The Peacock Spring (25 page)

‘My father would stop my allowance. I should have to leave the regiment. You see, we’re all in leading strings.’

Monkey strings, thought Una, ‘playing to the drum’ – but I’m not, thought Una. Nor is Ravi.

‘Besides,’ Vikram went on. ‘What bait nowadays can I hold out that would compare with his?’

‘If she needs a bait,’ said Una, ‘she’s not worth having.’

‘That’s what I tell myself. It makes not the slightest difference.’ He turned. ‘There was one night, one special night . . .’

‘I know,’ said Una. ‘I was there.’

‘Were you? I don’t remember you. Next morning I bought her a ring.’ His hand shook as he brought a case out of his pocket and showed it to Una, a small, deep-coloured ruby in a
plain circlet. ‘I bought it back from my father’s treasury after they seized it. It was all I could afford. Anyway, before I could give it to her she had your father’s diamond
– that diamond!’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Una.

‘Once upon a time,’ said Vikram, and though he held his head high, she could see his wet cheeks. ‘I could have given her a ruby really the size of what they say, a
pigeon’s egg; pearls in ropes and emeralds bigger than you have ever seen . . . Oh well!’ He put the case back in his pocket. ‘It will make a nose ring for my orthodox Paralampur
wife.’

‘How do I know you will be faithful?’ Una had teased Ravi.

‘How should I not be?’

‘Your Krishna had sixteen thousand wives.’

‘Principal ones only eight. You will be the only one. In any case,’ said Ravi, ‘I could not afford more.’

‘You cannot afford one,’ said Hem, but Ravi and Una would not acknowledge that.

‘When the danger time is past. Una will come back and we shall declare ourselves. Meanwhile I shall have won the Tagore. Sir Edward will have double reason to agree.’

‘Agree to what?’

‘That we should marry.’

‘Idiot boy. Englishmen don’t let their daughters marry at fifteen.’

‘Not if she is with baby?’

‘Besides,’ said Una, ‘I count myself as Indian now.’

‘Your father does not.’

‘I don’t want to be English any more.’

‘But you are.’

‘Ravi has an uncle in Kulu who has promised him some land,’ said Una. ‘Ravi says it is fertile there and we shall grow fruit.’ Una saw a cloud of cherry blossom below
shining Himalayas. ‘We shall build ourselves a home there, a little hut like this.’

‘And how will you furnish this lover-nest?’ asked Hem.

‘We won’t. I tell you we shall be Indian: some rugs or mats; cushions; takia – much like what Ravi has now. We shall eat off thalis and katooris.’

‘No, we shall be more simple than that,’said Ravi. ‘We shall eat off banana leaves.’

‘Bananas don’t grow in Kulu.’

Una ignored that. ‘Christopher is teaching me to cook Indian food. We shall have hens, a cow, be peasants.’

‘You are not peasants.’

‘N-no. I shall have to learn to type. Type Ravi’s poems.’

‘You can’t eat poems. On what will you live?’

‘On Ravi’s prize money.’ They were astonished that Hem should ask. ‘You see, you can eat poems,’ said Una, ‘and Ravi will write others. When I am twenty-one I
shall have money from my mother.’

‘Six years is a long time to go hungry.’

‘You are very disagreeable,’ said Ravi.

‘And you are a pair of cuckoos in air.’

‘Not if you will help us,’ Una begged.

‘Help yourselves,’ said Hem, and left them.

‘Why is Hem so cross?’ asked Una.

‘He is afraid for you. Afraid of what your father and that whore might do to you – and afraid of handing you over to careless me. I am careless, Una.’ Ravi was serious for
once. ‘You will always have to be the sensible one.’

Una did not feel sensible. ‘Perhaps if Hem had helped us, we might not have been so childish,’ she was to say. It was childish, but then there is always a childish excitement in
running away.

‘Water melon. Water melon. Cool juice of water melon.’ The clanking train wheels below Una seemed to be saying that – had said it all through the night.
Brought in by camel from the riverbeds, water melons were sold on every platform, their flesh palest green and coral red dripping with juice. Una’s mouth was parched, every bone in her body
ached; her eyelids felt brittle and dry and her temples throbbed. It is fun to do things with Ravi – that had been her gospel. ‘Fun – until it becomes fact,’ Hem had
said.

To begin with, it had been fun. ‘After the wedding lunch I am to go to Bulbul’s,’ she had told Ravi when they made their plans. ‘They won’t need me any
more.’

‘To be Miss Gooseberry?’

‘Yes. I am to spend the night with Bulbul.’

‘Have you told her?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Oh! You will pretend to go to Bulbul’s.’

‘Don’t forget. Chinaberry will take me.’

‘He will be winked – if you do as I tell you. First thing in the morning I shall take leave from Ganesh. “I have to attend to my maternal uncle’s funeral
rites.”’ Ravi put on a solemn expression. ‘As I am the eldest living male relative, Ganesh cannot refuse me. How much money have you?’ Ravi asked Una.

‘About two hundred rupees. Edward gave them to me for spending on our tour, but I didn’t buy anything.’

‘Little thrift! And I have some hundred and fifty saved. We are rich. We can go anywhere.’

‘But where are we going?’

‘There is a train for Varanasi about six o’clock.’ Ravi’s eyes sparkled. ‘It is the day before Baisakhi, so there will be many pilgrims. We shall be pilgrims too.
That will please my grandmother.’

‘Why please your grandmother?’

‘Because it is to her we shall be going. I am very favourite.’

‘But – will she accept us?’ To Una, grandmothers were even more likely to be shocked than parents. ‘If your father and mother . . .’

‘My grandmother,’ said Ravi, ‘is in the third stage.’

‘What third stage?’

‘Of life. We Hindus have, or could have, four stages in our lives. First, like me, as a student, when we go “out into the forest” as we call it, learning to fend for ourselves
– nowadays it is more the city jungle. Next we should be “householders”.’

‘You will have to be that now, in Kulu, with our baby – and I suppose I shall too, only I haven’t really been a student yet. But at least,’ said Una, ‘I
shan’t have to darn your socks; one doesn’t need socks in India.’

‘Kulu can be most cold – you will certainly darn my socks.’ Then Ravi said with reluctance, ‘I do not know that I am ready to be a householder.’

‘You will have to be. You have done it now,’ Hem would have said, but Una slipped her hand into Ravi’s. ‘We shall simply be us. Tell me about your grandmother’s
third stage.’

‘The third stage is retirement – not in the way you mean, but in our way, a shedding of the world. She has no concern in it. That’s why,’ said Ravi, ‘she will not
interfere with us.’

As Ravi had planned, Una went in at Bulbul’s gate – ‘We’re not grand enough to have gatemen,’ – and hid behind the hedge until Chinaberry drove away; then, on
tiptoe in case any of Bulbul’s household stirred, came out of the gate and walked swiftly round the corner to Ravi; she would have run but that might have drawn attention. Ravi was waiting in
a taxi driven by a turbaned Sikh. The driver had been smiling. ‘Does he guess?’ asked Una, fearful.

‘How could he?’ But, all the same, Ravi stopped the taxi at a house in a quiet road. They pretended, as Una had done at Bulbul’s, to step inside the garden then, holding
Una’s hand, Ravi led her stealthily past the rows of modest villa houses, their stucco shining yellow in the sun, windows shuttered against the heat, to one that had a small separate gate.
‘Hsst!’ said Ravi as he cautiously opened it. Ravi, thought Una, would have made a splendid actor.

‘Where are we?’

‘This is Hem’s annexe – where he lives.’

‘But Hem said he wouldn’t help us.’

‘I haven’t asked him but I have the key.’

The annexe was a little building standing in a patch of sun-dried grass and separated from the house by a line of hibiscus bushes; the long stamens of the flowers in the circle of brilliant cup
always looked to Una like tongues thrust out; let them be out, she thought and, defiantly, picked a flower; she brushed her cheek with it and it left a pollen stain. The annexe had its own front
door. Ravi took out his key and opened it.

So this was where Hem lived – in this shuttered coolness grateful after the heat; as Una’s eyes grew accustomed to the dim light she saw how neat and practical was the room; nothing
could have been more different from Ravi’s poetically shabby hut. There was an iron hospital bed with a red blanket – Hem had probably bought them as discards; a wardrobe of cheap wood
was built in – no clothes on a string for Hem; he was, Una guessed, as private as she. There was a filing cabinet, a wooden chair and a desk with notebooks and papers exactly placed; a
typewriter. In the cupboard of the kitchen beyond she could see a sink, a small gas stove, a shelf of enamel plates and mugs, a saucepan, ‘and he uses that often to boil up specimens,’
said Ravi, shuddering. A shelf had been put up for medical books and, on the filing cabinet, a microscope was carefully protected by a cellophane cover. ‘Doctor Babbletosh lent him that
– and gave Hem the typewriter.’ These told of Hem as a doctor, but there was no clue of Hem himself, no picture or photograph or ornament; no sign of food such as Ravi’s chillies
and spices; no tulsi plant. ‘Doesn’t Hem have anything of his own?’ asked Una.

Ravi laughed. ‘He wouldn’t know what to do with it. But I do – I do.’ Ravi picked Una up and laid her on the bed.

‘Not here.’ Una struggled. ‘Not on Hem’s bed.’

‘A new experience for it, I bet.’ Ravi’s face came closer to hers. His hands were undoing her dress, but Una still resisted.

‘No, Ravi.’

‘You have to strip anyhow.’

‘No.’

‘Why?’asked Ravi.

‘You said we wouldn’t because of the baby.’

‘I have unsaid.’

‘And Hem – wouldn’t like it.’

‘But I like it,’ and, as always, Ravi had his will. Ravi – ravishment. Is that where the word comes from? Of course not, thought Una, one is Hindi, the other from the French;
but today Una was not ravished, she could not surrender herself – perhaps because it was Hem’s bed.

Afterwards they dyed her hair in the sink: ‘Your skin is brown enough from swimming and sunbathing, but your hair . . . you must wear a wig,’ Ravi had said.

‘It’s too hot for a wig.’

‘Then we must dye you.’

Ravi painted her eyebrows and lashes with the same dye; it stung her eyes and the tears made the dye run. ‘All the better,’ said Ravi. ‘As my bride you have just been parted
from your mother. Your eyes are red with weeping. Now go and dry your hair in the sun.’

‘But I’m naked.’

‘Put on your bodice and skirt.’

‘What shall I wear?’ she had asked Ravi.

‘Have you a sari?’

‘I have the Rajasthani clothes Alix bought us for the Paralampur fancy dress.’

‘Rajasthani will be a little uncommon,’ Ravi had demurred, ‘but never mind. There will be pilgrims from all over. Go and get them,’ and, ‘Too clean,’ he had
pronounced when she had brought the long full skirt, the bodice that stopped below her breasts, the orrhni – veil. ‘Give them to me and I will dirty them a little. You always wear
chappals; they will do for your feet, but this jewellery looks too trick. Haven’t you any bangles?’

‘Hal has some silver ones.’

‘If they are not too good. It doesn’t matter if they shine; being a bride your jewellery might be new, and I will be a good husband and get you some earrings and beads. You must have
a bundle and I will get a tin trunk for myself.’ It was a small yellow tin trunk, painted with roses; it made Una laugh.

Now, as she put on the skirt and bodice – they looked used and crumpled – she remembered them at the Paralampur dance, stiff in their new brightness. It had been a hurtful idea to
dress her and Hal alike. Una could still see the folds of Hal’s skirt swinging as she danced, the delicious plumpness under her bodice, the way her earrings and bangles had tinkled as she
tossed her head and talked, excited because even the grown men, Vikram’s friends, had wanted to dance with her. Una had hardly danced at all, but spent most of the evening talking to the old
rajah who had wept a little – because of the wine, perhaps – as he told her how the Singhs of Paralampur were descended from the sun – and now here was his staid little companion
running away with the sun itself! She would not, though, let Ravi know she thought of him as this and, ‘You have ruined Hem’s towel,’ she said severely.

‘He will have another.’ Ravi threw it into a corner.

‘At least wash out the sink. Ravi, what have you moved from it?’

‘One of Hem’s horrors.’ It was the body of a squirrel in a jar of spirit; with it, on a slab of marble, were a dissecting knife and a small array of tools. ‘Ugh!’
said Ravi.

‘It isn’t “ugh”. Hem has to understand. He must have been dissecting,’ but Ravi only said “Ugh!” again and pushed the slab aside.

‘Come, let me plait your hair. It’s dry enough. Look, I have bought you such a pretty chotti,’ and he showed Una the black thread cord ending with silk tassels for tying her
plait. But Una was still contrite. ‘We have spoiled Hem’s work, disturbed it.’

They had disturbed more than that. When Hem came in that evening and opened the shutter on to his garden, he saw his disordered room.

‘We must clear up,’ Una had said.

‘We haven’t time. It is getting towards the rush hour; we may have to wait an hour or more for a bus or to pick up a phut-phut.’

‘But it isn’t fair to leave it . . .’

‘Hem will understand.’

Hem understood only too well. Una’s small case stood on his desk where it had pushed aside his papers; it was not properly fastened, a strap of ribbon was hanging out and he opened the
lid. The clothes Una had worn were carelessly stuffed inside; almost mechanically Hem took them out and folded them: a dress, a slip, a lacy pair of briefs and a brassiere, absurdly small, it
seemed to Hem.

‘But . . . I must have some underclothes,’ Una had said.