Ellis Peters - George Felse 09 - Mourning Raga (3 page)

‘Dorette! You ready there?’

‘Yes, Lennie! We’re right with you!
Tossa, dear
…’

‘Yes, Miss Lester… Yes, of course we’ll take her!’

‘Darling… so grateful… my mind at rest now…
Sure, Lennie, coming
! Day after tomorrow… Heathrow… I’ll phone you the details… what was that Midshire number again?’ And Chloe laughed, not aloud, just a faint purring sound of contentment, and hugged and kissed her own daughter briefly.

When they crept out of the sound stage she was singing, without a trace of irony, back there behind them in the furnished corner bright as a nova:

‘When will you learn to moderate, my love,

The ardour of a heart that can be broken
...’

Tossa sat dour and silent in the Mini for some moments after they had made their way out of the lot and turned north for Midshire and Dominic’s blessedly normal home. Then she said in a dubious voice: ‘Of course, for all we know the father may be no better. But at least he ought to have his chance. And anyhow,
this
one’s contracting out, so
somebody
has to do something.’ And in a moment, with reviving optimism about the general state of man: ‘We’ll see what your people say about it.’

All Dominic said was: ‘I still don’t see where the catch is, but there has to be one somewhere.’

What Dominic’s people said, almost in unison though they were tackled separately, was: ‘Of course go! You’d be crazy not to.
Always
say yes to opportunity, or it may never offer again.’ And his mother, viewing Tossa’s grave face with sympathy, added: ‘If the worst comes to the worst,
bring her back
. We can fight out the rest of it afterwards.’

So they were all there at Heathrow to meet Anjli’s plane, Dorette in mink and cashmere and Chanel perfume, Chloe booted and cased in leather dyed to fabulous shades of purple and iris, with something like a space helmet on her extremely shapely little head and Ariel’s formidable and lovely make-up on her clever faun’s face, Dominic and Tossa top-dressed for the frost outside, but with their modest cases full of hurriedly assembled cottons and medium-weight woollens, mostly organised out of nowhere by Dominic’s mother. Who now had her feet up at home, a drink at her elbow and a paperback in her hand, and only the mildest regrets at facing a quieter Christmas than she had expected. It was a long time since she’d had her husband to herself over the Christmas holidays. And what fools these children would have been to pass up India, upon any consideration, when it fell warm, aromatic and palpitating into their arms.

In the arrivals lounge the privileged crowded to the doors to see their kin erupting through passport control. Dorette swooped ahead in a cloud of pastel mink and subtle fragrance.

‘
Darling
! Oh, honey, how
lovely
to see you!’

The girl turned an elegant head just in time to present her left cheek to the unavoidable kiss, adjusted her smile brightly and extricated herself more rapidly and dexterously than Dominic would have believed possible.

‘Hi, Mommy! How have you been? Gee, what a flight, I’m about dead on my feet. Oh, hi! You must be Miss Bliss, Mommy’s told me so much about you, and all about this darling film. My, that outfit’s
keen
, you know that? It’s just a
dream
…!’

If ever the selfconscious and phoney and the real and eager and young met in one voluble utterance, this was the time. But it took somebody Chloe’s age to respond to all the nuances at once, and Chloe had relegated herself deliberately to a back seat, and didn’t mean to be turfed out of it. Let Tossa, who prided herself so on her maturity, make her own way through the quicksands. Chloe smiled, kissed the pale golden cheek and made a cool neutral murmur in the small, fine, close-set golden ear.

‘And here’s my daughter Tossa, who’s coming with you to Delhi… And Dominic Felse, a friend of Tossa’s… a friend of all of us…’

‘Why, sure,’ said the clear, thrilling little voice, aloof as a bird, ‘any friend of yours! I just hope I get in as one of the family, too.’ She put a thin, amber hand into Tossa’s, smiled briefly and brilliantly, and passed on to Dominic with markedly more interest. ‘Hullo, Dominic! Gee, I’m lucky, being so well looked after. I sure appreciate it, I really do.’

So this was the poor little girl! Little she was, in the physical sense, well below average height for a fourteen-year-old, and built of such fine and fragile bones that she contrived to seem smaller than she was. She wore a curly fun-fur coat in a mini-length, and a small round fur cap to match, in dappled shades of tortoiseshell, like a harlequin cat. Her long, slim legs were cased in honeycomb lace tights and flexible red leather boots that stopped just short of her knee, and the honey of her skin glowed golden through the comb. A fur shoulder-bag slung on a red strap completed the outfit. But the accessories of her person were every bit as interesting. Her fingernails were manicured into a slightly exaggerated length, and painted in a pink pearl colour, deeper at the tips. The shape of her lips had been quite artfully and delicately accentuated and their colour deepened to a warm rosy gold. A thick braid of silky black hair hung down to her waist, a red ribbon plaited into it. Half her face was concealed behind the largest butterfly-rimmed dark glasses Dominic had ever seen; but the part of her that showed, cheeks and chin, was smooth and beautifully shaped as an Indian ivory carving, and almost as ageless. Sophistication in one miniature package stared up at Dominic unnervingly through the smoke-grey lenses. The obscurity of this view suddenly irked her. She put up her free hand in a candid gesture of impatience, and plucked off her glasses to take a longer, clearer, more daunting look at him.

The transformation was dazzling. Thin, arched brows, very firm and forthright, came into view, and huge, solemn, liquid dark eyes; and the face was suddenly a child’s face as well as a mini-model’s, eager, critical and curious; and presently, with hardly a change in one line of it, greedy. No other word for it.

She was at the right age to wish to be in love, and to be able to fall in love almost deliberately, wherever a suitable object offered. Dominic was a suitable object. He saw himself reflected in the unwavering eyes, at once an idol for worship and a prey marked down.

Over Anjli’s head he caught Tossa’s eye, marvellously meaningful in a wooden face. They understood each other perfectly. No need to look any farther for the catch; they had found it.

I was here, once,’ said Anjli, unfolding the coloured brochure of Delhi across her lap with desultory interest. ‘In India, I mean. But I can’t remember much about it now, it’s so long ago.’

‘Your mother didn’t tell us that,’ Tossa said. ‘Was she with you?’

‘No, only my father. She didn’t want to come, she was filming. It was the year before she divorced him. I was only just five. I used to know a little Hindi, too, but I’ve forgotten it all now.’

Her voice was quite matter-of-fact; she felt, as far as they could detect, no regrets over America, and no qualms or anticipation at the prospect of India. She had been brought up largely by competent people paid to do the job, and she was under no illusions about her own position or theirs. A child in her situation, intelligent and alert as she was, would have to acquire a protective shell of cynicism in order to survive, thought Tossa. Anjli knew that there was money on both sides of her family, and that however she might be pushed around from one parent to the other, that money would have to maintain her in the style to which she was accustomed. As for the cool equanimity with which she had parted from her mother at London Airport, who could be surprised by it, when she had spent most of her young life as isolated from her mother as from her distant and forgotten father?

‘He brought me to see his mother, I think, but I don’t remember her at all. I guess she must have been pretty upset at his marrying in America, like that, and staying away all that time. They’re very clannish, aren’t they?’

‘Very much like the rest of us, I expect,’ said Tossa. ‘She’ll be pleased enough when she has you on a more permanent basis, I bet.’

The Indian Airlines plane hummed steadily towards Delhi, half its passengers dozing, like Dominic in the seat across the gangway from them. Strange, thought Anjli, without resentment, almost with appreciation, how neatly Tossa had steered him into that place, though Anjli had designed that he should sit beside her, as on the long flight over. This small reverse she could afford to take in her stride; she had time enough, she calculated optimistically, to detach him from his Tossa before they left Delhi again. As yet they were only one hour inland from Bombay. The adventure had hardly begun.

‘Oh, I haven’t made up my mind yet about staying,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t know whether I’m going to like it here. It’s kind of a corny country, don’t you think?’ She frowned down at the coloured pictures of the Red Fort and the Qutb Minar. ‘All this old stuff, I mean, what’s the
point
? In the States we’ve got everything
new
, and after all, I’ve grown up there. This will be an experience, but I don’t figure I’m going to want to stay here too long.’

She was quite firm about it; and on reflection, Tossa thought, she was quite capable of demanding to be taken back again when India palled, and getting her own way, too. Dorette had made her plans; but so might Anjli, and there was a good deal of Dorette in Anjli, enough to make the struggle a dangerously even one if it ever came to that. And yet…

‘Do you really think,’ said Anjli suddenly, her cheek turned to the window, where the blinding light clung and quivered as it touched her lips, ‘she’ll be glad to have me? She’s old, and she
hated
it when he married Mommy.’

‘But you’re not Dorette, you’re you… partly her son. You’re her only grandchild. She’ll be glad,’ said Tossa with certainty.

It was the nearest they had come, in all that long and tedious journey, to asking and giving sympathy; and even now Tossa felt herself to be on thin ice. Very aloof, very independent, this child; she’d be infuriated if you tried to mother her, when she’d managed for so long without any mothering. Not the clinging kind, Anjli; except, of course, in a predatory fashion to Dominic’s arm when the slimmest chance offered. Inscrutable, dangerous and to be respected, that was Satyavan Kumar’s daughter. Tossa didn’t know whether to be sorrier for the grandchild or the grandmother. Somehow, between these two, the face of the father eluded her imagination; for it had never entered Dorette’s head to show her a photograph of Satyavan. Probably she hadn’t even kept one, once the man himself was out of her life.

Anjli, her cheek against the sun-warmed glass, watched the baked, thirsty land revolve beneath them, presenting a changing, circling pattern of white buildings, radiating roads, scattered green trees dispersed in a rose-red landscape. The palette of North India, apart from the hills, is a wonderful range of reds and oranges and browns, glittering with drought. In winter the green of foliage looks faded and silvery against it, and the violent crimsons and purples of early flowering trees explode like fireworks.

‘Look, Delhi!’

Dominic awoke, and came to lean across them both and peer down with them at the fabled city, older than Alexander, eight cities superimposed upon one another, overlapping, showing faintly through like a palimpsest. The radiant light picked out minarets, domes, pompous white office blocks, the superb sweep of the King’s Way, ruled across New Delhi in rose-pink, lined on either side with vivid grass and the embroidered mirror-glitter of water, clustering green of parks, the spinning wheel of Connaught Place with all its radial roads straight as arrows. For some moments they had a perfect sketch-map before them, then the plane settled lower and selected its way in to the international airport, and they were left with a narrowing circle of the south-western cantonment, ruled in rectangular blocks, gathering, solidifying, growing to lifesize.

Anjli, gazing dubiously down at the city of which she was mortally afraid, settled her brow artfully against Dominic’s arm and counted, shrewdly, her blessings. Never look too far ahead; now is what matters. Because there isn’t any tomorrow, and you can’t make much capital out of yesterday, it slips through your fingers; but now is something there’ll always be, even if it changes its shape.

Dominic saw the tense line of her mouth and cheek, and didn’t move his arm. They watched Delhi come up to meet them, a floating city, red and white, wonderful.

The touch-down was brisk and gentle and indifferently expert. And at Palam Ernest Felder was waiting for them.

He was fifty years old, but looked younger because of his springy step and dapper carriage. They said he had given Dorette her first chance in films, years ago, and stayed a close friend of hers ever since, though by all accounts at one time he would have liked to be more to her than a friend. He had been the minor celebrity then, and she the raw beginner; now she was the reigning star of the old, wholesome school of sweet family entertainment, and he was still a minor celebrity, perhaps a rung or two lower down the ladder than when they had met, but still a director of mild distinction. Or was it co-director this time? Dorette had mentioned an Indian director who was sharing the responsibility with him on this co-production.

He met them as soon as they crossed the apron of sand-brown earth and entered the airport buildings. A large, muscular hand reached for Dominic’s, acknowledging the male as automatically in charge. A shaggy, brindled grey head inclined punctiliously, a weathered, philosophical face, lined with humour and self-indulgence, beamed welcome at them all. A very well-kept body, athletic and lean, made the most of a beautifully-cut grey suit.

‘Mr Felse? I’m Felder. Dorrie wired me to look out for you. Miss Barber, you’re very welcome to India. I hope you’re not too tired after the journey?’ He turned to Anjli, and contemplated her long and fondly, while she stared back at him unblinkingly and let her small hand lie limply in his. ‘And you must be Dorrie’s little girl. Well, well, I haven’t seen you since you were knee-high to a kitten.’

Anjli, on her dignity, looked down her nose and said: ‘How do you do, Mr Felder!’ in her best party tones. But he looked kind and easy-going, and his voice recalled America in this alien land, and she could not help warming to him. ‘It’s sure nice to have somebody here who belongs,’ she said, for once without calculation, and her passive fingers stirred and gripped confidingly.

‘Girlie, you’re going to have no trouble at all that way, not while my bunch are here just outside town. Film people I bet you know, and film people are the same the world over, even when you’ve got ten sorts together, the way we have here. I’ve got ’em all laid on for you, a real party, so Delhi’s going to feel like home. I’ve got the boys outside with the truck, you don’t have to do a thing but just hand over to us, and we do everything.’

‘It’s really very kind of you,’ said Tossa, and meant it, ‘but I suppose we ought to contact Mr Kumar as soon as possible, oughtn’t we?’

‘So you ought, my dear, so you ought. But it’s coming on evening, and you’ve all three just been rushed across the world, and it’s my belief you need tonight to unwind and put your best moods and faces on ready for the moment of truth.’ Bless him, he wasn’t going to pretend for a moment that anything about this was easy or normal. He knew his Dorette from long since, and had learned to approach the crises she created with caution and philosophy. ‘Now I know she won’t have wired him exactly when to expect you, or why would she hand things over to me? Yes, I know she wrote him a warning, three, four weeks ago, but that’s the size of it. I know my girl! That cost her plenty. Now before you go to him you’ve got to have a roof over your heads that you don’t owe to him, and friends right there behind you, so you can say simply: “Look, here I am. Am I welcome?” and if not, well, all right, then, that’s that, goodbye. Sorry you’ve been troubled, and no hard feelings. We’re not beggars, are we, honey? We’ve got places of our own to go to, and feet of our own to stand on. Right?’

He was looking at Anjli. There was a bloom of colour flooding the honey of her cheeks, and she looked tall and grave and very independent. ‘Right!’

‘So I reckon tomorrow morning will be time enough for Mr Kumar. Mornings are the time for starting enterprises. Right?’

‘Right! And we can have this evening! We haven’t seen
anything
yet. All we did at Bombay was get out of one plane at Santacruz and into another.’

‘Miss Lester did say,’ agreed Dominic hopefully, ‘that she would arrange a hotel for us. We took it for granted that Tossa and I would need one, of course…’

‘Don’t say another word, it’s all taken care of. I’ve booked you all in at Keen’s Hotel. It’s south of town, off the Lodi Road, but it’s cheaper than most and just as good, and I reckoned you might want to stay around town a while, since you
are
here on Dorrie’s errand. Shame to waste that air fare, who knows if it may not be once in a lifetime? How’s that? Sound OK?’

‘Sounds wonderful!’ said Tossa with heartfelt gratitude. You didn’t find a thoughtful host of this kind every day. ‘It’s terribly good of you.’

‘Come on, then, and let’s pick up your luggage, they should have turfed it out by now.’ He took Anjli by the hand as naturally as a tried and trusted uncle, and surprisingly she let him. They might all get a little dizzy and confused later, if Mr Felder kept up this pace and all his unit matched up, but at the moment he was certainly a huge relief.

In through the teeming halls of Palam, as loud and busy and stunning as any other international airport, but peacock-hued with glorious saris and bleached white with invading sunlight; and out to the stands where the luggage was deposited, and the porters waited bright-eyed, heads swathed in red cloths, ready to pounce on whatever cases were claimed. Two of them secured the items Dominic indicated, and hoisted them to their padded heads. Dominic would have lifted one case himself, but Felder nudged him good-humouredly aside.

‘Don’t! It doesn’t cost much, even if you over-tip, and these boys have to make a living. This country sure has a lot of people to feed.’

Anjli stood on the steps, and looked at the barren, parched, russet and gold land from which her father had sprung, a waste of reds, dead-rose-petal browns, tawny sand, punctuated with patches of vivid green grass and frail, newly-budding trees. A pallid forecourt, a circle of gardens, a silver-grey road winding away towards the distant white walls of the town. But mostly one level of dust-fine soil, drowned in sunlight so sharp and thin that it seemed there must be frost in the air. In her fine woollen cardigan suit she felt warm enough, and yet there was a clarity that cut like knives when she breathed. And this was Delhi in December.

She didn’t remember anything, or at least, not with any part of mind or memory. Only her blood stirred strangely, recapturing some ancestral rapport. Not necessarily in affection; rather with a raising of hackles, aware of compulsions not altogether congenial. It was too bright, too dry, too clear, too open; there was nowhere to hide.

‘This way. We’re not supposed to park private stuff round here, but what can you do? These foreigners!’ Felder led the way briskly round the corner of the buildings to the blinding white concrete where the airport bus was filling up with plump ladies in saris and ponderous gentlemen in white cottons and European overcoats. The truck turned out to be a minibus, from which two unmistakable young Americans leaned to grin at them hospitably and offer large, amiable hands.

‘Tom Hoskins is our driver-cum-handyman. There isn’t much Tom can’t do. And this is Joe Salt, assistant cameramen. We’ve got it dead easy here, mostly we’re playing second-fiddle to the Indians, and believe me, Ganesh Rao knows exactly what he wants, and nine-tenths of the time he’s dead right, so ours is a sinecure. Get aboard, ladies, choose your seats, we’ll take you round through the city for a ride.’

They climbed aboard willingly, eyes round and attentive at the windows, intent on missing nothing.

‘Shouldn’t we at least check in at the hotel?’ asked Dominic.

‘So we will, laddie, so we will, on our way out to Mehrauli. Don’t want to haul this luggage around, do we? This will be a lightning tour specially for you, because we’ve got to go right in to the shopping centre at Connaught Circus to pick up one of the gang, and then we’re bound due south for the edge of the town, where we’re filming. We’ll be quite close to Keen’s on the way out, and drop your stuff off there. Straight to the town office, Tom, Ashok will be there by now, we’re a mite late.’