Meet Me in Bombay

by Jenny Ashcroft

  She’d turned in her seat, reeling at how much suddenly made sense: her parents’ long row, the awkward way Alice had thanked Luke when she’d first seen him, Alf’s new job, Luke’s determination that she, Maddy, shouldn’t confront Diana … She’d placed her hand to her spinning head, wondering how it could have possibly taken her so long to realize, fighting to make sense of how she felt about … any of it.

  “Why on earth didn’t you tell me?” she’d asked Luke.

  “I wanted her to be able to,” Luke had said, pulling over on the dark, leafy verge. He’d gone on, repeating all Arnold had said to him, rationalizing her anger away before it had a chance to take proper hold. He’d made her remember how desperately worried Alice had been over her grief, for so long; how convinced she’d been that he was dead. As he’d talked, warm eyes never leaving hers in the dark cabin, she’d found herself picturing her mother as she’d been back then, after that life-ending telegram had come: the torture in her face all those thousands of times she’d held her, Maddy, trying to console her as she’d wept. You’re my Iris.

  “She’s wanted to tell you,” Luke had said. “I’ve spoken to her, I don’t know how many times now, when we’ve been out. She’s been terrified, Maddy, of losing you all over again.”

  Maddy had leaned back against the seat, unable to stand the thought of that either. Her own words, spoken to her father on the beach, had come back to her.

  Is it really worth any more upset?

  She’d heard her father’s reply, maybe not, and closed her eyes, knowing, deep down, that of course it wasn’t.

  She’d meant to be kind to her mother when she saw her. In spite of her grief, her unshakable sadness at how much time had been wasted, she really had meant to tell her that it was done, all over.

  She hadn’t for a second considered saying what she did to her. It had been the awful way Alice had been looking at Iris that had made her do it. The idea of yet more needless grief.

  The words had been out before she knew they were coming.

  “Make it up to us,” she’d told her. “Prove how sorry you are.”

  “Yes,” Alice had said, half standing, “yes. Just tell me how.”

  “Sail with us to England,” Maddy had said. “If you don’t do it with us, you’ll never be able to. You don’t have to lose anyone. Papa’s desperate to retire there, I know you are, too. It’s the last voyage you’ll ever have to take. Come, and I’ll forgive you.”

  She’d watched Luke’s eyes widen. Are you being serious? he’d seemed to say.

  Alice had simply stared, horrified.

  It had been unfair, Maddy knew that.

  But as she stood from her bed, swallowing on yet another wave of nausea, and crossed the room to pick up Guy’s letter, she couldn’t regret it.

  She wouldn’t take it back.

  She forgot about it all in any case as she opened Guy’s letter and saw what was inside.

  Her eyes moved, taking in everything he’d written: the talk of parents never putting themselves before children, how sorry he was, how very, very sorry …

  Her hands shook. She turned the paper, reading it all over again.

  You used to smile when you saw me, I need to be able to hope there’ll come a day when you’ll do that again. When we’ll both do that.

  She stared, tears rising.

  Please, don’t make me talk to you about this. Not now. I can’t.

  Paper clenched, she looked up, toward his door.

  Don’t make me talk about this.

  She wasn’t going to give him any choice.

  Not pausing to think twice, she reached for the handle, opening it, and was wholly unsurprised to find him on the other side, still in the uniform he’d obviously been wearing all night, leaning against the wall, as though he’d been listening to her reading, replaying his own words in his head, hearing them in hers.

  “You mean this?” she said, holding out the paper, her voice trembling even more than her hands.

  “I wish it could be different,” he said, just as shakily, “but yes, I do.”

  Her eyes blurred. She looked down at the page once more, tears dropping on the requests he’d made.

  That he be allowed to say goodbye to Iris in his own way. I need her to not feel guilty. I need her to never be too sad, or too worried to want to see me. That they go quickly, as soon as possible. I would be so grateful if it could just be over. And that he always know Iris, and that the baby be told that it might belong to him. I’ll never marry again, Maddy. I know that in my heart. You’ve given me the only family I’ll ever want, and I can’t entirely give up these children who feel so much my own.

  She raised her head, meeting his gaze once more; his kind, gentle gaze.

  “Thank you, Guy,” she said, pouring her whole heart into the words, wishing so much, so very, very much, that it could all have been different, too.

  * * *

  They left India two days later, on a packed P&O liner to Tilbury that steamed out of Bombay’s heaving, sun-drenched docks late in the afternoon. Luke’s parents would be waiting for them when they arrived in England, Edie, too; Maddy and Luke had wired them, just as soon as they’d reserved the passage, taking Iris to the telegraph office with them, wanting to keep her close, safe, and cherished through the tumult of their hasty departure, as happy as they could make her. Luke had lifted Iris up at the telegraph counter, helping her peer through the metal grille so that she could watch the clerk punch out their messages. ON OUR WAY STOP. Maddy had smiled at Iris’s wide eyes, her wonder that the wires would arrive in England in a matter of minutes, agreeing that yes, it was very like magic, relieved—as they were all relieved—at her excitement, determined not to mar it by giving away how sick she felt in the sweaty press of the room.

  After that, they’d barely stopped, getting everything ready to go, saying so many farewells. They’d made one last, bittersweet visit to the school—taking cakes, stopping long enough for Maddy and Iris to hug the clamor of children, many times—and, amid all the frantic packing, they’d stolen an hour for a lingering walk up to the Hanging Gardens, another down to the beach. The evening before, Della and Jeff had thrown them a farewell dinner, and they’d let the children stay up well past their bedtime—the gardener’s trio included—reluctant to cut into their running and laughing and games of chase on the moonlit grass, or end the night any sooner than they had to.

  “I’m not sure I can stand it,” Della had said, setting down her wineglass tearfully. “Can we not convince you to stay, after all?”

  “Not this time,” Maddy had said, reaching for her hand. “I feel I’ve missed enough voyages.”

  “You look terribly green, though,” Della had said.

  “You do, Maddy darling,” Peter had agreed. “Here, have another lime to suck.”

  It had been hard, so very hard, to leave them all, but made just a little easier by the promise that they’d be back to visit, in the cooler winters, just as Guy would visit them. There’d be other meals, play times for the children. It was not going to be the last time Iris saw her friends, or her ayah (who’d already moved in with Della and Jeff, ready to help encourage some sunnier tendencies from Emily), Suya, Cook, Ahmed, or any of the people she loved.

  She didn’t have to say goodbye to her grandmother at all.

  Maddy had seen to that.

  Luke, waiting on the baking starboard deck, glanced over his shoulder, toward the cabin Alice was already in. Richard had spoken to the captain, an old friend of his (as so many people were), and the captain had escorted her on board that morning, through his own private entrance, ahead of everyone else. They’d all helped her—Maddy, Iris, Peter, Della, the girls, all of them; Richard hadn’t left her side since. He was coming with them, just for a short stay this time, until he could arrange his retirement.

  I can’t do this without you either, Alice had told him.

  Maddy and Iris had had to leave, just for an hour—Maddy clutching a bag of the gi
nger biscuits Cook seemed to think would help with her sickness (Luke hoped to God he was right)—off for the final farewell Guy had requested: ices at the Sea Lounge.

  But they were back now, the two of them hurrying hand in hand through the shouting porters and luggage carts, pushing their way to the front of the hundreds of British and locals packed onto the clamoring quayside. Luke leaned forward, hands on the ship’s warm, salty railings, watching them. He’d been worried that Iris would be upset after leaving Guy. He’d been afraid there would be tears, a struggle. But to his relief, she was laughing as she ran beside Maddy for the gangplanks. His little girl with the sepia foot was laughing, on her way to him.

  “You’re here,” he shouted, making them look up, their bright blue eyes meeting his.

  Iris waved.

  He waved back.

  “We’re here,” Maddy called, “we’re going home,” and as her words reached his ears, the truth of it washed through him, and he felt his throat tighten in joy, such elation.

  A happiness so overwhelming that it was all he could do to breathe.

  EPILOGUE

  High Elms Residential Home, England, October 1976

  A Letter to Maddy, from Luke

  Today, I recall what year it is. I know that I have been living here for two years, in this home that’s less than a mile from our old house by the river; our house which became so full in the end that we sometimes talked about moving, always knowing we’d never, ever be able to bring ourselves to do that.

  It was my decision to come here to High Elms, after you went. I couldn’t let any of the children have me to live with them, no matter how they insisted. They visit so much—much more than my temperamental memory is prone to give them credit for—and that is all I ever want to ask of them.

  It hurts them so, when I forget.

  I am forgetting too much, these days. Our time together is slowly slipping away from me, and I have written almost as many letters to you now in confusion—such panic that I never found you—as I have remembering all the thousands of memories we made after we found each other.

  These letters, the letters of our life, are the letters I keep. They are stacked beside me. Some are just notes, scrawled to you in haste; others much longer. All of it is here.

  Our wedding, that first frozen Christmas after we got back from Bombay, in the small candlelit church at the end of our road. You were so pregnant, and very ready to not be anymore. You laughed when you met me at the altar and I told you how beautiful you looked. You are, I said, you must trust me on this, Miss Bright. Owen arrived just a week later, confounding us all by looking only like you, and demanding to be loved—as he was always going to be loved—from the second he opened his dark blue eyes.

  Less than two years later came the twins, Ben and Will, giving us the most sleepless of summers, until Iris asked if we could send them back. She’d wanted a sister, of course. But Jacob came, in the spring of 1926, destroying her last hope of that.

  She didn’t hold it against him, though. How could anyone have held anything against such a child? She doted on him, as we all doted on him. I can see him now, laughing in the garden, trying to keep up with the rest of them, wait, wait, his arms and legs pumping, always chasing a football.

  Those years when they were small, they were wondrous. All the hot summers when the five of them tore up and down the lawn, in and out of the river. Our walks in the park, fireworks in the freezing cold (what I would give to watch them with my arms around you, just one more time), birthdays and Christmases with your parents, my parents, Edie, Guy, Peter and Della—whom we visited just the once in India, before they followed us back—and Emma, of course. Emma, who came to our wedding with Ernest and Arnold, then to Owen’s christening, then again just because she happened to be in the neighborhood, and so on, until she chanced upon a job in the local hospital, you said she’d better take it, and be godmother to Will, too, and after that she never missed another birthday or Christmas again.

  It all passed so quickly, though. It took us by surprise that the days, which felt so long at times, vanished in years that went in the blink of an eye. One morning, we were taking Iris to her first day at her new school, the next up to Somerville for university, so nervous in the new duffel coat you’d insisted she’d need, so determined to not appear nervous.

  And so cross at her brothers for being too noisy when we all saw her into that tiny room we couldn’t bear to leave her alone in. Crosser yet when Jacob, just eight, ran onto the quad to fetch his escaped football, and came haring back, eyes wide in terror and laughter, after he was shouted at by the porter.

  “I hate that I ever told him off,” Iris said to me, just the other day.

  “You didn’t know,” I assured her. “And he worshiped you.”

  We never thought any of them would go into uniform. All of us were terrified of a second war. But it happened. We couldn’t stop it. No one could.

  Iris went first, with the air force to Cairo, Della’s girls with her, and seeing them off was one of the hardest things any of us did. But they came back. Iris came back, married and so happy, the first of our grandchildren, Megan (about to be a mother herself), already a month old.

  Owen, determined to become the surgeon he now is (much to Guy’s and my mother’s delight), joined the Medical Corps and somehow stayed safe, too, in the Mediterranean, the Pacific. So, miraculously, did the twins, our pilots, but not without giving us hundreds more sleepless nights.

  It was only Jacob, eighteen just in time for the Normandy landings, who we’ve never been able to stop waiting for.

  More than thirty years on, and I cannot write those words without my heart breaking.

  You told me you would look for him. When you went—leaving me as you promised you would never leave me—I think it was the idea of that which gave you such peace.

  I hope you are together, but I still cannot stop wishing that you were here. You became ill so fast, and it wasn’t until after you were gone that I realized how much I had left to say to you: countless things that I wanted you to know, all of them about how much you gave me.

  These letters, I suppose, have been about my telling you that, too.

  I need to stop writing now, though. I am growing tired. The pen feels heavy, and I need to sleep.

  I want to sleep.

  When I sleep, I dream. And my dreams are all I have left of that other world.

  The one I know I once belonged to, with you.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There are so many people to whom I am hugely grateful for their help and support in writing this book. As always, a very big thank-you to my amazing agent, Becky Ritchie, as well as the rest of the team at AM Heath, and of course to Deborah Schneider. Thank you, too, to my wonderful publishers, in particular, Leslie Gelbman at St. Martin’s Press, and all the team—Tiffany Shelton, Danielle Fiorella, Adriana Coada, Lisa Davis, Marissa Sangiacomo, Jessica Zimmerman, Devan Norman, Brant Janeway, Dakota Cohen, Kathryn Carroll, and Drew Kilman—and Viola Hayden, Darcy Nicholson, Stephie Melrose, Gemma Shelley, Thalia Proctor, Lucy Malagoni, and Cath Burke at Little, Brown in the UK.

  In writing this book, I went on an incredible research trip to India and am very grateful to everyone who welcomed me there. I would especially like to thank the staff at The Royal Bombay Yacht Club, then Pranav at Grand Mumbai Tours—for meeting me at the crack of dawn and tailor-making an itinerary that transported me back in time to colonial Bombay, immersing me in the world that Maddy and Luke inhabited—and last, but by no means least, Renjen at the Bombay Gymkhana club, who not only invited me into the club, but took me on a guided tour of its verandas, facilities, and rooms, giving me a morning I will never forget.

  Thank you to all my amazing friends, and a group of writers I couldn’t imagine doing this without: Iona Grey, Kerry Fisher, Sarra Manning, Lucy Foley, Kate Riordan, Katherine Webb, Cesca Major, and Claire McGlasson. Thanks to my brilliant parents, my brother and sister, and, always, to my husband, Matt, an
d our children, Molly, Jonah, and Raffy—I don’t know what I’d do, or where I’d be, without you!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  JENNY ASHCROFT is a British author of historical fiction. She has a degree from Oxford University in history, and has always been fascinated by the past—in particular the way in which extraordinary events can transform the lives of normal people. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Four Years Later

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five