Where Earth Meets Sky (5 page)

Each day they rode for an hour or more, along the road out of the cantonment and into the countryside, all of them silent for long periods, awed by the scene about them. Lily began to get a sense of Ambala as a tiny dot, like a speck of dust in the immensity of India. Her view of it widened, seeing the vivid green fields round the town, the rising sun glinting on streams and paddies and village tanks, the terracotta temples close to the river and the the wayside shrines and circular haystacks at the edges of the fields. She saw that Ambala was simply one of a myriad of settlements on the great Punjab plain stretching north to the mountains, to the snowy Himalaya whose meltwater poured down to become the great Ganges on its way to the Bay of Bengal.

It was the first time she had been out, anywhere, into wide countryside, not hemmed in by streets and buildings, and it made her see things afresh. The cantonment was an inward-looking world with its own bazaar, and rituals of church and flag-waving military parades and parties, striving to keep as separate as possible from the ‘native’ town: from India itself. This state of affairs was in fact maintained by a stream of Indian workers whose names Lily was gradually beginning to learn. She liked learning these new words, often from Srimala, who laughed unrestrainedly at the way she pronounced them.

‘The man with the donkey – he is the
dhobi
, the laundryman,’ she instructed. Lily soon came to recognize this man, who peered out through round, pebbly spectacles and carried a flat iron full of heated coals. ‘And the
mali
– he is doing the garden.’

The cantonment life seemed to be all-consuming, as if there was nothing else. Yet now, riding through the soft air of these beautiful, roseate dawns, she saw with wonder, with infatuation, that there was so much more; there was all this vast land, and the great arc of the sky, stretching almost unimaginably further than she could see.

During these morning rides, she began to get to know Susan Fairford differently.

Over the weeks Lily had watched the Fairfords and found them confusing. Charles Fairford, when he was at home, behaved like a model husband, ever courteous and charming to his wife, and attentive to his children during his brief times with them. The regiment had a number of animals attached to it as mascots and companions for the men. Some were dogs, but there was also a monkey called Nippy, and sometimes Charles Fairford carried Nippy home on his shoulder to see the children and let them watch his tricks. Lily was as charmed as they were by the tiny brown creature with its shiny, intelligent eyes.

At first Lily envied what seemed to be the idyll of a perfect marriage, lived out in splendour and comfort. But she soon grew to see the loneliness of Susan Fair-ford’s life. Charles was away a great deal. He dined in the Officers’ Mess several times a week, leaving Susan to find what friendship she could among the other army wives. Lily saw, and Susan allowed her to see, that Charles was a man married more to the army than to his wife. And though Charles was the picture of strength and health, India did not suit Susan, who was prone to prostrating stomach complaints and fevers which reduced her to a most wretched condition.

She was also forever in a nervous state about the children’s health, the hygiene of their clothes and food and who they mixed with, and her anxiety made her constantly irritable. But sometimes, in the gentle light of those morning rides, she relaxed and became more confiding, as if the uncertain light of dawn dissolved also some of the boundaries between mistress and servant. On a horse she became girlish and happy.

The burning, muggy months of Indian summer gave way to the pleasant days and chill nights of winter. For Lily, life revolved happily round the little world of the nursery, the children’s routine of meals and games and sleep, and its child’s rhythm made her feel secure.

One night, towards the end of October, she woke to the sound of knocking.

‘Miss Lily!’ Srimala hissed through the bedroom door.

Srimala was outside. ‘It is Mrs Fairford. She has been taken ill, and is asking for you.’

‘For
me
?’ Lily said, astonished.

‘The captain is not here—’

Captain Fairford had gone up country for a few nights with the regiment and Susan’s maid did not sleep in the house but went home to her family every night.

‘She has a fever and she wants you to come – quick, hurry!’

The night was cold, and Lily put her dressing gown on and followed Srimala. She had never been in Susan Fair-ford’s bedroom before and she held her gown round her, feeling nervous and as if she were trespassing. A candle was burning on the bedside table and the mosquito nets were lifted back over the bed frame out of the way. Lily could make out the restless form, lying under only a sheet and looking surprisingly small and vulnerable.

With grave eyes, Srimala looked across and beckoned to Lily, who moved nervously, closer to the bed.

‘Lily?’

‘Yes, Mrs Fairford.’

‘Give me a drink of water . . . Please . . . Srimala, you can go.’

Srimala shot an encouraging smile at Lily and disappeared with a gentle clink of bangles.

‘You may sit down,’ Susan Fairford said, after sipping from the glass of water. As Lily sat on the chair by the bed, she heard Susan murmur, ‘I do feel so very unwell.’

Lily was reminded of sitting beside Mrs Chappell’s bed in her last weeks.

‘Is there anything else you would like?’

Susan was obviously running a high fever. She gave a low moan, her face creasing in distress.

‘Oh, I do have such a terrible pain in my head . . . As if it’s going to crack open . . . If you could cool my head . . . There, in the drawer – handkerchiefs . . .’

Lily carefully laid a wet handkerchief across Mrs Fairford’s forehead, pressing it gently to her temples, the way Mrs Chappell used to ask her to. As she did so, Susan Fairford moaned again.

‘Oh, you dear girl . . . Oh, for someone to understand . . .’

She began to sob suddenly, tears rolling out from under her closed lids, her body quivering. Lily was quite unsure what to do, so she took the sodden handkerchief and cooled it again, pressing it gently to her mistress’s forehead, wondering what it was that was causing her such distress. But she did not feel it was her place to speak and she stood, gently caressing her temples. She wished Srimala was still there. After a few moments of the shuddering sobbing she said, as she remembered saying to Maud Chappell, ‘Is there something else I can do for you?’

‘Get me out of this country – that’s how you can help!’ Susan Fairford cried, in a distraught voice. ‘I hate India – it killed my baby and they’ll take Cosmo away from me, they’ll send him away and there’s nothing I can do about it, nothing! Oh God, what can I do? I’m so worthless, sitting about here in pretty clothes doing nothing, being nothing in my life! All I can ever so is sit and watch life go past. And they’ll take my beloved little boy away from me and he’s all I’ve got I’ll . . . I think I’ll go mad . . . !’

She curled in on herself, on her side like a child, and the sobbing became truly heartbroken, though in between she groaned at the extra pressure her crying was inflicting on her head. The sound of her grief reached down into Lily, touching something in her. When the woman had quietened a little, Lily said to her, ‘What do you mean, they’ll take him away?’

‘To school, of course . . .’ She spoke slowly, her voice slurred with exhaustion and pain. ‘He has to go . . . No choice – Fairford family, traditions and so forth. Eton, the army, India . . . That’s Cosmo’s life, whether he likes it, or I like it. Charles won’t hear of anything else. Boarding school before they’re five, get them out of India to prep school or they go native, send them home . . . My family’s not of their station . . .’ Her voice had been hard and bitter as she spoke but now her face contorted and she was crying again. ‘And there’s Cranbourne, that wretched place. It’s only in the family through Charles’s mother: her brother inherited the estate and he was far too odd to marry – and Charles’s brother William is just like him . . . Oh, I don’t want Cosmo to go. I can’t bear it!’

Lily took courage and reached across, taking Susan Fairford’s clammy hand in hers as she wept. Feeling the pressure of Lily’s hand on hers, she opened her eyes, startled, as if she had almost forgotten she was there.

‘Thank you,’ she said with such sudden humility that Lily felt tears slide into her own eyes. ‘You’re a dear. I do believe you are. I do so need someone to be kind to me.’

What about Captain Fairford? Lily thought. He was such a gentle and handsome man and he seemed so kind and polite. Perhaps Mrs Fairford was missing him?

‘The captain will be back very soon,’ she said, in an attempt to be reassuring.

Susan Fairford opened her eyes again. She looked sad, but also angry. Haltingly, she said, ‘The trouble is, you see, Charles was born in India. That makes all the difference. He can’t begin to understand how I pine for home, because for him, this is home. But it will never be for me.’ Her lips curled in disgust. ‘Filthy, stinking place, with all their heathen habits . . . D’you know, on winter mornings like now, when we take the horses out, just every so often there’s a smell, a whiff of England in winter or spring, that cold air. And just for a second then, I’m back in Sussex, and the orchards, the villages and little churches. I haven’t seen it for five years now and I so long to. Sometimes it feels like an illness, like grief . . . Can you understand?’

Lily thought about it. Did she know how to feel loss, grief, for a place, or a person? Move on, don’t miss anything, anyone, that was her way. After all, who had she ever had in her life who she could really lose or miss? She had barely let herself think of Mrs Chappell or England. She had shut it all away and left with barely a backward glance, had simply transferred herself here. No, to be truthful, she could not really understand.

‘I do a bit,’ she said, trying to be helpful. ‘But I don’t have a family at home, you see.’

Susan Fairford’s eyelids were drooping with pain and tiredness.

‘No?’ she said, drifting. ‘I suppose I know nothing about you, Lily. You’re a strange girl . . . But kind. I can see that . . .’

Lily sat by her as she drifted off to sleep and stayed with her until the dawn light seeped in at the windows.

Ambala, India, 1907

‘Ironside? Mr Ironside, the Daimler mechanic? Splendid – it
is
you!’

The round, pink face appeared among the natives who swarmed round Sam the moment he stepped down from the train. Sam was damned glad to see the bloke. He had no idea where to go next or how to deal with all these wogs, not knowing the ropes at all, so he stood looking over their heads and brushing smuts off his sleeve. It wouldn’t do to look uncertain of himself.

The fellow was barking commands in Hindustani, shooing all the Indians out of the way, and suddenly the hustle and bustle of coolies and tea vendors shifted away in search of someone else who might be interested. The two of them faced each other in the shade of the platform.

‘Corporal Hodgkins – sir.’ The fellow clicked his heels and made as if to salute, but as an afterthought, stuck out his hand instead. ‘At your service, sir. Welcome to Ambala Cant. The captain sent me to meet you, sir. They’re waiting for you at the Fairfords’ residence.’

‘The car . . . ?’

‘Already unloaded, sir, this morning. All ready to go, she is, and looking very nice, if I may say so. Hand me your bag, sir – no,
jao, jao
!’ He bawled at another coolie who approached to try and take the luggage. Sam could see the fellow enjoyed shouting about the place like that. ‘Let’s be going, shall we, sir?’ he continued unctuously. ‘You’ll find it more congenial at the house. Very nice, it is, at the Fairfords’.’

Corporal Hodgkins led the way along the platform, past the whole array of waiting rooms – first, second, third classes, one for ladies with its closed screen doors which immediately made Sam curious about what went on inside, his mind diverting irresistibly to the mysterious bodies of Indian women under those bright, silken clothes which they wore so seductively, and he had to drag himself back to the present. He sized Hodgkins up from behind. Not what you’d think of as a soldier, Sam thought. He reckoned that of the two of them he was the one who looked fitter for soldiering. His frame was trim and muscular. Nothing to be ashamed of there. But following the corporal he saw that the fellow was very robust, despite the schoolboy face. Sam wasn’t keen on these army types, expecting them to come on all superior, so he took childish pleasure in seeing that one of Hodgkins’s bootlaces had come loose and was trailing in the dust.

As they left the station building, Sam screwed up his eyes against the piercing sunlight. It was February, so the temperatures were pleasant, the sky a wintry blue. At once they were surrounded by more hullaballoo, a teeming crowd of humanity all desperate to scratch a living. Among the crowds he noticed human grotesques from which he averted his eyes – one ghastly figure squatting by the wall with no nose! And all muddled up with them were cows and filthy, skeletal dogs and huge, dusty crows. And the flies and piles of ordure – the stench of the place! God in heaven, what a hole! It was worse even than Delhi, if that were possible. The sights and smells turned his stomach.