The Truth (18 page)

‘You ride up front with Kinesh.’

Melville, dressed in a cotton shirt and a billowing shalwar, slung his backpack into the vehicle in front, and jumped aboard. Kumar revved his engine, hooted the horn and the two 4x4s turned away from the camp, circled the village and bounced away to the west.

Kinesh was the youngest of the three who’d been at the table last night; he sat tall and very upright, as if he might have been in the army at some point. He kept his eyes firmly on the road ahead.

The jeep tipped forward as it followed Kumar’s into a red earth ravine. Mabbut clung on to the handle above the window as they accelerated up the bank on the far side. He was painfully aware that his presence among the group was not likely to last long. Last night he was a new arrival, an amusing diversion at the end of a busy day. This morning he was a burden. He could sense this coming off
Kinesh as the car swung along the track and the young man stared silently ahead. Mabbut knew that there was a distinct possibility that his pursuit of Melville could be over in the next few hours. He had to start work. With whatever material he had.

Mabbut looked across at his driver. He was light skinned, with a strong, angular profile and a large jutting nose.

‘Have you worked for Mr Melville long?’ asked Mabbut.

Kinesh nodded. He was adjusting the mirror.

‘When he comes here.’

‘Which is how often?’

‘Two, maybe three times a year, sir.’

Kinesh threw the vehicle into four-wheel drive as they dived down into an old river channel, empty of water but thick with freshly dried mud.

‘It must be a privilege to work with him.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The ‘sirs’ rang with contempt. Mabbut waited a while before he spoke again, partly to see whether Kinesh might volunteer something, partly because he didn’t want it to sound like an interrogation. At that moment, two vividly coloured birds flew out of the bushes ahead of them and disappeared into the trees in a flash of scarlet and grey.

Mabbut grunted with surprise.

‘Red-whiskered bulbul.
Pycnonotus jocosus
,’ said Kinesh matter-of-factly.

‘Thank you.’

‘Mountain birds.’

‘Are we high up?’

‘Eight hundred metres.’

The plain had levelled out by now and Kinesh hung back as the dust cloud from Kumar’s car billowed out ahead of them.

‘Were you born here?’

Kinesh shook his head. ‘Only Kumar is from here, sir.’

‘And you?’

‘I am from Delhi.’

‘So how come you hooked up with Mr Melville?’

‘I was at university. I’m studying biology and environmental
science and he came to talk to us. About the damage we are doing to our environment. Here in India.’

Mabbut looked around him. The trees were more abundant here than at the camp, and there were bright yellow bushes and smooth grey boulders rising behind them.

‘Looks pretty good to me.’

Kinesh smiled grimly. ‘Wait and see. Sir.’

The sun was high and hot by the time they reached a metalled road. After the jolting of the past hour Mabbut breathed an audible sigh of relief. Kinesh pointed to an incongruous line of grey electricity pylons, hoisting swags of cable across the road and into the bush.

‘On their way to Kowprah, sir.’

‘Kowprah?’

Kinesh sounded almost scornful.

‘The biggest aluminium refinery in the state.’

‘But more electricity’s a good thing for everyone, isn’t it?’

‘If everyone had it, yes, sir. Seventy per cent of this supply is for the private mining companies. One ton of alumina needs 250 megawatts of electricity. Kowprah will produce six million tons of aluminium, so they need 1,500 million megawatts a year. Which is sixty million tons of CO
²
. And they want more plant, so that means moving more people off the land they have lived on for two thousand years.’

Kinesh blared his horn as a packed bus hurtled past, pushing them close to the serrated rim of the road.

‘And now they want the sacred hills too, in order to make them even more rich!’

There was something about Kinesh’s delivery that raised Mabbut’s critical hackles. He’d heard the same thing said at Sullom Voe. If anyone gets rich it’s bad for everyone else. He had sympathy for the view but basically it was dishonest.

‘We all use aluminium. Your car. Your mobile phone. Your cooking pots and aeroplanes.’

‘And we pay a lot of money to the company, sir. They make big profits from us. But the people who live in the way of Kowprah pay
with their livelihood. Five thousand hectares of farmland cleared for the refinery.’

‘But you are an educated man, Kinesh. Do you not think people have to change, learn new things, to be given the chance to be as educated as you are?’

‘Sir, my father once told me, “You carry too much in your head, you should learn to carry more
on
your head”. That was what my father told me, sir. To respect the old ways.’

For the first time his passion sounded personal. And for the first time, the merest flicker of a smile crossed this serious young man’s face.

The road flattened out and Mabbut felt his eyes closing as the steady hum of the engine and the monotony of the landscape lulled him to sleep. He woke suddenly, thrown forward by an abrupt halt and the sound of a deep-throated horn. A truck was hurtling straight towards them, veering away from head-on collision by a matter of inches.

‘Bulk carriers from Kowprah, up and down this road all the time!’

Kinesh reached for a cloth and wiped his hands, before slowly moving off again. Mabbut could now see what the problem was. Half the road was being relaid and traffic had been diverted into one lane.

Kinesh gestured ahead.

‘They want a bigger road to take all the trucks. That’s what is happening here.’

Mabbut looked out curiously as they passed the roadworks. It seemed as if all the work was being done by women. Some wielded pickaxes and were opening up holes in the road, while others filled their baskets with granite chippings and carried them on their heads to the holes. The women were of all ages, from young girls to grandmothers, and all wore dusty saris, which drifted in the breeze. None had protective clothing of any kind.

‘They’re women. The road builders are all women!’

‘You’ll see them all over India, sir.’ Kinesh nodded grimly as they bumped over the freshly laid road. ‘They’re Dalits.’

‘Bottom of the caste system?’

‘They are outside the caste system, sir. They are untouchables.’

‘But they must have rights. To be dressed properly, at least.’

‘They have no rights, sir,’ Kinesh replied quietly.

Two women stepped back to let them pass. Both were tall and fine featured but the work had left them gaunt and lifeless. Their eyes met Mabbut’s as the car drove past, but there was no change in their expression. For a long time Mabbut stared into the wing mirror, unable to take his eyes off them as they slowly went back to work, like phantoms.

A few miles farther on Melville’s car signalled a left turn and they followed a road which led up through the forest for an hour or more, before pulling to a halt on a rock-strewn track. Melville was first out of his vehicle, camera slung over his shoulder, directing the others with brisk hand movements. His wayward hair was tucked beneath a felt cap, and his white kameez flew up as he ran. Mabbut was impressed. Here was a seventy-five-year-old ex-banker looking for all the world like a mujahed taking on the Russians. Putting his finger to his lips, Melville beckoned Kinesh to kill his engine. He came across to the car, and they spoke briefly in Hindi. A small yellow bird skittered across the glade and Mabbut noticed Kinesh’s sudden upward glance. Kumar and Mahesh didn’t seem interested. They stood by their jeep, loading backpacks.

Melville came across and whispered into Mabbut’s window.

‘We’re stopping for a while. To take some photographs. A bit of fieldwork, you know.’

‘Can I come with you?’

‘No.’

Melville nodded at Kinesh.

‘If you want to help you can stay with Kinesh and keep an eye on the vehicles.’

With that, he motioned to Kumar and Mahesh and the three of them moved quickly away, over a fallen tree, down a narrow watercourse and out of sight.

A radio crackled, and Kinesh leant into the cab. There was a brief discussion then the receiver was clicked off.

‘Water, sir?’

‘After you.’

‘There’s one for each of us.’

The water was cool and Mabbut drank greedily. A sudden, very loud crash came from the trees above him, and he jumped, spilling the water as he did so. Kinesh reached into the glove compartment and took out a pair of binoculars.

‘What was
that
?’ Mabbut asked.

‘Malabar pied hornbill.
Anthracoceros coronatus
,’ Kinesh replied, scanning the trees. ‘Yellow beak. Blue, black and white tail. Powdered hornbill beak is very much sought after. It is good for vigour.’

He followed the bird with the binoculars as it flapped off noisily into the forest, then turned back to Mabbut.

‘You like birds, sir?’ he asked as they wandered a short distance along the track.

‘My father did. He was brought up in the country.’

‘And you were not, sir?’

‘No, I’m a city boy. Leeds. Yorkshire. I live in London now.’

‘I should like to see London,’ Kinesh said with feeling. He glanced up into the trees again, as if searching for something.

‘I hate it here.’

‘You hate it? Why do you hate it?’

‘I don’t like what India is becoming, sir. It is a country of the very rich and the very poor. And because so many are very poor, the rich can get richer even quicker. And they don’t care, you know. They don’t even live in this country, most of them.’

‘It’s progress, Kinesh.’

‘That’s what I used to think, but Mr Melville has changed my mind. He says we have to be true to each other. We have to recognise that we are all similar. No one is inferior. That’s what he says, sir, and believe me—’

‘Ssh!’

Kinesh turned at the same time as Mabbut. They watched as a black SUV approached along the road below them and drew to a halt. Two men got out. They were wearing dark glasses, identical white shirts and chinos. Kinesh’s eyes widened.

‘Security!’ he whispered.

One of the men was staring up at their cars. The other had lit a cigarette. He took a leisurely drag, then the two of them began to advance up the track.

‘I must warn the others,’ said Kinesh. ‘You stay here. Keep them talking.’

‘About what?’

‘Anything.’

Kinesh, bent double, snaked his way back to the vehicles.

Mabbut walked towards the men, trying to look assured, innocent even. He was aware that his heart was beating fast and his legs felt oddly unsteady. He gave them a broad smile.

‘Beautiful spot.’

The two men stopped.

‘Where you from?’

‘England.’

‘UK?’

‘If you’d rather.’

‘Why do you stop here?’

‘Er . . . I’m birdwatching.’

The taller of the two men took off his imitation Ray-Bans and appraised Mabbut.

‘The birds round here are fantastic, don’t you think?’

He could hear the crackle of the radio from their car. Mabbut knew he had to press home the advantage.

‘I’ve come all the way from London to see them.’

‘See what?’

‘The Malabar pied hornbill.
Anocatheros corona
. The Red-whiskered bulbul.
Picolotus jocotus
. And so many others. There’s one now!’ Mabbut shouted and pointed into the forest behind them. As they wheeled round, he stole a quick look back at the vehicles. Kinesh couldn’t be seen. Mabbut smiled what he hoped was a suitably deranged and obsessive smile as the men turned back to him.

‘Did you catch that? Tiny bird. Blue upper parts, tan breast. Native of Nepal. Lovely.’

His act certainly worked on one of them, who shook his head, muttered to his companion and began to back away, but the other man lingered, looking behind Mabbut towards the two vehicles.

‘Why two?’

‘Why two what?’

‘Why you have two vehicles?’

‘There are a group of us.’

‘Where are the others?’

‘In the forest. Spotting.’

Then Mabbut made his first mistake. As the younger man moved up the slope towards him, Mabbut instinctively went to block his path. It was a clumsy move and the man, now close enough to Mabbut to see the sweat on his face, tensed up and shouted to his colleague. He in turn headed back up the hill.

‘This is a high-security area,’ said the first one. ‘We should like to examine your cars.’

‘Are you police?’