Читать книгу The Wheel of Surya - Jamila Gavin - Страница 11

FOUR

The Swing

Edith stood in the middle of her room. It was darkened by the blinds which had been drawn against the ferocious glare of the sun. Any light which managed to prise itself between the thinnest slit or a pinprick of a hole, scissored through the gloom, sharp, blinding and silver as mercury.

She had awoken from her afternoon sleep and, just from habit, waited for someone to come. But no one did.

She got out of bed and stood in her white petticoat. She stretched her arms and legs akimbo, as she would have done for ayah, who would then slip a cotton dress over her head, and buckle her open sandals on to her feet. But ayah didn’t come to attend to her.

She stood alone. Hearing but not listening to the faint sounds of babies coming from her parents’ room, and the low murmur of voices – her mother, father and ayah. All she was aware of was the persistent croo, croo, croo of the dove, whose never-ending, monotonous cry tightened her throat, she didn’t know why.

She pattered, barefooted from her bedroom, through the cool, intervening bathroom to her parents’ room. The door was partly ajar and she peered inside. Her mother was in bed, propped up by a mountain of white pillows to an upright position. Crooked into each arm was the small, bald head of an infant, each with its face turned into a breast and seeming to devour her mother with loud sucking noises, and pig-like grunts.

Ayah knelt at the side of the bed, massaging her mother’s feet, while Father fussed around, stroking his wife’s head, and administering sips of water to her.

Edith looked at them with hatred. No one had prepared her for this. She hadn’t got the words; she couldn’t identify or understand the emotions which gripped her body. She had been cut adrift and was floating away, but no one seemed to see her.

When her mother first came home from the hospital, Edith thought everything would be the same as before. She had tried to climb into bed with her each morning as usual, but there wasn’t room any more. These two little babies seemed to have everyone in their power. They had taken over her mother, father, and even ayah.

Before, there had always been someone to keep her company – from morning till night; but now, games were left unfinished and bedtime stories interrupted. Even at mealtimes, she could find herself abandoned to sit all alone in the dining room, at the long, dark, oak table, waited on by Arjun, who padded in and out with her meals, gentle but silent.

It was becoming apparent to her that nothing would ever be the same again.

She went out on to the verandah. Great clay pots hung along the length of the roof, overflowing with ferns and trailing ivy and casting intricate shadows like pencil etchings, over the grey stone.

Edith squinted into the sun and looked across the compound. In the distance, she could see her swing.

Someone else looked at the swing, too.

It was Marvinder. She looked at it, hanging there, motionless in the still afternoon, dropping out of the pale, yellowy shadows of the lemon tree. She had gone with her mother to the Chadwick bungalow, so that Jhoti could show off her new son to Maliki. She had been sorting rice. She pushed a tray of it in front of Marvinder and begged her to pick it clean of stones, so that she could be free to admire the baby.

Marvinder squatted on the edge of the verandah where she could see the swing, and even as she picked and sifted and tossed the grains, she kept the swing in the corner of her eye.

‘So, Jhoti! Have you a name for your son, now?’ asked Maliki.

‘It was chosen yesterday!’ announced Jhoti proudly; and she described how they had all gone to the gurdwara, where the priest had opened the Guru Granth Sahib, their holiest book. He had opened it at random, as was the custom, and called out the first letter of the first hymn. ‘It was the letter J. The same initial as me!’

‘J!’ cried Maliki impatiently. ‘What did you call him?’

‘His name is Jaspal!’ Jhoti sighed with happiness.

When Marvinder was sure that she had picked out every single stone and husk from the rice, she casually eased herself off the verandah and stood for a while, just close by, picking up pebbles between her toes. Jhoti and Maliki took no notice of her and carried on gossiping.

But Marvinder’s eye was on the swing. It hung there from the tree, empty and inviting. Slowly, slowly, she drifted, imperceptibly towards the hibiscus hedge. No one called her back. Maliki had now taken the infant into her arms and was cooing over it with delight.

‘Seems you had a better time of it than the poor memsahib,’ said Maliki in a low voice. ‘She had twins, I tell you! And would you believe, the English doctor didn’t even know! What kind of doctor wouldn’t know a woman was having twins, I ask you? Wouldn’t Basant have known – blind and all that she is?’

‘How did you hear all this?’ asked Jhoti, shuffling closer on her haunches, and wide-eyed with curiosity.

‘Arjun heard the sahib telling someone. Memsahib was in the mission hospital. First one baby was born, and what a time she had of it, and they thought that was that. But then the nurse said, “Doctor! I think there’s another!” He didn’t believe her, can you imagine? “Don’t be silly,” he says. “There can’t be.”

‘But the memsahib went on pushing, and sure enough, out came another!’ Maliki rolled her eyes with perplexed disbelief at the stupidity of some people.

‘What did the doctor say?’ asked Jhoti.

‘The babies were lying in the womb one exactly behind the other, so when he felt her, he couldn’t tell that there were two! That’s what he said. What an excuse! I ask you!’

‘Were they both boys?’ asked Jhoti.

‘First one a girl, the second a boy,’ answered Maliki.

‘That sounds nice,’ murmured Jhoti. ‘Nice to enlarge your family all at once. What names did she give them?’

‘Oh some strange English names,’ laughed Maliki. ‘Grace – that’s the girl, and Ralph, the boy. I don’t know why those names!’ She shrugged. ‘I expect they will soon go to their church and have a naming ceremony too.’

Marvinder edged closer to the swing. She was only yards away from it now.

Suddenly, a figure came rushing out of the front of the bungalow. Edith Chadwick, all alone, ran across the garden and flung herself on to the swing. She looked sulky and cross. She proceeded to struggle and jerk, angrily tossing out her bare legs in a desperate attempt to get some momentum.

If Marvinder was disappointed at having her plan thwarted, she didn’t give the slightest hint of it. Indeed, she still continued her casual, indifferent progress closer and closer. Finally, when she was near enough to be noticed or ignored at will, she came to rest, squatting down in the shade and twisting the stems of hibiscus flowers into a nosegay. She watched Edith wriggling hopelessly as she tried to get the swing moving. Suddenly, their eyes met. This was the first time they had been close enough to acknowledge each other.

At first, Edith just scowled and continued her struggle and Marvinder edged a few inches closer without getting up. But then Edith caught her eye again. Marvinder tipped her head to one side, and with a questioning look on her face, mimed a push with her hand.

The silent message was received and understood. Edith, unsmiling, gave a curt nod. In a second, Marvinder had leapt to her feet and grasped the seat of the swing from behind. She dragged it back and back and back with all the strength of a mere four-year-old, then let go.

‘More, more!’ ordered Edith as she swooped away.

So Marvinder pushed and pushed till her arms ached. Edith would have let her push forever but, exhausted, Marvinder finally stopped and went back to twisting flowers by the hedge.

‘Are you going?’ asked Edith petulantly.

Marvinder shrugged a ‘maybe’.

‘Would you like a turn?’ asked Edith, instinctively bargaining to keep her new companion.

Marvinder looked at her with a big grin and ran over to the swing. But when Edith pushed her, she pushed with such ferocity that Marvinder began to feel afraid. She could feel the hands thudding into the small of her back. She could hear the hissing of her breath and the enraged grunt which accompanied each push of the swing. She wanted to get off.

‘Stop! I’ve had enough!’ cried Marvinder.

At first, Edith took no notice. She thrust the swing forward as hard as she could, sometimes tugging at the rope to make it twist and spin. Marvinder thought she would be flung off.

‘Stop! Please stop!’ Her voice rose in panic.

As if awoken from a dream, Edith stopped.

Marvinder dragged her feet on the ground to slow herself down, then jumped off. The two girls stared at each other, like strangers, unsure of themselves. Marvinder lowered her gaze. ‘I’m going back to my ma,’ she murmured, and walked away.

‘Goodbye then,’ said Edith coldly. She eased herself back on to the swing, and began her fruitless wriggling as she tried to get it going on her own.

Somewhere across the compound, the dove continued its soulless cooing. ‘Cru croo, cru croo, cru croo.’