Monsoon Summer (33 page)

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CHAPTER 45
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T
he Hotel Victoria was a modest mock-Tudor house at the end of a steep drive. When we got there, I asked for separate rooms and told Glory I'd pay for them out of money I'd earned. An unpleasant dig, I suppose, at her earlier idea of using me as a sort of bargaining chip here, but the truth was I didn't trust myself to share a room with her: we were too vulnerable, too combustible.

My room, small, whitewashed, clean, had a pretty mother-of-pearl chair and a plain white bed. Nothing fancy, we couldn't afford it, and not in what my mother said was the posh part of town.

When the rain stopped, I looked through my window at terraces of shabby little houses, cows, small gardens. The steep hills, the mist around the trees, gave me a strange feeling of vertigo as if I were dangling between one life and another.

There was a Bible, a carafe of water, a copy of the membership rules of the Ooty golf club left by a previous tenant on my bedside table. I put a photo of Anto and Raffie on top of the Bible, stared at them for a while. They at least felt solid and real: not a place that could be changed at whim, neither a destination nor a hope, but a reality like my lungs or my breath.

I could hear my mother next door: the clink of her glass, the trickle of water from a tap, the twang of bedsprings as she sat down. Her cough. I knew her habits so well: the miniature storm of activity in which she laid out her clothes at night: “Hang them quickly before they wrinkle, no matter how tired you are.” The splashing
of her face, “at least fifteen times, to remove every bit of dirt.” The eye mask that never worked in the fight against insomnia. The All-Bran for breakfast, “just a smidgen of milk.” Cries of “Gin and it!” at six o'clock.

As I child I had watched these rituals with the deepest fascination: the way she put her earrings on, sliced her bacon, closed her handbag with her beautifully manicured nails. And still she exerted an electrical pull, deeper than words, the circuit fixed during hundreds and thousands of moments shared, habits observed; the kindnesses, cruelties, disappointments added up whether I wanted them to or not.

And tomorrow—my stomach clenched at the very thought of it—I'd meet my father. Or so she said.

* * *

“He
said
he'd be here at four,” my mother remarked before we went to bed, in the same offhand voice she might use to confirm, let's say, a hair appointment. She was sitting in the visitors' room of the Victoria clutching the key to her room.

“Does that suit you? I've been casing the joint,” she said, without waiting for an answer. “I think this will be the best room to meet him in.”

This damp parlor on the ground floor had, with its unlit fire and mismatched chairs, all the atmosphere of a dentist's waiting room. I'd imagined we'd be going to his house and said so. I was frightened of making a fool of myself in a public place, but I didn't tell her this.

“Oh, we can't do that, he's married. Didn't I tell you? I'm sure I did,” my mother said, as if announcing some minor change of plan.

“No, you didn't, actually. That might have been a helpful little clue for me.” I was so angry I could have struck her. The careless way she flung information that I had to snatch and scrabble for, like a refugee with a food parcel.

“Look, Mummy, I think I'm going to turn in early,” I said. I didn't trust myself to stay. “I'll have something sent to my room. Big day tomorrow.”

“Kit!” A kind of wail. A plea for sympathy and understanding as we looked into each other's eyes. “Don't.”

Meaning what? Don't fuss about minor details? Don't hate me? Don't spoil this perfectly ordinary day? A nicer daughter might have amended,
but I love her anyway
, before she turned her lights out, but on that night I hated her: her muddles, her lies, her attempts to be grand, her refusal to ever be straight with me.

* * *

Cough cough
,
clink
,
clink
. Around three p.m. on the next day, I could hear my mother putting her “face” on: the fierce stare in the mirror, then cream, powder, lipstick, scent, several changes of wardrobe, if she had the breath for it now.

My legs felt weak as I put on my stockings, washed my face, combed my hair, buttoned my second-best green dress. From time to time, I stared through the crack in the curtains and saw the hills he'd be driving through now. A solid knot of fear grew in my stomach, and then—hard to describe it since it had never happened to me before—the knot of fear started to uncoil like a living creature, and I only just made it to the sink, where I vomited. No doubt about it, I was terrified, and there was still an hour to wait.

* * *

It was cold in the visitors' room by the time I got down. Cold enough for your breath to show, and damp: it had rained off and on all morning. There were not enough logs in the brass bucket to keep the fire burning brightly.

When I walked in, my father, a gaunt, hunched figure, was sitting near the fire. When he saw me, he rose from his chair with a great deal of difficulty. I had imagined him as a much younger man,
someone tall and handsome, let's say like Ronald Coleman, with a mustache and mellifluous speaking voice. This man looked old for his sixty-five years—age being the one bit of information my mother had vouchsafed. He was wearing a worn tweed jacket and a too-big shirt that made his throat look shriveled and gizzardy. He had thick white hair, green-brown eyes, same color as mine. So peculiar: my father in the same room as me, both of us staring and trembling a little like dogs about to start a fight.

“Where's Glory?” he asked.

“I don't know,” I said, pretty sure she was lying down in her room. “I'm Kit.” When I held out my hand, he shook it in an absentminded way and blinked at me several times.

“Is it short for anything?” he said at last.

“Kathryn,” I said. “No one calls me that.” Thinking,
Surely you know my name!
or was I just referred to as the baby or the child?

“Will she be long?” He glanced towards the door.

“I don't know.” When he looked back, there was such longing, such fear in his eyes that I understood in a flash I was not the person he most wanted to see. We sat down on opposite sides of the feebly burning fire. Rain streaked the windowpane. I kept my eyes on my hands, which were folded in my lap, because what I felt most was a flooding sense of shame, as if I had no right to be there.

He patted his top pocket, took out a pipe, and laid it on the arm of the chair. “Is this allowed?”

“I don't know.” I sprang up, grateful for an excuse to leave. “I'll ask the landlady. You'll need an ashtray.”

“It's all right,” he said. “Don't go. I don't need it.”

“What's your real name?” I said, when the pipe had returned to his pocket again. “I mean your whole name.”

He looked at me warily. “It's William,” he said in a quavering voice. “William Villiers. Major Villiers when I was in the regiment.”

Kit Villiers. Quite a nice name, all things considered, but I was still in a weird state of shock as I said it to myself. No joy, no relief,
still this feeling of profound embarrassment and something like disappointment because he was so obviously not pleased to see me.

“Is Glory ill?” he asked anxiously. “Will she come?”

“I don't know.” My voice sounded wooden and strange. “Do you want me to . . . ?” I stood up.

“No, no, no,” he said, watery eyes still trained on the door.” I was— Only . . . if she wants to.”

Which she evidently didn't. My mother had many faults, but unpunctuality wasn't one of them. There were no signs of life from upstairs.

And so we sat there in a trap of her making, the minutes ticking away, the fire gone out by now, until he said, in a small, meek voice, “So, what do you want to know?”

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CHAPTER 46
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T
he task suddenly felt enormous. I looked out the window at the gray mist, the trees, and wished I was anywhere but here.

“I am going to have to smoke, you know,” he said. “Do you mind?”

I watched him in a kind of stupor fumbling for his pipe, his baccy pouch, his box of matches, all of which he managed to drop and then pick up.

“The thing is,” I said, “I don't know anything about you.”

He tamped his pipe with one stained finger. “She must have said something?” He actually looked hurt.

“No . . . not really. She told me a couple of weeks ago you'd sent some money to Daisy Barker, that was all.”

“No letters?” His finger stopped. “I wrote lots of them.”

“To me?”

“Not to you, to
her
.” His fingers clutched at the pipe.

“She said there was money in the letters, that's all.”

“Well, bless my soul.” He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. A servant came in with tea. He asked for his black and reached for it with a shaking hand. After another long silence, he said, “I thought she'd told you.”

I took a sip of tea. I didn't want to bully him, but I had the sense he was fading fast and I must choose my questions well, before he got too agitated or exhausted to answer them.

“How did you meet her?” I said.

There was a long silence. The teacup rattled in his hand and when he looked at me, his eyes were bright with tears.

“D'you think she'll come down? Today, I mean. It took me ages to get here.”

“I have no idea,” I said, my own heart starting to pound. I tried again. “Where did you meet her?”

He gathered himself with a shuddering sigh and his eyelids came down, as if he were picturing the whole scene on the back of them. “I was a cavalry officer. Third Regiment,” he began. “Family from Somerset. I'd never been out of England before.” He stopped talking abruptly and sank a little further down in his chair, his eyes tight shut again.

“Go on,” I said. “Please don't go to sleep.”

“I'm not asleep.” He puffed vigorously on his pipe to prove it. “I'm frightened.”

“Of what?”

“Of saying too much. It got me into awful trouble last time.”

“Please.”

“I had a training accident.” Another agonizing silence. “Fell off a horse, broke my leg.”

“Look, do you mind if I take notes?” I said. It felt easier to regard him as a case history, rather than face the rising distress (or was it anger?) inside me, or look him in the eyes.

“We met in Bombay. Please could you stop that?” He looked at my pencil. “I want to look at you when I say this.”

“It's all right. I'll stop. I understand.” I put the pencil down.

“Must we do this all at once?” he suddenly pleaded. “I hardly know you.”

“Yes, we must.” I felt icy cold. “We leave tomorrow and . . .” I may as well have added, and you're going to die, and I have to go on living. That's what I felt.

“You have to understand how it was then,” he mumbled, pulling his jacket around him. “Lots and lots of girls came out from
En­gland, lots of parties, but she was . . . .” His eyes filled with a fresh burst of tears. No words yet.

“Beautiful. What's the word?” He tapped his pipe on the side of his head. “Radiant: very black hair, those cat's eyes full of fun, very warm.” He clutched his chin in his hand. “Oh dear, shouldn't bang on like this, but I think of her every day.”

“So you met in Bombay?”

“The regiment had its HQ in Poona. There was a ball there. I was halfway up the stairs, and when I looked down and saw her . . .”

He fumbled for his handkerchief. I gave him mine.

“Go on.”

“Oh God,” he said. “This is why she brought you here.”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“I loved her,” he ended in a gasp. He looked at the door again. “We had, let me see . . .” He counted it on his gnarled old fingers. “Four, five, six months, of complete happiness together. You're very pretty, by the way; you remind me of her. She was working for the Resident, some sort of secretary. When my leg had mended, we rode out together in the morning. Everyone was very keen on her, so it was quite a feather in my cap. Spins on my motorbike. I adored her. She didn't tell you the rest?” He looked at me anxiously.

“
No.”

His eyes shot open. I hadn't meant to shout, but I was panicked in case he stopped.

“I shouldn't tell you this, but I proposed to her on a beach, north of Bombay. Knew I would never be this happy again. Don't tell my wife that.” He gave me an almost waggish look. “No proper ring, so I put a piece of seaweed around her finger and she kissed it.” He closed his eyes in a grimacing way.

Don't cry, I thought. I was amazed to hear my mother had ever been this romantic.

“You must have heard the rest,” he pleaded. “It's horrible. Awful.”

“No! Keep going.” I knew I had to ride him hard or he would stop.

His hands fluttered to his face. “If I tell you this, you must swear to God you will never tell my wife.”

“I won't say a word.” I found it hard not to look incredulous. I didn't even know the bloody woman.

“I hate to think of it,” he continued, eyes fixed on the floor. “It makes me sick. Glory was so excited—the dress, the reception, everything, she'd talked of nothing else for months.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Our wedding,” he all but wailed. “She'd told all her friends at the Residency. She was very popular there, great fun. Women loved her as much as men. We set the date, October seventeenth, Saint George's Cathedral, told my Colonel, got the bans read, and . . .” He'd tailed off. “She was so excited.”

“Could you speak up?”

“Sorry,” in a squeak. More dab with the handkerchief. “I can't . . . I'm not . . .”

“Then what happened?” Anyone with an ounce of humanity might have stopped there, but I couldn't, knowing I would probably never see him again.

“She turned up at the cathedral before me. Our friends were inside, my chums were there with their ceremonial swords, all ready. The bride runs through them, you know, afterwards. She and I had practiced this together.” He stopped again, shrunk into himself, and seemed to have difficulty swallowing.

“Then what?”

“I didn't come.” His voice was almost inaudible.

“What do you mean?”

“My Colonel came. She was standing in the vestry and he told her the wedding was off. Another chap in the regiment, who'd had his eye on her, had guessed what I didn't know: that she was a chi chi girl.”

“A what?”

“Half-caste. Her father was an English railway worker, mother a
local girl. Never guessed. The pale skin, with powder on, was deceptive. The Colonel said that marriage to a native was out of the question. If I did it, other chaps would follow suit, and where would that leave us? I was stupid enough to go along with it. Surely she's told you this. He'd already written to my parents and told them what would happen. He knew they'd agree, and they did.”

He looked at me like a whipped dog.

“The worst thing I ever did,” he mumbled. He looked up. “You must have known.”

“Only bits,” I said. “None of this.”

“Can I say hello?” he asked. “Please. I want to say I'm sorry.”

“I don't know, I doubt it. She's stubborn.”

“I know.” A wincing smile.

“So, when did you hear about me?” I asked.

“When you were two years old. Daisy wrote. Glory had pneumonia and was in a very bad way.”

“Were you horrified?”

William Villiers looked at me. Old, bewildered. He began to weep. “What a waste. What a waste,” he said when he could speak. “I'd like to have known you.”

“Do you have other children?” I said.

“My wife couldn't have them. Listen.” He stared in a dazed way at his watch. “I'd be so grateful to you if you'd go up and see if Glory would come down. I can't stay much longer.”

I got up and went to the door. “She's locked us out,” I said when it wouldn't budge.

He got up too and tried the handle, said, “How bloody typical,” and both of us laughed identically, a sort of mirthless snort.

“She'll be down,” I said, knowing with her theatrical flair, it would be in her own sweet time. We returned to the faded chintz chairs, one on either side of the tiny fire.

“Is there anything you want to know about me?” I said at last. “You haven't asked a thing, you know.”

“I'm sorry.” He blinked and looked at me. “I've worked it out. You're thirty-two years old now, correct?”

“Yes.” I put my hands over my eyes.

“Married?”

“Yes. To an Indian doctor. I met him in England during the war. He was a postgraduate student at Oxford.” I felt a glow of reflected pride. “He has a good job here.”

“Do you love him?”

“Yes.” For that moment it felt as simple.

“Children?”

“One. Raffael, seventeen months old.”

He thought about all this for a while, sighing and shaking his head. “Was Glory horrified?” he asked at last, gazing down at his battered brogues. “You marrying an Indian?”

“She was. What happened with you can't have helped.”

“Any pictures of your nipper?” I showed him one of Raffie lying beside me on a hammock. He was laughing his head off. He'd just stolen my beads, and was wearing them around his neck. William looked at it for a long time.

“What a balls-up,” he said at last.

* * *

When the door rattled, we both jumped. The servant who unlocked it said, “Madam will come down in one hour,” and padded away.

“It's getting dark.” He got up creakily from the chair, scattering pipe and matches. “I can't stay that long. I'm sorry, I would like to have asked you more.”

I might have reassured him, but the shock of hearing about my mother was followed by a spurt of anger. “Does your wife know you're here?” I said.

“She thinks I'm playing golf.”

I shrank from the hangdog look that followed this admission. In some secret, stupid part of myself, I still wanted the Ronald Cole
man father, strong, invincible, perhaps in some uniform, not some weed pretending to be on a golf course because he was frightened of his wife.

“Does she know anything about us?”

“No. It would be the death of me if she found out.”

“D'you mean she'd kill you?” Hard to keep the contempt out of my voice.

“She's highly strung, older than me. I couldn't do it now,” he told the floor.

“Not much more to be said then,” I said, hoping to wind things up now.

“No.”

I took a mental snapshot of him, trying to strip away the frayed tweeds, the air of defeat, and see him as my mother must have, except there wasn't much left. I noticed his hands, fumbling for the doorknob, were long-fingered, like mine. Before he left the room he turned. “Please try and get her to see me? I could come back tomorrow at two.”

I gave him the number of the hotel: Ooty 75. “I can't promise anything,” I said. “But if you telephone tonight, I'll let you know.”

We didn't kiss. We didn't even shake hands. At the last moment, we seemed to calcify, like Pompeii statues, into stone.

“I was a nurse in the war,” I told him quickly, full of an anger I could not name. “In case you're interested.”

“A nurse in the war,” he repeated. “That must have been grim. A brave girl, then.”

“Not really,” I said, “not at all. I'm training to be a midwife now.”

His expression did not change. “Well done,” he said, and there our conversation ended. He was busy looking for the taxi that would shortly take him away.