Down in the dip, right in the middle of the village, was a pub. She stood up and trotted down the hill. A voice cried after her, but she waved her hand without looking around, to show that she knew what she was doing. The rosebed in the forecourt of the pub was edged with tilted bricks; she prized one out and used it to hammer at the pane of frosted glass which was the top half of the door; the glass clashed and tinkled as it fell to the floor inside. The first blow was the dangerous one, because the glass might go anywhere; after that, if you were sensible, it was quite easy to knock away the jagged lengths of pane around the central hole, until you were tapping away the last sharp splinters along the wooden rim at the bottom.
That done, Nicky took her spare skirt out of her satchel and laid it along the wood; she put her hands on the skirt, bounced twice on her toes to get the feel of the ground, and flicked herself neatly through the gap. Gym had been her best subject, once.
The saloon bar was the usual mess, with all the glasses smashed and empty bottles of beer and wine and whisky littering the floor. The room reeked of stale drink. But, as usual, the men who had roared and rioted in here a month ago had not been interested in the soft drinks, except as things to throw and fight with; there were several crates of ginger ale and lemonade and tonic water under the bar counter. She heaved one out and started to drag it to the door. The light changed; there was a crash and a thump behind her; Gopal was sprawling across the floor, gasping and giggling, his feet still scuffling among the smashed splinters.
“Are you all right?” said Nicky. “Don’t cut yourself.”
“I am less good at jumping than you are,” he said, turning round to look at the door while he brushed his front with his hands. “If we turn your crate on its end we will be able to unbolt the door. Then we can drag your loot out.”
But outside the door stood Uncle Chacha Rahmta, looking serious. Kewal was hurrying up, while Neena watched anxiously from halfway down the slope.
“You are a bad little boy, Gopal,” said Uncle Chacha. “You must not wander away like this. Your mother is very worried.”
Probably he spoke in English so that Nicky could share in the reproof.
“It’s quite safe,” she said. “We’re only getting some lemonade for the children.”
(She didn’t tell him about the pub she’d broken into north of Shepherd’s Bush where a dead man had sat, sprawled across a shiny red table, with a knife in his side.)
“It is notorious that Indian parents overprotect their children,” said Kewal. “But that is what they do, Miss Nicky Gore, and you must respect their anxieties.”
“All right,” said Nicky. “Will you help us with this crate? There’s plenty for everybody.”
“But we cannot take this,” said Uncle Chacha slowly. “It is not our property.”
“It isn’t anybody’s,” said Nicky. “They’ve all gone.”
“We could put some money in the till,” suggested Kewal.
“It’s smashed,” said Gopal. “I noticed.”
Uncle Chacha walked into the pub, very careful and light on his feet, like a wild animal sniffing into a trap. He counted five green pieces of paper into a broken drawer. Kewal waved to the crowd on the hill and they gathered themselves into line of march and trooped down to the pub. Kewal explained what had happened, and half a dozen angry voices answered him, all together. Several faces looked at Nicky. The women joined in the row. Suddenly something was settled and four of the men went into the pub to fetch more crates, and tins of peanuts and crisps and cheese biscuits. The whole party settled to an impromptu picnic. The children recovered strength and began a squealing game of chain tag. The towers of empty flats brooded silent in the dusty afternoon air. The men settled into one group, and the women into another. Every half minute a mother would look up from her gossip and call to a child in words that Nicky couldn’t understand, but in the tone that all mothers everywhere use when they are warning their children to be careful. Nicky, all of a sudden, felt just as lonely and left out as she had that morning on the Green, before the Sikhs had come.
“Do you not wish to join the game,” said Kewal, who had appeared silently beside her. “Are you too old for that sort of thing, perhaps? Look, Gopal is playing.”
“Im too tired and hot,” said Nicky, sighing to keep the crossness out of her voice. “What’s the name of the language you talk among yourselves?” “Punjabi. It is the normal language of the Sikhs, although some of the children who have lived all their lives here find English easier to talk. I myself think in English, even when I am talking Punjabi.” “Why are you all still here? Why did you leave so late? Everybody else went away a long time ago.” “Oh,” said Kewal, “at first we could not decide what was happening. Some of us used to work for London Transport, but when the early shift went to get the buses out they were attacked by mobs of Englishmen. Even the little children threw stones as soon as an engine started. And they were not like you — they did not stop when the engines were turned off. Perhaps it was because there were many of them; it is difficult, you know, for a whole crowd to stop rioting once they have started. But none of my relations was killed, though my cousin Surbans Singh was badly beaten. So they came home, and the rest of us could not go to work because none of the buses and trains were running. I started to bicycle to the university — I am a student — but I was chased by shouting people so I came home too. We shut ourselves in our houses — we have three houses all together in the same road — and held a council. We decided that all the English people had been infected by a madness against machines, which for some reason did not effect us Sikhs. Oh, now I will tell you something interesting and significant. The Jamaicans also had gone to get the buses out, but my cousin Sur-bans said that they were extremely clumsy and giggled all the time when they made a mistake. He thought they had all been drinking — at four o’clock in the morning, which is not impossible with Jamaicans. So perhaps they too were a little affected by the madness, but not in the same manner as the English. Anyway our council decided that we would wait until the madness passed. But it did not pass. One of my uncles owns a store, so there was enough to eat, but water became difficult and sanitary arrangements too. And it was difficult to cook without . . . What is the matter, Miss Gore?”
Nicky had only been able to understand about half of what Kewal said. His explanation seemed full of nasty, fuzzy words and ideas, such as “bicycle.” She felt a qualm of the old sick rage bubbling up inside her — the rage she’d felt in Castelnau, or on that first morning when Daddy had gone around the house with his hammer smashing all the nasty gadgets of their lost life. But it was only a qualm this time, not strong enough for killing or smashing. She put her head between her hands and waited for the qualm to seep away. Kewal watched her in silence.
“Please don’t talk about things like that,” she said at last. “You mustn’t.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know why, but you mustn’t.”
He smiled.
“You are a good canary,” he said. “You will be most useful to us. I must go and tell my uncles what you say.”
“No, wait,” said Nicky. “I think I can explain a bit more. Gopal was talking to me before, and he said things which worried me in a different kind of way. The things you were talking about made me feel very angry, very mad really. I don’t mind your calling it madness, because it’s just like that. But Gopal was talking about India, and the war and things which I’m sure I knew about once. But now it’s . . . it’s as if they’d become so ... so boring, I suppose, that my brain goes to sleep before I can think about them. I couldn’t remember the word for your hats until he told me it was ‘turbans.’ Do you understand?”