Golden Afternoon (22 page)

But back in 1928 we had no time to mourn the almond blossom, because though it is always the first to flower and the first to fall, hard on its heels came the paler pink of pear and apple and the white of plum and cherry, until half the valley was awash with blossom and the whole place was so extravagantly beautiful that about the only things missing were a Drury Lane orchestra and some popular musical-comedy star of that era such as Jack Buchanan or Dorothy Dickson, backed by a chorus line of lovelies, to burst into song. Off-stage, for preference. Somehow, you would not have been surprised to see it happen.

The spectacular Springtime Special being put on by Mother Nature did not do all that much to lighten my spirits, which were, during that first month, suffering from the fact that I fancied myself in love with Bob Targett and, knowing that my parents disapproved of the whole affair, felt compelled to hide the fact that we were corresponding.

I would watch from a top window for the arrival of the postman at the next-door house, and the minute he appeared I would rush downstairs and, sneaking out by a side door, manage to waylay him before he turned in at our gate, so that if there was a letter from Bob I could extract it before sending the postman on to our own front door. There was also the problem of my letters to Bob. My pocket-money (now grandly termed an ‘allowance') was still exceedingly meagre, and the price of writing-paper, envelopes, stamps and ink put a considerable strain on it. In addition, there were the problems of not being seen buying these items, and of posting the end result without being caught doing so. That last necessitated Bets and me creeping out of the house and down the drive with all the caution of stage conspirators, and, once out of sight of its windows, racing down the length of the Gupkar Road to post an almost daily letter in the pillar-box that stood at the bottom end of it.

Looking back from this distance on my first grown-up romance, I can't bring myself to believe that either of my parents would have bothered very much if they had realized that I was receiving approximately two letters a week from Bob Targett, or that he was getting at least four from me. They would have known very well that active opposition was only going to fan the flames, while as for waylaying the incoming post and confiscating Bob's letters, such an idea might have been possible in their own youth, but certainly not in the Roaring Twenties. The days of Victorian parents were over, and it was no longer possible to lock up one's daughters. I am quite sure that there was no reason for all that
secrecy and sneaking out of back doors. But, let's face it, it was tremendous fun while it lasted. And it didn't last long.

A day came when I received a letter from Bob in which he said that he could not make up his mind whether to come up to Kashmir for his holidays or not, because if he did, it would be to ask me if I would marry him. He added a bit about worrying over the age gap between us, and how young and inexperienced I was, and how was I going to feel at some time far in the future when I suddenly realized that I was married to a white-haired old dodderer — or words to that effect. There was a lot more, but none of it meant anything except that opening sentence. He ‘couldn't make up his mind whether to come up to Kashmir or not, because if he did he was going to ask me to marry him'. ‘
If
' indeed! I was furious.

Oh dear, how
young
the young are. All the poor man's doubts and worries on my behalf went for nothing; I could only take in that he was wavering over coming up to see me, and presumably expected me to write and
urge
him to come up — thus accepting a proposal that he hadn't yet made (and for all I knew, might decide not to make!), and also that he had no doubt at all about the answer he would get.
If
he came, I was going to say ‘Yes!' The conceit of it! How dared he? I sat down and wrote a snarky letter telling him that it was a matter of
supreme
indifference to me whether he came up or not. (So there!)

Poor Bob. He fully realized that apart from the few tips on Life that I had received from the sophisticated Gerry, I still had no idea how many beans make five, and he was honestly worried for fear that the gap between us in the matter of worldly wisdom, as well as age, was too great, and that he could be accused of taking advantage of my ‘youth and inexperience'. (I was rising
twenty
, damn it!) But he was right about one thing: I was still deplorably callow and ignorant. Even worse, I still suffered from an outsize inferiority complex, and it was this that drove me to fasten on that ‘if as an insult.

Suddenly, I saw myself as chasing after him during those months in Delhi, clearly showing him (and everyone else) that he only had to say the word and I'd leap into his arms with a shriek of joy, while all the time he, on his side, was unable to make up his mind whether he really wanted me or not, and was so sure of me that he could keep me hanging about in Kashmir, biting my fingernails and wondering if the verdict would be a telegram to say ‘Arriving Srinagar first week in June. Writing,' or ‘Decided
cannot manage Kashmir this year, sorry, Targett' In the event I received neither. Bob did not write again, and nor did I.

We were to meet again, of course, in Delhi. That we should do so was hardly avoidable in India. And the complications of love being out of the way, we became great friends. Bob was to marry twice, the first time a few years later. Later still, after the first marriage ended in divorce and he had been knighted, he eventually married again — and this time, as far as I know, lived happily ever after. He only once referred to our brief romance, and that was a full ten years later during a Viceregal Ball in New Delhi, when his first marriage was over, and when I had turned thirty and was still unmarried. We had been dancing together, and afterwards we walked out into the lantern-lit garden to sit out the next dance and talk, and he said unexpectedly that he'd been a fool not to marry me, and that he believed that we would have made a great success of it, and that I had taken his letter in quite the wrong way and my reply to it had given his
amour propre
such a staggering kick in the teeth that his immediate reaction had been to make straight for Kashmir, demand to know what the hell I thought I was up to, and shake me until my teeth rattled. Which was, he said, exactly what he should have done if he'd any sense, because it might have shaken some sense into me, and he should have refused to leave until I'd agreed to get engaged to him and set a date for an autumn wedding in Delhi.

‘What a mess some of us make of our lives,' said Bob. I remember pointing out rather tartly that, apart from the failure of his first marriage, he seemed to be doing all right! He agreed — and then startled me by asking what I'd say now, if he were to ask me the question that he would have asked years ago, if I hadn't effectively stopped him by handing out that resounding smack in the face. Well, there was only one way to deal with that one, so I said soulfully: ‘
Darling
Bob! Don't tempt me — here I am, with a foot in the thirties, and according to Mother firmly on the shelf. What do you
suppose
I'd say?'

For a moment he looked so terrified that I burst out laughing, and presently he began to laugh too, and we sat there in the Mogul garden, shrieking our heads off. Because, of course, he hadn't meant a word of it; he'd enjoyed half a dozen hectic affairs and one disastrous marriage since then, and had only been raking over dead coals for fun, in the firm conviction that there wasn't a single spark left and that the answer would be a hasty: ‘Good heavens, no! Are you off your head?' But reminded of
my years and my spinster state, it had suddenly occurred to him that I might take up his offer in the spirit in which it had definitely not been meant, and then he really would be in the soup.

As for me, it had not taken me long, after posting that snubbing letter, to realize that he was not going to reply to it, and that I had effectually put an end to my first adult love affair — or to decide that it couldn't have been the real thing after all, because if it had been,
surely
I would have taken longer than a couple of weeks to get over it? I remember being rather ashamed of myself for not losing more sleep over the loss of Bob, and confiding in Bets that falling in love was a lot more complicated than one would think. How did one tell if it was the real thing or not? It was humiliating to discover that the thing I missed most during the weeks that followed the end of my first romance was the excitement of looking out for the postman and intercepting letters, and the writing and posting of replies in secret.

Life was a lot more boring now that there was no undercover stuff of that sort, and thinking it over, I realized that if I had applied the du Maurier test I couldn't possibly have said, ‘Make it three' to Bob, and that in fact I had never paused to give that aspect of it a single thought. Odd. I decided that the next time I would remember to do so. If there was a next time, I remember wondering gloomily. It seemed unlikely, after the painful experience of the Residency Ball …

Even now, after all these years, I cannot think of that occasion without cringing, and if it had been possible to have erased it from my memory I would have done so long ago and with alacrity. But alas! one's memory (mine, anyway) decides for itself what it will retain or discard, and it has etched that hideous evening indelibly on the tablets of my mind.

It must have been towards the end of April, because I remember that the trees in the gardens were wreathed in fairy-lights and the ground was dotted all over with little tables and sofas and chairs so that the hardier guests could sit out between dances — those who did needed a fur cape or a warm evening cloak. There was also a
shamiama
(marquee) somewhere or other in the grounds. The ball was, in effect, an opening shot that signalled the start of Kashmir's social season, and everyone who had signed the Residency book was automatically invited. I don't remember why Bets was not among them, and nor does she — (she thinks she must have been considered too young, or had a bad cold). But Mother and Tacklow and I attended: with disastrous results.

I was new to Kashmir and its ‘regulars' — the wives, families and girlfriends of men serving in India, who came up every year from all over the plains to escape the discomforts of the hot weather, and the influx of men on leave from the armed forces, the ICS or one of the big trading companies such as Burmah Shell, Ralli Brothers and Dunlop's. And though I had attended a dance or two in Calcutta and several in Delhi, it had always been as one of a party that had dined together beforehand. Never once as a lone girl on my own, for my parents were no substitutes for partners. Tacklow, anyway, was a non-dancer. So I had no idea what I was in for until I arrived at the Residency, and found the hall and the ladies' cloakroom and main staircase crowded with total strangers, all of whom seemed to be on Christian-name terms with each other. It was a daunting moment, and worse was to come.

I had already met one or two girls of my own age during the past few weeks — the bank manager's daughter, Meg Macnamara, the Jenn sisters, who were spending the summer in Kashmir, two ex-schoolfriends — Noreen Bott and Pat Mills — Leela Apcar and several others. But I could spot no face I knew among the chattering crowd of women in the cloakroom, where I left my imitation white mink cape (shaved rabbit) and was presented with a dance-programme before edging my way back to the equally crowded hall.

Tacklow had been scooped in by Sir Evelyn Howell, the Resident, to play bridge, and I could see no sign of Mother, or anyone I knew, so I hung about, shifting uneasily from one foot to another and apologizing nervously whenever some hurrying fellow guest, burrowing through the crowd
en route
to the ballroom, happened to bump into me. Eventually, following the herd, I too found myself in the ballroom, where I spotted Mother foxtrotting gaily in the arms of our host, and looking as though she was having the time of her life.

I did not, as yet, know any of the young men who attended that dance; and since all the older men were either playing bridge or dancing with their wives or the wives of their contemporaries, not a single name sullied the pristine surface of the little white and gold dance-programme that dangled from my wrist. However, there were still some vacant spaces on the window-seats and the sofas and chairs where the older women — mothers and non-dancing chaperones — could sit and gossip and watch the dancing; and, seeing an empty one next to an old family friend, Lady Maggie Skeen, I edged around the floor and sat down beside her, resigned
to spending the rest of the evening wedged in among the dowagers. But it was not to be. Unfortunately, I was spotted by my hostess, who sailed across and demanded to know why I wasn't dancing and where the rest of my party were. She looked horrified when I said I didn't know anyone and hadn't come with a party — only my father and mother — and, clasping my arm, said comfortingly: ‘Oh, you
poor
child! Well, we must introduce you at once to some nice young men! Now let me see —'

The next ten to fifteen minutes were among the most shame-making in my life. I stood there, unable to leave because of that grip on my arm, while my well-meaning hostess used her free hand to grab every young man within reach and, having demanded his name if she didn't happen to know it already, introduce him to me. And one after another each one of these hapless youths mumbled a polite acknowledgement, added hastily that they were so sorry that they couldn't ask me for a dance but unfortunately their programmes were already full, and backed away, melting thankfully into the crowd. Not one of them was free to ask me for a dance, not even if they had wanted to! Well, what does a girl say in answer to that? I thought of so many things afterwards, but none occurred to me at the time, for my brain seemed to stop functioning. Why, I thought next day, hadn't I sweetly said to those young men who claimed their programmes were full, ‘Oh, really? So's mine! What a pity — well, some other day perhaps.' Or made a joke of it and said something like ‘Lucky you!' But all that was later. At the time I was too paralysed with shame and embarrassment to do anything but stand there with a sickly smile glued to my face, feeling like some unattractive slave on the block as a series of unwilling bidders, hauled relentlessly forward by Lady Howell, parroted the same phrases before backing thankfully away to join one of their girlfriends on the floor.