The Girl from Cobb Street (2 page)

It was unnerving to think of death on this day of all days but the church was exquisite, an oasis of calm, and far distant from any battlefield. She took a deep breath, trying to absorb some of its tranquillity, trying to stop her tired mind chasing down dark avenues. These would be the most important few minutes of her life and the thought was making her feel slightly sick. She loved Gerald and she believed he loved her in return. But it was months since she had last seen him and there had been—well, complications. But she must not allow herself to be deflected. The marriage would work, she thought fiercely; it had to, for she had nothing to go back to.

Anish offered her his arm and together they passed through a square, stone porch and plunged into the cool darkness of the church. A narrow ribbon of red carpet covered the floor’s geometric tiles and made a pathway to the brass rails of the altar. They walked along the nave, between a procession of archways of intricately traced stone and, behind these, window after window of glorious stained glass.

Figures were moving in front of the altar and she picked out a white-frocked priest, half-hidden in the gloom, and two soldierly forms, one it seemed attempting to support the other. One of the figures turned as she made her way down the aisle. It was Gerald, but Gerald as she had never seen him: dishevelled, unsteadily clutching at his comrade, his face a blank mask. He was ill! Daisy felt panic rise. This was why he’d not been at the port, why he’d sent Anish, who had not wanted to alarm her by telling her the truth. The confession she’d been rehearsing died on her lips and she quickened her step. She must get to him, take care of him. As she drew nearer to the group, the unmistakable smell of liquor assailed her. She might be young and naïve, but she recognised the ‘illness’ immediately. He was drunk, drunk on his wedding day. She was seized with the impulse to turn tail and run. Except that she had nowhere to run to.

Drunk or not, her bridegroom managed his part in the brief ceremony with barely a hitch, needing only the occasional prompt from one or other of his friends, his responses slightly slurred but sufficient. In under ten minutes they were man and wife; a brief brush of lips on her cheek and Daisy was again outside in the molten day. The heat had grown even more intense and the air seemed to solidify around them. You could almost cut it with a sharp knife and step through the opening, she thought. The carriage was still waiting by the kerbside and with Gerald beside her, she took her seat once more, while their two witnesses waved them a relieved goodbye.

‘Victoria Station,
jaldi
!’

Gerald gave the order, sitting stiffly beside her. She closed her eyes against the searing sun and against the unwelcome thoughts that came thick and fast. She couldn’t bring herself to speak, for it was as though she shared the carriage with a stranger. The last time she had seen Gerald, their final goodbye in the London dawn, he had been warm and tender. She’d bought a platform ticket for the Southampton train and stood watching as his dear face slowly disappeared into the distance. He hadn’t wanted to go, had promised that very soon they would be together again, together for life. She glanced across at him. A bead of sweat had dripped from his brow to the end of his nose but he made no attempt to wipe it away. Perhaps after a while you grew not to notice the discomfort. His skin was sallow and his fair hair seemed unusually dull—and surely he should not be bareheaded—but the same wide hazel eyes and full mouth told her he was the man who’d waved her goodbye at Waterloo. It was her heart that told her he was not.

They came to a halt outside a large building of red brick. Gerald half-stumbled from the carriage and the driver helped her down. Her new husband strode impatiently ahead while she stood on the forecourt, still and bewildered. Seemingly every soul in the country was on the move. People streamed past, people of all shapes, sizes, genders, people walking or riding bicycles. A pushcart, laden with rolled rugs, bundles of washing and small children, narrowly missed colliding with her. She sidestepped quickly and followed Gerald towards the entrance of the Victoria Railway Terminus.

It was a monumental building, three tiers of arches, endless small domes and turrets and, above all, a much larger dome in the shape of a crown. The clock, she saw, showed half past one. She had been in India for six hours, and she was consumed with loneliness. She wasn’t sure why since she’d been alone all her life. It was easier that way, easier not to get too close, not to lay oneself open to inevitable hurt. The one friendship she’d braved had been unequal and was now broken. Helena Maddox had been forced to close the London house to nurse a sick sister in Wales and her employer’s news had shattered Daisy’s world. Since then she’d pasted together the pieces of her life but the experience had left its dents and cracks, and these were added to older scars. To the heedless gaze of those she met daily, though, they remained invisible. And that was how she wanted it.

But then Gerald had come into her life and broken down the barriers she had so carefully erected. When she’d first met him, she could hardly believe her good fortune; it had to be the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her. He was kind and handsome and loving. He accepted her for the girl she was and seemed not in the least to care where she had come from. Gerald was to be her future and she would never be lonely again. The thought had brought tears to her eyes, and every night in the weeks after he’d left, she had daydreamed for hours in the tiny room she rented, imagining the home they would make together. Now all she felt was emptiness.

She pulled herself up sharply. She must shake off this crushing sense of disappointment. There would be an explanation for Gerald’s conduct, she did not doubt, and in good time he would tell her. Meanwhile she must not fall into an abyss of self-pity, for India meant a new opportunity, a new life. She squared her shoulders and walked after her husband.

In later years she preferred not to think of the journey to Jasirapur. She noticed that most other Europeans travelled with a personal servant who brought them tea or soda or hot water for washing. She had not washed or changed since early that morning and once settled in their compartment, there was no chance of doing so. The floors had been swabbed by a brutal disinfectant and her head soon ached from the smell, and from the noise of passengers filling the train: soldiers returning to their barracks and civilians travelling she knew not where.

‘Who are all these people?’ she asked, when they had sat in silence for the first half hour of the journey.

‘Officers in the ICS.’ Then, when he saw her confused expression, ‘The Indian Civil Service. They push pens around pieces of paper.’

He had the soldier’s contempt for men who spent most of their lives within four walls. Grayson Harte was to be a District Officer in the ICS, she remembered, his first posting in India.

‘What does a District Officer do?’

Gerald seemed surprised by her question. ‘He’s in charge of a district. Collects taxes, settles disputes, does the paperwork—that kind of thing.’

Grayson had enthused over the role he was to take on but she wondered if he would enjoy the reality. She sensed he was a man who had come to India for adventure, and keeping files or adjudicating village quarrels did not seem quite to fit his personality. But what did she know of this immense country or of those who ran it?

She gazed out of the window. It was early afternoon and a white incandescence hung over the endless plain. From time to time toy villages sprang into being, barely distinguishable from the earth itself except for the occasional temple or mosque. On either side of the train, great dun landscapes rolled themselves out like an endless carpet, sometimes flat and featureless, sometimes rocky with small, spiky bushes but always stretching to an unreachable horizon. It made her feel as small as the smallest of insects. Here and there, a few dusty trees broke through the monochrome beige and, more infrequently, a flaming patch of scarlet would flash into sight.

‘They are oleander trees, aren’t they?’ She pointed through the nearest window but Gerald was plainly uninterested in the landscape.

They had never before had a problem with talking or at least Gerald had not. He had talked and she had listened. He’d kept her enthralled with stories of his childhood, his days at boarding school and most of all his tales of life in India. This new taciturnity was uncomfortable; it belonged to a different Gerald, belonged to a man she hardly recognised. But perhaps she was being too harsh. She should not be surprised they found themselves so awkward with each other. After all, theirs had been a whirlwind romance conducted in snatched moments against the backdrop of a great city. Now they were meeting for the first time in four months, and meeting in a very different world.

She waited a while and when he said nothing, tried another tack. ‘Have you known Mr Rana long?’

‘Lieutenant.’

‘Lieutenant?’

‘Lieutenant Rana. He’s a fellow officer in the 7th.’

‘I didn’t know your regiment had Indian officers,’ she said humbly.

‘We’re getting more each year. It’s called Indianisation.’

‘And did Lieutenant Rana attend Sandhurst with you?’

Gerald shifted in his seat and looked out of the far window. ‘He went to Dehra Dun.’ Daisy heard the boredom in his voice. ‘The Military Academy. It’s an Indian version of Sandhurst.’

‘He seems very nice.’ It was trite, she knew, but anything more original might again betray her ignorance.

The conversation fizzled to a close and they sat once more in silence. At length, Gerald stood up and repositioned himself, stretching lengthways along one of the bench seats. ‘We have a few hours to go, Daisy. Better try to get some sleep. It looks like we have the carriage to ourselves.’

‘How many hours?’ Already the journey seemed interminable.

‘Fifteen, sixteen, I reckon.’

Her ears did not quite believe what they were hearing. Sixteen more hours imprisoned in this broiling square of tin. When they’d joined the train, she’d seen First Class stamped boldly on the bodywork and felt guilty. She had wronged Gerald, unwittingly it was true, but she was undeserving of such palatial treatment. She need not have worried since it soon became clear that First Class was no indicator of comfort in this confusing country. The seats were hard, the carriage creaked and jolted over old Victorian tracks, and the heat was utterly overpowering. Only the smallest respite came from the faint whirr of an electric fan, that played constantly on a tub of melting ice, placed between the seats in a vain attempt to keep the compartment cool.

Door and window handles were soon too hot to touch and the studded leather benches grew slimy beneath her sweating limbs. A film of red dust percolated through the closed windows and settled on everything it touched: blinds, seats, passengers. She tried to doze but whenever she felt herself drifting, she was jolted awake by the train grinding to a halt. Stops were frequent, station after station seeming to have dropped from the sky into the middle of nowhere. As they drew alongside each platform, she could see long lines of sleeping men, swaddled in protective layers of white cloth, while their wives squatted patiently beside them. Once the train had pulled to a stop, the clamour was unbelievable. Passengers ran in all directions, trying to scramble onto the train, clinging to carriages, even clinging to the roof. Friends pushed each other through windows, families set up makeshift bedding in corridors. Vendors handed in trays with teapots and plates of bread covered with rancid butter and little green bananas. At one stop, Gerald alighted and returned with food from one of the itinerant sellers but she could not eat it. Her throat was parched, almost closed, and all she could do was sip the water he offered.

Her new husband slept heavily. He had the soldier’s ability to rest wherever he found himself, and he slept with barely a sound. His face had lost its earlier sallowness and the strands of fair hair falling over his forehead made him look very young. Daisy’s heart stirred. She forgave him his indifference, his impatience with her, even his drinking. He had so far offered no explanation for his discourtesy, but her mind had been busy supplying one. It was wedding nerves, she’d decided, that was all. Marriage brought change, a disruption to the world he knew, and Gerald loved his life in India, that was plain from every conversation they’d ever had. He was immensely proud of being chosen for the Indian Army, so competitive was entry. And proud of being a cavalryman. Whenever he spoke of his regiment, he lit with an inner glow. He must be worried that her arrival posed a threat to the life he loved. Her job was to reassure him, make clear that she had not come to unsettle his world but to build a loving home for them both.

By sunset, they were travelling through a different kind of landscape. In village after village columns of fire smoke wound their way upwards and spread out across fields of blue linseed. Preparations for the evening meal were clearly under way. She felt her heart open to the tranquil beauty of the land, to the thousands, no, millions of lives, lived beneath its broad skies. A pale, golden dust hung from above, outlining a straggle of cows making the slow journey back to their night shelter. In an instant it seemed the glittering heat of the day had been transformed into one of milky warmth. Darkness fell just as suddenly and, at last, through sheer exhaustion, she slept.

‘We’re here. Jasirapur.’

Daisy felt herself shaken awake, and with clouded eyes looked out on yet another platform. It was early morning but already she could feel the sun gathering pace, its stealthy fingers probing the compartment’s defences.
Marwar Junction
, she read.