Under the Jeweled Sky (19 page)

Around the table, classified documents were passed around and opened. David Appleton looked up. “Now, I realize how much thought has gone into planning for this already, but the Prime Minister has accepted an invitation to visit Australia within the same tour, which means that our watch has been reduced to only four days.”

“Four days?”

“I'm afraid so. Four days in India, four in Pakistan, and less than two in Ceylon.”

Jim Bevan pulled his spectacles off and let out a gasp of irritation. “Well that's nothing short of ridiculous.”

“Downing Street had very little choice in the matter, although you would have thought that somebody might have anticipated it earlier.”

“Marvelous,” muttered Tony Hinchbrook.

“Nevertheless, it is up to us to see to it that this visit feels particularly special, and there's to be no wandering from the agenda.”

“Four days,” Jim Bevan repeated. “It'll be impossible to extend the tour outside of Delhi in such a short time.”

“They're already aware of that.” Lucien flicked through the pages. “Looks like we'll be hosting the whole thing here, then the PM will fly straight on to Karachi.”

“I suppose it could simplify things quite nicely,” nodded Hinchbrook. “Get in and out as quickly as possible and there's less time for trouble.”

“What about Lady Macmillan's arrangements?”

“We'll have to work out a separate program. Get the DWs to organize a couple of tea parties or something.”

“Is there anything about the press arrangements?”

“There'll be three British correspondents with the party, but the home press is pretty much out of our hands.”

“How friendly are we anticipating this trip to be?”

“Very,” David Appleton said. “I don't want to detect so much as a whiff of protest, particularly when there are journalists around.”

“What about security?”

“I don't think we'll have too much to worry about there. Downing Street will be making the usual arrangements and our Indian colleagues will no doubt be pulling out all the stops. Our own security will be stepped up accordingly, so do mind your movements, gentlemen. It might prove embarrassing to turn up at a lady friend's with a bodyguard in tow.” A few smiles passed around the table. “We'll up the security in the residential compounds too, just to keep an eye on things.” He closed his dossier. “That's all for now. We'll reconvene at three.”

• • •

Vicky held court from his corner table in Apna Stop, a small hole-in-the-wall chai shop set along Janpath, hidden behind the chaotic stalls of the noisy bazaar that lined the commercial end of the street, selling everything from cotton sheets to baskets of raw spices and paan. It was rare that he ever put his hand in his pocket to pay for his own Coca-Cola, for everybody knew that he was a powerful man who could be persuaded to use his influence to magic a reliable job out of nowhere. He had placed scores of people, and come Sunday, there would always be a steady trickle of hopefuls stopping by at his table, faces filled with despair or gratitude, depending on his favors. Vicky took pleasure in their attention, reveling in the respect that they showered upon him, the clamor to pay for his food.

On Sundays, Vicky was no longer a servant. He was a businessman, commanding a certain high regard from those he passed on the street on his way to Apna Stop where he would spend most of the day, talking business with the regulars, taking his time whenever he noticed someone hovering nearby, hoping for an audience with the man who was said to control all the jobs in one of the residential enclaves in the diplomatic district. Sometimes Vicky would make up his mind before the applicant had stepped one foot beyond the door. Too ugly. Bad teeth. Dirty clothes. Too old. In the early days, he had soon found himself unable to manage the deluge. Word had spread and he would arrive to be greeted by a queue. It had quickly become a serious headache, not just for Vicky, but for the poor besieged café owner, so Vicky had paid a man to get rid of the hordes of no-hopers who showed no sign of being able to make the initial down payment. He wasn't a charity. He was putting his own reputation on the line every time he agreed to take on an applicant. They would need reliable, cast-iron written references in order to be considered for any of the private households, and if they didn't have the required documentation, then that would of course cost a lot more. If they were successful in their application, which he could by no means guarantee, they would then be bound to show their gratitude by way of a small commission paid to him out of their wage packet. He would not ask for much, just a very reasonable thirty per cent, and only for the first year, after which he would make a small reduction in his fee. He was not like those greedy, exploitative sorts who tricked workers into making agreements that they had no hope of ever repaying.

“It's a little cold today.” The café owner wiped Vicky's table over and replaced the tin ashtray with a clean one. “Winter is creeping around the corner.”

“It is October,” Vicky said, as though the man were stupid.

“How is business?”

“I cannot complain,” Vicky replied loftily.

“My cousin has a son who needs a good job,” the café owner mentioned casually, rubbing at an imaginary mark on the table's cracked surface.

“Then why don't you give him a job here?” Vicky said.

“He wants to be a driver.”

“And where did he learn to drive a car?”

“Anyone can drive a car,” the café owner said.

“And anyone can make your
makai
na
bharta
.” Vicky stubbed out his cigarette and lit another. The café owner nodded a little, letting out a small huff of exasperation.

“He's a useless fellow. His mother thinks he's some sort of guru, always lazing around and thinking he's better than everyone else.” Vicky dropped the spent match in the ashtray and appeared not to be listening. “And they expect me to make a man out of him? To pull a job for him out of thin air because they are too afraid to tell him the way it is?” He flicked his cloth in disgust. “You and I are successful, hard-working men, but you cannot teach that to these young people. Their heads are full of rubbish.” He tutted to himself and went off to serve his customers.

“Mr. Vivekanand?” Vicky startled slightly at the sight of the figure who had appeared silently before him. He glanced quickly over his shoulder to the man seated on the single chair outside the café door, the one he paid to stop people coming in and bothering him. The man outside raised an eyebrow at Vicky and offered him a small gesture of innocence. Vicky looked back at the stranger.

“Yes?” he said.

“I understand that you are looking for security guards for one of the residential enclaves near Connaught Place.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“The guard on the gate told me.”

Vicky looked the man over. Tall and lean, strongly set, with broad shoulders and a fearless expression; a man like that would have no need of a broker to find work. Perhaps he was a migrant, Vicky thought. Delhi was full of them, able-bodied, eager men who had drifted in from the rural areas looking to make their fortunes in the city. He was probably penniless, yet his clothes were clean and well-pressed, his face freshly shaven, hair combed and oiled. “And who are you?”

“My name is Ramakrishnan. Jagaan Ramakrishnan.”

“Well, Jagaan Ramakrishnan, you heard wrong, and I don't see people without an appointment. Can't you see that I am busy?” Vicky looked away with an air of boredom. The man stood his ground. “Hey!” Vicky snapped his fingers at the café owner. “Bring me a Coke, and make sure that it's cold.” The café owner brought the drink to the table, opening it in front of his customer. Vicky put the bottle to his lips, took a long swallow, then looked back at the stranger. “Are you still standing there?”

“I want a job at the enclave, as a night guard.”

“Oh do you now?” Vicky smiled his amusement. “And what makes you think that I have any interest in what you want?”

“I know what you are interested in,” said the man. He tossed a thick envelope on to the table. Vicky's eyes sliced toward it for a split second. His smile began to waver, feeling stiff under the stranger's cool glare.

“You seem very full of yourself,” Vicky said. “Particularly for a man in need of a job.”

“I want to be posted at the second guardhouse, the one on the corner between the two—”

“I know where the second guardhouse is,” Vicky snapped, setting down the Coke bottle in agitation. “Who do you think you are?”

“Check the envelope.”

Vicky slid it from the table and into his lap, opening it and thumbing through the money, his face reddening. Whoever this man was, he was clearly a fool for the taking. “Have you done this kind of work before?”

“I have done all kinds of work before,” he said.

“And where are your references?”

Jagaan reached into his pocket and pulled out two pieces of paper.

“I see,” Vicky said, looking them over carefully, pretending to examine each one in detail, camouflaging his poor literacy. “And how long have you been in Delhi?”

“A while.”

“You're a long way from home,” Vicky said. He judged that it would be a fair guess, the man's distinctive eyes a reliable indicator for those descended from the far northern tracts. The man gave him no answer. “Still, I suppose you look like you can handle yourself.” He pushed the envelope inside his shirt. “I'll see what I can do.

• • •

Almost two thousand miles Jagaan had traveled, from Amritsar in the north to Ootacamund in the far south, crossing six states, passing through cities and towns and villages in a succession of crowded trains and cramped, overloaded buses, sleeping on the move, breaking his journey in the bigger stations where he could wash properly and clean his clothes and eat a hot meal. He tried to recall the moment when he had found the doctor's house, the sign on the gate,
Iona
carved into the softwood, the way he had gone straight to the door and knocked on it without hesitating. He had gone to fulfill one purpose, to announce himself to Dr. Schofield, to tell him who he was and why he was there. The newspaper announcement had said that she had been married in London, the notice placed by Dr. G. J. M. Schofield of Iona, Ootacamund, and it was Dr. Schofield Jagaan had come to see, knowing that he had nothing to lose.

A middle-aged woman had come to the door, plump and distracted with a duster in her hand, and had looked him up and down with an air of superiority. When he asked if this was the house of Dr. Schofield, the woman had demanded to know who he was and what business he had being there. Jagaan had said that he had come to speak to Dr. Schofield on the matter of his daughter's wedding. It was the first time he had said her name aloud for as long as he could remember, and it had echoed right through him, but the woman must have misheard or misunderstood, because she had given him a bemused frown and said that Miss Sophie didn't live here. She was Mrs. Lucien Grainger now, and she lived in New Delhi, in a very expensive house. Her husband was a diplomat, practically an ambassador, Mrs. Nayar had said proudly, as though it were her own daughter she was boasting of. She had kept on talking, oblivious to his shock while he stood there, his whole world upended at the mention of her name and the news that she was here in India.

He had to see her. Only then would he know what to do. So he had gone north again, a thousand miles, at times feeling her presence so surely that he could almost reach out and touch her. He never once doubted that he would find her; he just hadn't expected it to cost quite so much. His uncle's money was now gone, all of it, and Amritsar seemed a long way away.

Sophie shook an aspirin from the bottle and swallowed it with a mouthful of water before returning to her wan reflection in the dressing table mirror. Taking up her lipstick, she leaned forward and dabbed the ruby red top and bottom before slicking it into place with the tip of her finger and pressing her lips together. She sat back and sighed at herself, opened a small drawer and chose a pair of earrings, then fastened them before reaching for the single string of pearls that had been given to her one Christmas long ago, when she had been in a dark and lonely place. She held them in her hand for a moment, turning them over, thinking of dear, sweet Fiona Ripperton. She would be an old lady now. Sophie slipped the pearls around her throat and closed the small diamond clasp.

There would be no getting out of dinner tonight, even though she had sworn just last Friday that she would rather throw herself off a cliff than sit through another interminable evening with her husband's cronies. Perhaps she might feel differently if Lucien didn't insist on getting quite so drunk at these things. Not that everyone else was the picture of sobriety. Everything seemed to revolve around drinks, at any given time of day. In the morning it would be sherry, or bloody Marys if there had been a party the night before. As the clock neared lunchtime, gin and tonic would be offered, then wine with lunch, perhaps a liqueur afterward with coffee. The sherry would reappear should a caller drop by in the afternoon, then cocktails at six before facing a dinner served with the usual selection of vintages. It was a wonder anyone remained standing.

This was not the India she had fallen in love with, this colorless comedy of manners, each morning heralding the same long, boring routine stretching dully ahead. She went through the motions, smiled when she was expected to smile, shook hands with people she neither knew nor cared about, and stood by her husband's side when she was required to do so, running the same routines, having the same wretched conversations, eating the same food from the same table over and over again. There were times when she would sit and brush her hair in the mirror and yearn for the clatter of the typing pool and the bitter smell of burnt toast in a cramped, steamy kitchen. She shouldn't complain. It wasn't Lucien's fault. She should count herself lucky that a man like him would choose her for his wife.

She wanted a child so desperately, and she knew this now more deeply than ever. That first day, when Tessa had asked her outright if they were planning to have children, she had felt her heart burst open with the shock of her yearning. All those years locked in her own denial, unable to allow herself to even think of it, a baby, soft and warm, tiny in her arms, slumbering against her skin. How the void inside her ached.

They had had another argument last night. Lucien had not come home until one in the morning, and instead of going to bed at eleven as she usually did, Sophie had stayed up, picking over her frustration until she was so cross that she barely knew what to do with herself. By the time Lucien came through the door, she had been so exhausted that the wind had gone from her sails. She had intended to ask him where he had been all evening, and if he was planning on making a habit of leaving her on her own like this several nights a week, but something prevented her from uttering the words. It would make her sound like a shrew, and she had sworn to herself that she would never become that woman. Instead, she had told him that he might have let her know that he was going to be so late, to which he replied that he was tired and in no mood to deal with her petulance.

“Aren't you ready yet?” Lucien appeared in the doorway.

Sophie stood up from the dressing table, the train of her black evening gown spilling to the floor, and picked up the shawl draped over the corner of the bed. Delhi was cold at this time of year, and it was damp and foggy outside. Lucien flicked his eyes over her slender form for a moment, then turned and walked away. It seemed that only yesterday he would have sat with her while she dressed, helping her fasten her zipper, placing jewelry around her neck, patting her bottom affectionately. Sophie took up her small evening bag, a black velvet pouch with a pearl clip, and dropped her lipstick inside with a gold compact and a lace handkerchief.

Outside, Lucien was waiting for her on the porch, smoking a cigarette. “At last,” he muttered as she stepped out to join him, sliding her hand into the crook of his elbow as they headed toward the waiting car.

“Do try not to get too drunk this evening, darling,” she said gently. “It'll only make you feel ghastly in the—”

“Oh for God's sake.” He lifted his arm clear of her hand. “You're not going to start all that again, are you? Because if you are, then you can bloody well stay here with your damned headache.”

“No!” Sophie forced a smile and caught up with him. “I'm sorry, darling. It's just that I—”

“What? Just that you can't stop yourself from being a nag? Because that's what you're turning into. Nobody likes a nag. It's a bloody bore.”

Sophie quieted and slid into the back seat behind the driver, Lucien walking around to the other side and wrenching the door open irritably before climbing in beside her.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

Lucien glanced down at his wife's hand over his and ran his thumb over her wedding ring, circling its looseness around her finger. There had been more of her when they married in the early summer, and he remembered a time when she had filled her evening dress with soft curves and promising glimpses of smooth alabaster flesh. That first night after the simple ceremony in the somber surroundings of Marylebone register office, as he admired her in the moonlight, he could barely believe his good fortune. She was like a Canova, her skin almost translucent in its delicate paleness, her breasts soft and rounded like perfect fruit. With his eyes closed, she could almost have been Catherine.

• • •

“There you are!” Tessa Wilde negotiated her way through the crowd and took hold of Sophie's arm. “For a horrible moment, I thought you weren't coming!”

“So did I,” said Lucien, placing a kiss on Tessa's cheek. “Where's that husband of yours?”

“In the billiard room, talking shop with David Appleton and his entourage. Oh! Will you look at that!” She lifted her hand to his face and wiped away the tiny flash of lipstick she had left there with her thumb. “There! Much better! We can't have you wandering into battle wearing half my make-up, now can we?” Lucien took his handkerchief from his pocket and rubbed the spot of skin briskly.

“See you later,” he said, disappearing into the throng.

“Well!” Tessa huffed. “Thank God you're here. My face is positively aching from all that smiling. Don't those men ever stop talking?” She took two glasses of champagne from a passing orderly and handed one to Sophie. “I wouldn't mind so much if it stopped at the door, but of course Stephen will want to give me a blow-by-blow account of every little thing that was said when we get home.” She shook her head and took a sip from her glass. “I don't know why he thinks I'm interested.”

Sophie tipped her eyes in agreement, encouraging a sense of camaraderie between them, as though she too had to endure hours of tedious detail from her husband rather than the long silences that had ceased to be uncomfortable. She had given up any pretense of real conversation, preferring to stick to the safe ground of what was in the newspapers or who was coming to dinner. Lucien had not the slightest interest in her views and had displayed a penchant for making her feel stupid when she aired them anyway. “What do you know about it?” he would say, flexing an air of superiority. “That's the trouble with you women,” he would remark. “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”

Tessa let her eyes wander the room. “Good heavens,” she hissed under her breath. “Whatever is Ros Appleton wearing?” Sophie waited a moment before stealing a glance, only to be caught red-handed. Tessa clasped hold of her arm, cursing her behind gritted teeth as they moved toward the offender. There was no other way out of it. “Ros!” Tessa said brightly. “What a
heavenly
dress!”

• • •

That night Sophie lay in bed nursing a hot-water bottle. Her period had come again.