Monsoon Summer (38 page)

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CHAPTER 54
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I
spent a day at Mangalath with Amma, who was sorting out her linen cupboard and wanted to give me some new sheets and tablecloths, and—hint, hint—some baby clothes that might be useful to me in the future. It was exactly the sort of task Glory would have enjoyed: the folding, the scenting, the doing something undemanding but practical with me. The thought of how, in the last few years, I'd denied her these small pleasures was like a knife in my heart.

Saraswati's arrival later in the day cheered me up, though Amma was clearly annoyed. The Nasrani custom, she reminded me in a tight voice, was to mourn the dead for nine days during which time no one came to the house. “This is not normal.”

Well, Saraswati was not normal. With her charming and brilliant smile she apologized to Amma, put a bulging briefcase down on the floor, and as soon as Amma had left the room, exploded with plans.

“I'm twisting the arms of more local businessmen. My sales pitch is straightforward: ‘Wake up. See the situation plainly.'” She demonstrated, eyes flashing. “‘Too many babies are dying all over India; share the knowledge we have gained in our training centers.' Only one or two have given me some stick. ‘Why change old ways?' they say, or, ‘Are you a man-hating feminist?' ‘Man hater?' I tell them, ‘We're here to protect your male babies too, by the way. Your indifference will kill them.'”

Her next rabbit from the hat was a set of plans, donated by an
architect she knew. The drawings showed a fifteen-bedroom unit to be built in breeze block with a properly tiled roof and enough room inside for three consulting rooms, a dispensary, a reception area, and a large veranda.

To ensure “no jiggery-pokery” about the Moonstone's ownership of the two acres of land it stands on, she'd also undertaken a search at the local Land Registry office.

She was pretty sure the actual deeds got lost in the fire but also asked me to write to Daisy in case they were at Wickam Farm. The thought of the chaotic attic there made me shudder.

The dark rings under her eyes had grown. When I asked if she was getting enough sleep, she said that with her husband gone and no mother-in-law to please, “I have plenty more hours in the day, and I'm using them.”

But the biggest fly in the custard, the one we avoided discussing until the last possible moment, was that we were practically broke. Saraswati estimated that the new home, plus fixtures, fittings, and restocking the pharmacy would cost in the region of one hundred and thirty thousand rupees, the equivalent of ten thousand pounds in English money. An impossible amount, a pipe dream.

Saraswati, busily scribbling the sums down, saw my expression, put her pencil down, and stuck her finger in the air.

“First it was impossible. Then it was difficult. Then it was done,” she said, adding, without a glimmer of a smile and with an intensity that frightened me, “It has to work, otherwise I will throw myself on the funeral pyre.”

* * *

Four months after my mother's funeral, I got a big scare when a khaki-colored official-looking envelope arrived covered in unfamiliar handwriting. Saraswati had told me not to worry too much about the Medical Tribunal, telling me they were months behind with cases and would probably forget me. But in that panicked
moment I pictured jail or deportation, or at the very least, a fine we couldn't possibly afford.

It turned out to be a brief note in a large envelope from my father. The spidery hand informed me he was back in Ooty and wanted to give me “one or two things of Glory's that you might like. Nothing precious, mementoes.” I was to write back to Box Number 36, the Ootacamund Club.

When I read the letter, anger flared up inside me, and I thought, Stay where you are, you slippery old fraud, with your aliases and your box numbers. I didn't want my phantom father breezing in again and stirring things up.

When Anto read the letter, I watched his expression change from frowning concentration to sympathy.

“Poor old man,” he said. “Let him come or at least send whatever it is. This could be the Hope diamond.”

“Poor man!” I exclaimed. “The khaki envelope scared me to death, and anyway, what about poor Glory, poor me? He behaved appallingly.”

“You asked me what I thought.” Anto trained his green eyes on me. “I am saying what I think.”

“I'm fed up with you being nicer than me,” I said after a while.

“Me too,” he said. “It's a burden I bear.”

I was pulling his hair. “Gray ones, please!” he said, when he held me close. “When are we going to have another baby?” he whispered.

“Soon,” I said, ruffling his hair. “Will you mind if it's a girl?”

“No,” he said. He looked hurt, because I get this wrong sometimes and assume things about him that are crude approximations based on what I think I know about Indian men. These are the moments when we make each other foreign and I deeply regret them.

“I'd like one too,” I whispered, as he stroked my stomach. “I love my silly old man,” and then he looked around like a guilty schoolboy because we were in his mother's house and he was her son too.

“Anto,” I teased him, stroking his hair, “how old are you?”

He knew exactly what I meant. “Six years old when I am here,” he said.

* * *

The next job was to sort through the sea trunk Glory had left in the spare room at Mangalath. As we opened the lid, the rush of something both spicy and sweet came from a half-finished bottle of Shalimar, one of Glory's “little extravagancies” during the grim years, the kind of thing (the Baccarat cut-glass bottle, the little velvet ribbon, her snooty expression as she dabbed it here and there) that had once made her seem, to me, so impossibly glamorous.

Her clothes made a pathetically small pile in the end. Two tweed skirts (Donegal tweed, as she'd been fond of pointing out, donated, or maybe not, from the vicar's wife in Durham), the dull cardigans and liberty bodices worn at Daisy's to stop her “freezing to death.” A few light cotton dresses, and underneath them, wrapped carefully in layers of scented tissue, the good clothes: remnants of a life lived for one shining hour, and never again.

Amma and I laid them out on the bed: a slippery green satin dress, a silk suit with a Swan and Edgar label, a shagreen brush and comb set with a chipped handle, lipstick samples, a pair of jodhpurs, an Aertex shirt, a tin of Coty talcum powder with a carefree, brilliantly laughing woman on it, a pair of beautiful gold leather sandals (Charles of Lewes), still in their original box, an invitation for a free facial at the Belle Rose beauty parlor in Chelmsford.

The green satin dress had tiny heart-shaped mother-of-pearl buttons stitched on its waistband. I imagined her wearing it at a garrison party, and the hectic preparations beforehand. Her weapons: the tweezers, the comb, the wax strip. It mattered, really mattered, getting it right.

Inside a faded floral box, I found her wedding veil wrapped in
pink tissue. Its brittle fabric was edged with crumbling dried flowers shaped like violets, the final symbol of her humiliation.

I wondered where she'd gone, after the Colonel had driven her away from the church. At what point in this whole horrible shamble had she learned that I was on the way? I ached to find out more, and now I never would.

“Shall I throw these away?”

Amma held out a few faded brown invitations: a pantomime in Braintree, a garden party at Major someone or other's—the name was past reading—house, The Palms, in Malabar Hills, on June seventh, on the occasion of his return to England, a ladies' coffee morning at the Bombay Yacht Club, five days after the canceled wedding.

What a meaty bone of gossip Glory must have thrown to the ladies at the club to gnaw on: “A chichi girl, can you imagine, darling?”

“The poor man had absolutely no idea whatsoever, she does look very pale.” I hated them all.

At the bottom of the trunk, there was a book,
The Good Soldier
, by Ford Madox Ford. The inscription on the flyleaf read, “To my darling fiancée Glory, with grateful thanks for her eternal lightheartedness. Love, William.”

Bits of me too: a smocked pink romper suit, a rattle shaped like a horse, a letter with a wonky drawing: “When you die Mummy, I will die wiv you.”
Dramatic child! and finally, right at the very bottom, a picture of me in my nursing uniform, aged nineteen, posing for a photograph on the day I got my certificate. The photo was half-hidden under the lining. It was not her dream for me, and never would be.

* * *

My father turned up at Mangalath later that week, unannounced, uninvited, and on the flimsiest of pretexts. He said he'd brought a box of teas from a planter friend, who happened to be driving by,
and wanted to give them to Amma, who had been so kind. He'd smartened himself up for this outing: polished brogues, a worn but clean suit, a paisley tie. When he held out the box of teas to Amma, he shot me a quick hangdog look and I could barely look at him. It was Amma who offered him refreshments, a chair, a bed for the night. I would have shown him the door.

After he'd drunk his tea, I asked if he would like to see my mother's things. I don't think I was being deliberately cruel, but my ears buzzed with anger as I took him upstairs. I wanted him to see how little she'd ended up with, that there had been consequences.

Inside the spare room, he looked at her dresses, shoes, and knickknacks in silence for a while. He picked up the jodhpurs.

“I'd promised to teach her to ride,” he said. When he started to paw the green dress, I wanted to scream and snatch it from him.

“I've got a lot to do today,” I said. He was sniffling again.

He blinked at me like some sort of woodland animal coming out of a hole. “I'm so sorry,” he said. “I must let you go on. I've been meaning to ask you, do you have any other children?”

“No, but we will.” I was stung by how little interest he'd taken, and wanted the silly old fool to leave.

“But when we do have girls,” I said, “we'll send them to the best school we can afford.” The words were bursting out of me like hot water from a geyser.

“Good idea,” he said. He folded her Aertex shirt, pressed it to his face.

“I want them to have a good job. Something solid and clean. Being defenseless is for the birds.”

He looked at me warily. “I thought Glory got rather good jobs. Friends were always very kind and so forth.”

“Oh God.” That's when I really wanted to strike him. I could feel the blow run like an electrical current through my fingers. But he wasn't listening. The tips of his fingers were running over her green dress, a dreamy expression on his face.

Why did you dump her, if you felt like that?
I almost said, but my anger was frightening me, so instead I took a deep breath, said I was tired and wanted to eat. To take a memento if he wanted it. The rest I'd give to charity or chuck away. He winced at that. I wanted him to.

He picked up
The Good Soldier.

“I'd like this,” he said. He was breathing strangely, and I thought for God's sake don't have a heart attack here, and how, if he did, I'd have to tell his wife and cart him out, and all manner of hard thoughts because I didn't want him in my life. Not now. “It was the first present I ever gave her.”

“I read what you wrote inside it,” I said. “Sweet.” I was breathing heavily now too and felt I might at any minute explode with tears.

He touched the dress again. “She wore this at the Willoughby. Turned a lot of heads, I can tell you.”

And a fat lot of good that did her.

“ ‘This is the saddest story ever told,' ” he said in a faraway voice. “The first line in the book. I only read the thing last year. I gave it to her to impress her. Turns out it wasn't about a soldier at all.”

“I know,” I said. “It's about betrayal.”

In the silence that grew between us, I heard the clink of pots from the kitchen where Pathrose was cooking. He'll be gone soon, I thought, and you won't have to think about him ever again because he doesn't want to know you, not really.

Before he left, he took a small box out of his pocket and said, “I've brought you something.”

His shaky fingers struggled with the catch, and then he held up a nondescript gold ring with tiny pearls in it, and a few chips of what looked like garnet. It was dented on one side.

“It was all I could afford on a captain's pay. One of the stones is loose, and one is gone,” he said. “I think she bashed it before she sent it back.” The hangdog look again. “And this”—he pulled out a silver chain with a milky-colored stone at the end of it, the size
of my little thumbnail—“is a moonstone. Common as muck over here, but very pretty.”

“They're supposed to be lucky,” I said.

“You won't get rich on it.” He dropped it into the palm of my hand. “But you might give it to your daughter.”

“I'm not sure I can keep them if she sent them back.”

“Please have them,” he said in a low voice.

Part of me felt like a traitor as I put them in my pocket. I couldn't bring myself to thank him for them. They felt like such paltry gifts, when we could have had a life together.

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CHAPTER 55
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A
nd then I was arrested. At the time it felt as sudden and jarring as that. I was sitting on the veranda at Rose Street catching up on some paperwork when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a dusty black car draw up outside the house. Two men got out, cocky, self-assured. It took me a while to see they were wearing policemen's uniforms and had lathis stuck in their belts. They were walking towards my house.

And even then I wasn't too concerned. There had been a spate of robberies in the street, and they were smiling at me in a friendly way, so I assumed they were doing house-to-house inquiries.

The taller policeman took a piece of paper from his pocket. “Your name is Miss Kit Smallwood?”

“Yes.” I felt my mouth go dry.

“We are here with a warrant for your arrest. We will take you down to the Cochin Police Station for questioning. We must warn you that anything you say will be taken down and used in evidence. It is advisable to bring a suitcase with you.”

“A suitcase!” I was shocked. “Why?”

“You may stay down there.”

“I can't! I have a child here.” Except by horrible timing he wasn't. On the previous afternoon Raffie, clutching his teddy and a small bag, had walked with me, in a state of high excitement and a few nerves, to stay at his cousin's house a few streets away in Cochin. His first night ever away from me. The cousins had said they'd
drop him back this morning, and now I imagined him racing up the front steps, bursting with news about his important adventure, and I wouldn't be there.

Anto was away too: he was giving a paper at a conference in Quilon. It was an important step professionally for him, and the thought of him coming home and finding me gone was horrible too.

“Can't I wait until my husband gets home?” I said. The small policemen leaned close enough for me to see mean dark crevasses from his lip to his chin.

“You have servants here?”

“Yes, two.” I'd just seen Kamalam's frightened eyes peering around the door.

“So, let them see to your child, and they can tell your husband where you are,” he told me. “There is a room waiting for you.” I shuddered thinking of the dark, pee-smelling police station I'd been to with Neeta.

I gave rapid instructions to Kamalam. She must feed Raffie and reassure him I would be back soon. I'd bought his favorite cashew barfi to celebrate his return; she must make sure he got it, and tell him that Mummy loved him. She was not to worry; I would be back soon.

In the back of the car, the small policeman took a pair of handcuffs from his pocket. He locked one around my left wrist and one round his right.

I was driven to a small police substation near the docks and was locked into an interrogation cell—a high-walled room with a small window close to the roof that showed about one square foot of sky. A chair, a potty, a narrow cot, that was it. I listened to their footsteps echoing away; someone in a nearby cell was shouting and crying.

After hours of waiting in the cell, I sat in the chair and fell into a clammy sleep and woke to hear evening sounds outside: the market men putting up their stalls, the shouts of the rickshaw men, and
then, suddenly, a policeman appeared in my cell—youngish, with a gap-toothed smile. He was wearing a cheap gold wedding ring and carrying a manila folder. He placed a chair a couple of feet away from me and sat down with an amiable grunt.

“Sorry for all the noise earlier,” he said, fixing me with large sad eyes. “We had a man in too much for the toddy. He was calling for his mother.”

I tried to smile. I desperately needed him on my side.

“So.” The wedding ring flashed as he opened the file.

“My name is Inspector Pillay. You are Miss Kit Smallwood, from the Moonstone Clinic, Fort Cochin?”

“Correct.” You blithe bloody idiot, I thought. It was clear from the thickness of the file that they'd had their eye on me for months, maybe from the moment I'd arrived. “And you are married to Dr. Anto Thekkeden.” So much for protecting the family name.

“Can I speak to my lawyer?” How corny this sounded; I was in a bad play, one that made my voice tremble and my limbs turn watery.

“Name of the lawyer?” I'd been thinking about this earlier, stubbing my toe on the same door. Saraswati wouldn't do. When I'd asked her, in the early days, whether if the case ever went to court she'd represent me as a lawyer, she'd said it was impossible. “Because they'll call me as a witness, and the law is you cannot be both witness and lawyer.” Our only slender hope was that the medical authorities wouldn't want her as a witness because they'd lied about her accusing me and they wouldn't want that can of worms opened. Appan, as my father-in-law, was no good either.

I had a vague memory of Appan mentioning another lawyer who might help, but I'd forgotten his name, and Pillay was saying impatiently, “So you don't seem to have a lawyer, and anyway, that would delay our proceedings tonight, and you have a child to attend to at home?” The sweet smile had turned sour and faintly incredulous. “Isn't that what you think of first?”

No other questions. When he left, I knew it must be dark by
now outside. I heard cell doors slamming, shouting, a subdued whimpering, and then a dead silence. An old woman in a sari came in, she gave me a bowl, some water, a square of cotton to wash myself with.

Don't you dare panic, I told myself. You don't ever, ever, ever have to tell anyone about this. Anto will come soon, Appan's fine legal brain will think of something, and you'll be home soon. You'll bathe Raffie, tuck him into the new “big boy” bed he was so proud of, smell his hair, kiss him
Night night, sleep tight, hope the fleas don't bite
, then a whisky and soda on the veranda with Anto, trying to laugh about what a close shave this had been.

When night fell, the lights went out. A leaking tap in the slop room next door went
drip, drop, flop.
The sounds swelled and magnified and became the nightmare accompaniment to a mood in which I hated myself intensely. I could practically see the lurid headlines already: “Unqualified English Midwife Kills Indian Babies.”
Anto could lose his job as a result of the fallout. My fault: my laziness, my pride, my condescension,
drip, drop, flop
, and worst of all, I was bringing fear and misery to a child who was too young to understand.

When morning came, the old woman who had strip-searched me appeared. She put a flat bread on the stool, and a small bowl of rice.

When Anto came, two hours later, pale and huge-eyed with shock, I saw him in the visitor's room, a bare space with spittoons in the corner full of sand. When I asked him how Raffie was, he said, “I was hoping they might release you today, so I wouldn't have to tell him.” There was a long, tense silence. “I'll tell him tonight.”

His expression made me think I had pushed him over the line that separates love and support from complete exasperation, contempt even.

“Are you angry?” I asked him.

“No,” he said eventually with the yes-no gesture. “Only with myself.”

“It wasn't your fault.”

He didn't answer.

“Haven't they said anything?”

“Nothing. Only that it will go to trial. I'm worried they're going to make an example of you.” He put his head in his hands.

“Anto,” I said, “if it does go to trial, you must tell Amma.” I winced with shame at the thought of it. “She'll help with Raffie.”

“I can't. I've already spoken to Appan. He doesn't want her to know.”

“That makes no sense: she's bound to find out.”

The muscle in Anto's jaw was twitching, never a good sign. “He's adamant, but as soon as I leave here, I'm going to talk to him again. And if he won't help, I'm going to borrow Saraswati's law books and work through every precedent for voluntary and involuntary manslaughter, which is what Saraswati says they will charge you with if they charge you at all. She's confident this is just a saber-rattling exercise. The case is so full of holes, it's a farce.” His smile didn't make it to his eyes, which were red-rimmed as if he hadn't slept all night.

“How was the conference?” I asked shortly before he left. “Did the paper go well?”

“I didn't give it. I came home when I heard.”

“I'm so sorry.” He'd spent months writing his paper on the management of epidemics with particular reference to African sleeping sickness. We'd rehearsed it together.

He looked away. “Forget it, but if you do have to stay, I can't just stop work.”

We stared at each other.

“Let's wait,” I said. “The whole situation might resolve itself quickly,” though I knew from Saraswati that the legal system was clogged with cases. “What about Raffie? Should he go to Mangalath?”

“Appan's taking Amma away as soon as possible in case the newspapers get onto it.”

“I thought they were strapped for cash at the moment.”

“They are. He's not happy about it.”

“Will they be bad? The papers, I mean.”

“Sticks and stones,” he said wearily. “Who cares?”

“Anto, I'm so sorry. I should have listened.”

“Don't keep saying that,” he said with a twisted smile. “And try not to worry too much. I'm going to talk to Appan again tomorrow. And if it kills me,” he repeated, “I'm going to get you out.”