A Division Of The Spoils (Raj Quartet 4) (6 page)

‘All the same, sir, and though I do appreciate what you say, I should hope to see the transfer of power accompanied by some indication of our continuing interest and concern.’

‘I’m sure you’ll be gratified then, sergeant. The demission will certainly be accompanied by such pious assurances. But they won’t mean what it will be hoped they’re thought to mean. Labour capitalism is no more generous than finance capitalism. Incidentally, we talk about transfer of power, demission of power, getting rid of it, whatever phrase you prefer, but that’s going to be easier talked about than done.’

‘Do you think so, sir? Some people say that once it’s appreciated that we sincerely mean to go the Indians will sink their differences and agree how to work together.’

‘Then personally I think some people are absolutely wrong because the Indians are utterly demoralized at the very thought of having to take the ghastly mess over and run it themselves. We’ll have the devil’s own job off-loading it. And, God! one says “it” as if it’s a single transferable package which it isn’t, never has been and now never will be.’

‘A fact for which we’re partly to blame, sir?’

‘We? Don’t sell me that divide and rule stuff. The bloody place was divided when the sahibs first came and will be divided when the stupid sods go because they’ve always been
content to sit on their bums in their bloody clubs and interfere only when the revenues were slow coming in. The place is still
feudal
, Perron. And so far as I can see the only man of influence who’s worried about that is whatever the chap’s name is, Nehru, but he’s a Brahmin aristocrat and can hardly speak any language but English, and against him you have to set the Mahatma and his bloody spinning wheel. Spinning wheel! In 1945. For God’s sake, what’s the man
at
? In the past twenty-five years he’s done as much to keep the country stuck in the mud with his village-industry fixation as the whole bloody
raj
put together.’

Stung as much by his feeling that there was something in what Purvis said as by the sense of the unfairness of such casual elimination of any consideration that didn’t automatically fall within the economist’s habitual terms of reference, Perron said:

‘Your sponsor in Whitehall was right, sir. You’ve become an expert on India in a very short time.’

Purvis stared at him.

‘Most Indian economists I’ve met happen to agree with me.’

‘Yes I see, sir. Then perhaps that is a reason for optimism.’

‘I doubt it, sergeant. It is in the Indian character to complain, but not to contest if a job depends on a posture of acquiescence. I’d better write you that letter. Bearer!’

While the letter was being written, Perron waited on the balcony and gazed across the Oval to the dark bulk of the Law Courts. For a moment – perhaps under the influence of that symbol of the one thing the British could point to if asked in what way and by what means they had unified the country, the single rule of law – he felt a pressure, as soft and close to his cheek as a sigh: the combined sigh of countless unknown Indians and of past and present members of the glittering insufferable
raj
; all disposable to make the world safe for Purvis. And other men like Purvis. (And, I suppose – Perron thought – for men like me.)

Purvis called him over and handed him an envelope. It was addressed to a Maharanee. Perron glanced at Purvis, mildly surprised, but the man was leaning back again, eyes closed. To Purvis, Maharanees were probably two a penny.

At seven-thirty Perron arrived by taxi at a block on the Marine Drive which according to the address on the envelope bore the name Sea Breezes. The driver he had flagged down in the Queen’s Road translated this after several movements of uncertainty as Ishshee Brizhish, a place known to him. Armed with the envelope and a square package which contained the bottle of whisky, Perron entered the building and went up in the lift to the floor indicated by the board which gave flat numbers and the names of the occupants.

The décor in hall and landings was reminiscent of that in houses and apartments built in the ultra-modern style of the late ’twenties and early ’thirties, but it achieved a severe and bleak rather than a severe and functional effect. The cream-painted walls were dingy and the chromium rails bore the patina of years of contact with the human hand. The door of the flat at which he now stood was peagreen like those he had seen at successive stages through the latticework iron gates of the lift shaft and was well finger-marked round the keyhole.

He pressed the bell. No comforting sound of having got it to ring reached him and no hum of party conversation either. He wondered whether Purvis had the date right and then whether someone had tipped the Maharanee off about Security’s interest in her circle of friends so that she had cancelled the party and would be found curled up with a good book. Wondering this he next considered the possibility that she had taken a fancy to Purvis and planned to lure him back to the flat with or without the bottle of whisky on a night when she knew they could be alone together. He could not assess the power of Purvis’s sexual attraction. In such matters women had their own unassailable scale of values and judgment. But, having arrived at this possible explanation he now wondered how old she was and, if young, how well-favoured. The evening suddenly seemed full of an unexpected kind of potential.

The door was opened abruptly by a young Indian girl of gazellelike charm. ‘Hello,’ she said. Clearly she had none of that creature’s timidity.

‘Hello. I’ve got a note and a package.’

‘For me?’

He gave her the envelope. Her beautifully architectured eyebrows contracted. ‘Oh, it’s for Auntie. What a jolly shame. But do come in.’

‘Thank you.’

Perron stepped inside and let her close the door. Her scent was too cloying for his taste but welcome after the smell on the night breeze blowing in from the Bombay foreshore which Perron was convinced was used as a lavatory. Indian insistence that it was just the smell of the sea and the seaweed had not yet made him change his mind.

In the hall – the top end of a long wide passage with doors leading off from either side of it and cluttered with solid but poorly assorted furniture, including an ornately carved black Chinese settle upholstered with velvet cushions – the girl took the package from him and put it together with the envelope on an ebony table on which a heavy and thick-ankled Shiva danced in his petrified ring of fire. She said, ‘Come and have a drink why not?’ and led the way into a living-room.

Around the walls sofas and chairs were set in the solemn and rather hostile manner of the segregational East. The tiled floor was uncarpeted – perhaps for dancing. There was no balcony but the windows were wide open. The lighting was less successful than in Purvis’s flat. From the centre of the ceiling hung a cluster of bulbs in a cruciform wooden chandelier of the kind that at home was
de rigueur
in rooms that sported fake beams and parchment lampshades with galleons stencilled on them. But these bulbs were unshaded. A few wall-lights in glass and chromium brackets added to the glare but did nothing to eliminate the harsh shadows. Near the window was a cocktail cabinet of impressive vulgarity, and to this the girl had gone. She turned round.

‘You’re a sergeant, aren’t you? Auntie says all sergeants drink beer but there was one the other night who asked for a White Lady.’

‘Were you able to oblige him?’

‘One of the officers got it for him but it took them ages because of the glass having to be put in the refrigerator.’

‘A straightforward gin and lemon squash would suit this
sergeant very well. Shall I make it myself and get you a drink too?’

‘Oh, no. I’m supposed to do this sort of thing. Auntie says it’s good for me because it helps me not to be shy. I used to be very shy. But if you like to hold the bottle and help to pour it would be nice because I find the bottles so heavy, and once I dropped one and Auntie trod on a piece of the glass and was very cross.’

Perron joined her at the Wurlitzer-style cabinet. At a rough estimate he thought there were about fifty glasses of different shapes set ready, none of them as clean as they might have been. Gravely he uncapped a bottle of Carew’s and held it above the glass she presented. She put her hand on his and canted.

‘Is that enough?’

‘More than generous.’

‘May I leave you to do the rest? I must take Auntie the letter and parcel. Oh –’ She half-ran to an occasional table and returned with a cigarette box and a lighter. After he had taken a cigarette he had to hold the box because she insisted on lighting the cigarette for him and needed two hands to produce a flame.

‘There. Please excuse me now. There are plenty of ashtrays.’ At the door she again remembered something important. ‘What is your name? If there were a lot of people it wouldn’t matter but since there’s only you it would look rude not to tell Auntie who it is, wouldn’t it?’

He told her, and added, ‘But I’m sure it’s mentioned in the note.’

After she had gone Perron went to the window. For all his doubts about its present source he had long since learned to appreciate the sensuousness of the warm smell of the East and how it could set mind and body at ease. He enjoyed a sensation almost of tranquillity and continued to enjoy it for some time, in fact until he became aware of the riding lights of a section of the anchored Zipper-destined flotilla out in the roads. And then a ludicrous but slightly worrying image presented itself, of the Maharanee standing at this very window, observing the scene in daylight through a telescope and dictating notes for the girl to record (in invisible ink)
about the class and tonnage of each ship as it arrived and dropped anchor.

‘Auntie says will you come through?’

The girl was standing in the open doorway. He stubbed his cigarette and followed her into the long passage and down to a door at the end which, if closed before, now stood half-open upon a room so dark that at first he thought there was no light on at all and hesitated to enter when the girl indicated that he should do so.

‘It’s all right. Auntie has been resting but she’s finished now.’ Inside, he saw that there was a light, but this was from a table lamp in the far corner of the room whose shade was draped with a square of what looked like heavy crimson velvet. A hand, in silhouette, crept over the cloth and removed it; and in the now brighter but still deep rosy glow of the lamp the Maharanee was revealed, recumbent on a Récamier couch. Her saree was also red, but of what shade and intensity Perron could not easily judge because the material obviously took colour from the lamp shade. She seemed like an ember that might at any moment pulse brilliantly and dangerously into life. She wore no jewelry. Her skin was pale but darker than that of the Parsee ladies of Bombay. Her hair, cut and set in a style that obviously owed more to what she thought suited her than it did to any fashion of the day, was black, unoiled, parted in the middle, and fell, in corrugations of the kind obtained by using hot tongs, just short of her shoulders, framing a classic Rajput face of prominent cheekbones, full red lips, a hawklike but beautifully proportioned nose, and eyes whose luminosity was accentuated by cunningly applied kohl. Between her black brows she had painted a red tika one-quarter inch in diameter. She looked about thirty and was probably forty. She wore no choli and both arms, one shoulder and part of her midriff were bare. Perron, half-convinced he also saw the thrust and outline of a nipple, found her seductively handsome.

‘Auntie,’ the girl said from behind him. ‘This is Sergeant Perrer. Sergeant Perrer, this is my Auntie Aimee.’

Perron bowed.

‘Have you come to my party?’ the Maharanee asked in a high-pitched but slightly hoarse voice. ‘I’m afraid you’re on
the early side. Aneila opened the door to you because all the servants are resting. I make them rest because sometimes my parties go on for a day or two. Aneila, what is wrong with you? Why is our visitor still standing?’

‘I’m sorry, Auntie.’

Perron turned to help her but the chair she chose was very small and presumably almost weightless. She managed it easily, placing it two feet from the couch.

‘Now you had better go to start rousing everybody.’

‘Yes, Auntie.’

‘Tell them the guests are beginning to arrive. Do sit down. Have we met before?’

‘I’ve not had that pleasure, Your Highness.’

‘Please call me Aimee. Pandy and I are divorced. I keep the title because it is useful and servants and shop people like it and Pandy’s new wife doesn’t. Are you a friend of someone I know?’

Perron explained his mission and drew her attention to the package and envelope which were on the table, propped against the lamp where Aneila had presumably left them.

‘Captain Purvis?’ she asked, reaching for the letter. ‘He must be one of Jimmy’s friends. When Jimmy is in Bombay he brings so many people.’ She opened the letter. The paper it was written on seemed to displease her. She held it between the tips of two fingers whose nails were elegantly manicured and varnished. ‘Leonard?’ she said. ‘Leonard Purvis?’ And presently, ‘Whisky?’ The note although short called for concentration. ‘Chillingborough and Cambridge? Why does he tell me this? Why shouldn’t you have studied at Chillingborough and Cambridge? So many Englishmen do. Who is Leonard Purvis?’

‘A member of an economic advisory mission to the Government of India.’

‘Are you also in this mission?’

‘No, I’m concerned with army education.’

‘What does the mission do?’

‘I don’t think it does anything.’

‘And what do you do?’

‘Very little.’

‘What a relief. People are always dashing about. What is your first name?’

‘Guy.’

‘Have you another?’

‘Lancelot.’

She frowned.

‘There’s also Percival,’ he said, and added, ‘but I’m not keen on it.’

‘Names are a terrible problem. It is best to make them up. Will you stay to my party? It may be boring but it is difficult to tell in advance. It depends on who comes. If it is too tedious I just come back to my room and tell the servants to lock up the drinks and go to bed. It is the only way to get rid of people. Anyway tonight I will be optimistic because it has begun well. Where are you staying?’