The Towers Of Silence (The Raj quartet) (51 page)

‘Millie, what on earth’s wrong with you?’

‘Oh, stop putting on the act. It’s very good but it’s beginning to irritate me. I don’t want to talk about it and I don’t want to know any of the details. Not any of them. Now or ever. But you can stop treating me like a bloody fool because I know exactly what’s going on.’ She took another drink. ‘I’m even grateful to you for trying to cope with it without my knowing, although it’s the least you can do considering you’re bloody well to blame. If you want Sarah to go on thinking she’s fooled me that’s up to you. But you’re my little sister. You were always silly and it would be bad for my morale to let you imagine
you’d
fooled me.’

Fenny did not reply at once. She looked at the glass.

She said, ‘You’re drunk, Millie. That’s all I know. So you must be right. If it’s any consolation I’ll admit I’m silly. Dense. I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Oh?’ Mildred drank most of the rest of the gin in her glass but did not top it up. ‘Let’s forget it then. Let’s pretend everything in the garden is lovely and just do what seems best for Sarah. Since you’re so concerned about her why don’t you ring Captain Travers or Colonel Beames and ask one of them to drop in after lunch to give her a check-up?’

‘Well, yes, we could do that. Isn’t it a bit out of proportion though? They’re both busy men and what can either of them say except what I say, that’s she’s been overdoing it and needs a holiday?’

‘But supposing she’s really ill? I’m surprised you haven’t thought of that, Fenny. I tell you what. I’ll ring Travers now myself. I’ll do it right away.’

‘Well. If you think so.’

Mildred finished her drink. ‘I think so,’ she said. She waited for a moment as if challenging Fenny to stop her and then smiled and went into the hall, leaving the door open. Fenny heard the ping of the bell as the receiver was lifted and then several rapid pings as Mildred impatiently jerked the hook up and down to wake the dozy operator. Sighing, Fenny got up and went into the hall too.

Mildred was at the telephone but the receiver was back on the hook. She was not ringing anybody.

‘You were really going to let me!’ she exclaimed.

‘But it was your idea. Why should I stop you?’

‘Haven’t you honestly the least idea what I’m getting at?’

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘Then you’d better come in here.’

Fenny followed Mildred into Sarah’s and Susan’s bedroom. At the wall opposite the foot of one of the beds was a chest of drawers. Placed centrally on its top among neatly ordered lacquered boxes stood a photograph of Sarah’s father. Fenny gazed at it fondly for a moment. Mildred went to the chest and opened the second of three long drawers.

‘Look,’ she said. She turned back piles of neatly laundered underwear. Fenny looked. There were two pudgy blue-wrapped packages, both unopened. Mildred covered them up again and shut the drawer. She went out of the room and after a few moments Fenny went too. She found Mildred back in their own room pouring herself another drink.

‘Shut the door, Fenny.’ Fenny did so. ‘Do you want a gin too?’ Fenny shook her head.

‘The one thing I’ve always done for Sarah,’ Mildred began, ‘and perhaps it’s the only thing, is make sure she’s got plenty of sannies when she’s due, because like I used to be she’s as regular as clockwork but has an absolutely ghastly time, worse even than I did before she was born. She was due a week after she came back from her visit to you in Calcutta. I gave her one of those packets then. She was due again last week and that’s when I gave her the other.’

‘Millie, what are you saying?’

‘That according to the evidence in that chest of drawers she’s missed twice and hasn’t told me. I thought perhaps she’d told you. I thought she might have had to. To make you help her get hold of the bloody man you so kindly introduced her to, or get rid of the thing in Calcutta.’

Suddenly Mildred rounded on her.

‘And isn’t that the truth, Fenny? Isn’t that what your cosy little trip to Calcutta is all about? To fix things up with some snide little emergency officer or fix them up in a different way with a shady Calcutta doctor or pop her neatly into an expensive clinic as a Mrs Smith requiring a d and c?’

‘No! No, Millie! Oh, no.’

‘Well, that’s what you’re going to have to do. Get the bloody thing aborted. My God, I could murder you. You have charge of her for just twenty-four stinking hours and she’s in the bloody club.’

Fenny sat down, with her hands at her cheeks, her eyes shut. Mildred sat too, facing her.

‘What are you doing? Working out which one of your and Arthur’s adoring and adorable panting bloody boys it was? Or isn’t there any doubt in your mind? What a stupid woman you are. In Mirat you made that ridiculous fuss about her riding in broad daylight with the young Kasim boy. Was it wise – isn’t that what you asked me? Wise! A pity you didn’t ask yourself if it was wise before you chucked her into the arms of some randy little English officer from God knows where. What was he? All strong white teeth and bloody prick? Did you fancy him yourself? Did you get a kick out of handing him Sarah? Because that’s what you did and I never intend to forget it. Never. Just as I never intend to be told who the little cheapskate was. It hasn’t happened. Look at me, Fenny. It hasn’t happened. You’ll take her to Calcutta and between the two of you
deal
with it. Get rid of it. I don’t want to know how or where or how much it costs. You can get the money from your husband because he’s equally to blame. But
I
don’t want to know anything more about it. And if anything goes wrong it’s on your head, not mine. Because I can’t stand any more. I can’t and I won’t.’

The sound of a car entering the drive arrested her. She got up.

‘Now,’ she said. ‘Pull yourself together. When everybody’s gone you can start worming it out of her. Pretend I don’t know if you like. But
deal
with it. Do you understand?’

‘Millie, you don’t
know.
You’re only guessing. You don’t
know
anything.’

Mildred leaned over her, lowering her voice but speaking vehemently and distinctly. ‘Two missed periods? Fainting at the office? For God’s sake what more do you want? And today’s not the first time I’ve wondered what was wrong with her. I
am
her mother. A bloody bad one, but I am
that,
and I
know, I know from the look on her face.’

She went briskly to the door, opened it, and in her ordinary abrasively cheerful voice said, ‘Dicky! What a nice surprise. Aren’t you both rather early? Well, all the better. You’ll stay for lunch, won’t you Dicky? I’ll tell Mahmoud. Sarah dear, you’re looking exhausted. Why don’t you freshen up and get out of that boring old uniform? Dicky, use my bathroom, but go through the dining-room. My sister’s in the bedroom powdering her nose. But literally.’

There were several kinds of footsteps going in different directions away from the hall and presently Fenny heard a man’s in the adjoining bathroom and the click of the bolt on his side of the door. She heard Dicky beginning to urinate – a splash followed by a murmuring silence as he considerately redirected the stream away from the water to the porcelain.

She got up. There was no one in the hall. Sarah’s door was ajar. She tapped and went in. She could see the compact shape of his body, uniformed, and smell its assertive masculine odour. She wanted to hate him but could not. Dimly she had always seen that he represented the kind of force that would make the world safe for her and Arthur while laughing at them. For an instant she entertained the absurd idea that he might be forced to do the right thing. But he was gone, as such men always were – involved in apparently lighthearted but in fact complex affairs that had to do with the world as it really was. For him military status was merely part of a game of the compulsory kind. And in her heart she knew that Sarah had used him as he had used her. But had been less expert. Meanwhile there was the question of the dog. She could not remember the dog’s name but now that it had come into her mind she could not get it out because it was a living thing whose destruction Sarah had opposed with a significant and dangerous passion. Oh God, she thought, let me be wrong, let Millie be wrong.

Just then through the half-open doorway into the bathroom she caught sight of Sarah standing by the handbowl, grasping the side of it with one hand, reaching for the tap with the other. At the same instant in the little spare on the other side of the bathroom the child woke and cried and Minnie’s voice came through quite clearly, speaking to him soothingly. Sarah raised her head, not to look towards the child’s room but straight ahead of her into the mirror above the basin as if the source of the cry were there in her reflection. Then she lowered her head again and twisted the tap on and watched the water running in and away.

*

Dicky Beauvais was kneeling on one leg by the dog’s side stroking its head. The others watched from the safety of the verandah. The dog sat on its withered haunches. It swayed when Dicky stroked it.

‘What do you think, Captain Beauvais?’ Maisie Trehearne asked.

‘I don’t know. The poor old boy looks pretty much a goner.’

‘But don’t you think his coming out means he’s feeling better?’

‘Maybe. On the whole I’d say it’s too late. It’ll be rotten for Sarah.’

‘It’s suffering,’ Nicky insisted. ‘It’s dying on its feet. I should have thought anyone could see that.’

Mildred alone was seated, holding her drink under her chin. When Fenny came out ten minutes later Mildred glanced up but Fenny did not look at her. She went to the head of the steps.

‘Dicky, I’ve told Sarah about Panther. She leaves it to us.’

‘Oh.’ Again he stroked the dog’s head. The neck was arched down, the jaws open. ‘Poor old fellow.’

He stood up. ‘I’d better ring the veterinary officer hadn’t I, Mrs Layton?’

Mildred said nothing. He looked at Fenny.

‘Isn’t Sarah coming out to see for herself?’

‘No.’

‘Perhaps if I could get the dog round to the gharry it would be better for me to take him than bring the vet up here.’

‘I shouldn’t if I were you,’ Mildred called. ‘He could have a fit and you could end up driving over the khud and killing you both. Take him back to the mali’s shed if you can. It’s not the most elevating sight, is it? Or better still get Sarah to do it. After all she’s responsible for keeping the wretched thing alive and for it ending up in this state. She oughtn’t to be allowed just to opt out.’

‘I’ll get him into the shed, Mrs Layton.’ Dicky bent down again.

‘Come on, old boy. Come along. You can make it.’

The servants had gathered at a safe distance. Dicky tried to direct the dog’s attention to them.

Mildred spoke to Fenny who was watching Dicky.

‘Have you persuaded Sarah to go to Calcutta with you?’

‘Yes,’ Fenny said, without looking.

‘Come on Panther, old son,’ Dicky said. ‘Come on. Rabbit.’

Its tail moved once, a slow-motion scything movement across the grass and Maisie Trehearne exclaimed, ‘He wagged his tail! I told you. He’s feeling better. It’s awful to talk about destroying him now, after all Sarah’s done.’

Then she added, ‘We owe so much to dogs,’ and Mildred started laughing: a clear fluting laugh of genuine amusement that made everyone except Dicky down there on the grass turn to look at her in astonishment. Only Dicky noticed the effect that the sounds Mildred was making had on the dog. It lifted its head and snapped at the air or at Dicky’s hand which he jerked out of reach. It began to tremble. It went on snapping as if the peals of Mildred’s laughter were coming at it in some visible form: small predatory birds or maddening insects. Dicky backed away and shouted a warning to Mrs Layton but she did not hear. Her laughter seemed to have become uncontrollable and suddenly the dog twisted its body and began dragging itself round, still snapping at the air, making no sound but moving away from the steps and increasing the width of its circular chase until it was blundering through the nearest of the rose-beds shaking the bushes and scattering petals.

The servants also scattered. Dicky stood, alarmed but on the defensive at the head of the steps with only his bare hands to fight off an attack if the dog took it into its head to go for any of them. But the impact with the rose-bushes had disorientated the animal. It no longer traced a circular pattern but a random one, staggering from bed to bed with a high-arched back and low slung head, wreaking havoc, putting distance between itself and the inhospitable verandah. Suddenly it emitted a stream of pale yellow liquid excreta and then began to drag its hindquarters as though it were dying from that end up. It came to the path between the two rectangular beds and fell on its side. For a while it moved its forelegs, dreamily dog-paddling the air; then it twitched and was still; twitched again and was still again. The intervals between spasms became longer.

Fenny said, ‘It isn’t rabies, is it, Dicky?’

‘No. I’ve seen rabies.’

They waited for a further spasm that didn’t come.

‘That’s that,’ Dicky said.

He went down the steps and called up to Fenny.

‘Perhaps as I’ve handled him I oughtn’t to come back into the house though. Would you phone the vet-johnnie, Mrs Grace? I’ll get something to cover him with. I expect the servants have some sacking.’

He went off towards the servants’ quarters.

A few minutes later he reappeared with a length of gunny, approached the dog’s body from behind and then put the sacking over it.

‘Dicky, what’s all this about not coming into the house?’

Mildred’s voice carried strongly. She came down into the garden. He waited for her. She joined him. The dog’s body was between them. ‘Of course you must come in. You’re staying for lunch.’

‘Mrs Grace is afraid it might have been something like rabies. It wasn’t but I don’t want to risk anything.’