The Day of the Scorpion (66 page)

He said, ‘I seem to have discovered the chink in your armour. But are you annoyed with me for asking, or because you have to admit you are? Or is it a bit of both? I can’t believe it’s that you’re plain old-fashioned shocked or embarrassed. And you don’t look like a girl who thinks a man should automatically assume the absence of a wedding ring on the hand of a well-brought-up young lady means she’s saving it up for Mr Right. Or am I wrong?’

They were questions she could not answer except from a fund of outworn stock replies such as he would only receive with a gently derisive pretence of not having anticipated. The alternative was silence; which she chose.

‘In any case,’ he said, ‘clearly I must apologize.’

The hand rested again on the back of her neck. The warmth flowed back in, revealing the one unchanging purpose to which she could be put, even as a shell. Her nipples hardened in simulation of giving suck, but she continued to stare at the
daïs. There was sudden movement in the room. The man who played the tablas had come back in. A girl accompanied him.

‘Mira
is
doing us proud,’ he whispered, leaning close. ‘It’s Lakshmi Kripalani. She sings, in case you didn’t know.’

She nodded, more in acknowledgement of his breath’s faint palpations of her ear than of the words spoken. Mira was approaching. The Maharanee had also risen and was coming in her wake, but continued on towards the curtained doorway. Mira came to the sofa and leaned forward and spoke to her, excluding Clark.

‘They’ll be playing again soon. I’d better show you where you can freshen up.’

Clark removed his hand, relieved her of the unfinished glass of brandy.

‘It’s a good idea,’ he said. ‘They might go on for an hour. It depends on how inventive they’re feeling. I’ll keep this warm for you.’

Sarah got up with the half-formed intention of telling him that an hour was too long, that she should go home because they both had an early start to the day ahead; but she could not summon the determination. She followed Mira into the bar, through into the hall, then a passage, and up a staircase that turned twice. They came out on to a gallery whose barred windows were unshuttered and admitted the warm mulchy smell of the Bengal night. The gallery turned at right angles and continued along the length of the side of the house. Light came from naked bulbs fixed into sockets in the gallery roof. The Indians sometimes had a crude, uncluttered attitude towards electricity, Sarah thought. So often the bulb was accepted as a decoration in itself. Mira wore no chola under the dark saree. The elastic of a brassiere showed. At the end of the gallery she turned in at an open door. Sarah followed and paused – astonished at the room’s opulence. A double bed, raised on a wide but shallow daïs and enclosed by a white mosquito net hung high and centrally so that the effect was of a regal canopy, was its main focus. The gossamer net shivered under the gentle changing pressures of air wafted by two revolving ceiling fans. The daïs was covered in white carpet and the bedcovers were of creamy
white satin. The furniture was satin-walnut. Mira, still without speaking, had walked to a door, opened it and switched on a light.

There’s probably everything you want. If not, just ring and one of the girls will come.’

A fragrance, a chill; the bathroom was air-conditioned. It was larger than her bedroom at Pankot and marble-floored, with sheepskin rugs. Above the semi-sunken bath gilt faucets projected from marble green tiles. At one end of the bath pink frosted glass screened off the shower.

She looked at Mira, fearing her, chilled by her, but ready to praise what belonged to her. But Mira seemed quite indifferent and held the door open as if anxious to be gone. Thank you,’ Sarah said, and went past her. The door was closed. The lavatory was in an adjoining cubicle. The cistern was the modern kind with a levered handle. It flushed quietly and immediately. In the pedestal wash-basin, piping hot water flowed. Back in the bathroom she sat on a luxurious stool with curved gilt claw legs and a padded green velvet seat. The legs of the marble-topped table matched the legs of the stool. She studied herself in an immense mirror; a flattering one. Glancing at the array of bottles and sprays and jars she opened her handbag with misgivings about the quality of its contents but determined to use nothing that didn’t belong to her, and then was held by a delayed reaction. Her eye had caught objects that struck her as incongruous. Among the scents, lotions and other items in a toilet battery of wholly feminine connection were two wood-backed bristle hairbrushes and a leather case. The zip was half undone. She reached out, zipped further, then completely, and lifted the cover, stared at the contents – four gold-plated containers and a matching safety razor.

She turned round, considered the bathroom, searching it for other clues to masculine occupation without much idea of what to look for, and noticed in one corner a bin with a padded seat that obviously lifted. She turned back to the mirror and went to work with powder from her compact, occasionally glancing at the bin’s reflection. A dab of lipstick completed her repair operations. She shut her handbag. The click echoed. She sat for a while and felt in need of some show
of kindness, such as Aunt Fenny had made, taking her shoes off, making her rest, and again remembered that she had not slept properly for two days; three, if she counted the night she last slept in Pankot, disturbed by a gift of lace, a meeting avoided, and expectation of new ground and a long journey. She looked at her watch. Eleven-thirty. Less than six hours since she had said Goodbye, Ronald, and got in return a goodbye that was not coupled with the blessing and absolution of her name.

Her name – she got up from the stool – her formidable, bony, yearning name – and walked to and opened the bin; stared down at the soiled expensive briefs, those meshes of mysterious and complex cellular imprisonment. She closed the lid, knowing that both bath and bedroom were tainted by his casual presence and the ludicrous talent he had for casual contemptuous excitation.

I am sensible now – she decided – after Pyari has played I shall go home, alone if necessary. She reached for door-handle and light-switch, intending to flick the one after opening the other, but when she opened the door a whole field of darkness faced her. She stood arrested by it and by the notion that darkness always contained dangers and presences.

Instinctively, but without conviction, she blamed Mira, who had apparently not even left the door open between bedroom and gallery. There would have been light enough then. Momentarily she was without a sense of direction. She felt along one wall, searching for another switch. Her elongated shadow probed the slant of bathroom light across the floor and up a blank wall. There was no switch. But she had her bearings. The five-mile hill, the five-mile door. Over there, she told herself; and was rewarded then by the suddenly visible pale strip of light making the boundary of bedroom and gallery. She walked towards it, and stopped.

‘You’re going the wrong way,’ he said. ‘I’m over here.’

His voice came from behind, from some intensely organized, centralized point of reference. Turning towards it she was dazzled by the light from the decoy bathroom. The bed was darkly shadowed by one of the bathroom walls, which jutted into the room.

‘You seem startled. Weren’t you expecting me?’

‘No.’

She turned and walked towards the slit of light, anticipated the driven-home look and the absent key. She jerked the handle. The absurdity of the handle’s obedient but unfunctional mobility nullified her attempt to convey composure. Nothing looked sillier than trying to open a door the person watching you knew you knew was locked. She turned back, facing that equally absurd dark central point of reference.

‘That’s a pity,’ he said. ‘I thought you understood we had an appointment. Mira did, so you mustn’t worry about our absence causing comment. Is it the dark that puts you off? I thought you’d prefer it. At first, anyway.’

‘We have no appointment. Please turn the lights on and open the door.’

As she spoke she realized that her eyes had become more used to the dark areas beyond the shaft of light coming from the bathroom. There was a slow rhythmic movement and in the second before the restored bedside lamp reversed the negative image into a positive one she detected the stretched arm, sensed the manipulative action of his hand on the switch, and understood from the spare density of his form that he was naked.

He was seated on the edge of the bed, staring back at her across a still extended arm, caught and held in the ageless classic pose of a figure from some Renaissance ceiling. The shock he gave her was that of astonishment that in the flesh a man could look as he had been depicted for centuries in stone and paint. Lowering the arm he exposed a sculptured chest.

‘Are you sure you want the door opened?’

‘Yes.’

‘The key’s here on the table. I’ve also been thoughtful enough to bring our glasses. Have I miscalculated? I don’t often, but it wouldn’t be the first time. It’s an occupational hazard of the male. You get a few more slaps in the face than you deserve, but you also get your screws, so you can’t complain. Are you quite sure you don’t want to lose that cherry?’

‘Quite sure. I’ll give you a minute to unlock the door.’

She moved, making for the bathroom. Casually, he got up
and was there before her. She stood still. Naked, the earlier and only slight advantage he had in height was further diminished. In her high heels she eyed him almost levelly, but her manifest disadvantage in strength and weight was pressed home on her as if by an actual pressure of his limbs. She turned, sat on a padded satin-covered chair. Doing so disclosed to her the shameful fact that she was trembling. She faced him again, deliberately. She observed him dispassionately, from head to foot. Having quartered him she looked again to her front and said, ‘I’ve seen you now, so may I go?’

‘That wasn’t the object of undressing. I turned the light off, remember? The only reason I’m like this is that making a pass at a girl and getting her hot and then introducing the devastatingly practical note of pausing to take your clothes off always strikes me as highly comic. When a man wants a screw he ought not to beat about the bush. It’s different for girls because their clothes can come off so gracefully. Have I really wasted my time?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, that’s an occupational hazard too.’

There was a pause. Presently he crossed her line of vision. When he reached the bed he felt under the mosquito net and drew something out. Blue material. His pyjama trousers. He put them on. The bunched tops of the trousers thickened his waist slightly. He lit a cigarette, then brought their glasses of brandy over. He put them on the floor, went back to the table for an ashtray, returned and sat on the floor himself, and gazed up at her.

‘You’re not really plain, are you? In fact you’re quite pretty. And you’ve got thin shoulders. In the buff I expect your breasts look much more prominent.’ He put his head on one side, considering her. ‘But your hips are a shade too narrow. I bet you’ve got a hard little bottom. What I like best about you though is you never say anything too obvious. I know the dialogue that can go with this particular situation by heart and it gets pretty boring. So that’s what I like best. Your not saying anything obvious and your Colonel’s daughter’s guts. It makes an unusual combination.’ He drank, indicated her own glass. ‘Drink up. It’ll do you good. I never screw them
when they’re pissed so you’re quite safe. I mean don’t
not
drink because you think I’d take advantage if you had too much. But I don’t suppose you ever have too much, do you? That’s another point in your favour. Your aunt told me you have a thin time at home because your mother drinks. It’s embarrassing, isn’t it? My father drank a lot. He used to cry too. Does your mother cry? What she ought to do is give up drinking and find some young officer who’ll screw her whenever she wants and bow out without making a fuss when the Colonel comes home. After all, that would be better for the Colonel, wouldn’t it? To come home to a placid, loving woman, instead of a neurotic alcoholic who gets her screws out of bottles.’

‘Like your father?’

‘Yes, like him.’

‘And what did
your
mother do for screws?’

‘Oh, Mother was never hard up. She went in for handsome chauffeurs. When I was eighteen I put my foot down, though, and insisted that even if the chauffeurs went to bed with her they still had to call me either Master James, or Sir.’

‘And did they?’

‘Yes, but I expect it cost her an extra small fortune at the men’s shops in Bond Street.’ He smiled. ‘Go on. You’re doing very well. For one awful moment I thought you were going to say something like “Kindly leave my mother and father out of this.” I hope you’re not too cross with Aunt Fenny, by the way. She was only trying to paint a little picture of you that would bring out my protective instincts. She said more than she intended, but that was my fault.’

‘I realized that.’

‘Do all your family view you with the same mixture of alarm and affection as she does?’

‘Probably.’

‘Why are you shivering?’

‘Because I find it difficult to control myself.’

‘And you feel you must? What do you find difficult to control? Your temper?’

‘Yes.’

For the first time since coming to sit on the floor he freed her from her self-imposed obligation not to let her glance
waver. He looked down at his glass and for a moment she escaped into the safe oblivion of private darkness. When she opened her eyes again he was watching her. She said, ‘i’d be glad if you’d open the door now. If the taxi’s still waiting I can go home without putting you to any trouble. If it’s not I’m afraid you’ll have to organize one. I don’t know where we are.’

‘Don’t worry about the taxi. You’re forgetting I promised Aunt Fenny you’d come to no harm.’

‘She’s my Aunt Fenny, not yours.’

The comfortable angle of his head and trunk, the casual, easy, disposition of his limbs created confusing images in her mind of strength and languor and confident patience. They were confusing because she herself felt she had come to the end of a tether.