To The Coral Strand Page 7

  She waited, breathless, sitting in the drawing-room with a magazine, until Rodney got up and said, ‘I’m going to take a nap.’

  She waited again, until she heard the door of his bedroom close behind him down the passage, then went quickly, on tiptoe, to her own room, and took off her clothes. Naked, she glanced at herself in the mirror, and hurriedly averted her eyes. Her figure was all right, she supposed, but her femaleness looked terribly obvious. Coarse. She found a nightgown and slipped it on, brushed her hair and went to the door.

  After a long moment of waiting, while the blood pounded in her head and her stomach felt painfully empty, so that she thought she would faint, she opened the door, ran across the passage in her bare feet, opened Rodney’s door opposite, and went in.

  He was lying on his back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, naked except for a sheet flung loosely across his belly and loins. Slowly the scarlet colour spread from her neck to her face, to her breasts, to her body, down her legs and up her back, to blend again at her neck. She tried to keep her head high, looking at him, but it sank of its own weight until she was staring at the small Persian rug on the floor.

  He sat up. ‘You don’t have to do this, Frances.’

  ‘I - I want to,’ she whispered.

  She didn’t want to. Perhaps Rod could teach her to want to, someday. Now she was only empty and afraid.

  ‘You’re a liar,’ he said. ‘But the real trouble is I don’t want to, either.’

  ‘Rod!’ She ran the few steps to the bed and flung herself on to it, crouching beside him, turning to hold him, pressing her breasts against him. She put her mouth to his and kissed him, opening her lips as she had never done before. She moved against him, and after a moment, feeling neither shame nor fear, only desperation, she pulled the sheet away, spread her legs and straddled him.

  He lay back. ‘Frances, it’s too late. In the beginning, if I’d tried to create this kind of thing between us, perhaps it would be different now. Perhaps I’d possess your soul and be eager to follow your body anywhere in the world ... But I didn’t. It’s my fault. But it’s over.’

  She would not surrender.

  Nothing happened, no stir of emotion in herself or in him. She began to cry.

  Rodney moved her over gently and eased the pillow under her head. ‘You are a good-looking woman,’ he said. ‘It will come out all right, with someone else ... But, Frances, don’t have a purpose for love-making. And no duty. Just love, or desire, or both.’

  She lay, her eyes closed and her face pressed into the pillow so that he should not see them. She controlled herself after a long hard struggle, and sat up. She said, ‘You said you had an idea, about something to do in India. What was it?’

  Through the haze of the recent tears she saw him looking at her with respect. ‘You’re a hell of a girl, Frances. But don’t think of me any more. I mean it. This is the end ... Yes, I have an idea. I think I can make a living, and lead the kind of life I want to, and be my own master, in India. I’m going to be a white hunter. I’m going to start a shikar camp for rich foreigners.’

  He jumped out of bed, found his cheroots, lit one, and jumped back in. She found herself noticing dispassionately that he was a lean, well-muscled man, densely covered with black hair from the navel down to the loins, the chest broad, flat, and hairless. He smiled at her and waved the cheroot. ‘Every year before the war they used to extract hundreds of thousands of dollars from Americans in Kenya and Uganda and Tanganyika, and what do they have there except game? We have the game, and we have India, too. India! Temples, maharajahs, nautch girls, the Taj Mahal, Nehru, tall bearded Gurkhas waving their keen-edged chilamchis, subtle sinuous Sikhs clamouring for more muezzins ..,’

  She found herself smiling. She felt tired but calm. Rodney was not going to make love to her and it was quite proper and sensible to be sitting up in his bed in a transparent nightie, listening to him talking about his plans. That was how she had first met him, only then they’d been sitting on the sofa in the drawing-room. So, after two years, she was back where she’d started, minus a few clothes. She felt like a little station on a big railway line. Rodney’s train might have stopped forever here, but it hadn’t. He was on his way again.

  He said, ‘I’ve got the place, too. An abandoned Forest Rest House beyond Lapri. I had a good look at it last week. The firm leased it twenty years ago for some reason and have practically never used it. It’s nearly falling down but it could be fixed and I know they’ll transfer the lease to me. I’ll have to raise a bit of money. It will cost four or five thousand rupees just to fix the Rest House. Then I’ve got to buy equipment, tents, camp beds, mosquito nets, rifles to hire out to the clients ...’

  ‘Station wagons?’ she said.

  He waved his cigar energetically. ‘Not a hope. The road’s jeepable from the main road as far as Pattan village, but after that there are just tracks climbing on to the escarpment. Besides, it isn’t going to be that sort of safari. I don’t want people riding around in station wagons thinking they’ve seen India. They’ve got to get out in the jungles, on their feet.’

  She said, ‘If you’re really going to attract the rich ones, you’ll have to provide some sort of comfort, Rod.’

  ‘Well, yes, something ... But they must realise they’re in a jungle, and in India ... Then I have to live. There will be servants’ salaries, shikaris, baksheesh and what not to keep the villagers of Pattan in our pocket - and, the biggest expense, advertising, publicity. The scheme will sink like a stone unless people hear about it in America, and England... I’m going to raise the money from my friends, if I can.

  ‘I’m sure John will lend you some,’ she said.

  ‘I’m going to ask him,’ he said. ‘I think it will work, and pay a good return on the investment.’

  She said, ‘I’ll lend you some, too.’

  ‘My dear,’ he began.

  ‘I know ... but you can let me lend you some money, can’t you?’

  He got up, pulled on his trousers, and kissed her. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘out of affection, and respect. Now you’d better go.’

  Chapter 5

  Margaret Wood looked vexedly at the dense swirling crowd that filled Lapri from end to end. She would have to get through that somehow, unless she turned off into the fields, and that would mean scrambling through thorn fences and over irrigation ditches and beds of stinging nettles. It was too hot. The whirring sound of a small car engine made her turn her head. The car stopped beside her and she saw that it was the Deputy Commissioner of Bijoli, Mr Ranjit Singh.

  He climbed out and said, ‘I was just coming to pay you a call. I hope it’s convenient.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Please.’ What’s the time? she thought. About half past four. Tea with small cakes would be enough. If she could find anyone to prepare it. Today was the biggest day of the Hindu festival of Holi, one of the most important of the year. Whether officially Christian or not, everyone disappeared from the mission. She had to keep one of the nurses on duty by a combination of main force, threats, and bribery.

  ‘May I give you a lift?’ the Sikh said, and she cried, ‘Oh, yes, please.’ She waved her hand at the throng ahead. Ranjit Singh smiled. ‘You should be in your oldest clothes today. I am.’ She saw that his khaki shirt was splashed with violet and red spots and streaks. She suppressed a grimace of disgust. During Holi the Indians threw coloured dye over each other, over everything, and sometimes water that had been dyed pink and red and violet. Educated Hindus energetically denied it, but she had heard that the red liquid represented women’s menstrual blood, and it was thrown about at this time because Holi was the feast of spring, of fertility, and lust. An extra source of disgust was that Holi always coincided closely with Easter. The actual truth of the legend didn’t matter. Hindu India, in the essence, as she saw it in this buried, forgotten corner, was quite capable of such a bestiality. You only had to look at the Pattan temples to realise that the Hindus really worshipped sex and everythi
ng to do with it. Last year, during Holi, she and Henry had seen men dancing in the road at night with huge wooden phalli strapped to their waists.

  They crawled forward in low gear, the little Austin worming its way through the singing, shouting, dancing crowd. Small bands blared on either side, bombs of dye burst on the closed windows, and the heat inside was stifling. A young man, laughing and happy, leaned over the bonnet and sent a long squirt of red water on to the windshield. Ranjit Singh switched on his windshield wipers and the young man laughed even harder.

  She gasped, ‘Look!’

  There was Rodney Savage, among the crowd. A mob of men and girls surrounded him, and they were all pelting each other with powder. As she watched, a paper bag burst on his forehead, and pink liquid flowed down his face. His shirt and trousers were a motley mess of red and violet, hardly any of the original colour visible. Near him she saw his chauffeur, the Gurkha Ratanbir, in the same state.

  ‘He’s gone absolutely native,’ she said, and flushed; ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean ... ’

  The Sikh smiled. ‘I know what you mean, Mrs Wood.’

  Savage saw them in the car at that moment. He straightened, then bowed deeply.

  ‘He’s drunk,’ she muttered, ‘he must be.’

  Ranjit Singh said, ‘He may well be - but he doesn’t have to be. As you said, he has identified himself with these people and does not need to be drunk to share their pleasures ... and their pains, I suppose.’

  They reached the end of the town at last, and pulled up in front of the mission bungalow.

  She hurried up the steps. ‘If you’ll excuse me a moment...’

  ‘Please ... just a glass of water. I cannot stay long.’

  They sat down on the rickety chairs on the veranda. The blare of bands came strong on the hot afternoon wind. Ranjit Singh sipped his water. His face was slightly pockmarked and he had shrewd, prominent eyes and thick, sensual lips. She had found him a pleasant visitor on the two or three occasions when he passed through Lapri on his way to visit the Pattan valley behind. But his visits had been purely social, for Lapri itself was not in India but in the princely State of Chambal. She wondered what was the purpose of this present call and why he was spending so long sipping his glass of water.

  The Sikh put down the glass. ‘Do you see much of your neighbour in Pattan?’

  ‘Colonel Savage. No!’

  She realised she had spoken with considerable vehemence. The Sikh fixed his prominent eyes on her. ‘That seems a pity. Another Englishman, so close. He must be lonely ... until his first batch of clients arrive.’

  ‘He has hardly spoken ten words to me since he came last October - five months ago,’ she said. ‘It does not upset me, I assure you. I am not lonely, and even if I were, he would be the last person I would want to see.’ She paused to gather breath and then the rest of her anger poured out, unchecked. It felt good, rushing out like a released flood. ‘We used to get many villagers from Pattan and the valley coming down to the Mission. Now, since he came and started to repair the Rest House - none. He encourages them not to come. He wants to be a little tin god there. He encourages them in their old horrible superstitions. He even made a sacrifice.’

  ‘Not human, I’m sure,’ the D.C. said. ‘I think I would have heard of that, even as far away as Bijoli.’

  ‘No - goats and a buffalo, I heard. In October.’

  The D.C. nodded. ‘At the time of Dussehra. The Gurkha regiments always do it, though it’s not a usual custom among other Hindus.’

  She said, ‘I saw him with some men from Pattan one evening, a week ago. They were carrying a sambhur doe.’

  The D.C. said, ‘Of course it has been a very poor winter crop and the villagers are hungry. But it seems an odd way to ensure good hunting for his clients ... Has he annoyed or molested you in any way?’

  ‘No,’ she said at once, ‘not personally. Not since ... well, he did once, a long time ago, not here, but I have forgotten it and I don’t think he even remembers. I’m not being spiteful, Mr Ranjit Singh. Only, he’s giving all Europeans a bad name, and he’s a bad influence. I’m sure he’s setting up a little kingdom of his own. He’s the only employer in Pattan, and can spread the money, which isn’t even his, just as he likes. He has them eating out of his hand ... My nurses desert as fast as I can begin to train them. He ... he has women. I don’t know how any decent women can even visit him, but they do. Mrs Dadhwal went, with the General, in December. The Rani of Kishanpur is there now, alone.’

  ‘They are all old friends,’ the D.C. said, ‘except the Rani ... He has a catholic taste.’

  ‘Catholic!’ she cried. ‘He’s just - just a lecher.’

  The D.C. paused a long time before speaking again. Then he said, ‘You may be right, I do not know him well. I have only met him a couple of times, and the first time he did me and the Government of India a good turn. But I think you misjudge him if you believe that is all he is. Some men who pursue many women are seeking for an ideal - and some already have an ideal, but it’s unattainable. It’s important not to underestimate him... How are your relations with Mr Faiz Mohammed and the Chambal authorities in general?’

  Mr Faiz Mohammed was the administrator of the Lapri district, and so Mr Ranjit Singh’s opposite number, over the border in Chambal. He represented the government of the State. She frowned in puzzlement as she began to answer. What had Mr Faiz Mohammed got to do with Rodney Savage? She said, ‘Not as good as they used to be. There’s been no actual trouble ... just pinpricks. It’s hard to get to see Mr Faiz Mohammed when I want to. Just after my husband died the Chambal government gave an order requiring foreign missions to get authority before bringing any more missionaries into the State. We applied at once, that is, our headquarters in Manchester did. They’re still doubtful whether they can find anyone to come out, but even if they do - Chambal hasn’t given the permission. We had been seriously thinking of moving the mission to Pattan. Henry had talked to me about taking over the old Rest House. Then we’d have been in India, instead of at the mercies of the Chambal people. They seem to be getting more fanatically Muslim every day ... but we don’t have a proper missioner, and Colonel Savage has the Rest House.’

  The D.C. said, ‘And I’m afraid you would not find the attitude of our government much more helpful. Who was it who said the missions too often acted like an ecclesiastical branch of the I.C.S.? Ah, I remember, it was Rodney Savage.’

  ‘It’s not true!’ she cried angrily.

  ‘I know it does not apply to you,’ he said hastily. ‘Mrs Wood, I must explain something to you in plain words, which you may have thought out for yourself... As you know, when the British left this country they left it divided up into two sovereign nations - India and Pakistan - and several hundred princely states, varying in size from a few acres to thousands of square miles. Nearly all those states have since acceded to one nation or the other.’

  ‘You invaded Hyderabad only six months ago,’ she said.

  The D.C. smiled. ‘Our politicians use a less blunt language, but, yes, we did invade Hyderabad, the largest and richest state of all - because we are determined that these anachronistic despotisms have no place in the modern world, and we are sure that they cannot survive alone, whatever their rulers might say. We are determined.’ He repeated the phrase with emphasis, staring at her. Then he continued: ‘Half a dozen states have still not joined either us or Pakistan. They are all situated in this part of India, they are all contiguous or practically so, and the largest of them, the ringleader of the resistance, if one might call it that, is Chambal - this state. The others, such as Kishanpur and Konpara, are small and by themselves do not matter. But Chambal borders India, here, and also borders Pakistan, three hundred miles west of here, in the Sind Desert. Its ruler, the Nawab, is a Muslim. Ninety per cent of its people are Hindu.’

  ‘You are going to take over Chambal?’ she said.

  He smiled carefully. ‘It’s not quite as easy as that. We wish to avoid viole
nce. We suspect there is an understanding between Chambal and the smaller uncommitted states, and possibly between all of them and Pakistan, that they will act together to resist any overt action on our part. We must move carefully. But if there should be military action - this is the main gateway into Chambal from India.’

  ‘Of course,’ she muttered. ‘That’s why General Dadhwal was visiting in December. Mr Faiz Mohammed had three policemen waiting on the frontier to escort him whenever he stepped back into Chambal.’

  The D.C. said, ‘General Dadhwal was merely, ah, enjoying a shooting holiday with Colonel Savage ... What I wish to tell you is this. After Chambal is incorporated into India, as we are determined that it shall be sooner or later, the position of the Lapri Mission will be greatly helped if it has not been identified with the Nawab’s futile struggle against us. Rather, the reverse. We would appreciate any information that can be given to us about unusual activity, visits of Chambal generals, high officials, and so on. We have other means of getting information, of course, but few of them are as well placed and as ... innocent, as you. There is a lot of tension between us now, and anything - a border incident, another speech by Mr Roy, further defiance by the Nawab - is liable to make matters worse at any moment. What are Colonel Savage’s relations with Mr Faiz Mohammed? Have you noticed or heard of him meeting Chambal officials here or elsewhere?’

  The abrupt questions again surprised her. She shook her head. ‘I don’t know ... I haven’t heard ... Pattan is in India ... he has no reason for dealing with Mr Faiz Mohammed.’

  ‘Precisely,’ the D.C. said. ‘That’s why it would be very interesting ... and, to me, sad, if he were. I’m sorry for him.’

  ‘Sorry?’ she exclaimed, and checked herself. That was not a charitable outlook. Henry would have reproved her for that. She said, ‘Is he suspected?’

  The D.C. stood up. ‘He has enemies,’ he said enigmatically. ‘Now I must run the gauntlet of the crowd again. No use washing my car, or myself, until next week. Thank you so much - and don’t hesitate to call on me for any assistance I can give you. My tehsildar at Sabora will always forward a message. He is a very reliable man.’