1977 (29 page)

Sarah or Mr Turner who would probably be arriving just about now, in Delhi, with—she

hoped—her new packets of blue rinse. Directly he made contact and announced the day he

expected to be in Pankot she would make an appointment with Susy and splash out by

letting her use the whole of the one packet she had left. She had said nothing to Tusker

because she didn’t want him to grumble about coping with a stranger. Grumbling was bad

for him. It was some days since he had grumbled, and look at him now: so much better and

actually in church with her and paying attention.

“Ha! “ he exclaimed, bringing her back with a start from her own thoughts to the sermon.

Not in church! But then she realized that laughter was the order of the day. The preacher

himself was smiling, and Tusker’s Ha! was nothing to be embarrassed by. The sermon was

funny. She now concentrated on it and found herself smiling. But she was glad when

towards the end Father Sebastian stopped making little jokes and became serious, even

solemn. She could not wholly approve of laughter in church. Nor, during the creed, although

it was her custom to sketch a little curtsy to acknowledge the reference to the Virgin Mary,

could she quite approve of the way Father Sebastian virtually prostrated himself and did not

rise or raise his voice from a troubled murmur until he came to the line: The Third day he

arose again from the dead. He had the whole congregation muttering and bobbing. And

then, looking back on the hymns, when they got to the last one, All Things Bright and

Beautiful, she realized that jolly and rousing and nostalgic as they had all been they were

leaving in her mind a sense of naivety. They had been children’s hymns, rather than grown-

up hymns. A strange mixture, the whole thing: a sophisticated sermon, naïve hymns, and

popishness in the ritual. As the service ended and the congregation broke up she saw that

everyone was smiling as if they had just seen a very amusing picture. Tusker was smiling too.

When they were outside he said, “Hang on.” Other people were hanging on too. “What

for?” she asked. “Meet the fellow, of course.”

Amazing! First coming to church, now hanging on to meet the minister. She moved from

his side to speak to Captain and Mrs Singh whom she scarcely knew because they were new

on station. They had met briefly, once at the Ladies’ Night in the mess, once at Coocoo and

Tiny’s Holi party. She had not known they were Christians, and wondered whether they

were convert or cradle, and whether Singh meant a Sikh or Rajput origin.

When Father Sebastian came out he was in conversation with Susy. Mr Bhoolabhoy was

nowhere to be seen. In fact she hadn’t noticed him in the church at all. Mr Thomas had

handed the collecting bag round. She did not want to meet Father Sebastian in case he

mentioned the photographs. She saw Susy introducing him to Tusker and turned away to

continue her conversation with Captain and Mrs Singh but then heard Tusker calling her

over, “Luce.”

She had no option.

“This is my wife,” Tusker said. “Just been telling him how much we enjoyed the service. Bit

of life to it. Don’t come often. Thought I would. Next time might not be able to have a

word.”

“There’s always time for a word,” Father Sebastian said, smiling.

“Not in the circumstances I’m thinking of,” Tusker said. “Staying with the Menektaras are

you?”

“No, Miss Williams is putting me up until tomorrow.”

“Ah, back to Ranpur on the old midday, then. Coming up next week by any chance?

Gather you’re going to be more frequent than old Ambedkar.”

“Next week I’m in Nansera, I’m afraid.”

“Pity. My birthday next week. Monday the loth. Usually give a sort of party in the evening.

You could have come along. When are you up next?”

Susy said, “Father Sebastian can’t minister to us again until Sunday the 23rd, but you have a

very full programme then, don’t you, Father?”

“You’ve got to eat, though,” Tusker butted in. “Come and have a bite. If you can’t on the

Sunday, stay over till Monday.”

“I am already doing that because of such a full programme, but it is very kind of you.” He

glanced at Lucy. “I should love to fix something, some time.”

“No, fix it now. Have lunch on the Monday, that’s the 24th.”

“I’m afraid I’m committed for lunch.”

“Dinner then. We’re down at Smith’s. Billy-Boy knows where. Bhoolabhoy. Always call

him Billy-Boy.”

Father Sebastian hesitated, again looked at Lucy. She had no alternative. “Whenever is

convenient to you, Mr Sebastian.”

“Thank you, Mrs Smalley. Colonel Smalley. Dinner would be very nice.”

“Good, good. That’s fixed then. Come along Luce, we’re holding up other people.”

“Old Billy-Boy’s pretty pissed off I reckon,” Tusker said as they walked home side by side.

“He said little Susy went all chapel on them when his new Reverence turned up but now

Billy can’t get an oar in. She won’t let him out of her sight. Where was Billy-Boy this

morning? Sulking in the vestry, sodding furious because old Sebastian’s shacking up with

Susy and not at Smith’s.”

“Tusker!”

“What? What’s wrong? Shacking up? Figure of speech. One presumes. Ha! Priests, though,

never know what the buggers are up to.”

Lucy came to a halt. For a few paces Tusker stalked on banging his stick into the road, then

realizing he was alone turned round and said, “Come on, then, what are you waiting for? I’m

damned hungry after all that
tamasha
.”

She breathed in deeply and out slowly.

“If you can call it all that
tamasha
, what in God’s name made you pester the poor man to

come to dinner on the Twenty-fourth? You went on, Tusker. You went on and on and on,

you left him no excuse. Now you talk about him like this. But
I’ve
got to arrange dinner for

him. And he didn’t want to come, not on that day. But you pestered him so much he

thought you needed help of some kind. I could see it. The way his expression changed. The

way he suddenly stopped thinking you were just being polite but tiresome and a bit of an old

bore and started thinking, This Man Needs Me.”

“Well I do, don’t I?”

He turned away and stumped on down the road leaving her to follow. The view from the

back was that of an old man, thin, frail, intolerable to live with, intolerable to think of as one

day not being there because then she would have nothing to live for herself. Where Church

road intersected with Club road, and there was traffic, he paused, waited for her to catch up,

so that they could cross the road safely together.

And after Easter there was Tusker’s birthday. It fell on the Monday. He was 71. Not a great

age at home. He’d sent no invitations, but there were cards from the Menektaras, the

Srinivasans, the Mitras, and from Billy-Boy. These arrived by hand. When Ibrahim brought

their tea that morning he hung a wet and ripely scented garland of flowers round Tusker’s

neck, and a smaller one round hers.

Lucy gave him a card too and a Parker ballpoint to go with his Parker pen. She’d ordered it

weeks ago from Gulab Singh’s, who did clocks, watches and jewelry as well as medicines and

toiletries.

They had a birthday peck. When he went out to the verandah to have breakfast Minnie was

there and gave him a garland too. He went back inside again. His egg got cold. She

wondered whether he was crying in the loo again, so did not go near but jollied Minnie and

Ibrahim along by handing out baksheesh to distribute to the servants at Smith’s and between

himself and Minnie—and
mali
. She suspected that the bunch of marigolds on the breakfast

table were put there on his behalf.

Eating her own egg she thought of his first birthday in Mudpore, which fell just before they

were leaving. The Maharajah had sent a bowl of fruit, hidden within which was a gold watch

for him and a gold bracelet for her, both of which had to be sent back to the
dewan
with

apologies.

While Tusker was still in the loo the
dak
came. There were one or two more cards for

Tusker, a batch of bills, and one letter. The letter was for her. She went into the kitchen to

read it. It came from Delhi and was dated four days earlier.

“Dear Mrs Smalley, Mrs Perron kindly gave me your address and telephone number and

told me that you and Colonel Smalley had been kind enough to offer me some of your time

if I come up to Pankot. I arrived in Delhi a few days ago and fly to Ranpur on the 24th. I

have a commitment there on the 25th and then a short break until the 30th when I have to

be in Calcutta, so I could fit in a visit between those dates. I’ll ring you from Ranpur to let

you know which day I could come up. I hope to spend a day or two and have the pleasure of

meeting you both. Sarah said that there are two hotels and that if I have any trouble about

booking from Ranpur you might be so kind as to help me, since you are at Smith’s, which I

must say sounds more appealing than the Shiraz. Meanwhile I much look forward to

meeting you both. I have with me some packages Sarah asked me to bring for you. Yours

sincerely, David Turner.”

“Anything in the
dak
other than these cards?” Tusker asked.

She hesitated. “Only bills, Tusker.”

“Bugger the bilk”

“Bugger the bills indeed. Especially on your birthday.”

“Luce?”

“Yes, Tusker, dear?”

“Mountain View Room? For lunch? Just you and me?”

Her silly old heart could still turn over when he talked to her like that.

“Oh, Tusker, what a treat. But what if there are people there who wonder why they’ve not

been invited to a buffet?”

“They’ll have to lump it. What’s on tonight?”

“On?”

“At the flicks. It’s Monday. You always go on Monday. Thought I’d come.”

“What about Billy-Boy?”

“He’ll have to lump it too.”

“But don’t pictures bore you? I don’t want you to be bored. We could have a quiet lunch

here and go to the Mountain View room tonight.”

“I don’t want a quiet lunch. And I want to go to the flicks.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do. After all it’s your day.”

She got Ibrahim to cycle down to the cinema and book two seats for whatever was on. She

took Bloxsaw for a walk. She booked a corner table at the Mountain View room. When she

got back Tusker was on his knees using a little fork on the bed of canna lilies.
Mali
was

cutting edges in another part of the garden. How strange. He looked up at her. “Hello, Luce.

Had a good day?”

“It’s not lunch time yet,” she said fondly.

“Well, I know that. I meant a nice day so far.”

“It’s been lovely so far. Has yours?”

“This fork’s no bloody good.”

“Where did you get it?”

“From the kitchen.”

“I didn’t know there was a fork in the kitchen.”

“It’s the one I used to have when I did the pots. It used to be all right. It’s no bloody good

now.”

“Don’t overdo it. It’s very hot in the sun. Come inside and I’ll pour you a nice glass of

beer.”

In the living-room she paused, holding her throat with both hands.

At the cinema that night he fell asleep but woke up now and again and said Ha! because the

audience was saying Ha! Ha! Ha! as if trying to persuade her he was enjoying himself. She

was glad it was a comic film. She had seen it before. Doris Day and James Garner. The one

where Doris Day makes a career in advertising against her husband’s wishes and the

sponsors show their appreciation by digging up their garden and building a swimming pool

in about eight hours flat as a surprise present, but James Garner is the one that gets the

surprise when he drives in at night into what he thinks is his driveway and drives straight

into the pool and sinks, very slowly, looking more surprised than any man you’ve ever seen.

Tusker loved that bit. He chuckled all the way home. He said he must persuade Billy-Boy to

build a pool in the hotel compound one day when old Ma Bhoolabhoy was out playing

bridge so that when her tonga brought her back at night the whole thing would tip in with a

bloody great splash.

The next day he was his grumpy old self again.

And after Tusker’s birthday there was Monday April 17, an ordinary Monday with Mr

Bhoolabhoy and Tusker being convivial while Lucy went to the pictures and saw
Hello Dolly

for the umpteenth time and for the rest of the week couldn’t get the tune out of her head

and went round singing it.

“Oh,
goodbye
, Dolly,” Tusker growled because she was humming it as she got ready to go to

church on Sunday April 23rd. “Don’t forget to remind Father Sebastian about dinner

tomorrow night.”

“Yes, Tusker. What time shall I say?”

“7.30’s usual.”

“7.30 here, for a drink. Then what? Perhaps he doesn’t drink.”