A Division Of The Spoils (Raj Quartet 4) (74 page)

Perron lied. ‘I’m afraid so, yes.’

‘Tomorrow, perhaps?’

‘Unfortunately I’ve left this call very late. I’m off tomorrow.’

‘Oh. Where are you off to? Not home?’

‘No, a little state called Mirat.’

‘A long journey. They had some trouble there recently. Is that why you’re going?’

‘I didn’t know that. What sort of trouble?’

‘Usual thing. Communal riots. I think it’s died down. Anyway, it’s in the Punjab things are getting tricky. Too many people on the move in the hope of ending up in the right place. But what can you expect when you draw an imaginary line through a province and say that from August fifteen one side is Pakistan and the other side’s India? The same applies to Bengal.’

‘It is rather drastic, isn’t it?’

Hapgood gave Perron a penetrating glance. He said, ‘It’s what an important minority felt they had to have and in the long term it’s probably for the best.’

Perron nodded. Hapgood was probably more in sympathy with the Muslims than with the Hindus.

‘Do you have press connections, then, Mr Perron?’

‘Only rather marginal ones. Sufficient to help me move about and get seats on planes.’

‘I asked because nearly every stranger from home you come across nowadays is either a journalist or a member of parliament swanning around ostensibly to observe the democratic process of dismantling the empire but actually making soundings for his private business interests. Nothing wrong with that, of course. India’s going to be an expanding dominion market once it settles down. The thing is, we’ll have to meet more outside and inside competition. Do you have business interests as well as marginal press ones, Mr Perron?’

‘My interests are primarily academic.’

Again Hapgood snapped his fingers and again while they continued talking his glass was taken and replenished and
returned. This time Perron had his own glass topped up. The Oval was under the spell of pink and turquoise light, fading into indigo shadows.

‘If you have press connections, though, I suppose you’re here to be in at the kill, if I may put it that way. Forgive me, but Mirat seems such an unlikely little place to go. If you want to be in at the kill you should go up into the Punjab and try to accredit yourself to the wretched chaps who’ve been formed into the boundary force and have the job of protecting the refugees and stopping them tearing at one another’s throats.’

‘Well as I said. My interests are primarily academic. And at the moment primarily concerned with the relationship between the Crown and the Indian states.’

‘Well you could go up to Bahawalpur. They’ve had some high jinks there. Or down to Hyderabad. That’s the one princely state large and powerful enough to prolong its independence for a while. Have you seen Patel? He’s in charge of what I call the coercing operation. Have you seen the head of the British Political Department? He’d give you the other side of the picture. They say his department has been burning private papers for weeks now, all the scandalous stuff we’ve collected over the years about the way some of the Princes behaved. Couldn’t let Patel get his hands on those, could you?’

‘Well I have a definite invitation to Mirat. I think it will suit me very well, especially if it’s had its troubles.’

‘What sort of invitation, Mr Perron? I ask because I might be able to help you.’

‘That’s very kind of you. Actually the invitation’s from the Chief Minister, Count Bronowsky. I met him here in Bombay during the war. He was kind enough to say I’d be welcome in Mirat at any time.’

‘Then there’s nothing I could do to smooth your way better. It was Bronowsky I had in mind. I don’t know him socially, but he’s had an account with us for years, and we usually meet in my office when he comes to Bombay. I haven’t seen him for some time. Probably because of the troubles they’ve had there. How is he?’

‘I’ve no idea, but well, I imagine. I wrote to him just before
coming out from England and there was a telegram waiting for me at Bob Chalmers’s flat, inviting me to turn up whenever I wanted.’

‘Well. Give him my regards.’

Perron looked at his watch, and prepared to finish his drink.

‘Are you absolutely committed this evening? I’ve got a few people coming in, couple of chaps from the bank and their wives. Friends. Not all that boring. Actually it’s buffet. Nowadays in Bombay you never know who’ll turn up or who they’ll bring. Being alone just now I encourage it.’

Perron was tempted. He had a brief and flaming image of the Maharanee floating in on the arms of a couple of English bankers, in her scarlet saree, subsiding on to the long settee under the Guler-Basohli paintings, showing her nipples; and of Aneila offering chairs, cigarettes, and dewy tumblers which she had rinsed under the tap in Purvis’s bathroom to help the sinister little servant cope. And an image, then, of all the lights going out, because the light had virtually gone now from the forgiving Bombay sky, leaving only a gleam in the fretted edges of the palm fronds. And the sweet, grave, unforgettable unforgotten smell, drifting across from Back Bay.

‘I’m afraid I am committed, sir,’ Perron said. ‘Perhaps if I come back this way I could give you a ring.’

‘Of course,’ Hapgood said, pleased to be called sir. But it was
now
Hapgood wanted. A new face to ease the ache of boredom. Hapgood’s own face went out, as the nearby street-lamp came on, below and behind him. A trick of illumination.

‘You have a new servant, I see.’

‘Young Gerard? Yes. Bit of a mongrel. We inherited him from a chap who retired last year. Our agent in Ipoh. Gerard kept things going for him while he was in prison-camp. Very efficient fellow. Not like poor old Nadar, the one you’d remember. Trouble with Nadar, he couldn’t keep his hands off stuff that got left around. We had to let him go. Mistake, probably. My wife says it’s better to employ a dishonest servant you know inside out than one you’ll never get on any sort of terms with. Not that it’s going to matter either way to us next year. Our time will be up then. Learn to do our own cooking and washing up, I shouldn’t wonder. Neither of us
fancies Montreal. So it looks like Ewell or Sutton. Know anything about mushrooms?’

Automatically Perron thought of cloud formations.

‘Mushrooms?’

‘A friend of our Canadian son-in-law, an ex-
RAF
type who lives in Surrey, has gone in for mushrooms. Grows them in his garage. Making a fortune, I’m told. Not that we’ll be looking to do that. But you need to put your mind to something, so preferably something with a saleable end-product. I don’t fancy chickens. Mushrooms are quieter.’

Hapgood smiled. His face, re-illuminated as he guided Perron back into the living-room where Gerard had switched on some of the table-lamps, looked composed. And resigned. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘if you change your mind, just arrive. Meanwhile I’d better get myself ready for the invasion.’ Perhaps Gerard had run his bath (with the same imperturbable expression he had shown when running baths for Japanese officers in his previous master’s house in Ipoh?).

Perron was about to say, ‘Do you still have the same cook?’ but realized in time that this might sound like an inquiry into the quality of the food to be expected. So he left not knowing whether that happy, co-operative, and sturdy little man still presided over the hot stoves in the Hapgood kitchen. On the whole, Perron thought, it was unlikely that he did. The bearer, the cook, and the cook’s boy, had been a happy family too, in spite of the rivalry and the demarcation of zones of responsibility. When the bearer went they had probably followed him.

As Gerard held the door open, Perron glanced once again down the corridor, to get his last glimpse of Purvis’s still-closed door.

*

Back in Bob Chalmers’s rather odd flat he made a few notes about his visit to Hapgood. The oddness of Bob’s flat consisted not merely in the unexpected situation of the house (in one of the narrow rather squalid roads behind the Gateway; not far, surely, from where the massage parlour had been?) but in the admixture of traditional and emergent Anglo-Indianism in its appointments. The rooms where basic European needs were
scrupulously met (bathroom, bedrooms, dining-room) were furnished in the old dependable style. But in the living-room there was nowhere to sit comfortably. There were imitation Persian rugs on the floor, sparkling cushions from Rajputana, mattresses covered by durries or printed cotton bedspreads, a pair of tablas, a harmonium, and in a conker-coloured leather case – a tamboura, probably from Bengal. On the walls there were modern paintings by modern Indian painters. Impressionism had arrived (and a pointilliste school, after Seurat, to judge by a disturbing view of the burning ghats at Benares). Scattered round the room on cushions, on floor, on mattresses and in a unit-style bookcase, were the things that showed Bob Chalmers to be perhaps a little uncertain where his tastes lay. There were trade magazines dealing with pharmaceuticals and other light and heavy industrial subjects. There were literary magazines published in Calcutta and pale blue stiff-boarded editions of works by Radakrishnan about
karma
and
dharma
and the Hindu way of life. The bookcase held several volumes from the Left Book Club, a row of old Readers’ Digests and the latest novel by Nevil Shute. On a very low coffee-table, among pottery ashtrays, were a translation of the poems of Gaffur by a Major Tippet, and the March 1947 issue of
The New English Forum
which Perron had sent him. This was an issue containing one of Perron’s articles, the article originally entitled
Daulat Rao Sindia and the British Other Rank
, but subsequently retitled (for publication)
An Evening at the Maharanee’s
, which title Perron had tossed out from the top of his head at the end of a rather drunken lunch at Prunier’s with the young Tory MP who published the magazine and whose personal assistant in the publishing firm he directed had recommended Perron as a likely contributor, after reading Perron’s review (in the
New English University Monthly
) of a book called
My Memories of
INA
and its Netaji
, by Maj. General Shahnawaz Khan, Foreword by Pt Jawahar Lal Nehru [
sic
], which Bob Chalmers had sent him from Bombay after its publication in Delhi in 1946 with a letter of which the only passage Perron clearly remembered was: ‘Remember Bombay and Bordeaux? Well, this is connected. And get that last paragraph of “Jawahar Lal’s” foreword, I quote: “I must confess that I have not been able, through lack
of time, to read through this record, but I have read parts of it and it seems to me that this account is far the best we have at present.” Unquote. How’s that for shrewd fence-sitting, now that the trials are over?’

But then, Perron thought, putting his notebook away, and nodding assent to Bob Chalmers’s bearer who was standing in the doorway indicating that supper was ready (which he could already tell, smelling the delicious scent of turmeric) where else can one sit, and remain in balance?

Perron woke. the silence was solid; as if he had been spun off the world into space. There were no echoes, not a glimmer of light in the primeval dark. Then he heard the engine breathe in the distance and re-identified himself as the lucky lone occupant of a coupé on the night train from Ranpur to Mirat. He sat up, reached for his cigarettes. The lighter illuminated his watch. Five a.m. He twisted his body round and raised the blind and then the shutter and gazed out at the pale frozen landscape. So vast a country. Its beauty unnerved him. The engine breathed again, sounding nearer. He held his own breath and listened to another sound: the cries of dogs hunting the plain in packs.

When he woke again light was streaming through the unshuttered window and the train was moving slowly, clacking its wheels rhythmically, reluctantly. The landscape was eroded. Nothing could live here, he thought.

He was cold. He got up, slipped his feet into chappals and reached for his robe. Enfolded in silk he rasped one hand against his cheeks. His eyes were gummy. They felt raw from the specks of sand and soot that had entered the compartment. Pushing through the door into the lavatory he felt the chill coming up through the hole in the pan. He wanted hot coffee. Comfort. There was none. In an hour or two it would seem impossible that he had ever felt cold.

*

Shaved, washed, dressed, he went to the sunny side of the compartment to warm himself. It was 7 a.m. He should have been in Mirat by now and drinking coffee or tea in the station restaurant, getting some bacon and egg. He had lost the knack of travelling in India. He hadn’t even brought a flask of water. All he had was yesterday’s papers, bought in Ranpur:
The Times of India
and
The Ranpur Gazette.
He now read through the
Gazette
, scarcely taking it in, flicking the pages. The only pieces worth reading were a waspish editorial and a quiet essay by someone calling himself Philoctetes. He couldn’t remember who Philoctetes was. In this case, probably, the editor, exercising a gentle taste for
belles-lettres.

He went back to the window. The train was passing a village. Water buffalo wallowed in the local tank. Women walked with baskets of cow-dung on their heads. Men drove skeletal goats and horned cattle. There was a smell of smoke. It would be a hot dry day.

*

It was gone nine o’clock when the train drew into Mirat (Cantonment): two hours late according to the new schedule. He was glad that he hadn’t announced his arrival in advance and put anyone to the trouble of meeting him.

The platform was crowded. Officers, wives, mounds of luggage. Departing British. A train seemed to be expected in the other direction, from Mirat to Ranpur. The restaurant was crowded too. There wasn’t a vacant table and he didn’t want to share. He decided to push on and told the coolie to take him to where tongas were to be had.

The concourse was also crowded, mostly by squads of British troops squatting on piles of kit-bags, smoking. Perron’s suitcase and hold-all were put on to a tonga. He told the man to go to the club. The tonga set off through the cantonment bazaar. Perron breathed in the familiar smell: an oily, spicy scent mingling with that of burning charcoal. And then they were out on to the first of the wide geometrically laid out roads of a military station, metalled roads with khatcha edges, shade trees, and lime-washed stones marking the culvert crossings over monsoon ditches, which gave
access to the compounds of the old bungalows. The tonga passed neat white-shirted Indian clerks on cycles and was passed in turn by military trucks. Once you had seen one cantonment, it was said, you had seen them all.