Tikkipala (3 page)

During that hill holiday Sangita felt, for the first time since Anwar was born, like a proper mother. Sometimes the Raja even seemed like a real husband.

He would come back from his scrambles over the hills showing her stones, telling her, ‘It is said that all good fortune will come to the person who wears this stone on the index finger of the right hand.' Or ‘It is said that the woman who places this crystal inside her blouse will bear only male children and never be burdened with females ones.' Then, reminded, would bend over his beloved son, would touch the baby's upper lip and say, ‘I thank God yet again for my unmarked son.'

‘This time next year, perhaps, Anwar will be old enough to come with me when I go hunting for minerals,' he said. ‘The people here have told me of a fabulous blue stone with a throbbing scarlet heart. It is probably just a fanciful fable invented by these ignorant peasants, but, who knows, there may just be some truth in it. My son and I will hunt for it together.'

‘He will not even be two by then,' cried Sangita. ‘You can't take a two year old child up that steep mountain.'

‘Well, the year after, then' said the Raja. ‘Or perhaps I will be able to engage a responsible person to carry him, so that he can accompany me even before he is able to walk.'

‘It is dangerous up there,' said Sangita, tightening her grip on the child, as though otherwise he might be torn from her arms. ‘Everyone keeps telling me that there are wild animals like the one I heard screaming the other evening. Also Ayah said that there are bandits there.'

‘No, I suppose you are right,' the Raja said, resignedly. 'I will wait till he is older.'

The Raja said, ‘When my son is grown up, I will send him to London, so that he may be trained as a professional geologist. Then he and I will climb these hills together, looking for minerals. The day may even come when my own boy can teach me.'

Sangita sighed.

People from the village started coming to the palace bringing stones for the Raja.

‘The women here say the stone with the red heart is called the Ama,' he told Sangita.

She felt a touch of warmth because her husband was talking to her as though she existed.

Daisy did not come back for that summer vacation. She wrote to say how sorry she was, how much she missed Sangita and how she hoped to get there for Christmas, but in the end she didn't manage Christmas either. It was a year before Daisy and Sangita met again. Anwar was nearly two.

Daisy stared at him, amazed. ‘Is this really that same little baby? I just can't believe it. He's gorgeous.' She paused, looked a little embarrassed, then said, ‘By the way, I'm engaged to be married.'

Sangita burst out laughing. ‘What made you change your mind?'

Daisy went red. ‘Love,' she muttered. Then, grabbing Sangita by the wrist, ‘His name is George, he's a friend of my brother, Paul, and they are both coming to stay next month. I want you to be the first person in Bidwar to meet George. I know you'll love him. I'm going to throw a party to welcome him and you've got to come.'

Sangita felt flustered. ‘My husband might not let me,' she said.

‘Oh, don't be so silly. You are a grownup woman. Even though he is old enough to be, he is not your father. You just tell him you are coming. How can he stop you?'

Sangita sighed. ‘He can,' she said.

‘I'll get my father to talk to your husband. You've got to come. I'll make sure your father loses his land if he doesn't let you. And you've got to dance. I want everyone to know how good you are.'

‘I have been practising the chachacha for when you get back,' laughed Sangita. ‘I'm pretty good.'

‘The chachacha is out of fashion. Now it's the Beguine.'

‘Then you'll have to teach me that,' said Sangita.

That had been two years ago. How much sorrow that had come since. But now she was back again, and her little boy was with her.

‘Shall I show you how to dance, Anwar?' she asked her little boy, now. ‘Come, take my hands. Put your feet like this.'

But the child pulled himself away. ‘Papa says that only prostitutes dance.'

‘Not in England. In England everybody dances. One day your Papa says you will go there. Then you will see. So you'd better start learning now, so that by the time you are old enough you are really good at it. Now this is how you do the Beguine.'

The child was nervous. ‘Suppose Papa sees us, will he be angry, Mama?'

‘No, no, he's gone out. Come on, darling.' Sangita and her little boy were laughing and leaping round the veranda, when Sangita heard that shrieking sound again, the sound that had woken the baby Anwar when he had been sleeping on her lap two years ago.

‘What's that horrid noise, Mama?' asked the older Anwar, and he gave a little shudder.

‘Your Papa says it is only a wild animal,' Sangita told him. But all the same, because the sound was so tragic and desolate and seemed to go on and on, she put her hands to her ears.

After a few moments the little boy reached up and pulled her fingers away, saying, ‘It has stopped now, Mama. You needn't be afraid anymore.'

Because of the two years of longing, because of the fear that she might never see him again, because now everything was alright, because the gesture was so sincere and sweet, because the dreadful screaming from above had shocked her so, Sangita suddenly started crying. She could not stop. Hot tears rushed from her eyes and down her face.

Then she had to force herself to smile because the little boy was staring at her with such dismay.

‘I am crying with happiness, because I am back with you,' she told him, her voice still choking as she tried to get it under control. ‘Sometimes grownup people cry because they are so happy.'

Anwar looked relieved and smiled as well. ‘The wild animal is right up there, high high, high, so it can't get you. Papa told me he often heard it when he was a little boy and came here with his father.'

‘The animal must be very old if it is still screaming after all those years,' said Sangita.

Daisy came to collect her in the Collector's official car, the day of the dance. ‘I want you to get there before any of the other guests so that you are the very first person who meets George. Apart from my father, of course.'

All the way from the palace to the Collector's house, Daisy could not stop talking. ‘He's even more handsome than I remembered. And taller. Oh, I can't wait for the moment when you see him. I know you will love him the moment you set eyes on him and I know he will love you too.'

Sangita tried to seem as thrilled as her friend, but had to fight back the feeling that things would never be the same between her and Daisy again, now that Daisy had got a fiancé, but she only said, ‘I'm longing to meet him. He must be a wonderful person for you to love him so.'

At the Collector's residence, two young men were playing croquet on the lawn. They both looked up as the car arrived, then began laughing and waving.

Sangita knew in an instant which one was George, because he was the one that did not look like Daisy.

Paul came upon her so suddenly, was so golden, tall and happy and looked so much like her friend, that before she could stop herself, Sangita let out an audible gasp.

Paul leant through the car window and grasped Sangita's hand, crying, ‘We meet at last. I have heard so much about you.' Even his quick, joyful movements were like Daisy's. Still holding her hand, he said, ‘You are even prettier than Daisy described. Come on. Get out. There's cold lemonade waiting for you and I bet you need it after that hot journey.'

‘You've got to dance with me all evening,' said Paul, as, still holding Sangita's hand, he let her towards the residency. ‘You must promise not to dance with a single
other man. For this one evening you must be mine alone.' She knew she ought to pull her hand away, but did nothing.

‘Don't listen to my brother,' cried Daisy, following them, arm in arm with George. ‘Paul fancies himself as God's gift to women and has no scruples as far as girls are concerned.'

Sangita felt afraid and wished she had not come.

A burning flush spread through her body when Daisy called out teasingly, ‘Now, Paul, remember that that's a married woman you've got there. Don't let that go from your mind.'

Paul laughed, throwing back his head. ‘I completely forgot,' he said but still did not leave go of Sangita's hand.

‘She's got a baby, too, Paul. You are holding the hand of the Ranee of Bidwar, who is also the mother of the future Raja, so have some respect, please, brother dear.' Brother and sister burst out laughing and Daisy said, ‘Don't be hoodwinked by my brother, Sangita. He is really awful. I expect there are a dozen women left behind in England who are blubbing now. Fools who believed his smooth talk and flowery promises.' Turning to Paul, she wagged a joking finger at him and said, ‘But you can't behave like this in India, Paul. Things are different here. Indian fathers are not tolerant like English ones.' Then, suddenly remembering, ‘But, Sangita, you haven't met George yet. George, my best friend in the world, Sangita. Sangita, my most beloved person in the world, George.'

George shook hands solemnly.

The Collector had said it was silly to try to have a ball in Bidwar. ‘Who will we ask? The Indian girls here will certainly not be allowed to take part and there is only one British family for a hundred miles.'

It was this young couple, the Collector from the next district and his new wife, who made up what was supposed to be the fourth couple. The Collector had also invited a middle-aged lady, a member of the British archaeology society.

So when Sangita said, suddenly, that after all she would not going to dance and that she wanted to return home at once, Daisy was dismayed.

‘You said you were my friend and now you are ruining everything. Tell me what the problem is.'

But Sangita was unable to explain.

In the end, stifling her anxiety, she reluctantly agreed to stay on and just as reluctantly tried not to enjoy the evening.

The Collector and the middle-aged lady soon abandoned dancing and went out onto the veranda to drink brandy soda and discuss an interesting local building that needed rescuing.

The six remaining dancers wiggled and galloped round a ball room designed for a hundred.

‘You are really good, Sangita,' said Paul later, when, rather breathlessly, they sat to eat.

The Collector had decided that, in spite of them being so few, the evening required a formal dinner.

Sangita had sat at this table only once before though she had visited with her father many times.

When she was fifteen, just before she married the Raja, she had been invited to dine with Sir Edward, a purple faced old man who had known her since she was a child.

She had sat, stiff and shy, waiting for the Collector to ask her, ‘Have you been a good girl?'

He always asked her this. But this time, because she was no longer cute, he did not notice her at all.

The dinner after the dance was a very different sort of occasion with Daisy's father getting a little tiddly on Champagne. Even the middle-aged lady became quite jolly and, rolling a bit of her bread into pellets, began to flick them at the Collector.

This started a trend, with the whole group pelting each other with bread bits, until at last Sangita laughed so much that she got hiccups and Paul slipped a cold spoon down the back of her choli.

George raised his glass to Daisy, and did a rendering of ‘Daisy Daisy, give me your answer do,' to which the middle aged lady responded by singing ‘Walter, Walter, lead me to the altar,' in a high and tremulous voice at the same time raising her glass to the Collector, as though serenading him.

‘It's my father's name, that why it's so funny,' Daisy told Sangita through her splutters.

Sangita was returned to the palace much later than she should have been and, as she tiptoed up the stairs, felt such fear in case the Raja heard her, that all the laughter was driven away.

‘Raja Sahib is asleep already,' the bearer told her, as he opened her bedroom door for her. ‘But he says he was hoping that Madam had a happy evening.'

‘Very happy, thank you, Khan,' she told the old man and began to feel like laughing again.

It was a week before she saw the Collector's family again.

Daisy, her fiancée and her brother had spent the time shopping in Delhi, but as soon as they got back Daisy sent a message to say that she had something she wanted to show Sangita, and that her friend must come over without delay.

‘Definitely we do not want to offend the Collector at this crucial moment,' said the Raja, ‘But I am starting to have some concern at your recent behaviour, for it seemed to me that you returned from the dance at the Collector's house at an hour far too late for any respectable married woman.'

‘It was not my fault,' said Sangita. ‘I asked them to bring me back much earlier, but their car ran out of petrol and they had to send a man to bring it.' She had never been a good liar. The Raja looked at her with suspicion.

Daisy's surprise was that she and Paul had each been given a little car by their father. ‘So we are going to go for a drive and to have a picnic.' The picnic was all packed and ready, as though Sangita's agreement had been taken for granted.

‘I have to be back by six,' said Sangita. ‘For Anwar's bedtime.'

‘Oh, we'll be back hours before that,' laughed Daisy.

Sangita began climbing into Daisy's car.

‘No, no, darling,' cried Daisy. ‘George and I are going in one car and you and Paul are going in the other one.'

‘Oh, no,' cried Sangita. ‘I couldn't possibly.'

‘Of course you could. Why not?'

‘What will people say if they see the wife of the Raja driving round in the car with only a young man and no chaperone? It will be a scandal. My husband will be furious.'