‘I get the impression he is a relative, ’ Lakshman said with sympathy. ‘Of the lady, perhaps – a poor cousin. And you are quite right, for a clerk with no paper qualifications it is not at all easy to find a good post. And perhaps he is more comfortable with this one than we suppose. It is security of a kind.’
They had run into the Manis twice since leaving Madras, once briefly at Kancheepuram, plodding doggedly round that fantastic city’s many temples, and once at an overnight stop at Tiruchirapalli, where Mr Mani had constituted himself chairman of the evening gathering of guests at the travellers’ bungalow, and unfolded his and his wife’s life story in impressive detail. They were from Calcutta, where they had several textile shops, and they had come south to Madras for the first time to visit their married daughter, whose husband ran a highly successful travel agency. Thus they had the best possible help and advice in planning an extended tour of the south of India. Ganesh had made all the arrangements, Ganesh had ensured that they should not miss one famous sight while they were here. They had certainly missed none in Tiruchi. They had been observed in the early morning, before the stone steps were too hot for comfort, toiling dauntlessly all up the exposed face of the rock, Mrs Mani with her elaborate sari kilted in both hands, and Sushil Dastur scurrying behind with her handbag, her husband’s camera and the scarf she had dispensed with after the first morning chill passed; and again later taking pictures of the budding lotus in the temple tank below. And in the afternoon they had taken a taxi out to Srirangam, and toiled relentlessly round every inch of that tremendous temple, with very little in their faces to indicate what they thought of its stunning sculptures, or indeed whether they thought at all.
Mr Mani’s name was Gopal Krishna, and he was a firm, thickset, compact person of perhaps fifty, smoothly golden-brown of face, with crisp greying hair and large, imperious eyes that fixed the listener like bolts shackling him to his chair. He was so clean-shaven that it was difficult to believe he ever grew any whiskers to shave, and so immaculate, whether in spotless cream silk suit or loose white cotton shirt and trousers, or even, occasionally, a dhoti, that he made everyone else around feel crumpled, angular and grubby. He walked ponderously and impressively; one thought of a small, lightweight but inordinately pompous elephant. His voice was mellifluous but pedantic; it acquired an edge only when it addressed Sushil Dastur.
Sudha Mani was softer, rounder and plumper than her husband, and some years younger, and to do her justice, she was a pretty woman, with her pale gold cheeks and huge, limpid eyes, and curled, crisp rosebud of a mouth. But the eyes stared almost aggressively, and the tightness of the rosebud never moved a degree nearer blooming; and when the petals did part, she squawked like a parrot. She wore beautiful, expensive saris and rather too much jewellery, all of it genuine; but everyone here put capital into gold and silver ornaments. And she wore flowers in the huge knot of black hair coiled on her neck, but the flowers never seemed to survive long.
From her they had heard all about her first grandchild, and her troubles with servants, and the extreme sensitivity of her temperament. And from Gopal Krishna all about the state of the textile business, and his own commercial astuteness and consequent wealth.
Only almost accidentally had they ever discovered more than his name about Sushil Dastur, who fetched and carried, ran errands, took dictation, conferred long-distance with the management of the Calcutta shops and generally did everything that needed doing and many things that didn’t around the Mani menage. His name they couldn’t help discovering within half an hour. ‘Sushil Dastur!’ echoed and re-echoed at ten minute intervals, and in varying tones of command, displeasure, reproach and menace, wherever the Manis pitched camp. Private secretary, clerk, general factotum, travelling servant, he was everything in one undersized, anxious body.
In reality Sushil Dastur was not by any means so fragile as at first he appeared, but he was short, and seemed shorter because he was always hurrying somewhere, head-down, on his master’s business; and the amount of prominent bone that showed in his jutting brow and slightly hooked nose contrasted strongly with the plump smoothness of the Manis, making him look almost emaciated. His brow was usually knotted in a worried frown above his large, apprehensive dark eyes, and his manner was chronically apologetic. Curly dark hair grew low on his forehead. Subservience had so far declassed and denatured him that it seemed appropriate he should always wear nondescript European jackets and trousers of no special cut, in a self-effacing beige colour. On the rare occasions when he appeared in an achkan he looked a different person.
‘Looks like being old home week, all right,’ Larry remarked glumly. For nothing was more certain than that all these people would be heading for the Periyar Lake in time for the early watering the next morning. There was nowhere else for them to be going in these parts. From the coast as from Madurai, from the west as from the east, the roads merely led here and crossed here; and few people passed by without halting at the lake to go out by boat and watch elephants. Other game, too, with luck, sambur, deer, wild boar, occasionally even leopard and tiger, though these last two rarely appeared; but above all, elephants, which never failed to appear, and in considerable numbers. ‘You know, without wanting to seem intolerant, I’d enjoy my cruise more without the Mani commentary.’
‘We could have a small private boat, if you wish,’ said Lakshman tentatively. ‘But it would cost more, of course.’
‘Could we?’ Larry perceptibly brightened. ‘They have small launches there, too?’ He looked at Dominic. ‘How about it? We’ve stuck to our shoe-string arrangements so far, what about plunging for once?’
‘I’m willing. Why not?’
‘I’ll go and telephone, if you really wish it,’ offered Lakshman. ‘It would be better to make sure.’
‘Yes, do that! Let’s indulge ourselves.’
The advantage, perhaps, of being a shoe-string traveller, is that you can, on occasion, break out of the pattern where it best pleases you, and do something unusually extravagant. The thought of having a boat to themselves, and all the huge complex of bays and inlets of the lake in which to lose the other launches, was curiously pleasing. Even on a popular Sunday they might be able to convince themselves that they were the only game-spotters in the whole sanctuary. Dominic was whistling as he reached into the back of the Land-Rover for his towels and washing tackle.
It was at that moment that the two clear, female voices began to approach through the darkness from the direction of the gate, and there emerged into the light from the windows two girls, one Indian and dark, one English and pallidly fair, carrying nets of green oranges and bunches of rose-coloured bananas in their arms.
Two pairs of eyes, one pair purple-black, one zircon blue, took in the Land-Rover and its attendant figures in a long, bright, intelligent stare.
‘Well, hullo!’ said the fair girl, in the bracing social tone of one privately totting up the odds. ‘You must be the outfit that passed us just down the road, when we were haggling for this lot. Staying over? I thought they were full up.’
‘They are,’ said Dominic. By this time he was well aware that Larry never responded to any overtures, especially from females, until he had had time to adjust, and to review his defences. Some girl must once have done something pretty mean to him, and all others had better step delicately. ‘We sleep out in the moke. But yes, we’re staying.’
‘We came up by the bus. No use going on to the hotel, until tomorrow, anyhow,’ she said simply. ‘We couldn’t afford to stay here, and it was too late for this afternoon’s cruise when we got here. I suppose you’ll be heading for the lake tomorrow morning?’ Her eyes flickered thoughtfully towards the Land-Rover again; he didn’t blame her for taking thought for the morrow, public transport was liable to be both unreliable and, on a Sunday, overcrowded. But she didn’t ask, not yet. It was too early, and she wasn’t going to be as crude as all that. As for the Indian girl, she stood a little apart, cool and still, watching them with a thoughtful and unsmiling face.