The Girl from Cobb Street Read online

  A soft tap made her sit up, her body stiff with alarm. The door opened a fraction. ‘It’s all right. It’s safe to come out.’

  With an enormous effort, she got to her feet and moved one small step at a time towards him.

  ‘The snake is dead,’ Grayson said bluntly.

  ‘You killed it?’

  ‘I had to. It wasn’t leaving otherwise.’

  She looked a little sick.

  ‘I’m not a snake charmer, Daisy. I had to do it.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. It’s just horrible.’

  ‘You were lucky that it didn’t attack you when you first disturbed it. The bite can be fatal if you don’t get help immediately. It paralyses the nervous system.’

  ‘Then it’s even luckier that you heard me calling. Were you walking by?’

  ‘I doubt that you walk by this bungalow—it’s way off the beaten track. I had the afternoon free and thought I’d look you up. See how India was agreeing with you. But are you on your own here?’

  ‘I called Rajiv but he appears to have gone missing for the day.’

  ‘So that’s who you were calling. There was certainly no sign of him. In fact when I pulled up, the place looked deserted and I was about to turn back. But something—I don’t know what—made me walk into the house and I felt the danger even before I heard you.’

  She managed a weak smile and seeing her wavering expression, he took her by the arm and led her out to the sitting room and into a chair. ‘Snakes sometimes find their way into bathrooms,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘The smaller ones can crawl through the drainage hole but a snake that big …’

  ‘It must have crept in from the garden.’

  Grayson was frowning. ‘It would be unusual. Cobras are large creatures and need to go where there’s plenty of food. Why come into the house when there’s a huge unkempt space outside to feed on.’

  ‘Perhaps it took a wrong turning.’ It was an attempt at a joke, though she still felt extremely queasy.

  ‘Perhaps it did.’ He was willing to let the subject drop and looked at her with concern. ‘But you’re not looking well. Can I get you some water?’

  ‘Thank you. I’m afraid I can’t stop the shaking. It’s making me feel very stupid. I’m obviously not brave enough to live in India.’

  ‘Not so. You’ve had a tremendous shock. Most people finding a cobra in their bathroom would react the same. It doesn’t help that you’re on your own here. And the heat makes things worse.’

  She wondered if he was about to join the chorus urging her to go to Simla. If the idea was in his mind, he didn’t mention it and she was glad. Thankfully she accepted the glass of water and sat quietly until her heart had regained its steady beat.

  ‘I don’t want to stay here this afternoon,’ she said at last. ‘I’d really like to have a break from these four walls.’

  He nodded his understanding. ‘That can be arranged. In fact I’ve just the right place. And a horse and carriage to take us there.’ He walked over to the table and picked up her discarded topi. ‘So what do you say?’

  She had been desperate to get out of the bungalow. Her face was still frozen with shock and when he helped her climb into the carriage, she couldn’t stop herself grasping his hand as though he were saving her from drowning. But once the pony began its forward trot, she felt the tightness in her skin disappear and her colour return.

  ‘Where are we going?’ She wasn’t really interested. Anywhere would do as long as it was far from the bungalow. But he’d done her an immense service and she must try to be good company.

  ‘You’ll have to wait. It’s a surprise. But it’s a peaceful place, I promise. Almost secret.’

  They jolted their way along the narrow, curving lane leading from the house and were soon at the main road, only slightly wider and a little less rutted than the track they’d just traversed. At the junction, Grayson flicked his whip and the horse turned left, towards a rolling landscape of field after field of sugar cane, stretching flatly into the distance.

  ‘It’s pretty peaceful already, don’t you think?’

  She nodded agreement and settled back into the buggy’s worn seat. They were travelling at a fair speed, whisking past clumps of tall sunflowers which clustered on either side of the road, like yellow sentinels guarding the fields beyond. Brightness and warmth were everywhere, spilling over the world and into her heart. She could almost feel herself part of the landscape and hugged the feeling close.

  Grayson was steering the pony clear of the steep ditch that ran alongside them and making a very good job of it. She smiled. ‘You seem to know this road well.’

  ‘I’m getting to know it. And most of the other tracks in the district that have the temerity to call themselves roads.’

  ‘It’s lucky for me that you’re still braving the byways, or you wouldn’t have called today.’ She glanced across at him, trying to decide whether to probe further. ‘I was told that District Officers worked miles from town. But maybe I’ve got it wrong.’

  ‘No,’ he answered easily, ‘not wrong. I’m based in Jasirapur for the moment but I make regular forays up country.’

  ‘And you’re still enjoying the job, I hope?’

  ‘I am. It’s interesting. But then, India can’t fail to be interesting, can it?’

  They were passing through a village and, at its centre, a well was being worked by a patient bullock. Several women were collecting water and hid their faces behind saris. Despite their poverty, they walked with pride and with a lithe grace Daisy could only envy. On their heads, they carried brass pots, burnished by the sun. One shapely raised arm supported each pot as, bare footed, they glided through the dust. Several of the village children had spied the carriage and tumbled out of doorways to wave and begin an impromptu dance. Daisy clapped her hands to show her appreciation.

  ‘Everything I see amazes me.’ She looked back over her shoulder at the dancing children. ‘Of course, you already know India, but it’s all new to me.’

  ‘I’m only familiar with one small part,’ he warned. ‘That’s not at all the same as knowing India. Rajputana is very different.’ They had left the village behind now and were once more on the open road.

  ‘It was United Provinces you were in, wasn’t it? Do you still have family there?’

  ‘My uncle and great-uncle still run the business near Ayodhya. Herbert—that’s my great-uncle—is really too old to do more than walk into the plant each morning, interfere for an hour or two, and then walk back.’

  ‘But you could visit them?’

  ‘It’s difficult. UP may be a neighbouring state but it’s a considerable distance, and at the moment work takes up all my time.’

  ‘This afternoon though …’

  ‘An exception. We’re waiting on news from Europe but in the interim, I’ve a few hours free.’ He saw her look of surprise. ‘We’re not insulated from what’s going on in the rest of the world, you know. If Britain is in difficulties, the entire Empire is affected, particularly India. It can be the perfect opportunity for anyone hoping to stir up trouble. And there are plenty of them. We’ve had one campaign of civil disobedience after another.’

  Daisy was beginning to feel out of her depth. ‘I’m not sure what difficulties you mean,’ she ventured. ‘We don’t have a radio at the bungalow and I’ve heard no news since I left the ship.’

  ‘It’s probably just as well. The news from Europe isn’t good. There are rumours of German troop movements on the Czech border, and confirmation that Germany has ordered an expansion of the Luftwaffe.’

  ‘Does that mean there will definitely be a war?’

  ‘Everyone hopes not but it seems to be coming closer. Memories of the last bloodbath might deter the hotheads, but Hitler is another matter altogether.’

  ‘I hadn’t realised the ICS had so much to do with politics.’

  ‘Certain branches of it do,’ he said vaguely.

  ‘And it’s where you’ve found your niche?’
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br />   ‘It seems that way.’

  ‘Your family must be very pleased for you.’

  ‘Let’s say they’re glad they don’t have to scratch their heads over me any more. I’ve been something of a problem for them in the past. Not that I’m ungrateful for the help they’ve given me—and my mother too. They’ve been very good to both of us, particularly in the circumstances.’

  She wished she knew him well enough to ask what those circumstances might be, and was glad when he seemed happy to talk on. ‘I don’t think they’ve ever forgiven my mother for marrying an impoverished artist. They’re still prone to remind her of the “bad” match she made. But it didn’t stop them buying her a charming flat in Pimlico and giving me a first-class education. It wasn’t their fault I never quite came up to scratch. I simply didn’t fit the moulds they saw me filling—as a military man or a business wallah.’

  The road appeared to have tired of being straight, and for a while Grayson was taken up with manoeuvring the carriage safely around a series of severe bends. ‘I guess I was a bit of a black sheep,’ he said eventually, but his grin took the sting out of the words.

  ‘I can’t believe that. You look to me the perfect sahib!’

  ‘You wouldn’t be teasing me, would you?’

  ‘Only a little.’ And she had an answering smile on her face.

  He was pulling off the road on to a thin, sandy path. It appeared to lead nowhere and after five minutes of bumping and jolting, he brought the carriage to a halt.

  ‘I’m afraid we must walk the rest of the way. I hope you’re up to it.’

  He helped her down and for a moment his arm caught her round the waist. She remembered another time when his arm had held her. All those weeks ago, when he’d lifted her from the ship’s deck and helped her back to her cabin. She’d stayed there for several days and when she saw him again, had invented a story about a stomach upset. He’d never appeared too curious but she knew he’d probably wondered at the illness. She had looked little more than a ghost when she’d finally emerged.

  They were following the path downwards, and more to deflect her thoughts from that dreadful moment than anything else, she said, ‘Do your parents have connections with India?’

  ‘Only through my mother’s brother and uncle in Ayodhya. My father was a potter and India has sufficient potters of its own.’

  ‘Your father is dead?’

  ‘He died when I was a boy. He was on a train from Stoke, returning home. He’d been to a prestigious ceramic exhibition there and won third prize with a beautiful vase. It was red and white with a silver top and bottom. But there was a fault with the track and the train came off the rails. He didn’t survive the crash but strangely the vase did.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I don’t remember much about him, to be honest. It’s my mother I feel most sorry for. Whatever my uncles might claim, it was a love match. She was devoted to him and she’s never remarried. I think she still has the vase, though she keeps it well out of sight. I imagine it brings back bad memories.’

  The path had dwindled to nothing and they had to pick their way slowly between huge boulders which seemed to have been thrown at random, as though one morning a giant had woken in a tantrum and decided he didn’t much like the house he lived in. The path became still more difficult when even larger stones rose up to bar their way. A veritable thicket of them, but this time carved into statues of Hindu deities. Together they inched their way past, Daisy giving the towering monuments a swift glance and, as swiftly, looking away. There were statues that were animated, dancing their way to heaven with bells on their toes, and statues that had lost their hands, their rough stumps reaching out in supplication. Others wore serene faces, filled with a knowledge of beauty beyond this world, and there were some that were quite terrifying, with bulbous eyes and a gash for a toothless mouth.

  Once through the thicket, they were standing above the place Grayson had wanted her to see. Crumbling stone steps led down to a large paved rectangle, now dry and bleached, but once, she imagined, filled with water. At one end of the rectangle there was an uneven pile of rubble, all that was left of a once splendid building, but nearer to them the remains of a second temple were in better condition. There were columns still intact and row after row of intricately carved figures looking out across a tranquil emptiness. The golden glow of stone, the shimmering blue of the sky and a hot yellow sun combined to make a gloriously vivid scene. Yet despite its intensity, the site radiated the deepest sense of peace that Daisy had ever encountered. It was as though she had been born to know this place and this moment.

  She stood wide-eyed, scarcely taking a breath. ‘It’s quite, quite beautiful.’

  ‘I’m glad you think so. I’ve learned to love it since I’ve been here. There were two temples, I found out, one at each end of an expanse of water, and both built for a local deity, a goddess called Nandni Mata. The name means “daughter”. I’m not sure what happened. The temples probably lost favour and over the centuries have been allowed to fall into ruins. Shall we walk down so you can get a closer look?’

  He took her by the hand and led the way down the steps. It seemed a natural thing to do and she liked the feeling of her palm encased in strong fingers. They were soon at the bottom and walking towards the delicately carved columns of what was left of the temple. A flat terrace lay behind the columns, supported by one after another of fluted arches, echoing shapes receding into the distance with the bright blue of the sky encased within the final arch.

  ‘The workmanship is superb.’ He fingered the elaborate pattern of coiled rings and honeycomb spaces that covered the surface of each arch. ‘And take a look at some of the gods that have been carved out of a different stone and somehow moulded into the arches. Their figures have been protected by the roof and survived pretty well.’

  Daisy walked up to one of the arches. Something had attracted her to this particular one and, when she drew close, she saw the figure of a goddess emerging from the stone, triumphant and alive. A goddess with an ornately carved headdress and arms covered in bracelets. A girdle wound its way around her waist and her sinuous form moved as though it would dance out of the black, shiny stone. The eyes were closed in ecstatic appreciation.

  The girl traced the line of the two necklaces that wound around the statue’s neck, and stopped when she touched the centre of the lower chain and the pendant-shaped stone that hung from it. Her fingers passed over the emblem almost lovingly. She bent her head to it and her cheeks were flushed.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I remember this from somewhere. I don’t know where.’

  ‘A place you’ve visited?’

  She wrinkled her nose. The flush had died, and she was intent on recovering a memory. ‘No, not a place. A person. My mother …’

  ‘She had a necklace similar to this?’

  ‘That’s it! Not a necklace though. A brooch. It’s in the photograph. I’ve just one picture of her. She’s in nurse’s uniform but she’s wearing a small brooch at the neck of the dress. I noticed it because I thought it strange to see jewellery. I’ve always imagined there were strict rules about what nurses could wear with their uniform. But there was a brooch, and I’m sure it looked just like this.’

  ‘Do you have the photograph here with you in India?’

  Of course she did. She had brought everything with her, every one of her earthly possessions.

  ‘Yes. I can check when I get back to the house but if I’m right, why would my mother have a brooch the same shape as the necklace of an Indian goddess? And a goddess from this particular district?’

  ‘All kinds of motifs from temple carvings end up in all kinds of jewellery. Brooches, pendants, earrings. You can buy them in the bazaar any day, and not just the bazaar. I imagine Bridges—it was Bridges you worked for?—might even have some on their jewellery counter.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Her voice was wistful. ‘But it’s a strange coincidence.’

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sp; ‘When you’ve been in India a while, you won’t think so. Coincidence is only another word for fate.’

  They turned to go, out from the shadowed arches and into the sun that blazed across the open space. As swiftly as they could, they retraced their path up the terrace of steps, and collapsed beneath the shade of one of the carved columns.

  Grayson mopped his face with a large, white handkerchief. It was freshly laundered, she saw. He’d come well prepared, but then he would always be prepared for life’s trials, whatever they were.

  They’d rested a while before he said, ‘Is that all you have of your mother—a single photograph?’

  She nodded and looked across at the ruins of the temple, her mind for the moment elsewhere. The orphanage had been unwilling to give her even that, and one of the helpers who had a fondness for her had smuggled it to her the night before she left.

  ‘And your father?’

  She supposed it was only fair she answered him. She’d asked him about his own father, though the case was not the same. At least he’d known his parent. It was painful to confess how little information she had, yet she liked her companion well enough to confide what she knew.

  ‘I don’t know who my father was,’ she murmured. Constraint gripped her for the moment and she found it difficult to continue. Her fingers began to pick at her dress, creasing its smooth folds into tiny lines, but then she volunteered, ‘There’s no name on my birth certificate, you see, and I never had a chance to ask my mother. She died before I was two.’

  ‘And you have no other relatives who could tell you?’

  ‘None, or at least none I know of. When my mother died, I was sent to an orphanage. Eden House, Cobb Street, Spitalfields.’

  It was almost a mantra. She’d chanted it to herself so many times over the years and its sound was an echo of the loneliness that clung to her. She’d said too much though; what she had told him must remain between them.

  ‘My husband knows nothing of this,’ she warned.

  ‘Has he never asked you about your family?’