Authors: Sylvia Atkinson
The Letter (20 page)
What should she wear to meet them… something to make an impact? Margaret held dress after dress in front of the mirror before choosing a white blouse with Swiss embroidery on the collar to team with a grey suit. She always felt attractive in that. She took leave, pushing any doubts aside.
Winter was fading fast but some days were cool with occasional rain. The hospital gardeners, warm shawls draped round their bony shoulders, were hard at work sweeping debris from lawns and weeding flowerbeds. Margaret’s visitors were due at her quarters by eight o’clock. She set a small table so they could breakfast together but it was after nine and the tea had grown cold in the pot.
Ben left Pavia in the car with a woman who he claimed to be a governess. Margaret waved to her daughter from the veranda, but Pavia was out of the car, her plait coming loose as she raced across the grass. Margaret would re-plait it tonight and tomorrow and… Pavia sobbed, “Please mama, please come home.” Come home! If only it were possible. “Mama, don’t you love us?”
The barb struck home, “Of course I love you… I always
will… But there’s a war on…” Margaret tried to explain…
soldiers needed caring for … she wouldn’t be allowed to leave…
“We’ll come to you!”
Margaret pushed back the strands of hair hanging down her daughter’s tear-stained face. “You can’t stay here my darling. But we’ll be together soon.” She pulled Pavia close, kissing the top of her head. Ben must see what this separation was doing. How could he be so hard? Punish her, but not the children. She’d give up everything and go to Aakesh, if he’d let her.
Ben said that it was time to go.
Pavia obediently took her mother’s hand. Margaret let it go to pick up the bag. The child skipped on unaware of the drama unfolding between her parents.
“Leave it.” Ben growled but Margaret picked it up. “I
said
leave it.”
“I won’t leave it. I can do without the clothes but the children’s presents…”
“The children don’t need your presents.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I chose them especially…”
“You’re not coming. My mother is ill. Treatment is expensive… I need to secure the property. The family have arranged for me to marry a well-educated high caste lady, a teacher and owner of a private school. She brings a substantial dowry. You must grant me a divorce.”
Instinctively Margaret made a dash for the open door. Ben barred the way. She beat him with her fists but he caught her hands contemptuously pushing them away. She dashed after him calling out as if he were a thief, “Give me back my children… There will be no divorce!”
Powerless to prevent the car from driving away she was
hounded indoors by diving malevolent crows disturbed by the commotion. Why hadn’t she seen through him? Hadn’t she learned anything?
Haemorrhaging, she stumbled into the bathroom cursing God and her husband. Someone was coming… running down the corridor…
Before she let the servant in Margaret had checked that the miscarriage was complete, and mopped the bathroom with white towels. The deep red blood wouldn’t rinse out. The servant said she was sorry. Margaret wasn’t sorry. She was worn-out and relieved, relieved another child hadn’t been born amid scandal and disgrace. She bribed the servant to dispose of the towels in the hospital waste and not to report it.
Why hadn’t she recognized she was pregnant? It could only be Ben’s child, the result of the last attempt to save her marriage. The bungled rape was too long ago to be the cause. Either way the evidence was gone, flushed down the drain before too many questions were asked. The miscarriage had been merciful. She’d bleed for a couple of weeks, like a heavy period. That’s how she’d think of it.
* * * * *
Ben’s intention to sue for divorce had largely died down when Mary’s husband Willie contacted Margaret. However there was speculation, always speculation, so she arranged to meet him at India Gate. The prominent sandstone and granite war memorial commemorated the lives of 90,000 soldiers in the British Indian army, who lost their lives fighting in World War 1. The landmark, in New Delhi, was easily found.
Jean had written describing Willie as being well over six feet tall, saying that Mary was lucky to have such a dashing husband. Margaret stationed herself by the side of the wide tree-lined road leading to the Viceroy’s Lodge on Rasina Hill. Willie was sure to see her there. She waved down a Rickshaw carrying a likely looking candidate, “Willie?” she queried.
The airman grinned and shook his head, “Wish I was.” The hunt for Willie turned into a hilarious game with rickshaws slowing and airmen shouting “Have you found Willie?”
She was feeling rather silly when the genuine Willie strolled towards her, smiling broadly, “You must be Maggie?” he said, giving her a bear hug. “I hope you are. If not it’s been nice meeting you.”
Jean was right. In uniform, his pilot’s cap perched jauntily on his blonde hair, Willie was quite the man about town. “As you’re not beating me off, I need to tell you that the hug is from everyone back home. I’ve to write and let them know you are okay as soon as we meet up.”
Margaret decided to forgo showing him the sights, steering their steps away from the busy road and onto the green lawns of the fountain-parks bordering India Gate. She wanted to know what was happening in Scotland but Willie got in first telling her of the birth of his son who was to be called John, after Margaret’s brother. Willie hadn’t seen the baby. The disappointment was in his eyes. Mary was sending a photograph. He asked if Margaret minded her father marrying again.
“Father hasn’t told me. No one has,” she said, hurt and angry that his recent letters hadn’t so much as hinted at the prospect.
“Look Maggie, I’m certain he will in his next letter.”
“Yes, when it’s too late for me to say anything.”
“Apparently it took everyone by surprise. You knew he was working in London?”
“Yes…”
“Well that’s where he met his wife.”
“He soon forgot my mother.”
“Now Maggie, you wouldn’t want to spoil his happiness. It’s been pretty bad at home. Your father was lonely. These days who knows what tomorrow will bring?”
Willie described the changes in the country since the outbreak of war: women driving ambulances; working on the land and in factories, replacing men everywhere except down the mines. He told her about air raids, the blackout, and shortage of everyday items. Describing a friend’s wedding he said the bride’s dress was made of parachute silk but the cake was an elaborate cardboard model covering cheap Madeira. Eggs, flour and dried fruit were rationed.
“Do you know Maggie, I’ve eaten heaps of fresh fruit since I arrived. My favourite’s papaya… makes my mouth water…”
“Papaya’s mine too… though I’m dying for strawberries from my father’s garden. As a British Officer you’ll want for nothing.”
“And a good job too! A country boy made good, that’s me! What about you? Is your husband still overseas?”
“Actually he’s in the Punjab.”
“Good, then I’ll get to meet him.”
“Meanwhile, to Delhi’s sights” Margaret said, quickly hailing a rickshaw.
Willie admired the classical bungalows, shady trees and wide airy roads of Lutyens New Delhi but the labyrinth of the Old City, filled with ghostly history, intrigued him.
Over the next few days they explored the sandstone
citadel of the Red Fort and the ancient towering Qutab Minar where monkeys roamed in place of Sultan’s armies.
“Just stand looking interested” Margaret said, lining up her box camera. “I expect you to be able to name the places we’ve been to before I send the photos to Mary.”
“Don’t do that! I’m supposed to be having a miserable time.”
Margaret pulled his leg, “You boys in blue have no idea what that is.”
* * * * *
Willie’s last evening was to be spent in Chandni Chowk,
once the grandest market in India with a canal running through the middle of the main street, as part of the city’s water supply. At night the moon and stars shone on the surface. Chaos, and cripples wailing ‘baksheesh’ had long ago usurped this oasis. Willie reached in his pocket but Margaret warned him to leave the money where it was. A few annas meant the difference between life and death. They’d be mobbed in the resulting scramble. Fierce looks and no money sent the menacing beggars skulking into the shadows.
Confused looking cows wandered freely, dogs
slunk
by. Animals and humans poured onto streets that spawned an excess of filth and abject poverty. Willie filled his upturned hat with ripe guavas but spent so long holding his nose because of the open sewers that he threw the fruit away. He’d had enough of ‘Old Delhi’. The Mullah called the faithful to prayer. Willie hailed a rickshaw to the Officers Club.
* * * * *
The Club, blessed with deferential servants and refined
voices, contrasted sharply with the babble of the streets. Willie mopped his brow, “I shouldn’t want to get lost in that place. You might not get out alive!”
Margaret grinned. Sitting here under the fan with a gin fizz had a lot going for it.
“The past is gone, Maggie. You can’t get it back. None of us know the future. If I did, I don’t think I’d get in another aeroplane. Live for today, that’s my motto, tomorrow may never come.”
He tried to offer advice but for Margaret today and tomorrow involved her children. She was stuck in limbo.
* * * * *
“I was thinking… Maggie, what will you do when I leave tomorrow?”
“Have a rest from all this jaunting and drinking,” she flippantly replied.
“Have you thought of going home… to Scotland?”
“A lot lately… It’s the children… I’d not get them out of the country. Also I’ve no money, except what I earn.”
“The scoundrel! Doesn’t he maintain you?”
“Don’t be too hard on him. Ben wanted to send me home to my father but how could I go? He offered me an allowance but I came with nothing and I want nothing from him, except to see my children.”
It was after one in the morning when Willie gave Margaret a brotherly kiss outside the nurses’ quarters and told her to “Keep smiling.”
She thought how Mary and the children must miss him. For years she had missed Ben in the same way, but not any more. Margaret sighed, resigning herself to the present, and turned in for the night.
The following morning she was ordered to report to matron, immediately! The dustless office smelt of efficiency and military polish. Margaret stood to attention in front of a peppered haired authoritarian woman. “Nurse Atrey, it has come to my attention that you have been entertaining a man at your quarters. You of all people should have had enough of men to last a lifetime!”
Matron’s colonial world thrived on malicious tea party chitchat. Always in the wrong, Margaret didn’t care any more. Let them think what they liked. They would anyway. However she wasn’t going to jeopardize Willie’s reputation, or risk his being carpeted to satisfy some petty scandalmonger. She began politely, “Ma’am, don’t some people know there’s a war on?”
“Nurse Atrey, may I remind you where you are? I want an explanation, not your observations!”
Margaret answered heatedly, “That man is my brother-in-law! He’s been bombing Europe while some people with cushy numbers pushing pens in Delhi have nothing better to do than pull him down. He won’t be here again. He’s off to bomb the Japanese!” She turned on her heels and left.
The notice of her posting came the following day. Matron announced that in order to allow Nurse Atrey the luxury of a clear conscience, and an opportunity to play a greater part in the war effort, she was sending her to Manipur. There, she would be too busy to entertain anyone, including her brother-in-law.
Nainital
April
1943
At the British withdrawal from Burma courageous men and women working in mission hospitals fled in front of the merciless enemy. Ill-prepared for flight, they journeyed through treacherous jungle, climbing mountains and crossing rivers. Many travelled for as long as twenty-nine days to the Indian state of Manipur, where they had arrived sick and exhausted. Those who were well enough immediately offered their services to the medical staff. They were snapped up, for there was a dire shortage of nurses to look after the influx of civilian and military casualties across Manipur. Tents were converted overnight into primitive hospital wards. The torrential rainy season turned the tented clearings into quagmires. Transport in any form was bogged down by the treacle-like mud. This was where matron proposed to send Margaret. The arduous conditions and close proximity of Manipur to Burma and the Japanese didn’t frighten Margaret. Her fear arose from Pavia’s unhappy face as the car drove away in Delhi and the boys, her lovely boys. Saurabh’s bright eyes, Rajeev’s lisping stories. When would she see them again?
* * * * *
By some administrative fluke Margaret was posted to Nainital and quartered near the hospital. Aakesh, a hundred miles away was within reach! There could be no justification for Ben refusing access to their children. Margaret crawled out of the perpetual abyss that dogged her and wrote to Suleka,