Of Marriageable Age (33 page)

She walked past the watchmen who were always posted here nowadays, entered the temple grounds and approached the first person she recognised, who happened to be Mr Venkataraman from the Robb Street jewellery shop. She asked for Ma, for Mrs Roy, and was passed along from this person to the next till she came to a pundit in a white dhoti, who said crisply, Mrs Roy is not here.

'But she must be!' Saroj said. 'Listen, it's terribly important, her daughter is in hospital and needs her!'

The pundit called someone else who called someone else and a lady in a yellow sari came and they all discussed the matter. Then the lady in the yellow sari went to look for Ma and the pundit told Saroj to sit down in a chair in the corridor, which she did. She waited and waited and after a while yellow-sari returned and said, 'I'm very sorry, Mrs Roy is not available.'

'Not available? You mean she won't come?'

'No. Mrs Roy is not here at the present moment.'

'But she's been here since three o'clock, she always comes here!'

'Apparently she attended three-o'clock Shiva puja and then she left again. Mrs Roy never spends much time here.'

'Never spends — but she always comes on Wednesdays and Fridays!'

'She usually just drops in for puja and then leaves again.'

'Are you quite sure?'

'Most certainly. We have looked for her everywhere and the watchman saw her leaving at around three thirty.'

'Do you know where she went? It's very important.'

'How would we know where Mrs Roy has gone? It's not our business. Now, if you would please excuse.'

Yellow-sari touched the tips of her fingers together and turned her back.

Ma arrived home at around six. Saroj told her about Indrani, who by this time had given birth to a premature son.

'You weren't at the temple,' Saroj said accusingly.

'I know,' said Ma calmly. Saroj waited for Ma's explanation. None came. She packed a basket and left for Dr Lachmansingh's maternity home.

26

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

SAVITRI

Madras, 1934

T
HAT WAS A GLORIOUS SEASON
. Savitri and David met each afternoon in the tree-house, and no-one knew but them. Both glowed, both grew beautiful with happiness and love, with hope for the future which could only be better and confidence that their love would conquer. David charmed Savitri into putting aside the reality which was Ramsurat Shankar for the Elysium of now, so that only the now, this love, this joy, seemed real, and the spectre of marriage to another faded like morning mist. She wanted to believe, and so she let herself be charmed, allowed herself to believe. David, accustomed to having his way, could not imagine a world where his will was not final. They dreamed on.

Iyer and his wife saw Savitri's love in the radiance of her countenance and the light in her eyes, in the lightness of her being. But they shut their eyes trusting that destiny would chart her course and sort things out; and where the young master was concerned, how dare they speak up? And was he not returning to England at the end of the season? Iyer hunched his shoulders and his wife drew her sari tighter around her shoulders and gave Savitri more tasks. They spoke more and more often of the bridegroom, and the wedding. But Savitri was not listening.

M
RS
L
INDSAY WAS
proud of her son, and with reason. She relished the comments of her friends on his dashing good looks, his charm, his quick intelligence. If David had once, as a child, been an outsider among his peers; now he was the opposite. Young people, the cream of the next Madras generation of English society, up-and-coming, bold and self-assured, sought him out and wanted him among them. But David held himself apart, and they could not understand. The world lay at their feet, and always had, and though there were rumblings among the Indians, and this Mr Gandhi was stirring them up and making trouble, why, the English were here and always would be here, and all this talk of Independence was nothing but rot. It would all pass away, including this Mr Hitler in Germany. They were English, they lived in peaceful pockets of paradise amidst a turbulent world, they were confident that nothing would ever shake that world, and if only David, the most attractive young Englishman in town, would even look at one or two of the prettier girls, all would be well.

But he wouldn't. His mother, who had herself made one or two matches in her mind, laughed it off when David showed no interest. He was young, only seventeen! Let him take his time and make a good choice.

In fact, David was longing to tell his mother that he
had
made a choice, and that it was irrevocable. But Savitri in her greater calm and wisdom held him back.

'But, dear, the summer's halfway through! We've got to make it final so this betrothal of yours can be dissolved!'

'There's time, David, there's still time. Please don't tell her yet.'

'But why not? We need her support against Iyer and the sooner she's in our confidence the better.'

But Savitri felt the first fraying of dreams as realities she couldn't bear to think of rolled relentlessly forward and all she could do was put off the day when all would unravel as she knew it must. For only she knew how ruthless tradition could be. It took no heed of feelings, of likes and dislikes, desires and needs, no heed even of love itself, not even of so great a love as hers for David, and there was no avoiding it, no excuse for dreaming once you knew what had to be, for dreams must crumble once reality entered. She knew it. David did not.

'David, I'm scared!' She drew closer to him and he held her in his arms, tightly, to show her she was safe with him.

'You've never been afraid, Sav; not of snakes or scorpions or deep water or high trees or anything. Don't be afraid now.'

But Savitri shivered, and though it was hot still and the sun glared between the flames-of-the-forest she drew her sari down over her elbows and crossed her arms tightly and prayed for strength. Even David's arms around her could not renew her hope.

The bubble of happiness grew closer around them as the season wore on, hot and sultry and sometimes angry, with the monsoon clouds hanging dark, heavy and low above the trees but never bursting, never bringing relief and release, the coolness and wetness of rain. The grass grew yellow and parched and the flowers thirsted and the tightness drew them in, closer to one another. If David felt the closeness he fought it with his dreams, building them higher; but Savitri knew.

T
WO WEEKS
before his ship was to leave for England David could stand it no longer. Without Savitri's permission, he told his mother.

It spoke for David's innocence that he really, truly believed that his mother loved Savitri as a daughter, that she would rejoice to welcome her into the family, she who had always been a part of the family anyway, from the day of her birth, she who had won his mother's love and admiration through her own virtues and talents. For him, it was obvious, and because it was obvious to him he believed it was obvious to all.

For Mrs Lindsay it was an abomination. No less. She had other plans for David.

I
T WAS
evening and the crows were fussing terribly overhead, cawing and slapping their wings on their way to roost. A middle-aged couple strolling down Atkinson Avenue heard Mrs Lindsay's voice as they passed by and stopped to listen, for here surely was an original titbit of gossip in the making, to pass on behind an upheld hand at the next cocktail party, and Mrs Lindsay with her Theosophist leanings was anyway too big for her boots . . .

'Over my dead body! Over my dead body!' The words, screamed out into the gathering dusk, were clear, and the man and the woman looked at each other and raised their eyebrows and smiled.

'That girl! That sly, cunning girl! After all I've done for her!' The man plucked nervously at the flab on his wife's arms, bidding her to move on, but the wife stood transfixed, peering between the hibiscus shrubs beyond the iron fence as if she could hear better with her eyes, but the garden was gloomy and anyway, the house, hidden as it was behind the giant bougainvilleas, could not be seen. But no other shouts came out to please her ears and anyway, the breeze was blowing in the wrong direction. The woman allowed herself to be gently pushed forward by her husband, past the wrought-iron gate behind which the turbaned Sikh in his khaki uniform sat on the wooden chair from which a lath was missing on the back rest; a vague chill passed through her body as she glanced at him. And no wonder, the way he leaned backwards tilted on two chair-legs, holding a half-smoked
bidi
in a parrot's claw of thumb and finger. His eyes were closed; it seemed he was asleep, but he wasn't. The woman could see the glinting slit which told her he was awake, his sly eyes watching them as they strolled past, unmoving, unfathomable, not sinking in respect as they met hers.

The woman shuddered involuntarily. These Indians. You couldn't trust them any more. Trouble was brewing. She longed for Devon. But whatever was going on in the Lindsay household?

'Probably that girl, Fiona,' she said to her husband. 'Remember how she eloped with the cook's son? She's turned into quite a wild thing in London, so I heard, and they had to bring her back… she still hasn't caught a husband. There's that rumour, you know, that she's still carrying on with that servant fellow. She was seen… well, I suppose we'll know sooner or later. Those Lindsays were always a queer sort.'

They strolled on arm in arm, smug in the knowledge that their world, at least, was quite the way it ought to be, with both sons married to heiresses.

H
E HAD TO FIND HER
.

He waited till long past midnight, listening to the night sounds, the chirping of crickets and the song of the frogs and the plaintive cry of the brain-fever bird. He waited till the moon was hidden behind a long dark monsoon cloud and then he slipped out and sprinted through the garden towards the back drive. He ran barefoot with his shoes in his hand for silence and stealth, the way Savitri did, light and fleet. It was dark, pitch-dark. The servants' houses loomed before him, one of them Savitri's; but he did not know which, for he never came this far and in the blackness they all looked alike. But hadn't Savitri once said that theirs was the last house; that they lived slightly apart, because they were Brahmins, and that theirs was the house with banana trees in the backyard, and no papayas, for her father did not eat them?

Then it must be this house. David tried the garden gate and it creaked slightly. Somewhere a dog barked, and then another, but it was not here in this yard. Iyer did not keep dogs.

David tiptoed up the path towards the house but here was a new problem: all the family slept outside, on the verandah, their bodies covered with sheets from head to toe, and there was no knowing which body was hers.

Despair clawed at his heart. It could not be! It could not end this way! Not such a love! A thing so perfect must survive, it must!
Oh, dear God, let there be a way, oh let there be a way! Savitri! Savitri! Come, wake up, hurry! We have no time!
He gave the cry of a brain-fever bird but he had never mastered the art as Savitri had. It was all hopeless.

One of the sleeping bodies stirred, gently first, then rolled over and sleepily sat up. David crouched behind a bush and watched. There was still no moon and all he saw were shadows, but the dark form against the white of the wall was that of a female. Four women lived here: Savitri, her mother, and two sisters-in-law.

The woman stood up and wrapped her cloth around her. She stepped down from the raised balcony and walked out some way into the garden. In the moment that she began to hunch up her clothes and squat down, David saw it was Savitri and whispered her name, for he did not want her to know he had been there, watching her attend to nature.

She heard the whisper and stood to attention, letting her clothes drop, and he left his bush and came out to meet her.

'David!' Her voice was too loud, too surprised, and he laid a finger on her lips and drew her away.

'Something woke me up, David! I felt it in my sleep and it woke me up. Once I was awake I thought it was only nature calling but no, I know now: I heard my name in my sleep!'

'Sssh!' was all he said, and led her out of the garden gate, far from the house, and then the words gushed out quickly, urgently:

'Savitri, we have to leave! Tonight! We must run away together for I won't give you up. But tomorrow my mother is taking me to Bombay to stay with Aunt Sophie before my ship leaves. And you are to marry this man! She is releasing some money for an early marriage — so we must leave now!'

'Now! But ... David, I have nothing! The streets are deserted! Where shall we go to? What shall we do?'

'I have packed a few things and some money and some papers. You need nothing, just come. I have a plan.'

Savitri looked up at him. In the darkness of night his paleness seemed ghostly, and in his white shirt and white tennis slacks he appeared to her ephemeral, like some spirit from another world. His eyes seemed almost liquid with urgency, and his desperation was contagious. Savitri's senses were wide open and caught his insistence in all its pleading and all its wilfulness, and the tender framework of duty fell away, and she was all his.

'I'll come!' she whispered. 'But I'll have to get some clothes…'

She turned as if to return to the house, but David took hold of her arm.

'Don't go. It's too dangerous! What if you wake someone up?'

'Shall I go… like this?' Savitri swept her hand downwards to show David what she was wearing, which was an old sari, crumpled from sleep, and above that the thin blanket she used at night to cover herself, which now lay doubled around her shoulders like a shawl.

'It doesn't matter. No one will look at you.' David removed the blanket which was, in fact, no thicker than a heavy sheet, wrapped it around her slight torso and arranged it so that it covered most of her body, including her head, so that only her face showed, so sincere and trusting with the wide eyes turned silently to him that he would have taken her in his arms and held her to him, if there had been time. He took her hand and led her around the back of the servants' houses to that part of the back drive that was never used, the last few yards that led to the back gate. That was kept closed, and latched, and a heavy padlock hung from the latch, but David had made his preparations and took the key from his pocket.