1977 (39 page)

Tuesday. There was something she had to do on Tuesday. She drank her brandy. “I think

I’ll go to bed now, Father Sebastian. It’s so good of you to have given so much of your time.

And you, Susy.” Susy was by her side. Susy followed her into the bedroom, and helped

switch on the lights in there and in the bathroom.

Lucy sat on the edge of Tusker’s bed because her own already had the mosquito net down.

“It was the letter, of course,” Lucy told Susy as Susy bustled to and fro doing things. “It

was the letter that killed him. It must have been a great shock. Dr Mitra wouldn’t let me see

him. He wasn’t going to let me see the letter either, but I knew I had to see that.”

“Don’t worry about the letter,” Susy said. “So long as I have a roof over my own head, Mrs

Smalley, you always have a home with me.” She paused, stood, looked down at Lucy.

“People like us must stick together,” she said.

After a moment Lucy put out her hand but Susy had already moved away, busying herself

again.

“Would you like me to stay?” Susy asked.

“Thank you all the same. Perhaps you’d ask Ibrahim if he wouldn’t mind staying in the

house, as he did when Tusker was ill. I’ll feel safe then. I think I’ll go to bed now, I’m very

cold and tired.”

“Don’t forget your medication. I’ll bring you a cup of cocoa when you’re in bed.”

She undressed in the bathroom. She left the light on in the bathroom. She got into bed.

Susy brought the cocoa.

“Minnie is here too, Mrs Smalley. They have made a fire and will be next door if you want

either of them. Shall I turn off the lights?”

“Only the overhead. I’ll turn my own off when I’m ready to sleep. Please leave Tusker’s

on.”

When she felt the sleeping pill beginning to work she clicked off the lamp and lay on her

side away from Tusker’s light and shut her eyes. Now my own, my love, she thought. Now

my own. Now.

And slept.

Woke, shivering. Her watch showed 3.30. She should not have gone to bed so early. The

pill had worked, but worn off. She got out of bed, put on her gown and slippers and was

shattered by recollection, Tusker’s empty bed. Going past it to the living-room she switched

his lamp off. The living-room was unlit except by the light coming from the bedroom. She

trod gently. Curled up near the almost dead fire were two shapes in blankets. Minnie and

Ibrahim, one on each side of the fireplace. Going gently past them she caught her breath

because there was a third shape, huddled with its back to the wall.

Joseph.

The three of them.

No, she told herself. It is very moving, but I mustn’t cry. If I cry I may not be able to stop

and that will never do, will it? There is such a lot to think about and attend to. She stood in

the dark kitchen until her eyes were used to it and she could make out the shape of the

brandy bottle and a glass, probably a dirty one, but that didn’t matter. She moved cautiously

back through the living-room with bottle and glass, anxious not to disturb the sleeping

watch.

Back in the bedroom she poured a stiff measure of brandy. To drink it she sat on Tusker’s

cold bed and stared through the net of her own to the lamp on the other side of it, and then

remembered what it was that she had to do tomorrow as well as go to Tusker’s funeral. She

gulped some of the brandy. She had to ring Mr Turner in Ranpur and put him off. Or,

rather, she would have to ask someone reliable like Dr Mitra to ring and tell Mr Turner what

had happened. He would be disappointed, but he would understand. He would write to her

from Calcutta, probably. When she replied she would suggest that they kept in touch

because he would be in India for some time yet, and there might well be a chance of meeting

later, when she had recovered from the shock.

The shock. She gulped more brandy. It was very strong. She went into the bathroom to run

some cold tap-water into it. She ran too much. Now it was too weak. She went back to the

bottle and topped the drink up and then back into the bathroom because she suddenly felt

sick, and her bowels were stirring. She stood by the basin, waiting to be sick. She was unable

to be sick, but her bowels were still moving, so she went over to the thrones and sat on hers,

with the brandy glass on the floor, within reach. She heard herself moaning quietly and at

once stifled the sound with her hand over her mouth. She did not want to wake the servants.

She had forgotten to put a towel over the shutters. Not that it mattered. If Ibrahim heard a

sound he would not come bursting in once he had seen her empty bed. He would send

Minnie in to call out and ask if she was all right.

Now that she was alone she would have to have the catch put back on the shutters. Tusker

had had it taken off for the same reason that he had insisted on two loos. In India, he had

said, you could never tell when you’d get taken short. And who could tell if you both might

not get taken short at the same moment? If they could only have one bathroom, they could

at least have two loos in it and no catch on the door. Actually it had only happened once, the

time they’d both eaten something that disagreed with them. She’d always sworn she’d never

undergo the indignity of sitting on her loo while Tusker was sitting on his. But, this once,

she’d been driven to it, and half way through the performance Tusker had begun to laugh

and after a while she had begun to laugh too, so there they had been, enthroned, laughing

like drains.

She began to laugh now, silently. She put her hand out to hold his so that they could laugh

together.

“Memsahib?”

A woman’s voice. Minnie. She must have been standing well away from the louvred

shutters. There was nothing to be seen of her head or her feet.

“It’s all right Minnie. Quite all right, thank you. Go back to sleep and get some rest. I shall

be back in bed very soon.”

She coughed, to underline her self possession. After a while she drank more of the brandy.

Swallowing it, she realized something: that she could not put Mr Turner off, because he was

bringing a present for Minnie from Sarah and Susan and, in a sense, from the young man

who had been baby Teddie. One could not think only of oneself. It didn’t matter about the

blue rinse, because now she would let her hair go. But it mattered about the present for

Minnie. It would be a big thing in Minnie’s life to find herself remembered as the little ayah.

In the morning she would send a chit to Mr Bhoolabhoy, by Minnie, asking him to book Mr

Turner’s room and to ring Mr Turner personally in Ranpur to confirm it and say nothing

about what had happened. By Wednesday, when Mr Turner arrived, everything would be

over and she might be suffering from delayed shock. Mr Turner’s presence could be a

godsend to her.

She had another swig of the brandy.

It would be difficult of course. She would have to keep very firm control when taking him

round Pankot, pointing out this, pointing out that. All the places which had for her

associations inseparable from memories of Tusker. She might not quite manage to

accompany him to the churchyard. It would be difficult for him too, of course, the moment

he discovered that Tusker to whom he had spoken only yesterday, was now, on Wednesday,

gone.

“I didn’t put you off coming, Mr Turner,” she would say, “because quite honestly, it is

good for one to talk, in all the circumstances, especially to strangers. Come, let me show you

round The Lodge. Let’s go into the garden first. There’s not much to see either of the garden

or the bungalow. He loved the garden. Well, you can see, can’t you Mr Turner, how nice it

looks. We have a good
mali
, of course. From here, just here, before they built the Shiraz, one

could see almost to the top of Club road. We’ll go that way this afternoon. Perhaps Coocoo

Menektara will give us tea at Rose Cottage, then we might have a drink at the Club. We’ll go

by tonga because then you get the best view of the valley.

“Tusker and I went everywhere by tonga in the old days. But I’m afraid he was really rather

naughty because he used to pay the wallah off when we arrived, in the hope that we’d get a

lift home in someone’s staff car, either that or somehow the wallah misunderstood and

didn’t come back at the right time. I remember one party when we seemed to be absolutely

stranded. Perhaps that was symbolic, Mr Turner. I mean everyone else gone and just Tusker

and me, peering out into the dark waiting for transport that never turned up.”

She drank more brandy. Straightened her body, leant back against the support of the raised

lid, head against the wall, glanced at the empty throne beside her, then shut her eyes.

But when we went to parties, Tusker, just before we went in, you always took my arm. You

helped me down from tongas and into tongas. Waiting on other people’s verandahs for

tongas, then, too, you took my arm, and in that way we waited. Arm in arm. Arm in arm.

Throne by throne. What, now, Tusker? Urn by urn?

It’s all right, Tusker. I really am not going to cry. I can’t afford to cry. I have a performance

to get through tomorrow. And another performance to get through on Wednesday. And on

Thursday.

All I’m asking, Tusker, is did you mean it when you said I’d been a good woman to you?

And if so, why did you leave me? Why did you leave me here? I am frightened to be alone,

Tusker, although I know it is wrong and weak to be frightened -

—but now, until the end, I shall be alone, whatever I am doing, here as I feared, amid the

alien corn, waking, sleeping, alone for ever and ever and I cannot bear it but mustn’t cry and

must must get over it but don’t for the moment see how, so with my eyes shut, Tusker, I

hold out my hand, and beg you, Tusker, beg, beg you to take it and take me with you. How

can you not, Tusker? Oh, Tusker, Tusker, Tusker, how can you make me stay here by myself

while you yourself go home?

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