“They’re quite remarkable,” he concluded. “They come to the surface and swim over to you when you call them.”
“Now, now, Bert,” Mrs Holbrook smiled in fond protest.
“Seriously, Mater. I’m not joking. They’ll eat out of your hand if you want to feed them.”
“Imagine that! What do fish like best?”
“Chips,” Doris said in a bored voice, then went into fits of laughter.
After a siesta, when the sun had begun to decline, they set off, driving through thronged bazaars where the sacred cattle, garlanded with marigolds, wandered amongst the stalls, butting through the crowds, browsing at will on the fruits displayed. Strange sounds, high-pitched and remote, struck the ear above the high keening of native tongues, a distant temple bell, the booming of a gong, a sudden shrill cry, that lingered, vibrating on the nerves. The air was charged with aromatic scents, heady and provocative, that stung the nostrils and drugged the senses. Moray felt as though he were lifted up, absorbed to a state of extreme excitement and beatitude. His individuality had been extinguished, he was not himself, but had become an altogether different man, entering upon a new and thrilling adventure.
Arrived at the temple, they removed their shoes and entered the incense-misted dusk where the great gold Buddha wore eternally that impassive and ironic smile. They wandered in the gardens of the court jeweller, a network of ornamental filigree, called and fed the huge obedient carp. Moray’s intoxication increased. Doris, wearing her new petunia frock and a little plaited straw hat with a double ribbon that fell over the brim in two tantalising little tags, had taken on the special glamour of the afternoon. Seated beside her on the way home, he turned towards her with a surge of gratitude.
“It’s all been so wonderful, Dorrie . . . and to see it with you . . .”.
She had sensed the change in him, and while her manner since lunch had been increasingly possessive, whenever he advanced she had chosen to retreat. Now she gave him a grudging little nod, as though prepared at last to relent.
“So you’ve decided I make a difference.”
“All the difference,” he murmured fervently, then added disconsolately: “Only you’ve been so cold. I don’t seem to make much difference for you.”
“Don’t you?”
Her eyes seemed to cloud. Then, unobserved by the others, she suddenly lifted his hand and set her teeth in his forefinger, a sharp painful bite that went through the skin.
“That ought to show you if I’m cold,” she said. Then, at the sight of his face as instinctively he nursed the hurt, she began to giggle. “Serve you right, for insulting me these last two weeks.”
Next day Bert took them to the races. He had tickets for the paddock and the club enclosure, also a stable tip for the big race. Nothing could go wrong, nothing, nothing. The horse, Maiden Palm, which Moray backed on his advice, romped home, a winner by three lengths. This was living, this was life! And Doris was being nicer, much nicer, to him. It was as though, having suitably punished him for his past defections, she had finally made up her mind to forget them.
On the day after, they visited the famous Zoological Gardens, crossed to Howrah, and viewed, at a discreet distance, the burning ghats by the Hoogly, drove out to the Royal Calcutta Golf Club for tea, finished with a trip down-river to Sutanati. Money opened the door everywhere. Bert on holiday was a spender, a lavish tipper; Moray saw hundred-rupee notes materialise inexhaustively from Bert’s wallet, pass expertly to expectant palms. How wonderful not to pinch and scrape, to count every miserable coin in a penury he had known all his days, but instead to have money, real money, more than enough to enjoy all the good things of life.
Time flew past as one exhilarating event followed another in swift succession. Moray simply let himself go, inhibiting every warning thought, blocking out the past and the future, living only in the present. Yet always the date of the Pindari’s departure drew near. When it was announced that she would sail on the following Tuesday, the fever in his blood was at its peak. Everything he had longed for all his life was here, ready to his hand, if only he would reach out and take it. Holbrook, suave and amiable, had not again pressed his offer: this had been made and still stood, the solid offer of a man of substance, awaiting Moray’s reply. Mrs Holbrook, through increasing hints and promptings, strongly wished and hoped that he would accept. Bert, however, had no doubts whatsoever on the subject. On Friday afternoon when he came in from the Bengal Club, where he had a guest membership, he found Moray in the hotel lounge and drew up a chair beside him.
“I’ve got a spot of good news, Dave.” They had almost from the beginning been on terms of first-name intimacy. “I’ve been trying to find someone who might sub for you on the return voyage. Well, just now at the club I ran into an I. M.S. doctor going home on leave, fellow by the name of Collins. He jumped at the chance of a free trip with pay. He’s our man.”
As though stung by a wasp, Moray sat up in his chair. Bert’s unexpected announcement, and the assumption of accomplished fact with which he made it, had finally brought the matter to a head. A sudden wave of weakness went over him and, yielding limply, he felt he must at long last unburden himself. After all, to whom could he better disclose and explain his predicament than to a good fellow like Bert?
“Look here, Bert,” he said, haltingly. “You know I’d naturally . . . very much like to accept your father’s offer . . . and especially to work with you. But . . . I wonder if I ought . . .”.
“Good Lord, why not? Dorrie apart, we need a medico in the business. We like you. You like us. I hate to stress it, old boy, but for you it’s an absolute snip. You know how dear old Wagglespear put it—‘There is a tide in the affairs of men.’ ”
“But, Bert . . .” he went on abjectly, then broke off. Yet he had to say it, though every word was dragged up from the pit of his stomach. “There’s someone . . . a girl . . . waiting for me at home.”
Bert stared at him for a long moment, then went into fits of laughter.
“You’ll kill me, Dave. Why, I’ve got girls waiting for me all over Europe—and pretty soon my little Eurasian fancy will be waiting for me in Calcutta.”
“But you don’t understand. I’ve promised to . . . to marry her.”
Bert laughed again, briefly, rather sympathetically and understandingly, then he shook his head.
“You’re young for your age, Dave, and still a bit green behind the ears—that’s partly why we’ve all taken to you, I suppose. Why, if you knew girls as I do . . . You think they’ll pine away and die if you give them the soldier’s farewell? Not on your sweet mucking life—excuse my Hindustani. I’ll lay you a level fiver your little friend will get over her disappointment and forget all about you in six months. As for your own feelings in that direction, which haven’t struck me as too full of cayenne, remember what Plato or some other old Roman geezer said: “All women are alike in the dark.” Seriously, though, I’ve talked it over with Ma and the old man. We all think you’re just the fellow for Dorrie. You’ll steady her down. She needs a bit of ballast, for off and on she’s,” he hesitated, “she’s had a spot of trouble with her nerves. And she’ll give you a bit of tiddley-high which in my humble opinion will knock some of the wool off you and do you a power of good. She’s had fellows before, mind you, she’s no angel, but you’re the one she’s gone right overboard on, she damn well means to have you. And let’s face it, old man, you’ve gone so far with us as a family, it would be a crime if you backed out now. So why don’t you pass the word and we’ll start ringing those old wedding bells? And now we’ll have a couple of chota pegs and drink to the future. Boy—boy!” Leaning back in his chair, he shouted for the khidmutgar.