that he liked thinking about Maddy as a child.)

  “Thank you for coming today,” Alice said to him quietly. “Please don’t stay away so long next time.”

  He glanced at Maddy, who was cradling her wineglass, looking at him, looking at Iris, seemingly lost in thought, and knew that he wouldn’t. He stopped stitching, stilled for a moment by the wonder of her attention, the unbelievable nearness of her.

  He’d tried to forget her, these past years. He’d fought so hard to do that; dancing with other women in the clubs of Alexandria, almost giving in and proposing to a staff nurse he’d met. Part of him wanted to forget Maddy now: the logical, honest part that brutally reminded him that she’d already had her love story. But as he watched her place her glass absently to her lips, he almost felt the touch on his own, and couldn’t forget anything. She was his love story. Useless to deny it.

  And quite, quite impossible not to hope.

  * * *

  He visited the villa more often after that. He was still being cautious, Alice could tell. He didn’t call with the same frequency he had when Madeline had first come back to Bombay and he’d taken her for all those trips around town. (Madeline had long since admitted to Alice how she’d supplemented those excursions with a tour of her own making. “What?” Alice had said, appalled. “You went to the water tank?” “Mama,” Madeline had said, “I went everywhere.”) But he took to dropping by on his way to the hospital, for morning tea. He came again, at Alice’s invitation, for Sunday lunch. He agreed at last to the odd supper, too. Each time he came, Iris stopped whatever she was doing—be it eating her tea in the nursery, or playing in the garden—and rushed to say hello, giving him no choice but to hug her (which anyone could see he was delighted by).

  On his second visit, he bought her a new doll.

  “I find patients always get better more quickly when they have visitors,” he said, kneeling down so that Iris didn’t have to look up. “Perhaps she’ll be friends with your other one.”

  “Thank you,” Iris said, clutching the doll to her chest. “Thank you so much.”

  “You’re very welcome,” he said, then laughed as Iris kissed him.

  Alice saw the way Madeline watched them both, her expression contemplative, not entirely easy, just as it hadn’t been when Guy had stitched for Iris at the table. Alice was almost sure she knew what she was thinking. She’d long thought it, too: that as amusing a godfather as Peter might be, as doting a grandpapa as Richard undoubtedly was, neither of them would ever fill the place of a papa. (Sweet, fey Peter would never be anyone’s papa, of course.)

  “Wasn’t it thoughtful of Guy to bring that doll?” Alice said to her over dinner that night, needing to make sure Madeline really had fully absorbed his generosity.

  “Yes,” Madeline said. “He’s always been kind.”

  “Iris was so happy,” said Alice, not unaware of her own clumsy unsubtlety. “It was almost like looking at Emily and Lucy with Jeff.”

  “Can you pass the water, please?” said Richard, not unaware either.

  He’d warned her against pushing Madeline into anything, back when Guy had first returned. “I know what you’ve always hoped,” he’d said, “but she didn’t choose Guy before. I can’t imagine making do with him now will do her any good.”

  “You’d rather she stayed alone?” Alice had asked.

  “I’d rather we left her to it,” he’d said. “And she’s not alone. She has us. Iris. Peter and Della…”

  “It’s not enough,” Alice had said, only wishing it could be.

  But if it was, then why did she still sometimes hear Madeline crying at night?

  She was no fool, though. As the weeks passed into October and Madeline agreed to let Guy take her and Iris for ice cream at the Taj’s Sea Lounge, then for lunch at Watson’s, even back to the club for polo (since Iris loved the ponies), she saw that, ecstatic as Guy’s attention was patently making Iris, there was no true thrill in the tentative courtship for her daughter. Her cream face didn’t flush with anticipation when she heard Guy’s motor arriving; she never raced down the stairs to meet him, as she’d used to with Luke. But she did smile when he smiled. She sat with him on the veranda while Iris played, sometimes for hours at a time, talking and talking. Alice busied herself with sewing in the drawing room and left them to it. She heard Madeline speak of the children she was doing such a wonderful job with at the school, her plans for her Christmas holiday with Iris (which Alice was dreading, and not just for the inevitable silence of the villa; it was the possibility that they might decide to stay); Madeline even managed to draw Guy into speaking of his war.

  “I fixed them,” Guy said haltingly, slowly stirring his tea. “I kept fixing them, then I’d hear a month later that they were dead.”

  “Oh, Guy,” said Madeline, with such sadness, “I’m sorry.”

  She loved him, in a way; Alice heard that in her voice. She’d never have dreamed of encouraging anything had she doubted it.

  “Of course I love him,” said Madeline, “he’s a friend. He always has been.”

  “A friend is good,” said Della, who worried about Madeline almost as much as Alice did. “A friend is a start.”

  “I don’t know,” said Madeline, brow creased. “I just don’t know.”

  “He’d make you so happy,” said Della, “if you let him.”

  Madeline shook her head. “I want to stop talking about this.”

  “Let it lie,” said Richard to Alice and Della, “please.”

  “If you’re having to push,” said Peter, “there’s every chance it’s not right.”

  But Alice couldn’t accept that. She couldn’t. Madeline was alone. Guy was alone. He utterly adored her, Iris, too, and Iris was growing ever more besotted with him.

  “Because he keeps giving her ice cream and dolls,” said Madeline.

  “That’s unfair,” said Alice.

  Madeline sighed, knowing it.

  “He’d be the best papa any little girl could hope for,” Alice said.

  “Iris has a papa,” said Madeline.

  “No,” Alice said, cruel to be kind. “She doesn’t. She hasn’t had a papa in a very long time.”

  “Mama, please—”

  “You could be a family,” said Alice. “A proper family.”

  “Please, don’t,” said Madeline.

  “I need to,” said Alice. “You’ve been sad long enough.” She leaned forward, doing what she’d slowly learned to do again, and took Madeline’s hand in her own. “I’m begging you,” she said, “think about this seriously. You don’t have to grieve anymore.”

  * * *

  Maddy almost wished he’d never come back. She’d understood her life before he had. It hadn’t been easy, but it had been simple.

  It had worked.

  I feel like I have no one left to talk to now, she wrote to Edie. Mama and Della never let a day go by without asking about when Guy’s next coming, or if he’s talked at all of his intentions (he hasn’t, and I think I’m relieved about that), Papa constantly tells me not to listen to Mama and Della, Peter that I just have to do what I think is right—but how can I know what’s right when everyone else is so full of noisy points of view? Even Iris chimes in, insisting that we drop by at Guy’s villa to say hello on the way to school, eager for news of our next outing to the Sea Lounge. Conversely, it’s Guy who’s the easiest to be with. He’s the only one who doesn’t try to tell me what I should be doing
.

  But I don’t think I love him in the right way, Edie. He’s wonderful, the warmest, kindest man, yet my heart doesn’t flutter when I’m with him. My legs don’t shake.

  Edie wrote back. Fitz made mine do that, she said. Your mother’s as well. Look what happened there.

  Oh no, said Maddy, don’t you start, too.

  She joked, but it wasn’t amusing. Nothing felt funny. Somehow, it was almost December and it had been two months that Guy had been calling, and while he might have said nothing, she knew it was only a matter of time. His lingering looks, slow smiles, and all the attention he lavished on a smitten Iris, told her that. She was either going to have to take the plunge, which she didn’t feel ready for, or hurt him badly (again). She didn’t know how she could have allowed herself to get into such a fix. She blamed Guy entirely. She liked him too much to keep him away, even if she couldn’t quite love him enough to allow him closer.

  Or could she?

  Should there even be a question?

  “I’m not sure,” said Peter sorrowfully, “but I think perhaps not.”

  And yet, she kept questioning.

  She looked forward to her and Iris’s holiday even more. Now, the thought of that gave her shivers; it gave her thrills. With just a few days left until their December 1 departure, she packed their trunks, folding the thick pinafores and gowns she’d bought at the Army and Navy store. She grew even more excited as she worked, picturing the two of them boarding their liner, seeing their cabin for the first time, eating cake on deck every day, playing quoits, swimming in the new pool P&O had advertised. She saw them docking in Tilbury, walking hand in hand down to the quayside where Edie and Luke’s parents would be waiting for them.

  I need this, she wrote to Edie, for so many reasons, not least some quiet to understand my own thoughts. I wish Luke was here, all the time.

  I never had to stop and think at all when he was.

  She finished that letter just after she closed the locks on the trunks.

  Was she fated, she wondered, to always be getting ready for voyages she couldn’t catch?

  It really was so stupid of her, what happened next.

  She’d warned the schoolchildren endlessly not to do anything but sit on the wobbly chairs they all used. Why she stood on one herself the next morning to hang the tinsel she’d bought as one of her parting gifts for the children, she could never afterward say. But she fell, right in front of all of them, breaking her ankle. It hurt. It shocked her how much. She couldn’t help her sobs of pain. Iris, poor little Iris, ran as fast as her chubby legs could carry her, to Della’s villa since it was closest, fetching Della and her motor.

  “Madeline Devereaux,” said Della, breathlessly helping her into the backseat, “what a ninny you are.”

  Maddy hardly needed to be told.

  At her request, Della told her driver to take them to the General Hospital, not Guy’s, where Alice had been so ill, and Luke had left Maddy that last time.

  “I can’t be at that place,” Maddy said, through teeth gritted in agony. “All I’ll think about is Luke.”

  “Then the General it is,” said Della.

  A young British doctor set her leg and prescribed a low dose of morphia, a fortnight in traction since the break was a bad one, then a week after that of hospital bed rest just to be safe, several more afterward at the villa.

  “You’ll be home by Christmas at least,” said her mother, who’d arrived clutching the note Della had sent with her bearer, wrought with worry, Richard—who’d raced from his office—with her. “We’ll make sure we still have a wonderful one.”

  Maddy nodded, but couldn’t speak; she was afraid if she tried to talk of Christmas, and the longed-for trip she’d now have to cancel, she’d fall apart. She turned to Iris, hating how scared she’d been, stroking her tear-mottled cheeks, trying to reconcile herself to the fact that neither of them were going to be having their holiday.

  “I’m so sorry,” she managed to choke, “I wanted to take you home so much.”

  Iris gave her a heartbreakingly wobbly smile. “But this is home, Mummy,” she said, which Maddy realized was intended to make her feel better, but somehow made her feel even worse.

  She didn’t know how she was going to break it to Luke’s parents that they weren’t coming. She asked her father to wire Edie straightaway, so that that at least was done.

  MEND QUICKLY STOP, Edie wired by return. I SHALL VISIT THE DEVEREAUXS AND TELL THEM STOP BETTER IN PERSON STOP WE WILL ALL STILL BE HERE IN SPRING STOP.

  “Spring’s not so far away,” said Guy, when he came that evening after everyone else had gone, a bunch of hothouse flowers in hand, mince pies from the Taj, too, which he said he knew wasn’t the same, but hopefully helped a little.

  “I wanted to go now,” she said, and really did cry this time. It was the pain in her ankle as well as her disappointment, her crushing disappointment.

  “Maddy,” he said, setting his gifts down, taking her hand in his, pressing it to his lips before she knew what he was doing. “Please, don’t.”

  “I can’t help it,” she said.

  He moved, drawing her gently to him, not upsetting her leg, and held her close. It was the first time he’d ever done more than brush his cheek against hers. From somewhere deep inside herself, a voice told her to resist. But she leaned her head against his chest, too sad and too shaken not to, and he stroked her head, kissed her hair, and then she cried even more because Luke had once done that, too, and Guy wasn’t him.

  “Shh,” Guy said, “shh.”

  And even though he wasn’t Luke, she didn’t push him away. If she did, and he went, then she’d be all alone, and she wasn’t sure she could stand it. Not this night.

  “I’m here,” he said. “If you let me, I’ll always be here.”

  She knew what he was saying. Even through her tears, the fog of morphia, she heard what he meant. Again, that voice whispered: Stop this.

  You have to stop this.

  She didn’t stop anything. He kissed her again, resting his cheek against her head. She felt the weight of him, the companionship of another body so close to hers, and clung to him, saying nothing.

  He asked nothing of her.

  Eventually, she felt her sobs subside.

  He didn’t let her go, though.

  He moved back so that his eyes met hers, and touched his fingers to her damp cheeks. She stared back at him, wondering if he’d kiss her properly, with no idea whether she wanted him to or not.

  His lips found hers before she could decide, and, at the strangeness of this other man’s touch, she closed her sore eyes, still unsure how she felt about it. He leaned into her, running his hand around her neck, his gentle kiss becoming firmer, more confident, and she waited for … something.

  But no flutters came, no shakes.

  Just a strange, otherworldly realization—a giving-in, almost—that it was happening, she’d let it happen.

  Nothing could ever be the same between them again now.

  * * *

  It was on a foggy, damp December morning that Arnold came to find Jones in his room. Jones had been reading through his journals, head in his hands, pressing his skull, trying to force recollection through his bones. He looked up, seeing Arnold in the doorway, and stood, pulse quickening in hope.…

  But, “I’m sorry,” said Arnold, “I don’t have anything concrete.”

  “What do you have?” Jones asked.

  “I telephoned Diana’s house again, got her maid.” Arnold rubbed his spectacles with the edge of his waistcoat. “Diana is indeed on honeymoon. An extended one, I’m afraid.”

  “How extended?” Jones asked.

  “Very. They’ve gone to Africa, I gather, a mixture of work and pleasure. She said something about them moving east afterward.” He frowned. “She really wasn’t clear.”

  “Will Diana be coming back here at all?”

  “Briefly. But not until spring.”

  “Spring?” s
aid Jones in disbelief.

  “Don’t be disheartened,” said Arnold, “we’ll get her then, old man. We’re not giving up.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Guy visited Maddy every day of the three weeks she was in hospital, sometimes appearing twice a day, calling so often that she really didn’t have the chance to become apprehensive about his next appearance. He arranged cover for his own patients so that he could at the very least drop by each morning, if only to say a quick hello and look at her chart to double-check she’d been monitored properly overnight, and given the right dose of morphia.

  “They should decrease it soon,” he said, “you don’t want to develop a dependence on it.”

  “They’ve said they’re going to,” she told him.

  “Hmm,” he said, flicking through the chart’s pages, “I wish you’d let them move you over to me.”

  “I have a perfectly competent doctor here,” Maddy said.

  “Is that your way of telling me you’d rather I minded my own business?” he said, looking up from the clipboard with a smile that was as playful as someone as sincere as he could manage.

  “Of course not,” said Maddy, and was sure it was the truth.

  If no one else was in the room, he kissed her when he arrived, making her tense with awkwardness, no matter how hard she tried not to. She only hoped he didn’t notice. (He noticed. Nerves, he told himself determinedly. Just nerves.) He started calling her “dearest.” That felt odd, too. No one had ever called her that. Luke certainly hadn’t—or darling, or sweetheart, or any pet name. Only, Miss Bright.

  She’d loved that so much.

  “But Luke’s gone,” said Della, who also called by daily. “He’s been gone for ever such a long time now.”

  “She knows that,” said Peter.

  “I feel so guilty, though,” said Maddy.

  “Don’t,” said Della. “Please. Luke would never have wanted you to stay alone.”

  “I still feel like I’m betraying him,” said Maddy.

  “By being with Guy?” said Della.

  By settling, she almost said. But she couldn’t admit that’s what she might be doing; not even to herself.