1977 (23 page)

name it I’ve done it.

You can say that again, a Voice said in his head.

He looked up wildly and stared round the church. But for the first time in his recollection

the place seemed devoid of a Presence. He felt abandoned so completely that another sinful

desire sparked in him. He wanted to confess aloud, unburden himself not to God directly

but through the comfort of an intermediary, another human being. He wanted to kneel

before Father Sebastian or someone looking in his imagination remarkably like Father

Sebastian.

Father I have sinned (he would say). I have spent the night in debauchery and enjoying

sexual congress for the hell of it procreation being out of the question what with the coil

which probably isn’t necessary because it’s unlikely a woman could have so many husbands

and all of them turn out sterile so it must be her and she’s probably long past it anyway and

all the business of the coil and complaining about periods is just to kid me she’s as young as

she said she was. And after spending the night in debauchery I have used angry words and

laid hands on her with violent intent. Moreover I have appeared naked in front of her

handmaiden. Where I could have offered wise and sober counsel I have offered only

provocation and have parted from her in anger and dare not show my face. I am guilty of

the sin of adultery with a lady in Ranpur and of the sin of lascivious expectation, item, the

purchase of an unseemly garment for Koshak Dance, not having been content to call it a day

with double-lotus, but then chickening out and so committing the sin of failing to keep a

promise and disappointing a fellow human being and causing her bosom to swell if that is

further possible with anger or contempt or both which means I have been the instrument by

which she added yet another sin to her sum of sins which I should have tried to talk her out

of and not let her talk me into. But mostly, Father -

(pp) Snick-snick

—I have committed the sin of turning a blind eye and not speaking up like a Christian and

a man and where does my salary come from, pocket money you could call it, but still where

does it come from except Ownership? So wasn’t it my duty to start speaking long ago in a

calm Christian manner and ask, What are we doing, Lila my wife, what are we up to? What is

the future? So that I could fulfil my obligations as a husband and as a manager and as a

Christian to see all those things in which I am concerned directed to good ends and not to

bad? But oh no, for me anything for a quiet life, until the moment cornes and the quiet life

looks about to end -

(pp) Snick-snick

—not only for me but for other people trusting in me because I am Management which

means I am responsible not only for welfare and happiness of those who serve but also for

that of Colonel and Mrs Smalley who are aged and one of them ailing and what will happen

to them if the bull-dozers come?

(p) Snick-snick

The sound, so soft, scarcely a sound but just audible in this place that seemed this morning

no more than an echoing chamber for noises of temporal activity outside, suddenly

impinged on Mr Bhoolabhoy’s outer ear. The hairs on the back of his neck stirred,

thousands of tiny antennae programmed to tune in to signals of approaching disaster.

(cr) Snick-snick

Mr Bhoolabhoy stumbled to his feet. The demolition gang had already arrived and begun

work on the churchyard. He staggered along the pew making for the south door and

reaching it opened and thrust himself forward and out almost into the arms of Mrs Smalley

who uttered a little cry like that of a ghost on its way to a haunting.

“Oh, what a fright you gave me, Mr Bhoolabhoy.”

She had given him a fright too, to judge from the way his mouth hung open and his eyes

popped. He looked at her, then round her, then back at the church door which he shut with

a clang as if he had been up to something in there and was discouraging her from going in.

Prior to his marriage Mr Bhoolabhoy had had something of a reputation as a quiet little

man with an eye for the girls and although Lucy thought the reputation probably

exaggerated, since it was chiefly from Tusker she came to hear of it, and unlikely in the

extreme that he would have been living up to it inside the church, she couldn’t help recalling

that little Susy Williams and he were often there together on church business and that people

had once imagined, and Lucy had rather hoped for poor Susy’s sake, that the two would one

day make a match of it.

“You gave me a fright too,” he said, almost wringing his hands and heightening by a degree

or two the temperature of her suspicion. “You see I was only just now thinking about you.”

“Really, Mr Bhoolabhoy?”

It always fascinated her to see an Indian blush. She sometimes thought she could detect it

even in an Indian with a darker skin than Mr Bhoolabhoy’s, which was only a delicate

brown. He looked at his feet, at her feet, anywhere but at her. She felt a little tingle of

apprehension which wasn’t altogether unpleasant. Usually neatly dressed, the sort of man

who nearly always wore a jacket and collar and tie, he had, she noticed now, either dressed in

a hurry or become disarrayed since. He had no jacket on (was it inside the church?) and

although his shirt sleeves were buttoned at the wrist the collar was open. She must have seen

him bare throated before but had not noticed that for a man so meagrely built the throat was

rather a good one. Not at all scrawny.

“It is nice to be thought about, Mr Bhoolabhoy, unless of course the context of the

thought is disagreeable. It happens that I was thinking about you too. I was thinking how

nicely you are keeping the churchyard.”

Snick-snick-snick-snick

This time the sound was near at hand. Both turned their attention to its likely source which

was now revealed. Round the bend of the path came Joseph, making slow but steady

progress, sideways, and on his hunkers, rather like a Russian dancer in slow motion, but also

because of the sharp claws of the shears that seemed an essential probing part of him, like a

large landcrab, foraging.

He was cutting the edges of the grass.

“Why,
mali
! It’s you! “ Lucy said.

The young man glanced up and then unwinding himself came to a standing position.

Holding the shears to his side in one hand he gave a grave salutation with the other. Mr

Bhoolabhoy was already making for him ; making
at
him it looked, and shouting at him in

Hindi. The
mali
stood his ground but cast his eyes down.

“What are you saying to him, Mr Bhoolabhoy? You’re surely not scolding him?”

“I am asking him what he is doing and why isn’t he working in your garden. Only in his

time off is he supposed to do all this.”

“You mean he works here too?”

“Only in his spare time. It is a labour of love. You did not know?”

“I may have done.” She had shut her mind to
mali
as
mali
. “But you really mustn’t scold

him. He’s doing nothing wrong. I told Ibrahim this morning to stop him cutting the grass. I

had such a headache and Colonel Smalley wasn’t feeling up to much either. Is he a

Christian?”

“You did not know?”

Again she said, “I may have done. I’d forgotten. Tell me,
mali
, you speak English? If you

are a Christian I suppose you speak some English. Well I mean, there are prayers.”

Joseph nodded his head from side to side then said, “Speaking some English, Memsahib.

Not yet reading. Reading very little.”

“But you speak very well! And what do you read,
mali
?”

After a moment he indicated the nearest gravestone.

“Gravestones? You read gravestones? How charming. Why do you read gravestones?”

Joseph looked at Mr Bhoolabhoy. Mr Bhoolabhoy spoke again in Hindi, presumably

repeating the question. When Mr Bhoolabhoy had stopped gabbling the boy looked at his

feet again and then everywhere except at either of them and began to gabble too and use his

arms, indicating this, that. Then he stopped as abruptly as he’d begun and looked at his feet

again.

“He is a simple boy, Mrs Smalley. He tries to read the names on the stones because when

he tidies a grave he says a prayer for the soul of the departed and it troubles him when he

cannot understand what the stone says because then he thinks God will not hear properly

and get the souls mixed up.”

“Oh,” Lucy said. She was touched.
Mali
was such a strong manly looking boy. It always

moved her when such boys proved to be sensitive too; to have spiritual as well as physical

attributes. “Well, now,
mali
,” she said, speaking very slowly and distinctly, and approaching

him, sketching a gesture that almost was but wasn’t quite a touching of his arm, “show me a

gravestone you
cannot
read.
Malum
?”

How straight his gaze was! How devoted and grateful his look. How gallant the gesture he

made, tucking the shears behind him so that they did not constitute a threat or source of

danger to her. How lithely he moved, going with no nonsense and yet chivalrous awareness

of her presence, towards one of the graves. How touching the way he stopped and stood to

one side of it, giving her precedence but yet indicating his wish to know whose grave it was.

“Well, now,
mali
. No, I must call you Joseph.” She peered at the stone. “It says, Here Lies.

Here Lies,
malum
?” He nodded. “Here lies Rosemary. Beloved daughter of John and

Gwendoline Fairfax-Owen. Well you really don’t need to bother with the Fairfax-Owen.

Five December, Eighteen ninety-one to Twelve April Eighteen Ninety-six. That makes her

five years old. Oh dear.
Malum
? Chokri. Little Miss Sahib. Then it says, Suffer Little Children

to come Unto Me. Who said that, Joseph?”

“Lord Jesus.”

“That’s right. Show me where it says Suffer little children. Can you?”

As Joseph bent down she caught the pungent smell of his body. He pointed at the

inscription, ran his finger along each of the words.

“There you are, Joseph. You can read very well. It’s just the funny names that worry you.

But all you need to know about this grave is that it is Rosemary’s, aged five.
Malum
?”

“Ros merry. Age five.”

“Good. But I’m sure little Rosemary went straight to heaven. Not, of course, that prayers

for her will not be heard. But now, show me a gravestone that you
can
read.”

They followed
mali
to the south-west corner.

“This, Memsahib,” he said, stopping. It was old Mabel Layton’s grave. Like the others in

this section the stone had been cleaned and the grass over the hummock newly shorn. There

were marigolds in a tin vase which looked as if it had been painted recently. Joseph knelt and

pointed at the name Mabel.

“Mah-Bel,” he said.

“Very nearly. Mabel.”

“May bll,” Joseph repeated, then rearranged the flowers.

Click.

She glanced round. An Indian with a camera held in front of his face was taking

photographs.
Click, click
.

“Oh, Ashok,” Mr Bhoolabhoy was saying. “You are here then.”

“Just a moment,” the man said. “Memsahib, please stand just behind and to one side of the

head stone?” She did so.
Click, click
. He said something in Hindi to
mali
who placed a hand

on the vase and stared at the flowers. Click, click; click, click. “Good,” the photographer

said, “It is a good composition. Okay, Bhoolabhoy Sahib. What next?”

“You mean they might be published, Mr Bhoolabhoy?” she exclaimed. He had

accompanied her to the gate to make sure her tonga was still waiting. The photographer

having click clicked his way round the churchyard was now setting up more formidable

equipment in the church itself.

The tonga was there, the driver obviously impatient, but Mr Bhoolabhoy seemed

determined to detain her. He was acting very oddly, hovering, darting, almost dancing round

her as if she were a bonfire, to be fanned at one moment and dowsed the next so variable

were his responses to the responses it struck her he was trying to get from her. It was almost

like being flirted with.

“Published yes. Some will be published.” He spoke as if it was necessary to raise his voice

above something like the sound of the wind or the sound of the sea. “One or two anyway.

But I will give you prints of all. Tomorrow. Not later than tomorrow. A complete set. Then

you will tell me just how many copies you would like. As many as you wish. Ashok is an

excellent photographer. All his pictures come out very well. Every detail shows.”

She touched her lined cheek and smiled, uncertainly.