Where Earth Meets Sky (14 page)

Lily was laughing as Sam talked excitedly, as much with his hands as his voice.

‘Go on, tell us!’ Lily said.

‘Well, he needed to steer the car somehow, so he stood on the step, stuck his foot out onto the front wheel and steered it all the way to Newcastle with his boot – fifty-two miles! And d’you know what?’

‘What?’ Cosmo breathed, utterly captivated.

‘When he got there, the sole of his boot was completely worn through.’

‘No!’ Lily cried. ‘That can’t be true! Surely no one could do that?’

‘True as I’m sitting here.’ Their eyes met in mutual love and laughter and Lily felt herself turn weak with longing for him to hold her, for them to kiss and while away the whole afternoon together.

‘More stories!’ Cosmo insisted.

Sam laughed. ‘No peace with children around, is there? I suppose I’ll soon . . .’ But he bit back the rest of what he had been about to say: that he would soon know what it was to have a child of his own.

Sam knew he was in love in a way he had never experienced before, as if every nerve in his body was alert – more than alert – on fire! And with it came a tenderness which took him by surprise, and a sense of vulnerability that he, cocky, ambitious Sam Ironside felt in this woman’s presence. It was like nothing he had known before. It was exhilarating and rather frightening; above all, he knew he could not let it go.

He had made clear his feelings to Lily, or he hoped he had. He gave scarcely a thought to Helen and all that was waiting back in England. It was as if he had walked into another life so very far off and different that neither one had anything to do with the other. Every moment around the Fairfords’ house was charged with excitement at the thought that he might see Lily and be able to speak to her. Through the days, like a miracle, ran a refrain in his head,
I love Lily Waters, my Lily, Lily, Lily . . .

The next few times he saw her after their meeting on the veranda, she was with Cosmo, or Susan Fairford. One morning he met her with Srimala and the children out on the drive with nets and she said they were going out looking for butterflies. She was dressed in pale blue and looked at him from under her hat, her eyes full of dancing life.

‘I only wish I could come with you,’ he said, as they stood on the drive, out of hearing of the
ayah
.

Lily looked down for a moment, then back. ‘So do I,’ she said softly. And her gaze sent a spasm of intense longing through him.

‘Where can I see you?’ he said quickly. ‘I can’t bear not seeing you alone.’

She hesitated for a moment, and he thought he saw a struggle going on within her.

‘Outside, at the back. Late – eleven o’clock. It’s the only way. We’ll just need to keep out of the watchman’s way.’

There was a moon that night. Sam had dinner with the Fairfords then spent the evening in an itch of impatience. At last, when the house was quiet, he slipped out of the back door and stood under one of the trees at the back of the house in the night air. How he loved that smell, he realized, breathing in deeply. Dung smoke and vegetation and the rich smell of the country’s earth. He had not expected this, that he would begin to love the place as well. India was changing him into a new man.

The door opened and he heard her coming out to join him. She stopped, in the darkness, uncertain.

‘Over here, Lily . . .’ He had been about to call her Miss Waters.

She came to him and for a moment they strained to see each other’s faces through the darkness.

‘Oh God, you’re here,’ he said. And they couldn’t hold back then, but were in each other’s arms immediately. He nuzzled her cheek, seeking out her warm, full lips, stroking her face, her hair, overwhelmed by the feel of her.

‘Sam,’ she whispered, when they drew back for a second. ‘Sam.’

‘I love you.’ He kept saying it because it seemed the only thing to say. ‘God, Lily, I love you.’

She was silent and he realized she was profoundly moved. ‘Do you?’ Her voice was full of wonder. ‘Do you love me? No one – not one person has ever . . . I’ve never . . .’ She stumbled over the words and he was touched by her difficulty. He saw her looking searchingly into his face. ‘I don’t know if I know how to love. But the way I feel, Sam, it’s something I’ve never known before . . . I love you, I think. Yes, I’m sure I do!’

‘Oh, my Lily,’ he said. ‘Lily, my sweet darling . . .’ And all sorts of soft things spilled from his lips that he’d never said before because he had never felt like this before, so melted and overcome.

And she, though seeming frightened and unsure of it at first, responded, holding and stroking him as if there was a deep reservoir of love in her, never used, that she was pouring out over him.

‘Meet me every night, my love,’ he begged her, after they had stood talking in the darkness for a long time, so softly that they had not roused the elderly
chowkidar
from his doze on the veranda. ‘I can’t bear a day without being with you.’

‘Of course I will,’ she whispered back. ‘Oh, Sam – I never, ever believed anything like this could happen to me. And now it has, I never want to let you go!’

That week was the happiest Lily had ever known, like an ecstatic dream. Since Sam Ironside had come into her life, she knew she was not the same person. She had allowed herself to love and to be loved. When, in their meetings in the dark garden, Sam held her and kissed her, she felt she had been reborn. Everything was lit up about her life. India, the beauty of the garden, Cosmo and her work here: all appeared intensely beautiful because of him. Because of love.

She had never talked so much with anyone. After that first night they moved further from the house and found a spot to stand in under the trees, where they held each other close and kissed and talked – of their hopes and dreams, about the Fairfords and Lily’s time in India. She teased Sam about his fear of horses.

‘You should learn to ride while you’re here, and come out with us!’ she urged him. ‘There’s nothing to it!’

‘Not on your life!’ He seemed to enjoy her teasing, was prepared to laugh at himself over his ineptitude.

He told her about his family, his widowed mother, his brothers, Alfred and Harry, and his Coventry childhood. And she drank this in, hearing about a real family, something which she idealized as the height of human happiness. And she told him about Mrs Chappell and how she came to be her companion, and about all the grandchildren because they were the nearest thing she had to family. But the rest of her past, her vanished parents and her suffering at the hands of the Hornes, she had still locked firmly behind her.

Sam, longing to know her, would say, ‘But your family, your mother and father – you must be able to tell me something about them?’

And she would divert him, kissing him playfully and saying, ‘Oh, it’s all very boring,’ or change the subject, saying, ‘There’s nothing much to tell.’ The truth was she knew so little about her own origins that she was a closed book even to herself. And she did not want to admit that they had abandoned her. It felt so shameful. That was all she knew of her parents – that they didn’t want her. What did it matter now, anyway? It was the future she wanted to think about, and now she dared to dream that she might have some of the things which she had never allowed to hope for herself: family, marriage, her own children.

After that first meeting in the garden she sat by her dressing table and looked in the glass. Letting her hair down, she brushed its thick, wavy length over her shoulders, then twisted the skein of hair and pinned it up again, smiling to herself. Her eyes glowed back at her. Had her real mother had eyes like that? she wondered. But she dismissed the thought. What was the point in thinking about it? It was now she wanted to hold on to, the sight of Sam’s loving face, his passion for her and the longing she felt for him.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ Sam had kept saying to her in wonder. ‘You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.’

And tonight, miraculous as it seemed, for the first time in her life she felt beautiful and loved and full of hope.

That weekend, Captain Fairford invited Sam to the Guest Night at the Officers’ Mess.

‘It’s the ladies’ night,’ the captain said. ‘Not at all the form for them to go in any other time! I like to go, even though Susan’s not keen. I thought you might find it jolly to come along as my guest instead.’ Sam couldn’t help noticing that he didn’t sound disappointed by his wife’s lack of enthusiasm.

Captain Fairford assured Sam that he would provide him with clothes for the occasion.

‘We’re much of a size, you and I, aren’t we? I’ll get my bearer to look you out the right sort of gear. It’ll be very jolly – high jinks and so forth. You should enjoy yourself.’

By teatime on the Saturday, Sam found a very good quality dinner suit laid out on his bed, with a crisp white shirt, its collar and cuffs starched rigid by the expert
dhobi
, and the studs laid carefully with them. His boots had been polished until they shone like metal. Looking in the glass, he trimmed his moustache and combed back his hair. His mind strayed, as it did so often, to Lily Waters, only a few rooms away on the other side of the house, perhaps changing her clothes for dinner also. The most lovely and arousing of pictures came to mind.

‘Ready, Ironside?’ He heard the captain outside the door, sounding boyishly cheerful.

‘Ready!’ Sam called. He found he was looking forward to this, though full of nerves, of course, about how to conduct himself. He felt quite abashed to see the captain clad in full regimentals in blue with a red trim and insignia and gold frogging at the front, with knife-edge creases and all very impressive. But as ever, he treated Sam as an equal.

‘We’ll take a
tonga
,’ the captain said as they left the house. ‘I know you’re a fine driver, but we don’t want anything to go amiss with the car.’

Sam concluded from this that they were in for some heavy drinking. In the lights of the house which spilled out over the grass he saw the
tonga
waiting on the drive, its bony horse dozing with drooping head.

‘Listen, Ironside,’ the captain said as they clopped away into the dusk. ‘I haven’t filled you in on plans because I hadn’t made up my mind. I’d like you to stick around for another few weeks. We’ve more to learn on the motor car, for a start. But shortly I’m going to transfer the family up to Simla, in the hills. Then we can go on tour – for a fortnight or so. Give the machine a good working over – our own reliability trial, if you like! And I can show you the country then. India isn’t the cantonment. It’s a queer, artificial life we lead here and you should see something else. Are you game?’

Sam was flattered and excited. If Captain Fairford required his presence here to put the car through its paces, then who was he to argue?

‘Well – yes! That’d be marvellous!’

‘Splendid. This is a terrific country. We’ll take in all we can – just chaps together, eh?’

Sam realized as he said it that he hadn’t been imagining his relief that Susan Fairford did not want to come to the dinner.

The Officers’ Mess was not as grand as he had expected, and, like the buildings housing other ranks, it looked pretty jerry-built. As they walked in they were assailed by loud, male chatter and the air smelled of smoke and whisky. The crowded foyer inside had the usual array of game heads on the wall, as did the billiard room, which the captain showed him, to one side of the door. The other officers were also in full regimental dress, a sea of blue, red and gold, and he felt conspicuous in civvies.

Other officers greeted the captain with calls of, ‘Evening to you, Fairford. Brought your man with you, I see?’

Waiters were circulating with trays of drinks and Sam found himself holding a Scotch. Immediately, a round-faced, ginger-headed chap appeared beside them, all smiles.

‘Pelling – this is Ironside, my mechanic,’ Captain Fairford said. ‘He’s teaching me more than a thing or two about the workings of my new Daimler – fine fellow.’ He looked at Sam, who took a mouthful of Scotch, which proved to be harsh stuff. ‘This is one of my counterparts – Captain Jim Pelling.’

‘Evening – Ironside, did you say?’ Pelling clicked his heels together. It was like a reflex with these people. Sam braced himself for condescension, but he could see straight away the fellow was halfway genuine, and not just one of those types who looked straight through you because he sees you as socially inferior. ‘Wouldn’t mind your skills, old chap. Marvellous. You’ll have to take me for a spin, Fairford. My goodness, if I had the funds behind me I’d get myself a motor like a shot. Bombay’s the place, I gather. That where yours came from?’

‘I had it shipped in,’ the captain said, modestly. ‘Mr Ironside came with it, all the way.’

‘I
say
,’ Pelling laughed, without apparent envy. ‘You’re really rather a maharaja, aren’t you, Fairford?’

Various bods came and went and before long the signal was given and they all trooped in for the meal in the mess, which looked just as ramshackle as the rest of the building, with long tables and benches and other oddments of furniture. There were the regimental colours hung over the mantelpiece and portraits of military bods all along the walls, gonged up to the nines.