Where Earth Meets Sky (15 page)

‘Commanding officers through the years,’ the captain said, nodding at them as they took their place at the table.

There seemed to be a whole lot of protocol attached to where they sat. Sam held on to the general sense that along the table to his left were the superiors, majors and upwards, and the other side the lower ranks, senior subalterns and so on. Some of them looked flaming intimidating, but he was determined to keep calm and not look rattled.

The meal was an extraordinary affair, though in the end Sam only remembered the beginning of it because he was plied with more strong drink than ever in his life before. Later he could only recall the end of the evening as a blur of rapscallion chaos. The meal began with something called the ‘first toast’, which was, in fact, a sardine on a piece of soggy bread. There followed a small helping of tinned fish, and then a roasted joint with all the trimmings, all served by the liveried native waiters. All through, Sam found he was downing copious amounts of whisky and gin, to the point where he soon scarcely knew what he was eating or drinking in any case.

‘There’s a rule in the mess,’ the captain instructed him, early on, ‘that one mustn’t mention any woman’s name throughout the evening. If you do, the forfeit is buying a round of drinks! Course, it wouldn’t be the end of the world, old chap, but it’s a matter of red faces, you see!’

Sam realized that the captain was telling him that if he slipped up, he would foot the bill, but Sam was determined not to embarrass himself or the captain. What he did notice, was that although this was ladies’ night, looking along the table, noisy with the sounds of clinking cutlery and glass, and raucous, male chatter, there were in fact remarkably few ladies present at all.

‘Do the ladies not enjoy the evening?’ he asked. ‘There aren’t many here.’

Charles Fairford gave a mischievous, boyish smile. ‘I think they find it rather rowdy.’

By the time they embarked on a mountainous slab of suet pudding, Sam had sat surrounded by talk of polo games and pig-sticking exploits, all of which was growing more riotous as every half-hour passed. Every so often great bellows of laughter broke out round the table, and occasional bursts of singing, and the noise in general grew louder and louder. Sam was not able to join in the conversation a great deal but by then he didn’t mind. In fact, he had had so much to drink that he didn’t mind anything at all. He was floating somewhere in his own head, and this changed him too. It wasn’t the first time he’d been tight, not by a long way, but large quantities of Scotch made him feel more enlarged and set free. It was something also to do with being away from England, from all kinds of narrowness and keeping yourself pressed in on all sides. England, from here, seemed to him a teatime world of aprons and cake knives and small sandwiches in shadowy, velveteen parlours, all of which stopped you expanding as a man. Here, in all this racket, breathing in a miasma of sweat and booze, he was with physical, manly men who had a place in the world that they were sure of. After the pudding they were served the ‘second toast’, which this time was a half a hardboiled egg on the same sort of soggy bread. By then all the room was an amiable haze and Sam sat revelling in his sense of inner expansion, of becoming the new man he knew he was supposed to be.

And they weren’t done then, by a long way. As they were serving the final course, he saw the mess sergeant place three decanters on the table in front of the commanding officer, a thin, moustachioed fellow.

‘The toast, in a moment,’ the captain told him, leaning aside from a joke he had been sharing with his neighbour with great guffaws of laughter. ‘They’ll send round port, Madeira and marsala – take your pick.’

Sam stuck to port when the decanters were circulated and they stood, solemnly, many, including Sam, swaying a little.

‘Let us drink to the health of the King Emperor, His Majesty, King Edward VII!’ And the place was abuzz with ‘Hear! hear!’ and ‘To His Majesty!’, and then the commanding officer lit up a cigar and this, apparently, gave the signal that everyone else could do the same. Charles – as Sam thought of him now – lit a cheroot, and was turning to speak to him when everything was drowned out by the most appalling racket. In Sam’s sozzled state it made him jump violently. It sounded as if the place was being attacked, whereas it was in fact the military band striking up.

This was where the evening faded into a dim, dreamlike memory. The sprinkling of ladies vanished somewhere and there was a great noise of furniture being moved in the anteroom and riotous laughter. He could remember flashes of it next morning, in his rotten, morning-after state. Never, in a backstreet brawl had he ever seen anything quite like the ‘high jinks’ in the mess of these officers of the crown that night. It was the most gloriously appalling behaviour he could remember seeing anywhere!

‘Come along, Ironside.’ Captain Fairford tugged on his arm. They were both tight as ticks already and Sam was swaying like a tree in a storm. ‘Can’t have you sitting on the sidelines, now, can we? You come and join in, old man – one of the crowd!’

There was some game called High Cockalorum which involved leapfrogging over other men’s backs and throwing each other about in a way injurious both to them and to the remaining furniture. In the midst of it, Sam fell and jarred his elbow against something and later could recall yelping with pain. There were contests with pairs of chaps wrestling on the floor, and at some stage one was being thrown about in a blanket, and glass was breaking somewhere, and Sam could remember seeing two chairs smashed to matchwood and laughing until he was sick into an umbrella stand by the door and was too far gone even to feel embarrassed.

God, it was a lark! What he remembered was the
freedom
of it, and even in his drunken state, standing to one side of the room, heady with thinking,
This is what class and money can do
. Having a position. Doing what the hell you damn well liked, like these chaps, not being pressed down by petty, small-town proprieties. It looked a bigger life, and he wanted it. God, he ached with wanting it.

After that he could remember nothing at all until he found himself draped over the back of a moving
tonga
with someone’s arm holding him firmly on board as if he were a sack of coal, the night sky passing above, blurry with stars, though none of this felt especially odd. And he was singing, in ecstasy and crying, ‘Lily, my beautiful Lily, oh, how I love you!’ And then he lost consciousness.

‘Where’s the motor-car man? Where is he?’ Cosmo’s voice rang along the corridors where the servants were scurrying about making preparations for the move to the hills.

They were due to set off the next day, and the passages were scattered chaotically with objects that would not fit into the zinc-lined trunks: tennis rackets, a saddle, a japanned tin bath. Susan Fairford was not the most organized of people and her
distrait
approach to life seemed to infect the servants. The heat was also very intense now and everyone was irritable.

Lily led Cosmo out to the garden, narrowly avoiding tripping over a bootjack which had been left by the door.

‘I expect Mr Ironside is with your pater,’ she said, trying to be patient, but the truth was she was even more impatient to know where Sam was than Cosmo. This was the last whole day in Ambala before they set off for Simla and Sam would go on tour with the captain, and she desperately needed to see him. So far, apart from Sam’s declarations of love for her, they had not talked properly about the future. They were about to be torn apart and there was so little time!

For once the heat was really affecting her, since she was already tense and out of sorts and she found herself unable to be patient. Cosmo’s constant questions and demands had brought her almost to screaming pitch and she decided to leave the nursery where Srimala was still trying to distract a fractious Izzy from her prickly heat rashes. Even moving through the house was a relief. Perhaps she’d meet him? Dear God, where was he? She was full of doubts. Was he doing this on purpose? Did he not care for her enough to come and find her?

The morning dragged cruelly. She took Cosmo to play ball in the garden until the heat became really unendurable and her clothes were soaked. Every second of not knowing when she might see Sam was a torture to her.

‘Come – we’ll go in and have
limbopani
,’ she said wearily to Cosmo. Homemade lemonade was one of his favourite things, so he would not make a fuss.

Back in the nursery, she at last had news that explained Sam’s absence from circulation. One of the other servants had been talking to Srimala.

‘Mr Ironside is not feeling at all well today,’ she told Lily.

‘Oh?’ Lily was immediately anxious and sorry for her doubting him. ‘What’s wrong – it’s not serious?’

Srimala was smiling mischievously. ‘He is recovering from his visit to the Officers’ Mess with the captain last night.’

Lily rolled her eyes. What went on at the mess Guest Nights, and quite a few other nights also, was legendary.

‘Ah – that explains it.’ She felt loving and peeved at the same time. Just when they had so little time left and she was so longing to see him! How could he have been so silly as to get so tight that it took most of the next day to recover? Captain Fairford always seemed to be on parade the next day however much he had drunk!

‘Oh.’ Srimala turned to her. ‘Mrs Fairford said she would like a word with you – I think immediately. Leave Cosmo with me.’

Puzzled, Lily gave her face a quick wash and went along to Susan Fairford’s sitting room. She very seldom sent for Lily in this way. Perhaps it was something to do with their transition to the hills tomorrow?

Pushing back strands of hair from her damp forehead, she knocked on the door and Susan called to her to come in. She was sitting at her writing desk, trying to augment the effect of the
punkah
by fanning herself with a thin volume of poetry which often served this purpose but which Lily had never actually seen her open and read.

‘Shut the door, Lily.’ Her face was pale and solemn, unusually so, as if she had bad news to impart. Lily frowned, beginning to feel nervous.

‘Is there something wrong?’ she asked.

Susan Fairford gestured to her to take the chair close to her, in quite a friendly way, and sat for a moment looking into her eyes.

‘Lily – I know I’m your employer, but I think we have lived enough together to be frank with one another at times. Would you agree?’

‘I think so,’ Lily said rather hesitantly, though she often held back from being completely frank with Susan Fairford since she felt it was not her place.

‘Well, I’m speaking to you this afternoon as a friend. Last night Charles took the mechanic, Mr Ironside, to the mess dinner, as I’m sure you know. There was no problem, nothing untoward, though of course they all had rather a lot to drink and Mr Ironside perhaps is less used to it than most of the regiment.’

She stopped and looked pityingly into Lily’s face. Lily’s insides turned, sickeningly. What was she going to say? It was obviously bad news. Had something happened to Sam – a terrible accident on the way home? Surely if that was the case she would have heard by now?

‘I had not realized that you and Mr Ironside had formed an attachment. Is this true?’

Without dropping her gaze, Lily nodded proudly. ‘Yes, it is.’

‘We hadn’t seen it, you see. Charles heard him, on the way home, singing your praises and his own feelings rather immoderately from the back of the
tonga
.’ Seeing Lily begin to smile, she leaned forwards.

‘Lily, my poor girl, don’t throw your heart away on this man. For heaven’s sake, I’m begging you!’

Lily felt her temper flare. What business was it of Susan Fairford to tell her what to feel! She may have been her employer, but this was private business.

‘I can’t just stay here with you forever!’ she retorted fierily. ‘I love him, and Cosmo will be gone soon and I shall have to make another life . . .’

‘But you can’t make it with Mr Ironside!’ Susan snapped the words out, trying to drum some sense into her. ‘For God’s sake, Lily. He hasn’t even told you, has he? The man’s already married – his wife’s at home, expecting their first child . . .’

She stopped, seeing the shock, as if from a slap, spread over Lily’s face.

‘Oh, my dear . . . My poor girl . . . I’m so sorry!’ Susan leaned forwards and took Lily’s hand which was turning cold, as if her blood supply had been cut off.

‘If he is untrustworthy in this respect,’ she said gently, ‘then how would you ever be able to trust him in any way? Dear Lily, I’m not trying to be selfish about your future. I just couldn’t bear to see you in the thrall of a man who can’t even tell the truth about the most fundamental things of his life!’

The deep hurt on Lily’s face was unmistakable and painful to see. She sat utterly still, unable to speak, as if she had been felled.

‘How
could
you? How could you lie to me, tell me you love me, when all the time you’ve got a wife?’

Sobbing, she stood before Sam in his room late that afternoon. The day had passed in a swirl of pain. Lily could remember nothing of it. And still she had not seen him, until she could stand it no longer, and just ran to his part of the house and hammered on the door, not caring now who heard her.