Dishonored (21 page)

“Yes. Ashok, call the palace, they will take care of it, tell them I am here and it is Mrs. Mills. They will send an ambulance
right away.” The bookshop owner scrambled to his feet and set off. The traffic had stopped and people began to press around
to see what was happening. The crowd had doubled. “Ashok?” Rami shouted. “Tell them there is a child as well, they will need
transport for her! I will take care of it, tell them that I will pay!” The man held his hand up in answer as he ran. “And
hurry,” Rami murmured under his breath. “Please, please hurry.”

It was dark when Jane came around. The day had disappeared as it always did, quickly and without twilight, and Rami stood
at the window, staring out into the grounds of the clinic, looking at the dark shapes of the trees against an ink-black sky.
He turned as he heard Jane sigh and was looking at her as she opened her eyes.

“Ramesh?” She moved her head toward him and lifted her hand. “Ouch, that hurts!”

“Jane!” He hurried to the bed. “Thank goodness!” The relief in his voice made her want to smile but her face was too sore.
“How do you feel?”

Jane frowned and rolled her eyes upward. “Do I have a bandage on my head?”

He smiled. “Yes, you have a cut on your forehead and a broken nose.”

“Oh God!” She groaned. “I must look wretched!”

“You also have a bruised shoulder and a sprained wrist, on the left hand, thank God!” She was right-handed. “You were very,
very lucky!”

“What happened? I got hit, yes?”

He nodded.

“By a car?”

“No, a truck. You managed to get the child out of the way but—”

“Usha?” Jane’s face creased with worry. “Is she all right? What happened to her? She’s not—?”

Rami lay his hand over Jane’s. “She’s here, in the clinic. She’s fine.” He squeezed her hand. “You saved her life,” he said.
“She would have been killed by that truck.”

“I did?”

He laughed quietly. “Yes, you did.”

“So where am I? And what time is it?”

“You’re in a private clinic, one that the maharajah uses.” He glanced at his watch. “And it’s seven
P.M.”

“God! Seven o’clock!” Suddenly Jane tried to lift her head off the pillow. “Phillip! What about Phillip? He’ll be worried
sick!”

Rami gently pushed her back down. “Phillip knows where you are, and what has happened. Relax, you must not get excited.”

“He does?”

“Yes, he…” Rami broke off as Jane looked away. He saw her eyes fill with tears. “He rang to see if you were all right.”

Jane nodded, bitterly disappointed, and her tears ran down to stain the crisp, white, cotton pillowcase. “I’m sorry, it’s
the shock of the accident,” she said, but it was more. It was the terrible, sick feeling that Phillip didn’t care, that he
should have, could have been there but he chose not to be. She turned her face right away so that Rami couldn’t see the extent
of her distress.

“He is in a very important meeting, Jane, he really couldn’t get away,” Rami lied, cursing himself for being so tactless.
Phillip had rung but once he knew it wasn’t serious he told the nurse he would see Jane in the morning, when she felt better.
“He thought you should rest,” he finished lamely and turned away. Taking his bag off the chair, he said, “So, you’ll have
to make do with me, I’m afraid, if you are not too tired, that is.”

Jane brightened slightly. He really was so very kind. “No, I’m not tired at all, just a little sore.”

“Well, I have just the thing to take your mind off your aches and pains,” Rami announced, taking a box from his bag. He sat
down and pulled the table up to Jane’s bed. “There were two things that I learned in England that proved invaluable while
I was there.”

Jane smiled. “Really?”

“Yes, really. The first,” he said, standing to pour her some water, “was to always carry an umbrella, whatever time of the
year, whatever the weather.” He held the glass for her and Jane took a couple of sips.

“The second?” she asked, lying back.

Rami produced the box and laid it on the table. “Scrabble,” he said. “Part of the English way of life.”

Surprised, Jane started to laugh, but it hurt too much. “Please, don’t make me laugh! My face feels as if it’s done ten rounds
with Cassius Clay!”

“Oh dear, oh dear me, Mrs. Mills, I am so sorry to be making you laugh!” Rami pressed his palms together and nodded his head
as he spoke in his Delhi accent. He smiled as Jane moaned through her giggles. “Now, the game!” He took the board and felt
bag of letters out of the box and began to set the Scrabble up. Jane watched him and thought how considerate and gentle he
was, how different from Phillip. Suddenly, she didn’t mind about Phillip, well, not as much as she had.

“Jane?” Rami glanced up, his face suddenly serious. “Remember to remind me that I have to ask you something when you are feeling
a little bit better. For some help with a task I have to do. Please?”

She nodded. “What task?”

He smiled. “When you are feeling better.”

“Is this to make me recover quicker? Or else be consumed with curiosity?”

“Perhaps.” He finished organizing the game. Sitting by her side that afternoon, he had decided to ask her to help him with
Viki’s work, to illustrate what he would write. He had decided, without knowing why, that he would trust Jane Mills with his
life. “Shall we start, Mrs. Mills?” he asked.

“Yes, if you like, Mr. Rai.”

He held out the bag. “There is something I had better tell you, before we play.”

Jane’s face fell. “Oh?”

He smiled. “Yes. That I am excellent at Scrabble and you will never beat me.”

“Oh really?” Jane took her letters.

“Yes, really.” Rami took his. “Oh.” He had three Us, a Z and a Q, and two Ts. “Except on a Tuesday,” he said, “I never play
well on a Tuesday.”

Phillip knocked lightly on Jane’s bedroom door and glanced quickly at his watch as she called out for him to enter. It was
nine-fifteen and he was due in a meeting with Viki at half-past. He had ten minutes to spare. Shouldn’t take longer than ten
minutes, he thought, fiddling with the rose on her breakfast tray, he was, after all, her husband and his word would be final.

“Hello, darling.” He crossed to the bed, carefully placing the tray on the bedside table and leaning in to kiss Jane’s cheek.
She turned the better one toward him and he kissed the only patch of skin that wasn’t discolored with bruising. “How are you
this morning?”

“Fine, thank you, Phillip.” Jane sat up and tensely pulled her robe in a little closer, covering her chest. Ever since the
accident, since his obvious lack of concern, she had really begun to find his company irritating, insincere more than anything
else and this made her uneasy. She had also begun to lose patience with him; she didn’t bother to cover her feelings up quite
as carefully as she might have done.

“What can I do for you this morning?” she asked curtly.

Phillip poured her tea, then handed her the tray. “Janey, I want to talk to you, about this dinner tonight,” he said. “Sugar?”

Jane shook her head. “Just lemon. And the answer is still no, I don’t feel ready to face anyone yet.”

Phillip plopped a slice of lemon into the cup. “You look perfectly all right,” he said tersely. “There’s nothing wrong with
you that a little bit of makeup won’t cover.”

Jane clenched her jaw. “Phillip!” She turned her face full on to him. “Look at me, for goodness sake! I have the remains of
two black eyes and most of my face is bruised! Not to mention the scar on my forehead!”

Phillip averted his eyes from her face. She was right, he thought grudgingly, she did look a bit of a mess. “No one will be
in the slightest bit bothered about what you look like, Janey,” he said, more kindly. “It’s just an evening with old friends,
Johnny and his wife are desperate to meet you and you’ve only been to the club once in the whole time we’ve been here.” He
handed her the tea. “Please, Jane, it would mean a lot to me.”

Jane looked away. “I’m sorry, Phillip, but no, I’m really not up to it.”

“Well, you’ve been quite up to gallivanting about with that bloody Indian fellow! Every day for over a week now you’ve been
out with him and you say you can’t face a dinner with friends! What’s he got that I haven’t, Jane?”

“That is totally uncalled for!” Jane shoved the breakfast tray to the side and stood up. “I think you’d better leave.”

Phillip turned angrily away. He put his hands up to his temples and took a breath. “Look, I’m sorry, Jane, you’re right, it
was totally uncalled for.” This was his last chance to have dinner with Johnny and Hannah Wakeman and he was sick of making
excuses, sick of missing out on what was going on at the club because Jane refused to go. “It is odd, though,” he said, “that
you are fit enough to go out and about with Mister Rai but not to go out in the evenings with me.”

Jane sighed. “Phillip, we’ve been through all this! I told you, I go out for a couple of hours and draw, I’m helping him with
a book he’s writing, that’s all. I don’t have to make polite conversation or be witty or social, I don’t have to face anyone
except Rami. It’s completely different to being seen at the club!”

“Is it?”

Jane suddenly slumped down on the bed; she was tired of all this, this was the third time it had come up and she had lost
the energy to fight anymore. She simply couldn’t be bothered. “Look, if it really means that much to you, Phillip, I’ll come.”

He saw her face, miserable and exhausted, ashen behind the angry purple, blue and yellow bruises but he was unmoved by the
sight. “You promise?”

Jane looked up at him and suddenly it hit her. It was more than irritation, more than lack of patience. When had it happened?
When had they lost touch, stopped liking each other almost? She supposed it must have been the accident, she couldn’t think
of any other explanation for it. Miserably, she nodded. “Yes, of course, if you insist,” she said. As if she would go back
on her word!

Phillip turned toward the door. It was only a dinner, an evening at the club, for Christ’s sake, why did Jane have to make
such heavy weather of it? It wasn’t as if she were any beauty, devastated at losing her looks.

“Right then,” he said coolly, glancing back, his hand on the door. “I’ll see you tonight. We’re expected at eight.”

Jane sat and stared blankly at him. She heard the chill in his voice, the slight hint of disdain, and she looked down at her
hands. Can people change so quickly, she thought, or were we like it all along, I just never stopped to think?

“It’s evening dress,” he remarked, “I’ll be home to change at seven-thirty.” Then, leaving the room, he closed the door behind
him as Jane sat motionless on the bed and without any emotion at all, watched him go.

“My God! That’s the most fascinating story!” Hannah Wakeman, in a low-cut halterneck dress, leaned forward and her bosom trembled
as she laughed. She took another gulp of her gin and leaned drunkenly against Phillip. “It’s soooo spooky!”

Jane moved farther away, outside the circle. No one noticed.

“So what happened next?” Johnny asked.

“Yes,” someone else butted in, “that’s surely not the end of it?’

“Well, the bird Colonel Mills had found was apparently one of a pair and…” Phillip broke off, turning toward the bar
to stub out his cigarette, then he drank down the last of his whisky and turned back to finish his story. “And this Indian
fellow had the other one. When he fled… ”

Jane edged silently out of the open French doors and stepped on to the terrace. No longer within hearing distance of a story
she could repeat off by heart if she’d had to, she took a deep breath and relaxed for the first time all evening.

Glancing up, she stared at the moon, full and bright in the sky, a globe of eerie light against a backdrop of ink black. She
wondered where Rami was under the eyes of the moon, what he was doing, then she stopped herself. She wondered it so often
now, it had almost become second nature, but she knew it was something she had to stop, it wasn’t right, and she shouldn’t
do it. She smelled the warm scent of jasmine in the air and again she thought of him; he loved jasmine. She walked down onto
the grass, so different from English grass; it was thick and springy. The blades cut like a razor.

She gazed up, walking all the time and watching the moon, mesmerized by it, listening to the sounds of the night, the gentle
rustle of the flame trees, the birds and the constant clicking of the
tiddi
. She stood and looked back, some distance from the club, and could see the figures in the bar, lit up in the night sky, like
actors on a stage. Unreal, unconnected to her. She walked on.

She knew there were the ruins of a water garden at the end of the club’s land, she had heard Rami talk about it and she found
herself heading toward it, not for any reason, just aimlessly, the warm air caressing her face and bare arms, the moonlight
guiding her way. She stepped through a stone arch, overgrown with creepers, and walked along a low stone wall, holding up
the hem of her evening dress so she wouldn’t trip. Then she jumped down. She found herself in an open space and, looking ahead,
saw the moon on the ground, reflected in the still black waters of the pool. She saw Rami.

“Hello, Jane.”

She stood perfectly still. He said her name as if he had expected her and a shiver ran the length of her spine. He held out
his hand and she walked across to him, taking it. They sat by the edge of a pool, their faces staring back at them from the
water, their hands locked together.

“Did you know I would come here?”

Rami shrugged. “I felt it but I didn’t know. I do not think we really know anything, Jane.” He looked down at her face in
the water and, leaning forward, he placed his finger on the water, on the reflection of her lips.

“Don’t!” Jane flicked her hand across the image, dispersing it. “Don’t stare at my face! It’s horrible! Ugly!” She covered
her eyes.

Rami sat for a few minutes, then gently he reached out and took her hands away. “You are beautiful, Jane,” he said. He held
both of her hands and pressed them against her chest. “Here, this is where true beauty is, in the heart.” Jane closed her
eyes. “You will always be beautiful to me, because I know your heart.” He took her hands away from her body and bent his head
to kiss them. Then he eased her toward him, lifted her face and with infinite tenderness kissed her eyes, the black and bloody
eyes, her cheeks and finally her mouth. His lips brushed hers and her whole body sparked.