Nancy told him.
‘Worse places to be,’ said the Collector comfortably. ‘Wish I could come with you.’ He took Nancy ’s hand in his, kissed it, patted her affectionately on the bottom as she stood beside him. Not for the first time, Joe’s heart turned over as he saw them so friendly, so humorous and so attuned.
‘I really loved him,’ Nancy had said.
‘And she still does,’ Joe finished to himself.
They turned north together and rode up the muddy river bank until they encountered a tributary to the main river where they splashed through a shallow ford. On all sides people working in the fields getting in the rice harvest stopped with smiling faces to acknowledge them as they rode by. On every hand, bullock-drawn ploughs were at work across the fields to which millet and barley and rice contributed each a different shade of green in a timeless patchwork.
‘You can see why they call it the Land of Rivers. This is the India I love,’ said Nancy. ‘Do you wonder I wanted to get back to it from France?’
‘It certainly isn’t Calcutta,’ said Joe.
‘No. This is where we can really do some good. We stand between the farmer and his landlord, and, all the time, see that justice is done, you know. Keep the beady-eyed money-lender at arm’s length with a government-managed loan scheme. Andrew introduced that. And later today you’ll see the beginnings of his irrigation system. And you’re right – it isn’t Calcutta. I love it. I really do. I dream sometimes that I’m going to be taken away again. And wake up in a sweat. Oh, Joe – if only we could lift this shadow! If only!’
As usual when Nancy began with shining eyes to talk about India, Joe’s natural contrariness was roused. He opened his mouth to challenge what she said about the beneficent British attitude to the tenant farmers by reminding her that the hugely rich zamindars had been granted their enormous estates by the British themselves. If they were now struggling to rectify a state of affairs which had got out of hand they had none to blame but themselves and the peasant farmers were their luckless victims. If there was any crime in Bengal, it had its roots in social injustice of this kind. But he remained silent. What right had he, a six months’ expert, to challenge the views of someone born and brought up here, someone who was dealing with the realities of life from day to day?
The road narrowed and began to climb and the heat of the day began to build. Nancy led the way with confidence and Joe fell in behind. Looking at her from the crown of her wide-brimmed hat, following the line of her slender back, its silk shirt beginning to cling in the heat, her soft and slender bottom outlined rather than concealed by well-cut jodhpurs, ‘Love,’ thought Joe. ‘I could fall in love. Perhaps I have. But this is love for a day and if I was very lucky perhaps, love for two days. And anyway, she could be my sister. We don’t need to say much to each other. She could be – and indeed she is – my lover. If everything were different, if all the cards were dealt again, if this and if that and if the other, for God’s sake, she could be my wife.’
A stab of desire swept through him and his hands tightened. Indignant at this rough handling, Bamboo skittered aside and even humped his back.
Nancy looked back over her shoulder. ‘Can’t the squire from Scotland Yard keep his seat?’ she asked derisively.
The scrub-covered hillside gave way to occasional stands of trees, thickening as their way led on until they were riding, side by side now, down a jungle path, the alternate shade and sunshine illuminating Nancy’s face and casting it into darkness. Flights of raucous green parrots flashed across their path, mercifully ignored by patient Bamboo. Monkeys gibbered a strident warning of their approach, fleeing showily through the tree canopy overhead, and at times Joe fancied he could make out larger, darker shapes dimly imagined in the shadowy foliage at the foot of the trees but decided that if Nancy was not prepared to give them her attention, nor should he.
Topping a jungle-clad ridge, their road turned downwards towards a village presided over by a rhythmically creaking water wheel, turning and turning and lifting buckets to send a flush of water down the many irrigation channels. Thirty or so mud-walled houses with thatched roofs huddled companionably together, set out to no obvious plan and with no eye for drainage or ventilation as far as Joe could make out, but scattered, it seemed, haphazardly about a central square in which stood a venerable peepul tree. In the windless day spires of smoke rose from many households, bringing with them the sharp smell of dung fires and cooking.
Chickens ran noisily about, occasionally being ejected forcefully through the low, dark doorways. A fat brown child staggered on short legs to the edge of the village and squatted with complete unconcern in the dust. As they reined in their horses and stood waiting, a cascade of children poured out to greet them and then, overcome with shyness, stopped dead. But they were quick to respond to Nancy ’s greeting and soon surrounded them in a chattering group. One of them broke off a stalk of sugar cane and offered it to Bamboo, others ran back to the nearest house, to emerge proudly with a tray of sweet cakes, and after a while a woman came forward with a bowl of milk.
‘If this was all there was to it,’ Joe thought, ‘I could be happy here.’
‘Is this Lasra Kot?’ he asked. ‘Is this where we’re to meet the ferryman?’
‘It’s Lasra Kot, yes, but we’re not here to meet a ferryman.’
‘But didn’t your note say…?’
‘I did but it wasn’t true about Naurung’s message. There was no message. I made it up.’
‘But why?’
‘I thought we had deserved a day off from police work. I wanted you to see India as it really is. I know you have no time for it and are rather desperate to go home but I just didn’t want you to disappear with Calcutta and the station as your lasting, your only, impressions of the country. The station is unreal. It’s more British than Britain, an invention, a parade. Calcutta is unreal – two extremes of wealth and poverty, both disgusting to a man I am beginning to think of as seeing as I do in spite of his being a policeman.’
A young girl in a bright red-bordered sari came hurrying from one of the houses and spoke to Nancy in what Joe guessed to be Bengali.
‘This is my friend Supriya,’ said Nancy. ‘And there are other people here I ought to see. Why don’t you tie the horses and take a seat? I shan’t be very long.’
She indicated a small temple, little bigger than a summer house. ‘Take a seat over there.’ She unpacked some small parcels from her saddle bag and Joe led the ponies away to stand in the shade.
Gladly he went over to the temple to sit in the shade himself. He lit a cigarette and watched as a girl in an azure sari emerged from one of the houses and spread a carpet under the peepul tree and invited Nancy to sit.
At once a shy procession began to form up. Mothers – themselves little older than schoolgirls – with babies in hand or babies at the breast, infants tugging at their skirts, began to gather round Nancy. Each child in turn was led up for her inspection. She looked at eyes, she looked at ears, she felt limbs, lifted draperies and ran an exploring hand over fat brown stomachs, the whole operation accompanied by gales of giggles from the children and laughter from their mothers. From time to time she took a tin of ointment from her pack and gently spread it over an affected part; she applied drops to sore eyes; with a skilled hand and a tight cotton noose, watched by the interested Supriya, she dealt with the ticks that she explained were endemic in the valley.