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had owned a business – more of that in a moment. He was called Thomas, as many people are in that part of the world because, as you know, it’s a largely Christian state – Thomist Christians.
Very ancient communities. In fact, you get all sorts of churches, including the Syrian Orthodox Church, which goes in for fire-works in a big way on important saints’ days. Quite wonderful.
“Thomas asked me to marry him, and I said that I would. I had fallen for India, you see, and the idea of marrying into the country was a very exciting one. And Thomas was a good man
– very quiet and thoughtful, and very kind. Of course, I hadn’t realised that I would have to put up with his mother too, who would live with us in our house in Cochin. But that’s what happens when you marry into an Indian family. You get the whole lot.
“Thomas told me that he had a job in the business that his father had set up, but he didn’t explain what the business was. He would show me the factory, he said, and I would see. But before that, when I met his mother for the first time and I was drinking tea under her enquiring eye, I asked what the family factory made.
“She looked at me in surprise, and then said: ‘Why, we make electricity. It’s an electricity factory. We make very fine electricity.
Everybody knows that.’
“I was surprised. I thought that power stations would belong to the government, or to very large companies, but, no, it seemed that there was a role for a few private generating companies, and we were one of them. Varghese Electricity was the name of the company and the factory, as they called it, was a large building to the east of Cochin. It had a railway line running into it, and the trains brought loads of coal into our private siding.
“Thomas went to the factory every morning, but did not stay long, as there was nothing for him to do. He had an office there, but there never seemed to be any papers on the table and the whole place was run by very efficient managers. So he used to go off to his club and read the newspapers until it was time to come back for lunch. Then he would supervise the gardener in an orchid-house which we had at the back of the property, and after that he would go and sleep for an hour or so until the worst of the afternoon heat was over.
“That was our life, and I suddenly realised that this was what 72
Thomas Is Electrocuted
I was going to be doing for the rest of my days. Suddenly, India did not seem quite as beguiling and I began to wonder whether I had made the most awful mistake.”
Domenica looked at Pat. “What would you have done in my circumstances? Married to a nice man who owned an electricity factory, but with a great emptiness of years stretching out ahead of you? What would you have done?
28. Thomas Is Electrocuted
“No, that’s unfair,” said Domenica Macdonald, withdrawing her own question. “Nobody really knows how they would react to hypothetical situations.”
“I don’t know,” said Pat. “We can imagine what we would do.
I think that if I found myself in your position, I would possibly have . . .”
Domenica raised a hand. “You don’t know, though. You don’t really know what you would do. But I can tell you what I did. I left Thomas. I remained with him for five years, and then, shortly after my thirtieth birthday, I asked him what he would feel if I left him.
“Of course he said that he would be very upset. My light would go out, is what I think he said. The whole family talked like that. They used the metaphors of electricity. I am a bit below my normal wattage. I feel like shorting out. That sort of thing.
“That made me hesitate, but I persisted. I explained to him that I was not cut out for the sort of life that we were leading. I wanted to travel. I wanted to get to know people. I couldn’t face the prospect of sitting there on the verandah for the next goodness knows how many years, drinking afternoon tea with his mother while she went on and on about some complicated injustice that had been done to her family twenty years before. I just couldn’t face it.
“He tried to persuade me to stay. He offered to build a new house next to the existing one, which I could then live in and not have to share with his mother. He said that he would pay Thomas Is Electrocuted
73
for people – educated people, he said – to come and talk to me during the day. He made all sorts of offers.
“I became more and more depressed at the thought of what I was doing. Thomas was such a good man, and I was behaving as if I was some petulant Madame Bovary. But I couldn’t stop how I felt. I couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for a life which I found so completely unfulfilling and so I eventually gave him a date on which I proposed to leave.
“Two days before I was due to go – I had already packed everything and had the flight from Bombay all organised – two days before, there was the most awful kerfuffle. One of the managers from the factory arrived and he was sobbing and waving his arms about. It took some time before I managed to work out what it was all about. There had been an accident at the factory. Thomas had taken it upon himself to inspect a piece of equipment and had inadvertently touched a live wire. They had tried to revive him, the manager said between his sobs, but it had been to no avail. ‘You are widow now,’ he said. ‘I am very sorry, but now you are widow. Your husband has died of electricity.’
“You can imagine how guilty I felt. And I still do, to an extent.
That man had offered me nothing but affection and support, and I had repaid him with what I suppose he must have viewed as contempt. That is not what I felt, of course, but that is what he must have seen it as.
“His mother now became mute. She looked at me, but then looked away, as if it was painful even to see me. I did my best to speak to her, but she simply didn’t seem to hear me. And in the meantime, I had to deal with the lawyers, who informed me that I now effectively controlled the electricity factory, as Thomas had left his entire shareholding to me. This was worth quite a bit of money. The family was well-off anyway, but the factory, it turned out, had some very valuable land attached to it. I could easily live very well on the income which the shares produced, even if we sold none of the extra land. And I could live on that not only in India, where things are cheap, but back in Scotland.
“To begin with, of course, the thought of controlling the factory appalled me, as it tied me down even more. But I did make an 74
Friendship
effort, and I stayed for a further few years, getting the hang of how the business worked. Eventually, I decided that I had done enough and that I could leave without feeling too guilty. The old woman
– Thomas’s mother – had become demented by now, and spent her time wandering around the garden with a long-suffering attendant, chopping the heads off flowers. I returned to Scotland for a while, and then went off on further adventures for quite some time, which I regret that I can’t tell you about just now because this risotto I’m making is requiring my complete attention and I cannot talk about anthropology and make a proper risotto all at the same time. So the rest of my life will have to wait for some other occasion.”
29. Friendship
Pat left Domenica shortly after ten, crossed the landing to her flat, and went straight to her room. Bruce’s door was shut, but the narrow band of light from beneath it told her that he was in. And there was music too; in the hall she could just make out the faint sound of the Cuban bands that he liked to play. He was considerate in that respect, at least, as he was always careful to keep the volume low.
She closed her door behind her and prepared for bed. The evening had started badly with that exchange over the hair gel –