Annie's Promise (50 page)

‘Your room is ready, Miss Armstrong,’ the manager said, bowing over the key.

She smiled as a boy carried her rucksack up the stairs. She
bathed in the old mahogany bath. The water was cold, fresh. She changed her skirt for another, and her blouse also. She walked to Prue’s, following the directions with which she had grown up. Past bungalows with compounds, keeping the valley to her right, the sounds of the bazaar to her left. Not yet, not yet because she hadn’t reached the clump of pine trees which stood between the Sanders plot and all the others. Here they were.

She walked towards the verandah where crimson canna lilies grew. Oh Mum.

She climbed the steps and stood there, not knowing what to do now and frightened. What would she do if Prue wouldn’t speak to her of the past? The door opened and a plump, pale-skinned, blue-eyed woman with long lashes and blonde hair stood there, dressed in pastel shades.

‘Prue? It’s Sarah Armstrong.’ Sarah could think of nothing more to say. She just waited, wanting to grasp this woman and shout, Help me to know my mother.

The woman said nothing, her eyes widening and Sarah’s hopes plummeted because this must not be Prue. Where could she now look? She must search until she found her. Sarah half turned, then turned again as the woman put up her hand.

‘I’m Annie’s daughter,’ Sarah said, feeling the hand on her arm.

Now the woman smiled. ‘Did you really think I wouldn’t recognise you? You are her image. I was just too moved to speak.’

Prue’s arms were round her now, holding her gently and Prue’s kisses were on her cheek, her hand stroked her hair as her mother used to do. Sarah put her head on the older woman’s shoulder and felt tiredness sweep over her as she cried for the first time for a long while.

Prue held the thin body and knew if she spoke she would cry too because she had shared each day of Annie’s pain.

She led Sarah to a chair set back against the verandah wall and called, ‘Ibrahim, tea please.’

She sat opposite and Sarah heard the creak of the cane chair under Prue’s weight. Sarah took the handkerchief that was offered and smiled. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know if you’d be here and I had to talk to you.’

Prue thanked Ibrahim and poured the tea. ‘Yes, I’m usually here, but Dick’s in Delhi I’m afraid, on business. Never mind, you’ll see him on his return.’ Prue put the cup in front of Sarah, her bracelets jangling as Annie had said they always used to. ‘Now look, my dear. Your mother is sick with worry. Please, may I telegraph or telephone her to say you are here?’

Prue looked across and now Sarah saw the deep lines to the corners of her mouth – they were the same as her mother’s.

‘She knows I’m safe, she knows I’m sorry and that I love her.’ Sarah broke off because it was as though the tears would come again. She drank her tea, it was strong, good – now she could speak. ‘Please don’t tell her yet – tomorrow will do.’

Prue looked closely at her, then agreed. ‘Now, where’s your baggage?’

‘At the hotel.’

Prue laughed, throwing her head back. ‘No child of Annie’s will stay anywhere but under my roof. Ibrahim,’ Prue raised her voice. ‘Please send the mali to bring Miss Armstrong’s bags.’

Sarah put down her cup and leaned forward. ‘Prue, I need to talk to you.’

Prue poured more tea, her finger on the silver lid. ‘And I to you, my dear, but not tonight, tomorrow. Tonight we have guests for dinner – you will like them. It is a girls’ night.’ Prue waved at the Chinese lanterns hanging on the trees. ‘You see, it will be fun. Now, in a moment I shall show you your room and then I have to go and supervise affairs in the kitchen. I have this total fascination with my stomach, as you will know already – it and I spend many happy hours together planning its next extravaganza.’

Prue led her now to the bedroom. ‘Good, Ibrahim has organised towels and so on. Do please make yourself at home. You will find your clothes in the wardrobe. Please leave anything you would like washed in the bathroom. We now have flush lavatories my dear. Such a treat, one almost wants to go in there, just to admire.’

Prue smiled at her and Sarah grinned. ‘There,’ Prue said. ‘That’s the Sarah I remember from the photographs. Tomorrow we will talk.’

At half past seven Sarah was introduced to Mrs Carter, Mrs Smythe and Mrs Taylor. She sipped her gin and tonic and looked at the lanterns, the town, its lights, its noise. It was so cool, so fresh – how Ravi’s patients would improve if they were here.

Mrs Carter sat next to her. ‘I just love your skirt, the colours are so vibrant. Did you make it yourself? I expect you’ve been on an ashram somewhere, have you, exploring Hindu philosophy and religion, or some such thing? One hears that so many are doing that sort of thing these days. So many lost souls.’

Prue cut across the conversation, leaning back in her chair which was beside Sarah’s. ‘Oh Veronica, for heaven’s sake, let the poor girl get a word in edgeways.’ She patted Sarah’s knee. ‘This old girl has chronic verbal diarrhoea, always has had. We were at school together in Devon, you know, and she looked as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but she was a devil.’

Veronica held up her glass. ‘Enough, Prue, good grief, this child doesn’t want to hear stories from the past.’

Sarah smiled at her. Oh yes she did, but she’d hear those tomorrow. Tonight it was enough that she was here.

Ibrahim poured more gin and they ate canapes while Prue told them how they had been ‘talked to’ by the biology teacher, about men’s and women’s ‘things’, which had puzzled them all greatly until they read
Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
Whereupon Veronica had been sent from morning service
for changing the words when singing
All Things Bright and Beautiful
from ‘he made their glorious plumage, he made their tiny wings’, to ‘things’.

Sarah laughed with the others and moved to the table where coq au vin was served. Prue winked at Sarah. ‘I do so like a treat from time to time.’

Mrs Taylor asked. ‘Where have you come from?’

Sarah drank her wine, it was cool, dry – a Chardonnay. Where was Sam Davis, still giving parties? Where was Carl?

‘I flew into Delhi, then on to a clinic north of there.’

The chicken was good. She ate carefully, listening to the women talk of Delhi as they had known it, long ago. The parties at Government House, the silver plates, the toast to King-Emperor, the desserts.

‘Oh yes, the desserts, darling,’ Prue gushed. ‘I mean those sugar baskets, girls.’ Prue’s eyes were bright. ‘Sarah, they were magnificent, stuffed with fruit salad. The cooks would compete, positively compete, to create the most splendid and fragile concoction, spinning crisp brown sugar until it looked like a translucent amber dish. The trick was to serve the fruit salad and then crack the bowl and serve that. It must have broken their hearts to have seen all that work go down the gullet. But so delicious. I just can’t tell you.’

Prue looked down at her chicken. ‘Sorry, girls, tonight we just have fruit salad, couldn’t rise to the sugar basket. Chocs after, I promise.’

‘I remember sleeping under an apricot tree when I was very young,’ Mrs Smythe said quietly as she finished her chicken. ‘I can remember the crickets singing me to sleep and being woken by Daddy’s regimental band – it all seems so long ago.’

Sarah sat back and looked at these women, lined, content, at home. ‘Did you never want to go back to England?’ she asked.

There was silence for a while and now there was the scent of jasmine on the breeze. Mrs Taylor spoke at last, smiling at Ibrahim as he took away their plates. ‘It’s not the same
as it was before Independence, but something about the country gets under your skin.’

Prue poured more wine. ‘There’s a spiritual quality to his land. It haunts you somehow, and the richness of its history soaks into your bones. I missed it when Dick and I came to England after the war. We couldn’t stay, it wasn’t home. You see, Sarah, we were born out here, we know its patterns, its rituals, its timelessness. Daddy couldn’t go home either.’

Mrs Smythe said, ‘I remember our parade ground on Independence Eve. We dined at the House, then sat in stands around the parade ground. The whole place was floodlit, I remember, and we watched the small British contingent march on behind all the Indian troops. The band played as all the floodlights were doused, leaving just the flagpole lit. I remember the Union Jack fluttering, there was a slight breeze, you know, quite chilly really.’

They were all silent now, not drinking, just listening.

‘I remember the Union Jack being lowered as everyone stood to attention. It was so quiet. It must have been the same all over the country. I dropped my programme. As midnight struck the Indian flag was raised. We all sang the Indian national anthem. It was so strange, so dark, so different.’

No one spoke or moved until Mrs Taylor said, ‘We all thought it was the end but it was a new beginning. We stayed on, lived differently, better because we weren’t contained within a cantonment, having to abide by rules, by tradition. We could be ourselves.’

Prue looked at Sarah and lifted her glass. ‘To new beginnings,’ she said softly.

Next morning Sarah woke to see pale light spreading over the mountains and slowly filling the town, the valley. They ate
chota hazari
, little breakfast, and Prue sat in her dressing gown, buttering toast, drinking fruit juice. ‘Squeezed by Ibrahim,’ she said, pouring some for Sarah. ‘We’ll bath, then
go to the bazaar for food. Then we can have bacon and eggs if you wish?’

Sarah smiled. ‘No, I’ve had sufficient.’

‘Oh how disappointing, then I may not indulge either.’

‘I would like to talk to you, please Prue.’

Prue smiled. ‘Then we will return for coffee and to talk.’

They walked down the road the tonga had taken and always there was the freshness of the air, the glory of the mountains, the valleys, the trees.

‘Are there walnut trees here?’ Sarah asked.

‘Many. Your father wrote to your mother about them, didn’t he? It made her feel closer to him because Sarah Beeston had a walnut table in the hall.’ Prue pointed out the trees. ‘And over there is an apricot.’

‘Is there anything you don’t know about my mother?’

Prue spoke softly. ‘Very little. We had many years to talk to one another, many long years.’ She wasn’t smiling now and the lines were deeper around her mouth.

They were in the bazaar. Sarah stopped at a khadi stall.

Prue stood with her. ‘It’s the locally woven cloth, a relic of Mahatma Gandhi.’

Sarah loved the colours, felt the loosely woven cloth, talked of the designs that would suit them best, the muted colours of the landscape transferred to them, the vibrant colours also.

Prue laughed. ‘You’re your mother’s daughter all right.’

They bought vegetables from the stall. ‘It’s produce our mali sells from our kitchen garden.’

‘Why d’you let him?’

‘Why not, it’s a sensible cycle, leaves everyone with some dignity.’

They walked back past the cinema, into the garden, passed the delphiniums, stocks. There was a garden shed amongst the vegetables. Did this smell the same as the one at home? She stopped, opened the door. No.

This time they took coffee in the sitting room, leaning back on cane furniture whose cushions were covered with
Wassingham Textiles upholstery sent by Annie, and now Sarah could wait no longer.

‘Please tell me why my mother couldn’t nurse.’

‘It wasn’t a question of your mother being unable to nurse.’

‘Well, why wouldn’t she nurse?’

‘Neither is it a question of your mother being unwilling to nurse,’ Prue said quietly. ‘I need to explain some things to you, so that you can understand others. It is a time of my life that I discuss with no one, just as Annie does not because its shadows could reach out and scar us all over again. But you have your own shadows, my dear Sarah, and they must be seen off.’

She told Sarah then of the camps – of the endless years of brutality, of heat, hunger, misery. ‘We nursed in the hospital that we built ourselves. We had no medicine, no tools but a wonderful doctor, Dr Jones from Australia. All day, every day we nursed, scooping ulcers, calming the dying, boiling bandages, rags, burying our friends. We were beaten for many things. Have you seen your mother’s finger? Yes, that was because she was late on parade. They beheaded our friend Lorna Briggs. It was raining, her blood was so very red.’

Prue wasn’t looking at Sarah, she wasn’t looking at anything but the past.

‘They made us write postcards. Your mother was frightened to write to your father in case it tempted fate and put the mark of death on him. They found the cards at the end of the war in a box. They’d never been sent. They found medicine too, and Marmite, boxes and boxes of Marmite – we could have saved so many of our friends. Dr Jones wept, they all wept. I say they, because I was not there, not in mind, only body.’

Prue touched her lips, swallowed and then continued. ‘Near the end of the war diphtheria raged. I became ill, your mother nursed me but I lost my mind. I wandered the camp and was almost shot, so she tethered me to her wrist, day and night with a piece of rope and fed me, because I wouldn’t
eat. She would take a spoon and make the rabbit go into the hole.’

Sarah sat quite still remembering her mother running from her father’s side after she had tried to make the rabbit run into the hole. It was when she returned to the room that she had spoken to him firmly and Sarah had hated her until the nurse had told her that her mother was right.

‘I ate,’ Prue continued, ‘though it was rice, which by then made us want to vomit because we had eaten nothing else for more than three years. I still can’t eat it today, neither can your mother.’

Oh yes she can, Sarah thought. She ate it when she came down with the inflatable chairs, she forced it down through love.

‘I wondered why she wouldn’t nurse. I’ve always blamed her for it,’ Sarah whispered. ‘I couldn’t have done what you both did. I know, I’ve tried in a very small way and I couldn’t bear it either.’

‘Let me finish,’ Prue said, her hands clasped together, her bracelets still on her motionless wrists. ‘Please. Your father found her camp after the war and took her back to India, where he was stationed. One night the rains came, hammering on her roof whilst he was away defusing a bomb. ‘Does he want to die, is that why he does it?’ she asked me before I left her that evening. Later she took too many sleeping pills – it had all been too much – her life had been too much. You see, her father killed himself and left her alone. The war had nearly killed her, now perhaps her husband wanted to die too. So she tried to leave this life, Sarah, and the only way your father and I could make her walk, make her drink in order to save her life, was to shout at her in Japanese. She obeyed out of fear.’