Barbara Cleverly (23 page)

‘Well,’ said Nancy, ‘what did you make of that? What did you make of Midge?’

‘I thought she was an absolute poppet,’ said Joe sentimentally.

‘You would!’ said Nancy. ‘I thought she was an absolute menace! Not Dolly’s daughter for nothing!’

‘I wonder,’ said Joe, ‘what Prentice will do to launch her in Panikhat society?’

‘I think I can guess! It’s Manoli Day for the regiment on Friday. It’s always held on the third Friday in March. Silly sort of thing really but in the Sikh War the regiment were, I must think, caught with their pants down and had to turn out in the middle of the night mounted any old how in their pyjamas — a sort of midnight steeplechase. It was, in fact, quite a gallant episode and they did whatever it was they were called upon to do (I don’t know the details) and ever since then they’ve given a ragtime dance on the anniversary of Manoli Day. And the proceedings are followed by a sort of ragtime steeplechase. It used to be quite a dangerous ride — still is, I suppose — and someone got dreadfully injured one year. Since then they’ve restricted the numbers — six or eight or something. Names picked from a hat by the Colonel.

‘Tell you what — I’ll invite Prentice and Midge to dinner before the dance. I’ll invite you too. Young Easton and Smythe seem quite jolly — I’ll ask them. Young company for Midge. Perhaps I’ll ask Kitty to balance the numbers. She’ll certainly be intrigued to see Dolly Prentice mark two! I’ll see what I can fix. Yes, come to the dinner and come to the dance.’

Joe sighed. ‘And what must I wear for this horrible entertainment of yours? Pyjamas?’

‘No, no! Mess dress. Your white jacket, blue cummerbund, black tie, mess trousers over boots with box spurs — just the usual. Don’t worry — we’ll provide the pyjamas!’

Ť ^ ť

Joe had not slept well. The journey to Calcutta had tired his body but it was the evidence he had turned up and the new theories beginning to bubble in his mind that kept him awake. And there was something unidentifiably alarming in the figure of Midge Prentice. Something she had done or said had, at a subconscious level, left him in dread for her. Or was it something Kitty had said?

He plodded his way through the night, irritated to an equal degree by his thoughts and by the mosquito bites from Calcutta. In a despairing effort to cool himself he thought about his flat in Chelsea, its large windows open and a chill March breeze blowing through. There would be a thick mist over the Thames, there might even be the remains of snow clinging to the rooftops and, for a moment before he drifted into sleep, he heard the familiar hooting of a river barge.

But he had awakened to the usual bugle sounds and the noises of the station coming to life. He moved from his warm damp bed into a lukewarm bath and on to breakfast. For once the copious Panikhat breakfast served with clockwork precision at seven o’clock had lost its charm. So it was that, in his mood of indecision, he was glad to receive a chit handed in by a bearer from the office of the Collector and with a disproportionate spurt of excitement he recognised Nancy’s handwriting. He read:

Good morning! I have a small — and probably inconsequential — lead. Want to come and follow it? If so, parade (mounted) here, as soon as possible. Send acknowledgement by the bearer saying yes or no. ND.

He scribbled ‘Yes’ and handed the chit back to the bearer for return to Nancy. He finished dressing and sent for his horse. ‘Sent for his horse’! How easy it was and how beguiling!

He rattled his way through Panikhat, familiarly acknowledging several people as he passed, and dismounted at the Drummonds’ bungalow. A syce was walking a grey pony up and down in the drive. Nancy appeared with a wave on the verandah.

‘Morning, Joe!’ she said. ‘The burra sahib is in the kutcherry.’

‘Indeed? And I am here,’ said Joe. ‘For me, to hear is to obey’

Nancy sat down on the step of the verandah and gestured to Joe to join her. ‘There may be nothing in this,’ she said, ‘and in the back of my mind is the thought that there isn’t anything in it so don’t be too hopeful. But it’s Naurung. He never stops! He’s located one of the ferrymen, one of the witnesses of the death of Alicia. He’s long retired from the ferries and is farming. It’s not far away, at a little place called Lasra Kot. It’s about ten miles away and has the advantage of being rather a nice ride. Are you on?’

‘Truly,’ said Joe, and he meant it, ‘I can’t think of any way I’d rather spend the day. Time we got away from this place for a few minutes.’

‘Well, as I say, there may be nothing in it, but

’ She gave him a level and considering look. ‘I don’t suppose we’ll waste the day, do you?’

She called over her shoulder and a bearer appeared with a small square basket on a strap.

‘What on earth’s that?’ said Joe.

‘Oh, very British! We’re having a picnic lunch. No Lyons Corner House where we’re going! Come on and say hello to Andrew.’

They made their way into the Collector’s office where they found him in shirt-sleeves with clerks taking dictation in attendance, each simultaneously, one in Hindustani, one in English. Joe was impressed. ‘That’s very clever,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t do that!’

Andrew greeted him warmly. ‘Joe! Good morning! If you’re really lazy — and I am — you don’t write letters, you dictate them and if you’re clever — and I am — you dictate two at once. I’ve even been known to dictate three! Actually, we’ve been doing this for so long, I just stammer a bit and these chaps put it into embarrassingly Augustan prose. So — you’re off into the mofussil, are you? I’ve already said this to Nancy and I’ll repeat it to you — don’t sit on a snake, don’t fall over a cliff, don’t cross a river, don’t have a bath — and you oughtn’t to come to, er, serious harm. If you’re not back in a fortnight I’ll send a search party.’ And to Nancy, ‘Where did you say you were going?’

Nancy told him.

‘Worse places to be,’ said the Collector comfortably. ‘Wish I could come with you.’ He took Nancy’s hand in his, kissed it, patted her affectionately on the bottom as she stood beside him. Not for the first time, Joe’s heart turned over as he saw them so friendly, so humorous and so attuned.

‘I really loved him,’ Nancy had said.

‘And she still does,’ Joe finished to himself.

They turned north together and rode up the muddy river bank until they encountered a tributary to the main river where they splashed through a shallow ford. On all sides people working in the fields getting in the rice harvest stopped with smiling faces to acknowledge them as they rode by. On every hand, bullock-drawn ploughs were at work across the fields to which millet and barley and rice contributed each a different shade of green in a timeless patchwork.

‘You can see why they call it the Land of Rivers. This is the India I love,’ said Nancy. ‘Do you wonder I wanted to get back to it from France?’

‘It certainly isn’t Calcutta,’ said Joe.

‘No. This is where we can really do some good. We stand between the farmer and his landlord, and, all the time, see that justice is done, you know. Keep the beady-eyed money-lender at arm’s length with a government-managed loan scheme. Andrew introduced that. And later today you’ll see the beginnings of his irrigation system. And you’re right — it isn’t Calcutta. I love it. I really do. I dream sometimes that I’m going to be taken away again. And wake up in a sweat. Oh, Joe — if only we could lift this shadow! If only!’

As usual when Nancy began with shining eyes to talk about India, Joe’s natural contrariness was roused. He opened his mouth to challenge what she said about the beneficent British attitude to the tenant farmers by reminding her that the hugely rich zamindars had been granted their enormous estates by the British themselves. If they were now struggling to rectify a state of affairs which had got out of hand they had none to blame but themselves and the peasant farmers were their luckless victims. If there was any crime in Bengal, it had its roots in social injustice of this kind. But he remained silent. What right had he, a six months’ expert, to challenge the views of someone born and brought up here, someone who was dealing with the realities of life from day to day?

The road narrowed and began to climb and the heat of the day began to build. Nancy led the way with confidence and Joe fell in behind. Looking at her from the crown of her wide-brimmed hat, following the line of her slender back, its silk shirt beginning to cling in the heat, her soft and slender bottom outlined rather than concealed by well-cut jodhpurs, ‘Love,’ thought Joe. ‘I could fall in love. Perhaps I have. But this is love for a day and if I was very lucky perhaps, love for two days. And anyway, she could be my sister. We don’t need to say much to each other. She could be — and indeed she is — my lover. If everything were different, if all the cards were dealt again, if this and if that and if the other, for God’s sake, she could be my wife.’

A stab of desire swept through him and his hands tightened. Indignant at this rough handling, Bamboo skittered aside and even humped his back.

Nancy looked back over her shoulder. ‘Can’t the squire from Scotland Yard keep his seat?’ she asked derisively.

The scrub-covered hillside gave way to occasional stands of trees, thickening as their way led on until they were riding, side by side now, down a jungle path, the alternate shade and sunshine illuminating Nancy’s face and casting it into darkness. Flights of raucous green parrots flashed across their path, mercifully ignored by patient Bamboo. Monkeys gibbered a strident warning of their approach, fleeing showily through the tree canopy overhead, and at times Joe fancied he could make out larger, darker shapes dimly imagined in the shadowy foliage at the foot of the trees but decided that if Nancy was not prepared to give them her attention, nor should he.

Topping a jungle-clad ridge, their road turned downwards towards a village presided over by a rhythmically creaking water wheel, turning and turning and lifting buckets to send a flush of water down the many irrigation channels. Thirty or so mud-walled houses with thatched roofs huddled companionably together, set out to no obvious plan and with no eye for drainage or ventilation as far as Joe could make out, but scattered, it seemed, haphazardly about a central square in which stood a venerable peepul tree. In the windless day spires of smoke rose from many households, bringing with them the sharp smell of dung fires and cooking.

Chickens ran noisily about, occasionally being ejected forcefully through the low, dark doorways. A fat brown child staggered on short legs to the edge of the village and squatted with complete unconcern in the dust. As they reined in their horses and stood waiting, a cascade of children poured out to greet them and then, overcome with shyness, stopped dead. But they were quick to respond to Nancy’s greeting and soon surrounded them in a chattering group. One of them broke off a stalk of sugar cane and offered it to Bamboo, others ran back to the nearest house, to emerge proudly with a tray of sweet cakes, and after a while a woman came forward with a bowl of milk.

‘If this was all there was to it,’ Joe thought, ‘I could be happy here.’

‘Is this Lasra Kot?’ he asked. ‘Is this where we’re to meet the ferryman?’

‘It’s Lasra Kot, yes, but we’re not here to meet a ferryman.’

‘But didn’t your note say

?’

‘I did but it wasn’t true about Naurung’s message. There was no message. I made it up.’

‘But why?’

‘I thought we had deserved a day off from police work. I wanted you to see India as it really is. I know you have no time for it and are rather desperate to go home but I just didn’t want you to disappear with Calcutta and the station as your lasting, your only, impressions of the country. The station is unreal. It’s more British than Britain, an invention, a parade. Calcutta is unreal — two extremes of wealth and poverty, both disgusting to a man I am beginning to think of as seeing as I do in spite of his being a policeman.’

A young girl in a bright red-bordered sari came hurrying from one of the houses and spoke to Nancy in what Joe guessed to be Bengali.

‘This is my friend Supriya,’ said Nancy. ‘And there are other people here I ought to see. Why don’t you tie the horses and take a seat? I shan’t be very long.’

She indicated a small temple, little bigger than a summer house. ‘Take a seat over there.’ She unpacked some small parcels from her saddle bag and Joe led the ponies away to stand in the shade.

Gladly he went over to the temple to sit in the shade himself. He lit a cigarette and watched as a girl in an azure sari emerged from one of the houses and spread a carpet under the peepul tree and invited Nancy to sit.

At once a shy procession began to form up. Mothers — themselves little older than schoolgirls — with babies in hand or babies at the breast, infants tugging at their skirts, began to gather round Nancy. Each child in turn was led up for her inspection. She looked at eyes, she looked at ears, she felt limbs, lifted draperies and ran an exploring hand over fat brown stomachs, the whole operation accompanied by gales of giggles from the children and laughter from their mothers. From time to time she took a tin of ointment from her pack and gently spread it over an affected part; she applied drops to sore eyes; with a skilled hand and a tight cotton noose, watched by the interested Supriya, she dealt with the ticks that she explained were endemic in the valley.

‘Conjunctivitis and diarrhoea,’ said Nancy over their heads to Joe in a businesslike voice, ‘those are our main problems. You can’t teach these people anything about “personal hygiene” — they’re probably the cleanest people in the world — but, oh boy! are there things they should learn about culinary hygiene and if only I could teach the children not to do their tuppences all over the place we’d be half-way to solving their problems. Still, I think I’m making progress and Supriya here is becoming my valuable assistant.’

She turned and spoke to Supriya who blushed and wriggled, bowed and salaamed with much gratification. Joe watched her with tenderness as, after each inspection, Nancy planted an affectionate kiss on each brown cheek which was immediately proffered to her. Briefly Joe remembered her speaking of the American soldier: ‘He had, in a way, become my baby,’ Were these small brown children elected to fill that gap?