A Far Horizon (10 page)

Now in the palanquin the Chief Magistrate felt again the cold weight of the purse against his ankle. The same fear he had felt on that ship long ago ran through him. Invisible seeds might already be germinating, preparing to endanger his future.

*

Once the Hatmen had gone, Raja Rai Durlabh finished the remains of his arrack. He had seen the Englishmen depart with relief and was now anxious to be free of Ghasiti Begum’s palace. To have come at all was risky, but risk was the flavour of the times. Already, on every front, in every camp, there was a sense of realignment. There were no more than days or even hours before Alivardi Khan passed away. Already Siraj Uddaulah flexed his muscles. Already he manoeuvred into places of influence his drinking companions and cronies. He did not, like his grandfather, seek to spread administrative power equally amongst Hindus and Moslems. Alivardi had preferred the services of a high percentage of Hindus in every state office. Now, Siraj Uddaulah sought to overturn this by inserting everywhere Moslems of little calibre and questionable ability. Rai Durlabh was sure he would keep his own position in court, yet he was mindful of the future. He had no wish to serve a hot-headed young man who rarely showed him respect. He intended to play the game cautiously until he saw what destiny offered. As always he trod a path carefully, testing each stone before he put his heel down. If Siraj Uddaulah must be got rid of, then he would see that it was done. But he would not act in haste.

He drained the last of the arrack and stood up. The Hatmen, as predicted, had fallen easily into their place within the chessboard of moves already forming before them. As expected, the promise of money was all that was needed. They were easy pawns, and always transparent.

E
mily Drake sat dressed in her loosest muslin, yet was unable to feel cool. Outside, the hot winds blew, like heat from a blacksmith’s forge. As the day expanded, snakes disappeared into holes; dogs sought the shadows and lay comatose beside bullocks, goats and men. Urchins crept under verandas, risking scorpions, muskrats and cobra. Those flowers that could closed their petals tight. Wells were deserted, wet footsteps drying
instantaneously
as if beneath an iron.

Emily sat in a chair looking out at the Hoogly, passing the hours as she passed so many, silent with her tapestry. Today the needle dived clumsily, her stitches uneven. She was filled with shapeless impulses.
Do
this.
Do
that.
Go
here.
Go
there.
The words whispered in her head. In his cradle Harry whimpered, the wet nurse moved towards him. The child had slept peacefully since the woman’s arrival. Whenever he cried she hurried to him and immediately he was quiet. Emily herself seemed not to have this calming knack. Harry had gained some weight yet his stillness and the translucency of his complexion continued to worry her. The nurse placed the baby again in his cradle and silence filled the room.

Soon she heard Roger climbing the stairs and something closed within her. It was hard to believe that once she had waited for his
step outside her door. Now there was only the draining away of emotion. They had slowly drifted apart, each upon their separate raft. Roger dealt with this void robustly, entrenched in work and social commitment. He lived besides, whenever he wished, a bawdy tavern life. He had a masculine strength that nothing seemed to rout. She had none of this; she lived a confiscated life. There was no one to blame but herself.

‘It is time for tiffin, I am hungry,’ Roger announced, rubbing his hands together as he entered the room.

‘You are always hungry,’ Emily observed good-humouredly, rising from her chair. Whatever her distance now from Roger, there were things in the past that could not be forgotten, whatever else might have been destroyed. There was besides no anger between them, just a growing space. Emily settled Harry with the nurse and followed him to the dining room.

The corridor lived in borrowed light from the rooms that opened off it. Roger walked ahead, impatient for his food. Emily noticed that an increased girth pulled his coat tight across his hips. The extra weight turned his short-stepping walk to an ungainly strut. He had been slim when they married, and open-faced, without the forced joviality he projected now. At times she felt a sadness for him. His wish for the governorship had been easily granted, but in return he had paid a price. He seemed now to have few friends, whereas before he had had too many. In the narrow corridor their hurrying feet rapped upon the bare polished boards.

‘Jane.
Jane.’
The hot winds blew against the tatties to whisper the words in her head. Emily stopped and her heart flew to her throat. Something moved in the shadows. A large cockroach appeared to scuttle down the wall and disappear into a crack.

‘What is it?’ Drake turned at the sound of his wife’s exclamation.

‘I thought … it was Jane,’ she whispered.

‘We left her in Bombay.’ Drake took hold of his wife’s arm.

‘If she were buried in Calcutta I think nothing could save me,’
Emily admitted. Drake sighed, letting go of Emily’s arm as he turned again towards the dining room.

He continued along the corridor, Emily following, and once again the vibrations disturbed the cockroach. Deserting its seam in the panelling, it spread its wings to glide down upon Emily. She began to scream. The Governor turned and brushed the insect from his wife’s breast.

She leant against the wall, her heart jumping about in her chest. Even though the insect was gone, she saw it still, black as a birthmark upon her.

‘It is Jane …’ She began to sob.

‘Take hold of yourself,’ Drake ordered, banishing his own fears in a show of impatience.

‘She has appeared to me. She will not leave me alone.’ Emily had yet to tell him about the night at Demonteguy’s home.

‘Such things they say sometimes happen to women after a confinement. It is all in your mind. Why do you not rest?’ He spoke kindly now, taking her suddenly in his arms.

‘What else do I do but rest?’ She knew he meant well, but irritation flooded her. She could find no comfort in the damp pressure of his chin.

Suddenly he pressed her up against the wall, thrusting his hand down the neck of her gown, until he cupped her breast.

‘Not here. The servants are everywhere,’ she said, breaking free of him.

‘You want me to go off to Black Town? How many days now has it been?’ Drake complained with a scowl. Before him Emily stiffened and appeared not to hear, staring distractedly over his shoulder.

‘It is the first of June,’ she whispered. At once everything was clear.

‘What of it?’ growled Drake, drawing back from his wife.

‘Jane died on the first of June.’

For a moment then Drake hesitated before speaking out firmly in a loud voice. ‘We left Jane in Bombay, six foot under the ground with a stone obelisk to hold her down.’

The memory of his first wife, swinging dead before him from a rafter, was not easily forgotten. It had been he who had cut her down. Emily’s obsession with her sister’s ghost was not something he wished to examine. He felt again the limp weight of Jane’s body as he held her against him while hacking at the rope. A monsoon wind had blown through the house, winding her hair about his face. The scent of rosewater and perspiration lifted from her and filled him to this day.

‘Did you order kedgeree for me?’ he asked, pushing away the memory.

‘You cannot keep fish an hour in this weather, it is bad enough with meat,’ Emily replied, following his lead, as if it was an ordinary day and nothing but kedgeree mattered. It was clear to her now that Roger could be of no help; she was alone with a ghost. Ahead of her Roger had already passed through the door of the dining room to survey the table of food.

*

Later, in the quiet of the afternoon as she tried to sleep, the old restlessness returned. The wet tatties dripped but did not cool the room. Bars of light around the blinds reflected on the walls. Sounds carried up from below; horses’ hooves, the shouts of men, the bark of a dog, the cooing of doves near her window. The dim room about her, slatted with reflections, held her like a cage. She turned in panic and again the whispering filled her head.
Do
this,
do
that.
Go
here,
go
there.
She knew she must do as the voice bid if she were to find any peace.

At last, as shadows breathed slowly into the heat, Emily Drake called for her palanquin. Once more she was driven to leave her home, as if to search for something lost. She gave instructions to the runners to take her to the Chandpal Ghat.

Often, from a high window of Fort William, she sat and surveyed the impacted mass of Black Town, turning her back on the Settlement. In this way she absorbed not only a picture of the Hoogly but also the life it so closely supported. Her view was distant as a
bird’s but the panorama held her. It was not just the tapestry of events, the funeral cortège, the wedding procession, the crying child, the bathing women or the work of the
dhobi
and the carpenter. This view of a seething world seemed proof of her own existence. Something came to her through the hawkers’ cries, the beat of a drum, the bleat of goats or the shrill voices of washerwomen. These sounds floated up to move through her. And, fattened upon this view, she instinctively avoided the window behind her that
commanded
views of White Town pomp. The dazzling houses, the manicured gardens, the great water tanks kept clear of a single leaf, all stood before her like a desert she must trudge across each day. It was as if her real life were lived underground and showed no movement on the surface.

Now, in the palanquin, Emily Drake leaned back upon a bolster. When she told the runners her destination they looked askance at her. Then they set off obediently along the road beside the Maratha Ditch which carried Black Town’s traffic. Every so often the palanquin was brought to a halt behind the swaying rumps of bullocks, or herds of bleating goats. Emily was unable to suppress her excitement, for already the life she documented each day from a distance pulsed about her.

At last they reached the bridge over the Ditch and crossed into Black Town. Emily looked down into the sluggish waters of the canal and knew she passed into an unknown world. In the litter she leaned forward eagerly. The palanquin was suddenly sucked into narrow lanes clogged with people, animals and carts. Cows ambled about in a world of their own. Men pushing overloaded barrows shouted either side of the palanquin. The runners raised the litter higher and thrust their way forward, adding their shouts to the noise. Emily slid about, clinging to the sides of her conveyance. The smell of dung fires and frying food and the acrid stench of urine mixed with the perfume of incense to fill the palanquin. The heat stewed these smells to intensity. Flies invaded the litter, settling upon Emily’s face, hovering near her eyes. A mosquito bite itched upon her wrist;
another burned her ear. Wooden buildings lined the road, upper storeys ornate with carved latticed shutters and balconies. From these windows women peered out, faces veiled except for their eyes. Children pressed about them, like chicks looking down from an eyrie. Vendors struggled forward, baskets of fruit or vegetables balanced upon their heads. Thatched stalls and shops no bigger than cupboards were piled with spices, bolts of cloth or terracotta oil lamps. Purple aubergines gleamed next to the vivid splash of mangoes or mounds of flaming chillies. A barber squatted, razor in hand, attending to his client; a doctor of herbal remedies crouched upon a stool, a jar of pickled roots at his side. A tide of dirty muslin appeared to fill the road as people struggled forward. Emily flung back the curtains of the litter, as if inviting the tide to engulf her. She wished to discard her isolation as once in childhood she had discarded her dresses to run wild in a muslin slip. The notes of a long-forgotten dance sounded distantly in her head.

As they had entered, so, suddenly, they were free of the clamour. The narrow road was left behind. Now the glint of the river swelled before her. On its banks stood the Kali Mandhir and the Chandpal Ghat, which she had viewed distantly from Fort William. Soon the runners drew to a halt, and Emily stepped from her palanquin.

Before her was a complex of pagoda-roofed temples, busy with comings and goings. A large tank of water stood before it. Upon its steps children splashed while women immersed themselves in the water, emerging with their saris clinging to them revealingly. The ringing of bells and the chant of prayer sounded unceasingly. There was a smell of burning wood and incense, and a stronger odour Emily could not place. Some distance away, the bank of the river had been hewn into wide steps. A wall segregated this area from the temple. Upon it sat crows, vultures and adjutant storks. A glimpse of fire, roaring up suddenly, took Emily by surprise. From her window in Fort William the smoke of the burning ghats had appeared as innocuous. She backed away in revulsion, but the smoke curled about her, as if to draw her across an intangible line.

She saw her arrival had not gone unmarked. A crowd of beggars from the temple made their way towards her. Their progress was slow, for most were afflicted with deformities. Some hobbled on crutches, waving the stumps of amputated limbs. A legless man propelled himself forward upon a low-wheeled trolley. Lepers without noses or fingers guided forward the blind. A mewling growl was released from the crowd as they rolled towards her. Emily looked about in desperation and saw she was trapped between the burning ghat and the beggars.

Behind her was a hillock rising to a grove of trees. A tangled mass of vines almost hid a small building at its summit. She hurried up the narrow path. Her hooped skirts swayed awkwardly about her; shrubs caught at the silk and scratched her hands. She had scrambled up hills many times in the past, the taste of wild mint on her tongue, the arc of the sun ruling her day and roasting her skin. Memory blew through her, pushing her on. The late afternoon sun blazed in her face. At last she reached the top of the path and, looking back, saw the beggars arrayed angrily at the bottom, reluctant to make the climb upon their inadequate limbs. They preferred to await her return to the litter. Emily saw her palanquin bearers advancing in a determined fashion, intent upon dispersing the beggars. She turned in relief to examine the building before her.

It was difficult to see what lay beneath the knitted mound of creepers, but the entrance was carefully cleared. The place appeared hollowed out of the hill, part rock, part brick. Emily bent beneath a low portal and entered the cool interior. Although the blazing sun was left behind, it continued to dazzle, robbing her of sight. The chamber swam blackly before her, filled by strange rustlings and a fusty odour. She was forced to stand where she was, unable to see, afraid to step forward. In the dark cavern the sounds of life outside echoed distantly. Emily’s heart began to pound. It was impossible to know where she was. She might stand on the edge of an abyss or before a pit of snakes. Her pupils dilated, her eyes grew large, but still she could not see. She was as blind as the beggar who sat outside the
walls of Fort William wailing for alms. In the blackness she searched for an instinct that would tell her which way to turn. The past lay behind her and what was ahead could not yet be seen. Her everyday senses were useless and time appeared to hang suspended. She could not gauge whether seconds or minutes or hours had passed, bereft of her usual judgements. Then, slowly, her sight was restored, as if at last a door opened upon the strange place she had entered.

Creepers had thrust in from outside and taken possession of the chamber, twisting along the walls and the low domed ceiling. Above her, dark loops of vines pushed through the greenery like the sinuous coils of snakes. The filtered green light gave her the feeling of being in an undersea cave. Beneath her feet the floor was swept clean; no leaves or litter lay scattered about. However secretive it appeared, this was not a forgotten place.