The Impressionist (21 page)

‘If, Your Highness, you’d care to follow me.’

To the garden. As they stand on the back veranda, a ripple of applause washes over the crowd. Both the Nawab and Sir Wyndham permit themselves a smile. And a wave.

Then into the thick of it. Indians and Englishmen. English men and ladies. Indian ladies? No. All chatting in little clusters like an enormous social spore-culture, an experiment grown on the petri dish of the Privett-Clampes’ well-watered lawn. White-gloved khidmutgars circulate with silver trays. A string orchestra plays light classical music by the new gazebo, an architectural innovation of Mrs Privett-Clampe. To one side is a long table of Ango-Indian foodstuffs, curries, plain chicken pieces and rice salads, veg. and non-veg., all compromise-spiced to suit the various palates present. Charlie has been working overtime to ensure there are no hiccups, no hardboiled eggs with black fingerprints, no cold drinks salted instead of sugared. It looks as if she has held her end up well. There will be no incidents today, at least none sparked off by the food.

As Sir Wyndham and the Nawab descend the steps to the garden, they are instantly drenched in conversation, like a movie double-act taking a bucketful in the face. Sir Wyndham fidgets. He is finding the proximity of other people difficult. Why will everyone insist on talking at once? And all of them watching each other! He decides there is definitely something unhealthy about Fatehpur. He can tell from the kind of people who are at the party. So many cameras! A loud American keeps interrupting to take moving pictures, shouting at him to turn around or strike poses as if he were a mannequin. A Fatehpuri nobleman with an absurd yellow outfit and smoked eyeglasses keeps waving another apparatus in his face. All manner of European flotsam and jetsam seem to be present too, drinking too much, sneaking off in pairs into the house. A white boy walks past, dressed incongruously in school uniform. How the dickens did he get here?

‘I know,’ says the Nawab, a sudden raffish grin appearing on his face, ‘that you are perhaps reflecting on the silent patter of tiny feet.’

Sir Wyndham begs the Nawab’s pardon.

‘Silence. The absence of patter. The absence of my son, so very eagerly awaited.’

‘Oh yes,’ says Sir Wyndham, still bewildered. Son? Then he recalls the bit of swotting he did last night. No son. The Nawab has yet to get off the mark, sonwise. Intelligence seem to think he might be firing blanks.

‘Well, Sir Wyndham,’ the Nawab continues, ‘perhaps you will soon not be disappointed!’

Behind them there is a commotion centred around Prince Firoz, who has dropped his glass, spilling champagne all over his morning suit. The Nawab smiles. He is seized by a sudden desire to slip away from the party and try himself out on one or two of the other concubines. Really, he hasn’t felt like this in years.

‘Yes,’ says Sir Wyndham, distracted by Vesey, who is making signals at him, ‘very.’

‘GGRRRHHAWW!’ roars the Nawab. Heads turn. Sir Wyndham is temporarily at a loss for the correct response.

Pran peers across the lawn to see where the noise came from. He walks gingerly around the party, trying to look as if he is having a good time. He is startled by the Picturewallah, who grabs him tightly by the arm.

‘Now, Rukhsana, we must go to work.’

Before he can answer, they are elbowed aside by Dom Miguel De Souza, accompanied by two delightful friends whose names escape him, barging through the party singing show tunes with all the hysterical vigour of a trio who have not been to bed since the night before last. Travelling in their wake, the Picturewallah steers Pran in the direction of Major Privett-Clampe. Dug into a position giving a commanding view of the bar, the Major is in conversation with Vesey, who wears the drawn, elevated face of a man looking around hopelessly for an escape route.

‘Old Crusty’s favourite trick,’ reveals the Major, ‘is to gallop full pelt up to a well or what have you, then jink sharply off to the side –’ His jollity is forced. Actually he is not feeling his best. He has not had a drink all day, and the shakes are setting in. Steadying himself on Vesey, he shuts his eyes for a moment. When he opens them again, the party, every surface of it, is covered in pink and grey insects.

‘Jolly interesting, old man,’ says Vesey, patting the Major on the back, ‘but ours is to serve. Guardians of the Republic and all that. I must circulate.’

Privett-Clampe nods. They are on him too. All over him. He lurches towards the bar. By the fourth glass of champagne, the insects are beginning to crawl more slowly.

‘A woman,’ the Major says to a silver-suited fellow, ‘can catch a pig on the maidan, but it takes a man to kill one in the jhow.’

‘Fascinating!’ purrs Jean-Loup.

Inside the house De Souza and the girls are trying to cheer up Prince Firoz. Firoz is convinced everything has gone to hell. Buck up, old man! Have a little joy powder! He manages a couple of petulant sniffs, which only serve to make him more determined than ever, yes determined, that even if his accursed brother has done the unthinkable and managed to sow a viable seed, still the child will never, and yes as God is his witness he means never, sit on the throne of Fatehpur.

‘Perhaps you should calm down?’ suggests De Souza, alarmed.

The Diwan storms by. He is looking around for the Nawab, who seems to have disappeared. As he sweeps past De Souza’s huddle, his robe brushes the vial out of his hand.

‘Hey! You spilt all our cokey!’

Imelda (it is Imelda, isn’t it?) is in no mood for low tricks like that. She takes off a shoe and aims it, badly, at the departing Diwan’s head. Cream high heel sails past turban, then arcs elegantly over the veranda into the garden, striking Jean-Loup hard on the back of the head. Instantly his street-fighting reflexes kick in (unless you are quick, you are dead, hein?), and he wheels around, looking for his assailant.

The Diwan is reduced to asking Charlie Privett-Clampe, ‘You have seen His Highness?’

‘No, I bloody well have not!’ With that, she charges off, a livid expression on her face. For although privilege of rank has to be respected, and we would be nowhere without hierarchies, and though you might say in some circumstances turning a blind eye is a virtue, there are still limits and some things are just not to be tolerated, no matter who perpetrates them.

Seeing Mrs Privett-Clampe bearing down on him, Sir Wyndham pales visibly. He can spot these situations at fifty paces. Minty has been at her tricks again. He scrunches the latest telegram into a little ball, the telegram which says that the estimated death toll at Amritsar has risen to eight hundred and the native press are claiming double that, and tries to head disaster off at the pass.

‘Can I help?’ he asks, his voice freighted with diplomacy, tact, finesse.

Charlie does not know what to say. This is precisely what Sir Wyndham intended.

‘No,’ she says eventually, trying to make it sound firm. ‘Have you seen Gus?’

‘I think he’s talking to that American fellow. The moving-picture chap.’

Charlie nods distractedly, and heads off.

‘Gus? Gus!’

‘Charlie?’

‘What on earth are you doing?’

‘They’re everywhere, Charlie. Absolutely everywhere.’

Charlie ignores him. He often spouts this sort of nonsense. ‘Gus,’ she hisses, ‘shut up and listen. It’s that – that Braddock woman. I found her in our bedroom, bold as brass, helping herself to one of my favourite little Kashmiri boxes. You know, the papier mâché ones we got that time in Gulmarg. The cheek of it! When I walked in she didn’t look worried at all. Not in the slightest. She just said how darling and popped it into her handbag. I didn’t know what to say. So there you are, Gus. What are you going to do? Gus?’

Gus makes a flapping gesture with his arms.

‘Ointment,’ he says weakly. ‘Maybe that would do the trick.’

Inside the house something marvellous has happened. A rare thing. One of those conjunctions which many people dream of and few are lucky enough to experience. Minty has met the Nawab. Official meetings are one thing. A person encountered formally so often appears to be no more than the role they fulfil. Here, now, things are different. She, sauntering towards the garden with a newly bulky handbag. He, striding through the hall on his way to his car. Though she is no longer a young woman, Minty Braddock’s poise is arresting. The Nawab notes her long arms, her high white forehead, the small neat bow of her mouth. Minty finds herself slightly shocked at his gaze. This fierce young ruler with his hook nose and dark eyes – and so very many jewels! That brooch in particular. Absolutely irresistible. When he approaches her, takes her hands in his and makes an extraordinary wordless sound in his throat, she knows she will do anything he asks.

‘GRROAAH!’ says the Nawab, to the base of Minty’s neck.

‘Oh Your Majesty!’ whispers Minty, completely forgetting her protocol. Oh!’

‘Minty?’

It can’t be. Damn. Her husband’s plaintive tones. The old boy is standing behind the Nawab’s shoulder, moustache wriggling in embarrassment, pretending to cough into his clenched fist. The Nawab whirls round and, in an inspired impulse, vigorously shakes Sir Wyndham’s hand.

‘Well done, sir. Jolly well done.’

Sir Wyndham, used to being praised for reasons not immediately obvious to him, says a reflexive thank you.

‘I shall see you at the hunt later on,’ he adds, but finds he is talking to the Nawab’s departing back. There is the sound of a car engine, and the ruler of Fatehpur leaves the party in a spray of gravel.

That afternoon, throughout Fatehpur, lunchtime hangovers barely impede preparations for the hunt. Khaki clothes and solar topis are laid out on beds. The barrels of .375 magnum hunting rifles are cleaned, oiled and squinted down. There is checking of electric torches, application of patent anti-mosquito preparations, careful filling of hip flasks and tiffin carriers. The light will not fail for a few hours yet, but every mind is fixed on the thought of a night in the forest.

Well, not every mind. There are distractions. Charlie finds Gus even more helpless than usual, unable to get a single thing for himself. In the guest bedroom Sir Wyndham can get no sense out of Minty, even after he has emptied her bag of its clinking booty of boxes, lighters, cigarette cases and ivory ornaments. At the palace the Nawab has disappeared into the zenana, although the sound of screaming, growling and nervous feminine laughter gives his sniggering servants some idea of his location. In his dressing room Prince Firoz cannot decide between the belted English jacket and the German stalking coat the Margrave of Stumpfburg gave him last year. Sartorial indecision is always a sign of stress with Firoz, and eventually the problem is solved by flinging both items out of the window.

Some hunters seem to have more complex packing to perform than others. Mr Birch’s servants gingerly lift a box stencilled with red US Army
WARNING
markings into one of the cars. The Khwaja-sara is filtering something green and sludgy through a muslin bag. Pran is left to wait, sitting in his alcove, dressed in brand new white-hunter garb, his socks pulled up to his knees and his oversized hat shading his eyes so completely that he has to crick his neck backwards to see the world outside. He has tried to mention certain things to the Picturewallah, such as his suspicion that the silver-suit boy is trying to kill him, and the way the other side seems just as keen as the Nawab’s party on taking compromising pictures of the Major. No one has time to listen. He swings his legs, banging his heels nervously against the stone seat. He is not looking forward to the hunt at all.

Jean-Loup is upstairs in the palace, helping Imelda, De Souza and the Swedish exotic dancer to polish off the last of the joy powder. Most of them have made some attempt to change into hunting gear. A few hats. An artistic khaki wrap. Everyone has a gun, at least. That is the important thing. They like guns, this crowd. Guns and cokey.

At the appointed hour of five o’clock a line of cars is assembled. There is a certain strangeness round the edges of the scene. Men lope around, peering into car windows. A fashionably attired hunter experiences a sudden and violent nosebleed, while his screaming companion is forcibly parted from her weapon. Here is the Khwaja-sara, discreetly directing a servant with a tray of refreshments to offer drinks to some people, but not to others. Here are the chauffeurs, standing by passenger doors, then running round to gun the engines and spin the wheels in the dust. Pran finds himself sandwiched next to the Picturewallah in the last car of the convoy. During the long boneshaking drive to the Fatehpur forests, he dozes as the noble lectures him about the honour of the kingdom and the fabulous rewards which will accrue to him for helping persuade the sisterfucking English to maintain the Nawab’s line of succession.

When the Picturewallah shakes him awake, the rest of the convoy has disappeared. Their car has stopped in a clearing and the chauffeur is standing beside it, smoking a bidi. Around them tall forest trees rise up towards a grey sky. It must be shortly after sunset. Pran climbs out of the car, stretching his cramped legs, trying to shake the long drive out of his body. Ahead of the car the road, already a narrow rutted track, peters out into nothing. He peers into the green darkness. A dense, breathing world, smudged here and there with pink and red rhododendron bushes. All around the dusty car the trees quiver with birds, their blanket communication enveloping everything, a flow broken only by the sudden thrash and rustle of a langur monkey leaping from one branch to the next. The Picturewallah looks at the scene disdainfully, poking his wire glasses back on to the bridge of his nose.