Belonging (20 page)

Everything has happened so fast that I can scarcely believe it; it has been less than a month since I went on leave and in that time everything has changed.

I arrived back last night to two pieces of news. The first is that Thornton’s replacement – a Mr. Farraday – has at last been appointed and will be arriving at the beginning of August, and that I am to stay on as an additional district magistrate at least until he finds his feet. The second, and more shocking, is that Miss Ramsay’s father collapsed at the Club a few days after I left and died of a heart attack. Roland tells me he left nothing but debts – he owed money everywhere and was in arrears with his rent. His employers have agreed to pay Miss Ramsay’s rent for two months to give her time to make other arrangements. Roland says people were expecting her to go to relatives in England or Ireland, but she seems to have none – or none willing to take her.

‘How is she?’ I asked. ‘She must be very distressed.’ I can imagine her grief more vividly perhaps because of hearing so recently about the circumstances of my mother’s death. It seems like another connection between us.

To my considerable surprise, Roland admitted that he hasn’t seen her since it happened; she’d been unwell and he didn’t think her ayah would welcome a visit from him. He must have seen my incredulous stare, for he added, ‘The truth is, I wouldn’t know what to say to her. I’m no good at this kind of thing… Damn it, Henry, it’s all very well for you to look like that but it’s a damned awkward situation. It’s not as if I promised her anything…’

‘But you implied it.’

‘Well, let’s just say she made certain assumptions that I failed to dispel.’ He smiled that lopsided smile that women seem to find so disarming. ‘And now of course she expects me to come to her rescue. But I can’t do it, Henry. You know how I feel about her but, even if my C.O. gave permission and I could afford it, marrying now wouldn’t do my career any good.’

‘I had no idea you were so ambitious.’

‘It’s not ambitious not to want to ruin one’s career. And it’s not as if I don’t care… I do feel badly about it.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t worry too much. Since she’s disliked by the other women, no one will blame you for letting her down.’

He glared at me. ‘I don’t know why you’re being so damned superior. Would you marry her in my place?’

‘I’d feel honour-bound to if I’d encouraged her hopes as you have.’

‘Well, if you’re so damned honourable, why don’t you ask her? You don’t imagine I haven’t noticed how you feel about her, do you?’ He laughed. ‘Only we both know that she wouldn’t look at you while I was around. Well, now’s your chance – she’s desperate enough to snatch at any straw.’

‘You arrogant bastard!’

I had forgotten that all that riding has made his stomach muscles as hard as rock. He stood watching me curse as I bent
over my hand, nursing it, and then turned to go. ‘Good luck,’ he said from the door. ‘You’ll make the perfect couple. And, if you need someone to give the bride away, don’t hesitate to ask.’

I would never have thought Roland clever enough to be capable of sarcasm.

I don’t know whether to feel hopeful or terrified. I have asked Rebecca to marry me. It happened almost without a conscious decision on my part and I can’t help wondering if Roland was right about her desperation. And yet she did nothing – it was all my doing.

I went to see her today to ask about her health and, to my surprise, her ayah recognised me and invited me in. Rebecca was sitting on the back verandah in a steamer chair. She was dressed in a high-necked white cotton nightdress and her hair has been cut off to conserve her strength. Sitting there, with short dark curls framing a face almost as pale as her nightdress, she looked like a beautiful boy.

Spread across her lap was a large piece of embroidery of extraordinarily fine quality: a detailed depiction of a banyan tree with hanging roots. I looked closer, intending to say something complimentary, and saw there was a woman peering out from in between the multiple trunks, her mouth open in a scream of terror or despair. She appeared to be trapped, manacled by the hanging roots, which had coiled around her wrists and ankles. Her right breast and leg appeared to have been absorbed into the tree trunk but the left breast was bare, the nipple hidden by a spreading root that had sunk its gnarled fingers into the flesh around it as though
seeking out her heart. I barely had time to get an impression of the whole before her ayah snatched it up and began to fold it away.

I greeted Rebecca and sat down but I was too disturbed by her embroidery to meet her eyes, so I focused my gaze on her bare feet, which had been exposed by the removal of the fabric. They are exquisite – slender and high-arched, with four long, slim toes and one short one. With a curious feeling of
déjà vu,
I saw in my mind’s eye a pillared temple illuminated by moonlight. Some picture I’d seen, perhaps? But it was gone before I could grasp it.

Rebecca appeared not to notice that her embroidery had been removed. She sat up and eagerly demanded when Roland was coming to see her. I stammered some excuse and watched her eyes brim with tears.

‘I’m so sorry to hear about your father,’ I said, feeling the inadequacy of the words.

She shook her head. In daylight her eyes appear darker than they are because her pupils are so large, and her irises are not one shade but made up of many different colours – pale grey, different shades of blue and green, and even some flecks of gold and russet; and then that strange brown blotch in her greener eye. In the light, the difference between them is even more striking.

‘I was making him a picture,’ she said, and looked around for her embroidery. ‘It’s nearly finished.’

For a moment I was puzzled, until I realised she meant Roland. I caught the eye of her ayah and looked away, imagining what he would make of such a gift. ‘Try not to worry,’ I said gently. ‘You need to rest and get stronger. I shall do everything in my power to help you.’

The tears brimmed over.

‘You are very kind, but what can you do? We shall have to move from this house.’

‘Where will you go?’

She wiped her tears away.

‘I don’t know. She – ’ she glanced at her ayah ‘ – she says we can make napkins and tablecloths and… other things… and sell them door-to-door.’ Her voice faltered and she added with touch of pride, ‘People have always admired my embroidery.’

I tried to picture her knocking on doors like a beggar and being turned away, or being taken advantage of by men like Roland who would see her destitution as an opportunity. I thought of my mother, dirty and half-naked, her clothes in rags, being jeered at on that long march to the river, and of Father’s regret at being unable to save her. I could save Rebecca. It was in my power.

‘Why don’t you marry me?’ The words surprised me as much as they did her. She stared. ‘I mean it.’

She looked down at her twisting fingers.

‘Look, I know you don’t love me. I don’t expect anything from you. I know your affections are engaged… elsewhere… but I don’t think you can expect anything from that quarter. I would like to help you and this is the only way I can see to do it.’

She looked at me, seeming genuinely puzzled about my motives. It touched me, for in male company she has always appeared so confident of her allure.

I leant forward and took her hand. ‘I won’t press you now, but promise me you’ll think about it?’

She nodded, and once more her eyes brimmed with tears.

As soon as I was out of sight of her I wondered what had possessed me. Do I want her answer to be yes or no?

I did not expect an answer so soon, but when I got back from the Club last night – Roland was out at a mess dinner – the chowkidar told me a woman was waiting for me on the verandah. My heart began to jump, and as I approached the bungalow I broke into a sweat. It was her ayah.

‘You have a message from Miss Ramsay?’ I was astonished how steady my voice was.

‘She said to tell you that she agrees.’

A flood of adrenalin surged through me, whether excitement or panic I still can’t say.

She stood waiting for me to speak.

I said stupidly, ‘Do… do you think it’s the right thing? For her, I mean?’

She lowered her eyes. ‘It is not for me to say, sahib, but I know that you are a good man, a better man than Sutcliffe-sahib.’

‘Do you think she could ever care for me?’

She shrugged. ‘Husbands and wives learn to love each other. Or so they tell me.’ Her tone was ironic. I can see why Rebecca dislikes her.

Can she ever love me? Or am I repeating Father’s mistake by falling in love with someone who will never love me in return?

Rebecca and I were married a fortnight ago, as soon as the banns were complete. John Moxton, who shares our quarters, stood in as my best man, but Roland did give me a good send-off. The night before the wedding, he, John and two
other officers took me to the Club and got me royally drunk; then, when we were politely requested to take ourselves off, he dragged me round the opium dens in the bazaar, where we drank some vile home-made liquor and smoked a couple of hookahs. I have never smoked opium before but I think my nerves finally got the better of me. All I remember is a sudden expansion of time, as though I had lived for centuries – aeons even – watching civilisations rise and fall. Vast landscapes opened before me, populated with dizzying cliffs and vast deeps, all accompanied by a clarity of thought I have never experienced before. I sat absorbed in my imaginings, while around me people smoked and expectorated long streams of brown saliva into spittoons. Roland and the others sang along to the jangling music and the drums, while the houris danced, undulating their bare bellies in a way that made my head swim. I remember Roland egging one of them on to undo my trousers as he rode one of his fellow officers around the room, while the Pathans laughed.

In the early hours we staggered back to the cantonment, where we were challenged by a sentry. No one was able to remember the password, which, in any case, we were laughing too hard to be able to say, so eventually an officer who knew Roland was summoned to identify us and we were allowed to pass. The next thing I recall is being in bed, with Roland and his friends peering at me through the mosquito net, and throwing something at them. I discovered next morning it was a folder full of court papers that I had brought home to read.

That night I had a dream that has stayed with me vividly. I was alone in the middle of a vast desert that stretched to the horizon in every direction. Directly ahead of me stood a temple that must have been built by Titans, because its top was lost in the clouds. In the centre of the wall facing me was
a great carved gate, several storeys high and built from black timber so weathered that it looked more like stone than wood. As I approached them, the great doors began to swing open and people swarmed out of nowhere to line up on either side. I joined them and waited.

From where I stood, to one side of the gate, I could hear a strange sound, like the timbers of some colossal ship creaking and groaning, and a low rumbling chant that seemed to spring from the earth itself. Then, through the open gates, a procession of men came, the tendons and muscles in their arms and chests straining as they hauled at thick ropes attached to a great wooden chariot. It was the height of a three-storey house and fantastically carved, with great ironbound wooden wheels. Sweat ran down their backs and legs, and, when one fell, the others stepped over him and went on. At the very top of the chariot, dressed in silk finery, was an idol: a simple log of wood painted black, with round, staring white eyes and a red blob for a mouth.

As the chariot passed in front of me the crowd thinned and I saw that men were pushing forward to lie down in the path of the great wheels, which crushed them like bugs. I could hear their bones crunching, hear their screams, and see the narrow streams of blood filming over as they trickled through the dust. Then I felt myself being propelled forward and, try as I might, I could not struggle free. Eager hands pushed me down and I saw the rim of the great wheel poised above me, heard the renewed chant of the crowd. I felt its weight descend on me and my ribs begin to collapse.

I woke, or dreamt I woke, to find a naked woman sitting on my chest, like a succubus, her long black hair falling into my face. Her skin glimmered in the moonlight and as I opened my mouth to scream her head darted down and
her lips fastened on mine like a snake striking. Her tongue probed mine and I felt myself rising under her. Her sinuous body writhed above mine as we wrestled and panted, and it seemed to go on for hours in an endless cycle of lust and satiety, like one of those feverish dreams one cannot shake off. At last, drained and spent, I fell back exhausted and lost consciousness.

I woke with a pounding head and dry mouth and a very queasy stomach, to find the sun streaming in the window. As I dressed in a stupor, with the help of Roland’s batman, I tried to put the dream out of my mind but was filled with a sense of dreariness and foreboding. What had possessed me to offer for Rebecca, whom I hardly knew and who loved another man? The dream felt like a premonition, and as I imagined Rebecca walking towards me down the aisle I found myself picturing the serpent woman of my dream and I shuddered, even while a febrile excitement filled me.

‘Cold feet?’ Roland asked cheerfully as I entered the dining room. He was eating eggs and bacon, the sight of which made my stomach turn.

‘Did you send a woman – one of those houris from the bazaar – to my room last night?’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ve been having opium dreams, my boy. Fun, aren’t they?’

In the small church I stood under the effigy of a naked, tortured Christ nailed to a cross, understanding how men must feel who flee on the eve of battle. I felt a surge of resentment against Roland; he should have been in my place, instead of sitting in a back pew, so easy and handsome in his bright uniform, with a shaft of sunlight striking gold from his hair.