Bhowani Junction (7 page)

I thought, now’s the time to put that right about last Saturday. I said, ‘Good night, Victoria.’ I caught her in my arms and kissed her properly on the mouth. I wasn’t going to say anything or ask for anything that time. I’d learned my lesson about asking permission.

In my arms she was like the signal post, stiff and cold and hard. I stopped kissing her and asked her what was the matter.

She hit me as hard as she could with her fist, right on the nose. The blood spurted out, and my eyes watered. I staggered about for a minute, then I gasped, ‘Oh, Vicky, don’t do that. What
is
the matter?’

She stood there close to me in the dark, breathing like a train. She said, ‘Macaulay tried to rape me. You make me feel like a bitch in heat. All of you. Except Kasel. He’s the only gentleman here. Now go away!’

She ran, stumbling, toward her house.

I hardly slept the rest of that night. Then I got through my morning’s work somehow and hung around, smoking cigarettes and drinking tea, until I could go to Victoria’s, a little before four. We were supposed to go to the Collector’s with Colonel Savage at five. Before we went I meant to find out about this Macaulay business so that I could tell Savage and see that Macaulay was punished. In the night I had thought of beating Macaulay up, but it was too serious for that.

Victoria was sitting reading in the parlour when I got to Number 4 Collett Road. She must have known what I had come for, but all she said was, ‘You’re an hour early, Patrick. I’m reading.’ She spoke quickly.

I said, ‘Victoria, what happened last night?’

‘It’s none of your business,’ she said. ‘I can look after myself.’

I cried, ‘You can’t! Tell me, I must know. Then we’ll tell Colonel Savage. I’ll tell him by myself if you will feel embarrassed. How—how bad was it? What did he do?’

She looked at me for a while, then said, ‘You don’t really
want to know, Patrick, do you? But I’ll tell you. But—you’ve got to promise not to do anything about it.
Anything,
do you understand?’

I grumbled, but I had to promise. She said, ‘Kasel was working at the desk when I got up there. Your chuprassi was asleep in the corner, I think. I asked Kasel—I’m going to call him Ranjit; that’s what his name is—if he’d seen the Gurkhas come on the trains. I told him we’d never had Gurkhas in Bhowani before. “Then we shall all be safe now,” he said. He was being sarcastic, you understand.’

‘I understand,’ I said. ‘He is a Congress wallah, that’s why he doesn’t like the military. But what has this got to do with—what happened?’

‘A lot,’ Victoria said sharply. ‘When something important happens to you, you remember all of it or nothing. Don’t interrupt. I told you you wouldn’t like it. I told Ranjit that even if he didn’t like the military he was much better at dealing with them than you were.’

I moved in my chair, but she went on. ‘Ranjit said, “We Indians have learned now to bend a little with the wind. Savage is a big wind.” Ranjit has a sense of humour, you know, even though his eyes always look so sad.

‘Well, we sat there for a bit, talking. Then I began to copy out some of the working time-tables and I didn’t really notice anything more until it began to get dark and Lieutenant Macaulay came in. He had a bulging haversack slung on his shoulder. He told me Savage would certainly take you into every village within ten miles. He told me Savage’s nickname among the officers was “the Sahib”. I knew that already. He didn’t take any notice of Ranjit. He behaved almost as if Ranjit didn’t exist. After a time Ranjit got up and said he was going off to have his supper.’

Victoria stared straight at me while she was talking, and never blinked. ‘Macaulay asked him if he was going to his house, and if he would be gone long. I didn’t think anything of it. I was a fool, I suppose. Ranjit told Macaulay he was going to eat in the refreshment room on the platform, and Macaulay told him not to hurry himself.’

Her voice was dry and her eyes hard and angry and fixed on me. I began to feel very uncomfortable.

‘Ranjit went out. The chuprassi woke up, saw it was dark, and shuffled off. I heard Macaulay coming close to me. I went on working. He dropped his haversack on top of my papers and said, “Take a look in there.” I opened it. There were two bottles of beer, a cold chicken, metal plates, knives, forks, salt, pepper, bread, napkins—everything. He sat down on the table close to me and said, “That’s for us. My name’s Graham. Do you like beer?”’

I knew Victoria did like beer. She didn’t drink it much, but I could imagine how wonderful those two bottles must have looked to her then. My God, what wouldn’t I have done for even one of them out on the line?

Victoria said, ‘Macaulay opened the bottles and poured out the beer. We ate. It was a good chicken, very tender, but I did not enjoy it. I hardly even tasted it in my mouth. Macaulay was sitting so close that he gave me the creeps. His fly buttons were right under my eyes. But what could I say? How could I get out without making a fool of myself, perhaps? I said to myself, He won’t have the nerve to try any tricks. I ate slowly, then more slowly. But I had to finish some time, and Ranjit didn’t come back and didn’t come back. You see, Macaulay had spoken in such a way that Ranjit thought I would
like
to be left alone with Macaulay, that we had an understanding. Do you see?’

I muttered, ‘Kasel had no business to think that. He ought not to have left you.’

She blazed up at me. ‘You think so? How the hell could Ranjit know Macaulay’s a sex maniac? Tell me that!’

She calmed down and went on. ‘I felt trapped in the chair, so I got up and walked to the window. That was a mistake. As soon as I’d done it I knew. Macaulay kept talking, but he came and stood dose to me, a little behind me, not touching me. Then he said, “By the way, didn’t you know Johnny Tallent?”’ Victoria stopped dead.

At last I had to ask her, ‘Who’s Johnny Tallent?’

She said, ‘Johnny Tallent was a captain. Nearly three years
ago. He used to say I had bedroom eyes. He ought to know.’ She stopped again.

I thought, Why does she have to bring this up? Why doesn’t she tell me what Macaulay did or tried to do, and not drag in Kasel’s being so nice and her having gone to bed with this Captain Tallent? I thought, She’s doing it on purpose because she wants to shake me off, and she’s making me miserable and angry and jealous. But I did not say anything, and after a while she continued.

‘I used to like Johnny Tallent. I thought he was honest. He never pretended to want anything except to go to bed with me. He used to say I was beautiful, and he meant it, but that’s what he said it for. He never pretended he would marry me. He thought that because he was a British officer and I was a cheechee girl I’d do anything. And—Patrick, you’re so determined we can’t change, you ought to understand this—he was right. Slowly, slowly, I
did
feel I had to do it. Do you understand? Do you?’

I put my head in my hands. I understood, but the tears of rage and sadness were wet on my fingers.

‘So I did. Several times. Then he left Delhi. But do you know what he’d done? He’d written to his friend Graham Macaulay in Burma or wherever Macaulay was, and told him about me. I expect he called me a nice bit of homework. Eightannas, of course. And when Macaulay met me, he remembered. He remembered, and so he said to me, “By the way, didn’t you know Johnny Tallent?” I told him I did. I kept my back to him. Macaulay said, “Johnny was a great pal of mine. We were like brothers, almost. Everything he likes, I like—only more so. Much more.” He pressed forward and touched me all the way down my back, leaning over me. He talked all the time, but he hardly had any breath. You know what he felt like, pressing against me? Like a mad camel. You’ve seen camels on musth? He put his arms round me and held my breasts tightly; he was just ready to——’

‘Don’t!’ I shouted suddenly. ‘Shut up! I don’t want to hear about it! I’m going to go out and kill him!’ I jumped up.

She said, ‘Sit down. I jabbed back with my elbow—hard.
He moaned and bent forward. The sweat was shining on his face; those horrible little eyes were dulled like stones; his moustache was wet where he’d licked it; and his mouth was open. But he pressed on again, saying nothing.’

She looked at me and said very quietly, ‘Suddenly I was frightened, worse than I’ve ever been. I opened my mouth to scream, and at that moment Ranjit knocked and came in. He stopped in the door-way, and I broke free from Macaulay. Macaulay turned round slowly. I ran to my chak and sat down, trembling, shivering. I heard Macaulay say, “Got to go. The lines.” Then he went.’

‘Did Kasel see—anything?’ I asked. I couldn’t have borne it if Kasel had seen anything.

Victoria raised her eyebrows a little. She said, ‘No, Patrick. He didn’t see. But he knew. He got me some water. He was blushing. He wanted to report it to Colonel Savage, but——’

‘My God, he’d better not!’ I shouted. ‘I don’t want any bloody Wogs mixed up in this.’

‘Oh, you don’t?’ Victoria said. ‘Well, that’s too bad, because Ranjit
is
mixed up in it, and he’s the only one of all of you men who doesn’t make me feel like a bitch.’

She took her eyes off my face for the first time. She looked at the sort of beaded screen that hid the empty fireplace, and spoke quite gently, as if it was all over and we were having a chat, an ordinary talk, about a picnic or something. She said, ‘I asked him why Colonel Savage called him a depilated Sikh. He told me he was a Sikh by birth. It was very clever of Savage to know that, he said, since he wasn’t wearing a beard. That meant he’d renounced his religion. He’s an atheist. His mother made him one. We had to talk about something all that time until you came back. His mother says religion is the opiate of the people, the thing that helps keep people in their chains. He lives with her, here in the city. She is a wonderful woman, he says—a widow, of course. Ranjit’s a B.A. from Punjab University, you know, and——’

I shouted, ‘Do not keep talking about Kasel! Come on. It is time for us to go to the Collector’s.’

‘All right,’ she said. ‘But remember, you’re not to do anything about Macaulay.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ I said.

She said, ‘I’ve told you, Patrick. I’ve warned you. Don’t say you haven’t been warned. No, I’m not coming on your Norton. I have an Army bicycle. I will need it after we’re finished there.’

‘I’ll give you a tow.’ She was so worked up about me and Macaulay that I decided I had better not tell anyone after all. It wouldn’t be worth it. She got on the push bike. It was a heavy ugly thing, painted dark green and weighing about two maunds—what the Army calls a G.S. bicycle. There was a lever on one handlebar to work the front brake, but the rear brakes worked by back-pedalling. So when Victoria put her hand on my shoulder and I towed her slowly up the Pike she had to lift her feet on to one of the frame members so that the pedals could go round. It was a man’s bike, of course. I couldn’t help thinking that anyone in front would be able to see half-way up her skirt, and that got me to wondering—had she spoken the truth, the whole truth? Had she led Macaulay on? But it was only because I loved her that I felt so confused and helpless.

So it was just unlucky that as we turned into the Collector’s driveway I saw Colonel Savage and Birkhe right under my wheel. I jammed on my brakes, and Savage jumped aside, but Victoria wobbled forward and her bike keeled over and she had to slip off quickly and very awkwardly in that tight skirt.

Savage said, ‘That’s why they give WAC (I)s khaki safety-first knickers.’ He smiled at her, that smile I knew, and it was too much for me.

I jerked the Norton on to its stand and I shouted, ‘We have had enough of those kind of jokes, sir! Victoria is under your orders because you were unfair and sent telegrams to your friends in Delhi, but she does not have to be insulted. Even Mrs Fortescue can’t order her to stay here and be insulted.’

Savage had stopped smiling and looked at me, his blue eyes going flat and calm.

I said, ‘I am going to report something else that happened too. Last night.’

Victoria sighed, and I noticed the Gurkha, Birkhe, standing there. I didn’t want any natives mixed up in this, so I asked
Savage to send him away. Then I said, ‘I am going to make a complaint about last night. It is what happened to Miss Jones. I——’

Savage interrupted very quickly. He said, ‘I know. I’m sorry I ever left Miss Jones alone with Ranjit in the office at night. I shouldn’t have done it. I’m not used to having women working under me. Was it serious enough for me to take up further, or——?’

I could not believe my ears, and Victoria was staring at him too. My God, I thought, was it really Kasel? What if everything happened just as Victoria said—only the other way round? Macaulay must have reported something to Savage already. If that was true, did it mean that Victoria had been egging Kasel on?

I was dumbfounded, and I know my mouth was hanging open. Savage said, ‘But do think seriously before you make an official complaint, Miss Jones. It would not be a small matter—a year or two in prison, at least. If it had been a soldier it would be worse. And as for an officer! My God, an officer would get about ten years and cashiering. So—here, let me wheel your bike.’ He took her bicycle, and I began to push the Norton alongside, feeling in a daze. Now he was talking as if it might have been Macaulay after all. ‘So,’ he said, ‘unless it was really serious, please don’t tell me any more about it. I’ll see that your conditions of work are made safe for you. I’m afraid part of the trouble is that you are such a very beautiful girl—no, please, I’m not trying to insult you—and that’s a rare and rather wonderful thing to meet, even for men who haven’t just come back from Burma and Malaya and Indonesia. You’re five foot eight, aren’t you? Five eight and a half? I’ll get you a lady’s bicycle as soon as I can. And forgive me about the telegram. Mr Taylor says I was unfair, and I expect you feel the same, but please remember I’ve got a job to do, and five hundred men to look after. It is my duty to them to get the best help I can. Here we are. The Collector wants us to go straight in. After you, Miss Jones. Go ahead, Taylor.’

And then we were inside the Collector’s study.