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When she opened the door to Rani that evening, she saw a very spruce young man, in beautifully ironed blue shirt and slacks, who was already smiling in anticipation of an interesting session. Her heart skipped a beat, and
she led him through to her front room and settled him on the sofa with a low table in front of him.

“Fruit juice?” she suggested. “Or something stronger, if that's not out of the question. But you're Hindu, aren't you, not Muslim?”

“Yes, I am. But I usually don't drink. In the police force beer doesn't count as an alcoholic drink,” said Rani, smiling shyly. “It's the liquid equivalent of bread—the staff of life. If you have any beer I would be happy—otherwise fruit juice will be fine.”

When they were settled down on either side of the low table—and with every minute Rani's stance showed him becoming more relaxed, even happy—he showed an enlargement he had made of the postmark on the envelope. He had shaded in the two less than clear letters of the town name.

“Here is the month and day: all we have is the
SE,
but if the mark merely had
SEPT
it would leave plenty of room for the town name. There is no
D
in September, so it must be part of the town or region. Quite possibly the last letter, judging by what we have of the date. That leaves—”

“The whole of the rest of inside the circle for the town,” said Eve, who was very competitive in quizzes and mysteries.

“Exactly. Therefore possibly quite a long town name. Now, this other shadowy letter: an upward stroke with another stroke emerging from its right side, halfway up. Most likely an
E,
an
F
or an
H
. I considered whether it could be a
P,
an
R
or a
B,
but I think that little protuberance would have to show a sign of curving upward, and it doesn't. Do you see?”

“Yes. It looks quite straight to me.”

“So, a town name with a
D
to finish or nearly finish with, and an
E, F
or
H
halfway—or maybe a bit more than halfway—through. I could no doubt get an authoritative list from the post office if I used my police hat, but I'm reluctant to do that.”

“Of course, I wouldn't dream—”

“I know you wouldn't. And maybe it's not necessary. The first thing I thought of was Harewood—an important place for Leeds. There would be the
E
in the middle, the
D
at the end. But I wondered whether it was long enough. And whether Harewood—in spite of the house, which must generate a lot of mail—is important enough to have its own postmark. Then I thought of that central letter as an
F
—”

“Field,” said Eve, not letting on about her other information.

“Exactly. Wakefield, Huddersfield, Sheffield and so on. The position of the middle letter in relation to the
D
made ‘field' more likely than ‘ford' to my eyes. Otherwise I would have considered Bradford, Stafford and so on. I think there is room for more letters than eight.”

“Yes,” said Eve. “And I think there's something I should tell you. One of the places where an amateur dramatic society has applied to put on
Hay Fever
is Huddersfield.”

They looked at each other with delight. Then Rani punched the air in the manner of a football goal scorer and they smiled and cheered, and wanted to embrace but didn't quite, didn't yet, dare. “One day” said a voice in the back of Eve's mind.

“Of course nothing is certain,” said Rani. “But still . . .
That is what I love about my job. You take one step, make a provisional decision—always remembering the question mark that there still is over it—but then you take a second step, and that leads to a third step, and then you have one part of the jigsaw in your mind.”

“Always bearing in mind the question mark,” said Eve. They both laughed. “Is that why you joined the police force?”

“Oh, that's too simple. There was so much that I didn't know about the police force. And so much that I thought I knew that was wrong. But yes—I thought there was a lot about the job that was brain work, involving logic, step-by-step reasoning, and that was true. Especially about detective work. I have been a detective some little time now. Very low down in the ranks, but still—wonderful work!”

“And does philately call on the same skills?”

“Oh, I don't think so. Not logic, not in the same way. Philately just fills some time in the other part of my life.”

Eve, feeling daring, could not stop herself from fishing.

“Competing with your little girl, and a thousand and one other things, I daresay?”

“Yes. You saw my daughter? She is fine, and I ‘love her to bits'—I like that expression, and it's so right.” The air was heavy with unasked questions. He stood up nervously. “I mustn't take up more of your time—”

“You are not taking up my time. You are filling it when it very much needs filling. Please have another beer.”

He stood there, plainly nervous and pulled two ways.

“Well, perhaps a fruit juice. I am driving. And to tell you the truth, I drink beer to make a statement, to fit in, but I don't like it very much.”

They laughed. It seemed to Eve that they laughed a lot, and that was fine, unless perhaps it was to cover over things they could not yet bring out into the open. It was too soon. Their acquaintance was too fragile.

“It's cranberry,” she said, as she came in with glasses. “I don't think you can make much of a statement with cranberry juice.”

Something in her remarks struck a chord, or perhaps he had been thinking, weighing the situation while she was in the kitchen. Suddenly he looked up at her and in his eyes there was nothing but misery.

“You knew, didn't you? When you came to my house? You sensed something?”

Eve shifted in her chair.

“Well, ‘didn't sense' is more like. I didn't sense happiness. I felt tension, felt apartness.”

“All of those things. I'm sorry. I don't want to burden—”

“You wouldn't be burdening me. I'm interested. I'm always interested in people. Maybe that's my mother's influence. So you drink to make a statement. Did you get married as a statement too, perhaps? A quite different sort of statement?”

“Yes. A statement that I was still an Asian, still an
Indian
Englishman. That I was quite happy with the rules and customs I grew up with.”

“So it wasn't a forced marriage?”

“No, no, not at all, not for her or for me. Forced marriages occur, but not very often, in the Indian community. It was an arranged marriage, with a cousin from India. We had met. The family put it to us. She agreed. I agreed. She came over here and we got married.”

“Is it England? Is that what makes her unhappy?”

Rani looked down at the table.

“Partly. She misses so much. She agreed to the marriage because it is the ambition of so many girls in India, at least in the rural parts, to find an English husband and live here.”

“And what makes you unhappy? Presumably whatever it is makes her unhappy too.”

There was a long silence.

“What makes me unhappy? There is nothing there. Nothing between us. They say it comes gradually. You grow to know each other better, then that familiarity grows into love—and trust, and mutual support and all good things. But we began with nothing there, and there is still nothing there.”

“Except your little girl.”

She felt she had to say it—the thought troubled her greatly.

“I love her so much, but she does not bring us together. She is a talking point, and we ought to be grateful for that, because we hardly have any others.”

Eve thought for a moment.

“Did you perhaps go into the police force against your family's wishes?”

“Oh yes. They thought I should be running a shop or studying to become a doctor or surgeon. They still do.”

“So was the marriage a sort of . . . compensation for going against their wishes?”

“Maybe. And me already nearly twenty-five. How could I be so mad, at that age?”

“It was the custom. You can't call that madness.”

“It
was
mad: to marry when I felt nothing.”

“And what does your wife do all day?”

“Sanjula? She visits members of her family. Sometimes too my parents. Goes out with other young mothers—Indian ones, of course. Her English does not improve, but then she hardly ever uses it. She keeps the house beautiful and clean, watches Bollywood movies, dreams of being back again where the sun shines . . .”

“Wouldn't that be the ideal situation? Well, not ideal, because of the child, but perhaps the best thing that could happen in the circumstances?”

Rani's eyes showed his shock.

“But then the shame. She is afraid of that, and would hate it.”

“Why should there be any shame? Your parents made a mistake—”

“I tell you, there would be shame. Parents do not make mistakes. They have age, and therefore wisdom. Children make mistakes. They do not try hard enough. They have been corrupted by the wicked West.”

“That's yourself you're thinking of, isn't it? Your wife doesn't know enough of the West to be corrupted by it.”

“Exactly. But I do, and I have definitely been corrupted. Why else would I choose a job which is totally unheard of in our family? They have marked me down as a failure for that too.”

“And are you a failure as a policeman?”

“No.” There was no hesitation, and he smiled, with both pleasure and pride. “I think I have become a pretty good policeman. And that is not so easy when there is a tough and merciless minority who have their eyes on
you hoping you will make a mistake. A
big
mistake. They have been disappointed. All my mistakes have been routine, everyday ones.”

“Good. I somehow feel relieved that I have a policeman friend.”

He looked at her sharply.

“Is there something you're not telling me? Some reason you would need a policeman friend?”

She paused and thought. “The reason I'm not telling you the full contents of the letter now is not that I don't trust you. It's that it's so vague, nebulous. I've no reason to think it's a criminal matter. If I do find it is, I'll tell you. But it's you we're talking about.”

Rani stood up.

“No, it is not. I am much to blame. I should not have loaded you down with my problems. It is for me to solve them—they come from my community.”

“Are you sure?” persisted Eve. “Are you sure they don't come from the fact that you are very Westernized, and your family wants to keep you in the ways and beliefs of their background?”

“Maybe,” he said reluctantly.

“That attempt is doomed. You live in England, surrounded by the English.”

“But there is much in my family that I love and respect.”

“And you will choose those things and reject the other things. Your daughter will do the same, only she will embrace more and reject more.”

“Perhaps.” At the front door Rani turned and looked her in the eyes. “I do not know what to do.”

“Couldn't you start by really talking over the situation with your wife?”

“It seems so hopeless—trying to make her understand.”

“But you say she is not happy.”

“She blames me. As my family blames me. As I sometimes blame myself . . . But then I ask myself: is this all there is ever going to be? Is this the most important part of my life? That is the part where I always hoped to do good. Bring up my children well. Make my wife happy and proud of me. So what can I hope for instead? Just emptiness. A long, long emptiness. Right at the heart of my being.”

Instinctively Eve opened her arms. Equally instinctively he made a step toward her, and then his body seemed to suffer a great wrench, and he stopped and turned away.

“No, I must not, cannot,” he said.

“That is for you to decide,” said Eve, and there was a very obvious catch in her voice.

“You are quite right. I must act myself. Be myself. Do my own difficult work.”

And he shot through the front door and disappeared into the dark street.

The brash-sounding young man at the Huddersfield Tourist Information Office went off on a tangent immediately.

“Oh yes, we have amateur groups. And of course we have the Rep, and regular visits from touring companies—”

“No,” said Eve firmly, hearing her mother's voice in her own. “It's the amateur groups I'm interested in.”

“Oh . . . right,” said the young man, obviously deploring her settling for second best. “Well, we have the Huddersfield Amateur Dramatic Society, and then there's the Comedy Club . . . I've just put up a playbill for the Comedy Club's next production.
High Fever
it's called.”