The Towers Of Silence (The Raj quartet) (61 page)

‘Oh, nonsense. It only contains my years and they are light enough.’

She strode round the bungalow calling the mali.

*

The trunk was roped, upended like a coffin on its foot, one edge resting on the footboard of the passenger seat, the other within an inch of the canopy above. The shafts of the trap were at a high angle. The bony horse looked in danger of elevation. The morose tonga-wallah stood at the horse’s head, keeping it down.

She placed the lace shawl over her head like a bridal veil. Captain Merrick was examining the lashings and knots with a man’s expert and wary eye for such things. At her approach he said, ‘I don’t advise this. Have you far to send it?’

‘Just down the hill. To the church.’

‘It’s very steep. I think the fellow is right.’ He jerked his head at the tonga-wallah. ‘It’s too great a load.’

‘But I shall pay him well. He’s an old man. The competition is very severe nowadays. The young drivers dash hither and thither and getting all the custom. It’s a kindness really.’

‘How do you intend to get back yourself?’

‘In the front, of course.’

Captain Merrick said nothing.

‘Do you disapprove of that? Of my driving hip to hip with a smelly old native?’

‘The weight will be impossible.’

‘But
I
shall balance the trunk. You see? We shall tip forward on to a splendid even keel. Are you walking to the club?’

‘It was my intention. Mali says it may rain. Don’t you think–’

But she interrupted. ‘Where will you be going when you leave Pankot, Captain Merrick?’

‘Simla.’

‘For a holiday?’

‘No. On army business.’

‘We must talk again. There are many things I should like to discuss. I’ll ask Clarissa Peplow to ring you at the hospital. At the military wing, presumably.’

‘That would be very kind.’

She turned to the mali. She gave him twenty rupees. She ruffled the head of the mali’s boy.

‘Can you understand what I say?’ she asked the boy in Urdu. He nodded. She smiled. In Dibrapur it might be all right.

She offered her hand to Captain Merrick. The mali had the packed picture ready for him.

‘You won’t forget the picture, will you? Will you help me up?’

They moved to the tonga. The footplate was very high. She felt his good arm take some of her weight. He had been a strong man. As she arrived under the canopy she was enclosed by the sadness of that. She stared down at him.

‘Does it hurt?’

After a moment he smiled. ‘A little.’

‘Poor boy,’ she said. Suddenly he seemed like a boy. A boy without bricks. ‘You were going to be decorated. Did it come through?’

‘Yes.’

‘An MC?’

‘A DSO for some reason.’

‘But that is very distinguished, congratulations. Have you been invested yet?’

‘Not yet. Next month I gather.’

‘Where? In Simla?’

He nodded. She smiled at him compassionately. Simla meant the Viceroy. She felt that this would please him particularly.

‘I’m sorry you missed the Laytons,’ she said again.

‘There’ll be other opportunities,’ he said. ‘Shall I tell the fellow to get up?’

‘If you would.’

He went to the horse’s head. The old man came round, mounted, untied the reins from the rail and picked his whip out of the stock.

‘Au revoir, Captain Merrick.’ She adjusted the lace veil and raised her hand.

The equipage moved slowly and creakily out of the compound of Rose Cottage. As it turned into Club road she saw the valley lay under a thin blanket of cloud and felt the first spots of a chill November rain.

She had not even noticed the sun go in.

The tonga gathered momentum. The old man began to apply the brake. Once or twice the horse slipped. Barbie could feel the weight of the trunk at her back: her years pressing on her, pushing her forward, pushing her downward. She pressed her feet hard against the curved footboard but her legs had little strength.

There is no God, not even on the road from Dibrapur. But then (she argued) I am taking the road
to
Dibrapur, not from it. The tonga-wallah shouted at the horse which had stumbled. ‘You mustn’t shout at him,’ she said, ‘he’s doing his best.’ For some reason she longed to have the picture back. The rain was coming down quite hard. As they passed the club there was a flurry of tongas coming up the hill and about to turn in there. The old man’s hands were knotted in the reins. One of the other wallahs shouted an insult.

‘Hold your tongue,’ Barbie shouted back. In turning her head she became more fully aware of the lace. Her head was a nest of butterflies. They were caught in the lank grey hair. She shut her eyes. Twenty stairs, including the landing floor. She began to sing. ‘I’ve seen a deal of gaiety throughout my noisy life.’ She opened her eyes.

Behind the equipage a peculiar light glowed on and off; winter lightning. Something troubled her. The lightning brought it closer. It was Mildred’s face, eyes hooded, mouth turned down, quirked at the corners; glass held under chin in droop-wristed hands.

The horse slid, stumbled, righted itself. It raised its tail. There was a smell of stable. The horse stumbled again. The old man jerked the brake on harder. She thought she smelt burning. She glanced at him. His eyes at last were wide open. He looked at her for an instant before redirecting his own troubled gaze at the road ahead and at the trembling flanks of his old horse; and Mildred’s face was there again just for the split second it took for it to dissolve and reform and become the face of the man who regarded her, chin in hand, thoughtful and patient, so purposeful in his desire for her soul that he had thrown away Edwina’s.

She began to tremble. She pressed with all her strength against the footboard. Below, Pankot lay shrouded by the mist of the winter rain which had left its snow on the summits. They were passing the golf-course. People were running for cover under coloured umbrellas.

*

Sometimes although very rarely, these cold showers – penetrating the warmth of a Pankot November day – troubled the atmosphere and produced an imbalance, a rogue element of electric mischief that shattered the silence like a child bursting a blown-up paper bag containing flashes of paper fire.

There was just such an explosion now, as the rickety old tonga entered the steepest part of Club road. It blared across the valley, jerking alive the unliveliest members of the club, comfortably cushioned in upholstered wicker, and was accompanied by the brightest amalgam of blue and yellow light ever seen in the region: an alert such as even the combined rifles of Pankot and its tribal hills could not have achieved by sustained fusillade.

The horse screamed; its eyes rolled; it reared, thrashing the space between its hooves and the greasy tarmac and then achieved both gravity and momentum, dragging and rocking the high-wheeled trap with its load of missionary relics.

Why! It is my dream! Barbie thought, hanging on to the struts with both hands, shutting her eyes to contain the blessing of it. Her hair flew long and black and she was a child dancing spinning down Lucknow road and racing up the stairs and holding the pincushion high to her mother who held her black bombasine sides laughing to hear her father sing it:

On the long downhill sweep the equipage gathered speed, out of control of the crazed horse. The wheel spokes span counter to the rims. Sparks from the burning brake and spray from the wet surface formed bow-wave and wake.

She opened her eyes and saw the toy-like happy danger of human life on earth, which was an apotheosis of a kind, and she knew that God had shone his light on her at last by casting first the shadow of the prince of darkness across her feet.

Careless of the shawl of butterflies she reached for the reins to help the old man resist the gadarene pull of the four horses. He tore at the monstrous membrane that blinded him and which blinded Barbie too like a great light followed by a giant explosion, a display of pyrotechnics that put the old November Crystal Palace shows to shame.

Ah! she said, falling endlessly like Lucifer but without Lucifer’s pride and not, she trusted, to his eventual destination. My eyeballs melt, my shadow is as hot as a cinder – I have been through Hell and come out again by God’s Mercy. Now everything is cool again. The rain falls on the dead butterflies on my face. One does not casually let go. One keeps up if one can and cherishes those possessions which mark one’s progress through this world of joy and sorrow.

*

I remember (Sarah said) Clarissa Peplow telling me how Barbie suddenly marched into the rectory bungalow covered in mud and blood but still on her feet and said, ‘I’m afraid there’s been some trouble at the junction. Perhaps someone would kindly deal with it. I have seen the Devil. Have you a spade?’

The driver survived too. But the horse had to be shot.

‘Good morning, Edwina,’ Sister Mary Thomas More said. She had bad teeth. She smelt of garlic and of galloping corruption. ‘Or are we Barbie, today? What are we looking at?’

Miss Batchelor wrote on the pad: The birds.

‘I see no birds, Edwina. Aren’t we speaking today, either? Is it a day of silence?’

Miss Batchelor wrote: It is the same as all days.

‘Not all days can be the same. There is the one which we all await and ought to fear.’

Miss Batchelor wrote: Bugger off. Or bring me a spade. Suit yourself.

After Sister Mary Thomas More had pursed her crypt-like lips, Miss Batchelor added a postscript: And bugger the Pope.

There was bread and water.

It was the only food she liked. It was clean.

*

Sarah said, ‘Barbie? Barbie? Don’t you know me?’

Miss Batchelor could not hold the pencil because she could not see it and both her hands had been severed. When Sarah had gone they took away her shoes because of the tramping sound.

*

‘Good morning, Edwina. Or is it Barbie? You don’t know me. My name is Eustacia de Souza. I’m new. I mean I visit. You’re my first. You must tell me all about yourself otherwise I shan’t know what to do to help, shall I, and Mother Superior will be upset.’

Miss Batchelor wrote: You may tell me about the birds.

Miss Batchelor liked the look of Eustacia de Souza. Eustacia de Souza was as black as your hat, several shades blacker than Sister Mary Thomas More. Eustacia de Souza was not a nun.

Miss Batchelor added to her note: My name is Barbara, not Edwina. I am under a vow of silence.

‘I understand, dear. At least I understand that part. I’m not sure I understand about the birds. Which birds do you mean?’

Miss Batchelor pointed through the barred window. Eustacia put on her glasses and peered.

‘I can’t see any birds, dear, apart from a few crows. You can’t mean crows, can you? India’s full of bloody crows.’

Miss Batchelor drew a picture of the horizon and a middle distance. She sketched a point of reference. A minaret.

‘Oh, a heathen thing.’

Miss Batchelor shook her head. She struck the minaret through with her pencil and then drew a line and a ring. And made angular strokes, playfully. Like birds flying.

‘Just a moment, dear.’

Eustacia clung to the bars like a helpful monkey. She was very ugly. Her bottom stuck out of a print artificial silk dress. She had white shoes and high heels. She stank under the armpits but it was the stink of hope.

‘I don’t actually see any birds there, Barbara dear. Are you sure they’re still there?’

Miss Batchelor looked. She wrote: No – but they often are.

Eustacia sat on the spare stool and smoked and talked. About peculiar things. ‘We’ve got them in Mandalay, dear. We’ll be in Rangoon like a streak of piss before May’s out. Cast not a clout. Old Billy Slim could screw me any time he asked, dear. Better’n my husband. Small as he is I’d put the flags out for Billy any day.’ Eustacia frowned. ‘Have you ever thought about length, dear?’

She did not look as if she required an answer. She looked at Miss Batchelor who sat contained by her dignity and desire.

‘Do you have the least bloody idea what I’m talking about, love? Do you know where this is, dear, I mean what town for God’s sake?’

Miss Batchelor wrote: Ranpur, looking west.

Eustacia de Souza smiled and nodded. Then frowned again. ‘West?’ she said. She looked. She nodded. She smiled very wide. ‘That’s where it is,’ she said. Miss Batchelor was reminded of a melon. She felt thirsty.

She wrote: You must go now. It is the dangerous hour.

Mrs de Souza’s face turned a nasty purple. When she had gone Miss Batchelor broke the tea-cups and waited for the relief of cold water and winding-sheet. She screamed and struggled because that was the way Sister Mary Thomas More liked it. At the end the nun’s coif was limp.

*

The landscape had changed because the light had altered. It was very hot. She wrote: Calendar. They brought her one. It said June 6th. She destroyed it. Next day they brought her another because Father Patrick was visiting. It said June 7th, 1945. She put it on her bedside table, and when Father Patrick had gone, under her mattress. But they did not take it away.