She willed Iris to squeal, too. But while she smiled, a couple of times, and even—wonder of wonders—laughed, for the shortest of seconds, she didn’t squeal at all. Not once.
“I see what you mean,” said Della, eyes narrowed beneath her hat. “She’s not herself.”
“I just don’t understand it,” said Maddy, thinking of her normally exuberant chatter, her ready affection. “I feel like I’ve looked away and found another child in her place.”
“She’ll just be taking her time with it all,” said Della.
“But when Guy came back to India, she didn’t hesitate. She was ready to adore him from the start.”
“There was no reason for her not to,” said Della, gently. “She couldn’t have had the faintest idea how much everything was going to change for her. The poor little thing probably didn’t think past her next sundae at the Sea Lounge.”
Maddy sighed heavily, acknowledging it.
“She’s hardly had a second to get used to things at Guy’s,” said Della, “and now all this. She must be overwhelmed.”
“I think there’s more to it,” said Maddy, studying Iris’s pensive, rosy face beneath her cap, the wary way she listened to whatever Luke was saying to her. “It’s just not like her to be this … withdrawn. With anyone.”
“Has Guy said anything?” asked Della.
“He thinks she’s scared,” said Maddy, recalling his words the night before, after he’d arrived home with a fresh bouquet of flowers and asked how the meeting with Luke had gone. She’d admitted how quiet Iris has been, still cross enough at his interference at breakfast to want him to own his part in her upset.
He hadn’t.
“This is all very unsettling for her” was all he’d said. “I’m not at all surprised it was difficult.”
“She’ll come round,” Maddy had been quick to assure him, assure them both. “Children are adaptable. Apparently I was beside myself when I first went to England—”
“I’ll go and see her,” he’d said, cutting her off, not wanting to hear it. “I’m sure she’ll be happier for a story.”
He’d taken so long about it that she’d gone up, too, to see if everything was all right; she’d found them both asleep on Iris’s bed, and had wanted to weep at how content Iris looked in the crook of Guy’s arm.
“Have you spoken to Iris?” Della asked her, drawing her back to the paddock.
“I’ve tried,” she said. “She keeps clamming up. It’s almost like she’s worried about what she might say.”
“Does she talk to Guy?”
“I’m not sure,” said Maddy, mind moving back to the sight of them asleep, much as she might probe at a bruise. “Honestly, I can’t bring myself to ask.”
She never did.
There’s no point, she wrote to Edie, in a letter that she penned over the course of the month, but never actually sent; it became more a diary than anything, a way to keep her sanity when she was alone in Guy’s villa, holed up in her bedroom listening to him in his, desperate for someone to talk to. He’d only make me feel guiltier than I already do for putting her through all this. Besides, I can’t help but suspect he’s relieved Iris hasn’t become instantly smitten with her daddy. I’m not sure he’d have been able to bear it if she had. And of course he has his conditions for letting us go at the end of this ridiculous limbo, one of them being that Iris must want it, too. I’m certain he’s counting on her support.
How can we even ask her what she wants, though? She’s barely more than a baby, far too little to be involved in such a matter. I’ve tried to tell Guy we must leave her out of things, but he doesn’t listen. He still won’t speak to me about any of it at all. He just keeps coming home with more bunches of flowers, new books for Iris, determined to prove how happy we can be.
Another day, she wrote, Iris has started to become quieter with him too now, though. Her hand stuck to the humidity-dampened paper. I think she feels as wretched as I do about making him sad.
Maybe that’s why she’s forcing poor Luke to work so hard.
But, he’s doing it, she continued on another evening, I wish you could see him with her, Edie. He’s always coming up with something fun to do—fishing down at the beach, picnics, tennis at the Gymkhana Club, back at the cantonment for more riding lessons—and even though we have our cycling rota of chaperones, it really is starting to feel like we’re becoming a family. At last. Mama tags along most of the time, and I feel terrible because I can see how much she’s dreading us leaving (she’s almost as quiet as Iris, but has reverted to her old habit of bottling everything up, refusing to admit that there’s anything wrong—even between her and Papa, when anyone can see they’re still not speaking); sometimes I feel like she might be on the edge of saying something to me, but she never does. I want to assure her that we’ll visit, that I haven’t given up on getting her on a ship again (I haven’t, by the way; in fact, I feel very determined. It’s been years since she last tried, and she’s not as alone as she was then), but I don’t want to make her any more upset.
However, she went on, several days later, I have to say she really does seem to be relaxing with Luke now. He hasn’t given her much choice, of course (he’s always chatting to her, smiling, asking her opinion about what we should do tomorrow), and it appears to have worked.
And so, Edie, has it with Iris! I didn’t want to tempt fate by writing anything before, but I really, truly, absolutely, unilaterally think it’s safe to say that he’s winning her over—by pure, grit-toothed determination. I didn’t even notice it happening at first, but she’s laughing so much more again, especially when he laughs. More often than not, she forgets to bite her lip when she smiles at him. I cannot tell you how happy I am that she’s stopped doing that. She’s always been such a smiler. And she’s started chatting to him, truly, properly chatting. It’s as though he’s finally worn down her defenses and she simply can’t help herself anymore. She seems especially keen to know about his lost memory: what it felt like, why he was in hospital for so long, whether the doctors and nurses were kind to him. Only today, she asked him if he was ever sad. “I was sometimes,” he told her, “because of how much I was missing you and your mummy,” and she looked so sad, too, until he told her that she mustn’t be, that it was his job to make sure that didn’t happen. “Because you’re my daddy,” she said. “Because I’m your daddy,” he said. “It’s the only job I have at the moment.”
Oh, Edie, is it possible that I love him more than ever? Since you can’t answer, I shall for you.
I think it might be.
No, I don’t think. I know.
Her love for him grew again that same afternoon, the twenty-ninth of Guy’s thirty days. She’d just finished her final set of classes at the school, and they’d come, at Iris’s request, down to the beach with Richard to catch dinner.
Maddy didn’t join in with the fishing herself. Nor did her father. They sat back beneath the palms, leaving Iris and Luke to it, talking quietly between themselves as Luke rolled up his trousers and told Iris to get rid of those ridiculous boots, then led her down to the shore. Maddy, who’d been trying once again to get her father to admit what the matter was between him and her mother, gave a short sigh, because he was (once again) being as tight-lipped as Alice.
“You have enough on your plate without worrying about us,” he said.
“And yet,” she said, “I’m still worrying.”
He smiled, rubbed her hand. “Don’t.”
“Is it worth it, Papa?” she asked him. “Whatever it is, is it really worth any more upset?”
His smile became a little sadder. “Maybe not,” he said.
She waited for him to say more.
But he didn’t.
Accepting, reluctantly, that it was hopeless to push him, she gave up, returning her attention to the shore.
The sun beat down, bathing the sands and sea in gold. Luke knelt on one knee, the sea lapping his foot, preparing the rod while Iris watched. Overh
ead, a bird swooped, into the water, finding a catch of its own. Iris didn’t look at it. She appeared entirely engrossed in Luke threading the hook. Seemingly without thinking, she leaned closer to him, curls dipping, and placed her hand on his shoulder.
It took Maddy a second to absorb she’d done it. She caught her breath, scared she might be imagining it.
But, “Now look at that,” said Richard, voice hushed, “she’s just made his whole world, and she doesn’t even know.”
Luke didn’t react. Somehow, he carried on working as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Maddy heard his voice as he spoke to Iris, although not his words. She watched Iris nod along, still holding his shoulder. Her hand didn’t move at all. Then she giggled, splashed him with her foot. Actually splashed him.
He laughed. It made Maddy’s heart sing. More when Iris giggled again. Luke stood, handed Iris the rod, and helped her to cast out.
Then he turned, he looked over his shoulder toward Maddy and Richard, and smiled; a smile, of pure, undiluted joy.
A smile Maddy would never forget.
A smile that said, This really is going to be all right.
She believed it herself.
In that moment, looking at the pair of them side by side, dark curls glinting in the Indian sun, she had absolute faith in what their future was going to be.
And then, that evening happened.
The one where it all unraveled.
* * *
She’d suspected what was happening inside her body. She’d been through it once before; it was all very familiar. She’d been so much more tired than normal, falling into bed straight after dinner, and sleeping very deeply. Just lately she’d had that strange taste in her mouth, and had needed to visit the bathroom more often. Then, she was two weeks late with her curse. (Her curse, which, contrary to what she might have told Guy, normally came like clockwork.)
Even given all that, she hadn’t been sure. Or, she hadn’t let herself be sure. In fact she’d tried, quite stubbornly, not to think about the possibility of another baby at all. She would have been happy to think about it, had Guy not insisted on that rushed, far from comfortable, encounter before Iris’s birthday party. If she’d only had time to use her cap back then, she’d have been over the moon at the prospect of the little life within her. She wouldn’t have hesitated to tell Luke that a tiny brother or sister was on his or her way for Iris. She’d have been beside herself at the prospect of hearing his sharp intake of euphoria, seeing his face transform in disbelief and wonder, the happiness she’d been robbed of back when she’d only been able to wire him about Iris.
But she hadn’t had time to use her cap.
So even though she’d been with Luke countless times since—all wonderful, all incredible, all every bit the kind she longed to believe a life would choose to begin in—she couldn’t know for certain that this baby was his.
She had no idea what to do about it. Pretending it might not be real had felt like the only thing to do.
Until she couldn’t pretend anymore.
Her mother was with her when it happened, on that twenty-ninth evening.
She came over just as night was falling, turning the jungle and Guy’s already dark villa even darker. Maddy was on her way upstairs to get Iris ready for bed when she heard the knock at the front door. Moving gingerly, already feeling a little dizzy, she went to open it, and felt too shaky to even wonder why her mother was standing there in the shadows, hands clasped, face pinched, looking as though she’d rather be anywhere else.
“Where’s Iris?” Alice asked.
“Upstairs,” said Maddy, and the insides of her cheeks stuck as she spoke.
“Guy?”
“Not home yet,” said Maddy, leaning against the door. They were cooking rice in the kitchen for dinner. She could smell it.
It was rice that had undone her with Iris too.
“I just need a quick word,” said Alice.
“Do you want to come in?” said Maddy, pressing her hand to her watery stomach.
“It’s all right,” said Alice. “It’s only I saw Diana today…”
“Diana?” said Maddy confusedly.
“Have you seen her?” said Alice.
Dimly, Maddy registered the tension in her mother’s voice. The strange flush to her cream skin, too. She couldn’t think about it, though. The scent of rice was overwhelming her; she felt sweat prickling on her forehead, her chest …
“Maddy?” Alice prompted.
“No,” said Maddy, “I don’t really want to see Diana.”
“She said she might call on you, though,” said Alice, and, to Maddy’s horror, burst into tears. “I have to tell you,” the tears kept coming, “your father said there’s no need after all … but I think he was right before. I should have done it long ago.…”
Maddy had no idea what she was talking about. On some level it occurred to her that it might be to do with whatever her parents had been arguing about, but she didn’t stop to find out. Distraught as she was to see her mother crying, she couldn’t contain her nausea a second longer.
She pushed past her, stumbling through the porch to the front garden, where she vomited into the rosebushes Guy’s bearer was so proud of cultivating. For a few seconds, she forgot everything but the hideousness of her bile, her own heaving stomach, and the tears now streaming down her own cheeks (she always did cry when she was sick). She wasn’t really conscious of her mother’s hands, reaching for her shoulders. Or the motor that came through the gate; the slammed door, then the footsteps running across the loose dirt driveway.
It was only when her convulsions subsided that she became properly aware that any of it had happened, and that Guy as well as her mother was now with her.
They’d both been present when she’d realized she was pregnant with Iris, too.
Pressing her shaking hand to her mouth, she recalled how easily Guy had guessed back then. She had no doubt he’d do the same this time. It came to her that he’d been watching her for days, observing her yawns, early nights, and frequent trips to the latrine.
Again, it was something she’d fought to ignore.
She couldn’t bring herself to face him. She swallowed on the last of her bile, trying to absorb the irreversibility of what she’d just allowed to happen, failed utterly, then (knowing she’d have to do it sooner or later), forced herself to turn.
He stood just a few paces from her, still in uniform from his day at the hospital. His eyes, his good, kind eyes, were fixed on her: exhausted, worried, but hopeful, too.
And smiling.
He smiled.
A smile that Maddy would never forget.
A smile that said, I won’t ever let you go now.
A smile that said, A lot can happen in a month.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
High Elms Residential Home, England, August 1976
It was chilly for summer, and raining, too; a misty smattering that coated High Elms’s lawns, its leaves, and bursting flower beds with a sheen so fine, Luke felt he was breathing it.
Hardly rain at all, is it?
Arnold had said that to him once. He remembered. They’d been in the old orchard at the King’s Fifth. He smiled sadly, thinking of his doctor, and that corner of the hospital’s grounds he’d grown to love: the windfall apples, that trickling stream he used to find so grounding (it had reminded him, he supposed, of his riverside garden in Richmond), all those hedges packed with berries. And the guns. His smile fell, recalling them, and how he and Arnold had listened to the grim rumbling from the Somme; a bombardment so intense it had traveled across the Channel.
He could hear the pounding, even now.
It was not a noise one forgot.
He remembered, too, how he’d wanted to compare the rain to something else that day. Exactly what had eluded him, as so much had back then.
As too much still did.
But he could guess now what the comparison would have been. He tipped his head back,
looking into the endless sky, feeling the rain whisper on his cheeks, his lips, and thought of India, the rains there, and how different they’d been that summer before the war.
That incredible summer he’d married her.
The last Bombay summer he’d ever known.
He had his letters with him in the garden, tucked beneath his jacket: all the letters he’d written to her since coming to this place. The staff kept them from him (quite at his own request) when he slipped into one of his bad times, his lost days; the episodes when his own words meant nothing, and he feared he might destroy the pages he’d written in his panicked attempts to understand. He couldn’t do that, not as he’d burned his journals with Arnold all those years before. His battered mind was giving up on him again, and he feared that all too soon his letters would be all he’d have left of the memories he was so terrified to lose.
A child’s shout startled him, bringing him back to the moment. He turned in the direction it had come from, over by the hydrangeas. He wasn’t the only one who’d braved the weather that afternoon. One of the other residents at High Elms was out walking, only she had her family with her: the little boy with the ball who’d shouted, his brothers and sisters; so many children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Miriam, the lady was called.
She’d had a very hard life. She’d told Luke—many, many times now—of how she’d fled Vienna just before the Anschluss, leaving almost all of her Jewish family behind. She wept whenever she spoke of them all: the lost sisters and brothers, parents and grandparents; the children, who’d never grown up. He always held her hand when she did, listening, not trying to speak. Not when there were no possible words.
But today … Today she was smiling, and he smiled, too, in spite of everything he’d been recalling, because it was so wonderful to see.
It was her birthday. She was eighty. A spring chicken, he’d said as he’d congratulated her that morning, giving her his gift of the Austrian biscuits he’d asked Emma to collect from their old local bakery. They were going to have a party that afternoon: the usual diluted cordial and poppers that didn’t make bangs. Emma had said she would come.
Meet Me in Bombay Page 35