Tikkipala

By Sara Banerji

Above them the great rock bulged out like a too clever forehead, too clever for anything to grow upon, too smooth for anyone to climb… It might be the only place on earth which is so high and difficult to get to, that people can't reach it.

When Sangita the Ranee of Bidwar is caught up in a scandal, her husband banishes her from the palace and forbids access to their young son, Anwar. She lives miserably as a disgraced woman, praying to Ganesh for Anwar to be taken from her husband, so that he would know her suffering. Then, Anwar goes missing.
In a hill-tribe far above the palace, on land impenetrable to man, the young males are dying. When they come across a Coarseone – a child from civilisation below - they use him to create a new life: their new Maw, their king.

Two generations later Sangita's granddaughter, Devi, heads to the family's derelict hill palace to research the mountain's minerals, with instructions to look out for the apocryphal Ama stone. At the same time, a tree-felling company finally reach the mountain top where they discover the hill- tribe. Maw, now a young man, is injured trying to stop the lumberjacks driving them off the land. He is brought to Devi, who takes him down to the palace where the family care for and educate him, but he always has a look in his eyes that no one understands. Will his tribe think their king has deserted them, or do they suspect he is playing a longer game... a life-long game to avenge his tribe their suffering?

Tikkipala is a hypnotic tale of love and preservation at a time of fading empires. Meticulously and soulfully written, Banerji takes the heart on a journey through mystical cultures and spiritual practices, to a world where anything is possible if love is strong enough.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Jan 27, 2015
• ISBN: 9781448215058

Sara Banerji

Sara Banerji was born in England but lived for much of her adult life in India. She now lives in Oxford where she teaches creative writing.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Sangita, Ranee of Bidwar, stood at the edge of the Parwal palace garden holding her little boy by the hand.

She looked up at the mountain peak and realised she was happy again.

Anwar’s hand felt soft and warm against her own and the tiny wiggling of his fingers sent a soft stir of pleasure into Sangita’s heart. She had got him back. She could hardly believe it, for there had been a time when she had feared she might never be allowed to see her son again. Even now the thought sent a little chill of fear into her heart, making her squeeze his hand tighter.

‘Breathe deeply, darling,’ she told the little boy. ‘Like this.’ She opened her mouth and took in gulps of air, as though it was something to drink. As though air could quench thirst. As though breathing the cool wind could blow away two years of suffering. ‘There. What can you smell?’

‘Papa said I’ve always got to breathe through my nose.’

‘But Mama is back and she knows things too,’ said Sangita. She tried to smile but her lips felt stiff. ‘Go on. Try it. What can you smell?’

‘Whiskers,’ said Anwar.

‘Don’t be silly,’ laughed Sangita. ‘Tell me really.’

‘Tiger whiskers,’ persisted the little boy. ‘Papa said there were tigers up there.’

She sighed.

Above them the great rock bulged out like a too clever forehead, too clever for anything to grow upon, too smooth for anyone to climb.

‘Can you see anything up there?’

‘I can see tiny little trees,’ said the child.

‘They are enormous really. They just look little because they are so far away.’

‘Papa said…’

‘Don’t keep talking about Papa all the time.’

Anwar started to try to pull his hand away.

Sangita held on and squeezed her eyes to keep the tears in. Swiftly, as though to divert the direction of the child’s thoughts she asked, ‘Can you see animals up there, even though it’s so far away?’ Then, as he began to speak, she added swiftly, ‘Not tigers, Anwar. Don’t talk about tigers. I want to know what you really see.’

Anwar squinted into the dazzle of distant shade and light. ‘Well, there’s some people sitting on top of the trees.’

‘No darling,’ she told him gently. ‘There are no people living up there. It might be the only place in earth which is so high and difficult to get to, that people can’t reach it.’

‘I can see them’ said Anwar. ‘And Pap…’ He stopped himself quickly.

‘That’s monkeys,’ said Sangita. ‘Huge monkeys live up there.’

‘They’ve got hats on,’ said Anwar.

‘You’re being silly.’

‘I’m not. They really do have hats on. Can I have a monkey, Mama?’

She couldn’t stop herself constantly looking at him, as though each time she felt unable to believe what she had seen the last time. He had changed so much. When she had last seen him, he had been barely able to walk or talk and now he had become a grave little boy, dignified and slightly remote. She wondered if the long gap had permanently spoiled their relationship.

She wanted to ask him, ‘Do you love me?’ but did not dare. Instead she gently stroked the soft skin of his wrist with her finger, revelled in the furry feel of his skin and hoped he would not try to pull his hand away again. She had got him back. That was all that mattered. The past was behind them.

When her husband, the Raja of Bidwar, sent her home to her parents two years before, she had asked him, ‘For how long?’ and tried to keep herself from crying.

‘Until I have made up my mind what to do.’

She wanted to throw herself at his feet, to weep, to plead, to swear that nothing like it would ever happen again, to implore him to forgive her, but she knew from the chill of his expression that she would be humiliating herself for nothing, and instead just asked, ‘How long will you take to make up your mind?’

‘I don’t know. Give me time to think about it. When I am ready I will let you know.’

She had entered her parent’s home a disgraced woman.

Her parents had been delighted and proud when she became the Raja’s bride three years before and now they could not bear to look at her. During meals she sat hunched and ashamed at their table, while they ate in horrified silence. Several times during those awful months that lingered on into years, Sangita tried to explain, but her parent’s dismay was so great, they would not listen. Quickly they would change the subject and when Sangita tried to force her father to hear her, he said, ‘Because of your behaviour, your life is ruined and you have only yourself to blame. Now please do not mention the matter to me anymore, for even to hear you speak of it brings a pain into my heart.’ He suffered from a heart condition and the family always had to be careful not to do anything to upset him.

After the Raja returned Sangita to him, he lay for two whole days in bed in a darkened room, with the doctor administering to him every hour and the people of the house talking in whispers so as not to make a noise that might startle him and tilt him into death.

‘Walk without shoes on,’ Sangita’s mother ordered. ‘For if your soles make the smallest clattering you will not only be guilty of betraying your husband, but you will have killed your father also.’ Her mother’s voice, always deep, took on a new funereal depth, her eyes became hollow and dark ringed and her shoulders bowed after Sangita’s disgraced return.

Sangita followed her mother from room to room telling her, ‘I couldn’t help it. There was nothing I could do,’ while her mother put hands over her ears saying, ‘I don’t want to hear anything. Things are bad enough already and talking of this will make it worse.’

‘It was my husband who encouraged me to accept the invitations from the Collector,’ Sangita told her mother’s muffled ears. ‘He said it would improve relationships with the British.’

‘I don’t want to hear,’ cried the mother.

‘And when the Collector’s daughter and I became friends and started playing tennis together, he was pleased. He said I was creating a bridge between our two nations…’

But her mother rushed into another room and slammed the door.

‘You made a noise,’ shouted Sangita through the key hole. ‘Now if Papa dies it will be you who killed him and not me.’ She was going wild and mad with her desperation because of having no one who would listen to her. She was saying awful things which she instantly regretted, but could not stop herself.

She longed for Daisy, but her friend had returned to England and Sangita knew that whatever happened, even if she, Sangita, was allowed to return to the palace of Bidwar and take up her place as the Raja’s wife again, she would probably never see Daisy again.

Sangita was not even given a chance to say goodbye to Daisy and could not write to her for she did not know the address and had no way of finding it.

She got no letters from Daisy either, though she felt sure her friend was writing to her, for several times her mother quickly whisked an English airmail letter from the post before Sangita had time to get there.

Once Sangita tried to snatch the letter from her mother’s hand. ‘Give it to me. You must. It is mine. It is stealing to take away my letter.’

But her mother held on grimly, saying, ‘You are mistaken. This is only an official letter for your father.’

‘Let me see it then,’ cried Sangita, as her mother began to shove the letter into the blouse of her sari. ‘Show me. Since when did our father get official letters from England?’

‘All the time,’ said the mother. ‘You know nothing.’ And she strode away, this time too, not walking silently, but letting her slippers slap loudly against the marble floor as though the father was not laying a wall away, nearly dying from a heart attack.

Sangita ached for Daisy almost as much as she longed for her child. Until Daisy came there had never been any young British people living in Bidwar. Sir Knutley Smithers had been the Collector there from the time of Sangita’s earliest memories. He was a pompous old man with a red face who breathed snortingly down nostrils that sprouted an amazingly large amount of long hairs and wore a dinner jacket and bow tie in the evening, no matter how hot the weather. When he was invited for dinner, Sangita’s mother always instructed her daughter beforehand, ‘When you meet him, make sure you don’t stare at his nose.’

Ayah would dress Sangita in a silk kurta panama weighted with golden zari and pearls, clasp golden bangles round her wrists and a diamond choker round her throat, then bring her down to be presented to the Collector.

‘My daughter, Sangita,’ her father would say each time, as though otherwise the English Collector would not know who this small girl was. ‘Come, stand by the chair of Sir Edward and say good evening.’

Reaching out, hardly looking at her, the English Collector would pinch Sangita’s cheek with large pink fingers that smelled of tobacco, soap and horse, and say, ‘Have you been a good girl?’ then return to his plate without waiting for her answer. His breath always smelled of brandy. She would hastily avert her eyes from the quivering nose hairs as she answered, as she had been instructed, ‘Yes, sir.’

At this point Sangita’s father would tell the ayah, ‘You can take her away now,’ and Sangita would be returned to her room, the ayah chiding, as they went up the winding stairs, ‘Your Mama told you not to look at the Collector’s nose, so why did you disobey her?’

Then one day, when Sangita was grown up and married the Raja of Bidwar, Sir Knutley Smithers retired and in his place came Daisy’s father.

‘We will have to go round to the new Collector’s house and make ourselves known to him.’ grumbled Sangita’s husband. ‘Even though he is not even knighted, because he is British it is we who must make the first visit.’ He felt insulted but because of a complicated dispute he was involved in regarding land and the British government, was forced, for the moment, to humiliate himself. ‘Though once this matter is sorted out, these people will be compelled to show me proper respect.’

Her husband would not have allowed Sangita to accompany him at all, if it had not been for the fact that both Raja and Ranee were on the invitation.

This expecting a man to be always partnered by his wife, was, the Raja knew, one of the quirks of the British and in his present delicate situation, he was forced to accommodate them.

He told Sangita, ‘Because of your youth, it is my duty to instruct you in how to deport yourself in front of this foreigner, who, although a person of lower rank, is also the representative of the British government and as you are aware I am being forced to propitiate them in order to retain my legal property. It is important, therefore, that you behave correctly. There have been occasions,’ he went on, ‘in which I have felt you have not behaved with the modesty required of the wife of the Raja.’

Sangita, he said, had let him down the time she had taken part in the men’s conversation and then there had been that time when she had thrown a ball for the collector’s dog, then gone running across the lawn with the animal, allowing her bare ankles to be seen by all. ‘You must keep your palu over your head throughout the visit and also completely covering the shoulders.’

When the Raja and Ranee of Bidwar arrived, a European girl with very long legs and wearing a dress so short that it stopped before it reached her knees, rushed to the car.

‘I’m Daisy and you must be Sangita. Welcome to our home. Pa says you are exactly my age.’ She said excitedly. She ignored the Raja

On Daisy’s head was what looked like a golden Roman helmet, fitting tightly round her face and from which sprouted a single long feather. Round her neck she wore a necklace so long that it reached below the hem of her minuscule dress. On her feet she wore a pair of golden high heeled shoes.

Before the waiting bearer had time to do so, Daisy had whisked the car door open on Sangita’s side.

‘Come on. Get out. I can’t wait to get to know you. It’s been awful, living here all this time with everybody old enough to be my granddad.’ She gave the Raja a quick glance and laughed. She did not seem to notice the Raja’s glare of fury.

As Sangita got out, shrouded in her sari and heavy jewels, Daisy was still jabbering on, ‘there’s a marvellous tennis court here, but everyone is so old. I don’t want to play tennis with a lot of old men. So I hope you play tennis. And there’s a swimming pool too. Do you swim?’ She did not wait for Sangita’s answers as though these questions were merely rhetorical and Sangita, because she was as young as Daisy, would be sure to answer ‘yes’ to everything.

Later, seated in the grand drawing room and sipping chilled sherbet served by the uniformed butler, Sangita looked away each time Daisy was forced to tweak down her tight and tiny skirt. She had never, in her whole life, seen so much of a woman’s body. When Sangita dared peep again, Daisy was laughing, her blue eyes sparkling, as though she found Sangita’s embarrassment funny.

While Sangita’s husband and Daisy’s father talked about important things, Daisy came over and sat beside Sangita.

‘Your clothes are darling,’ she said with a laugh, taking up a pinch of the heavy silk in her fingers. ‘I do like them.’ Her nails were long and painted with crimson varnish. ‘But aren’t they rather hot in this weather?’ Daisy’s laughing mouth was crimson too, painted with bright lipstick. Although she was clearly a girl in every other way, her breasts were as flat as those of a young boy’s. Later she would tell Sangita that this was because she wore a hand towel pinned tightly round her chest to press her bosom down.

‘I like your clothes too,’ murmured Sangita and then glanced nervously in the direction of her husband.

As they left, Daisy told the Raja, ‘You’ve got to let your wife come again tomorrow and play a game of tennis with me,’ and when the Raja looked as though he was about to say ‘no’ persisted, ‘Relations between Britain and India will suffer if you don’t agree.’

The Raja winced.

The Collector said, ‘You will be doing us a great service, sir, for my daughter is feeling lonely without the company of other young people.’

‘If it will create good relations between your government and my country,’ said the Raja stiffly, ‘then I suppose I must allow it.’ And later told Sangita, ‘Remember that the Collector’s daughter is an English girl and that their customs are different to ours. And also that she is of a lower class.’

Sangita persuaded her husband to let her wear a simple cotton sari on the day of the tennis game.

‘You will look like a peasant. What will they think?’ he said at first.

‘I shall look ridiculous, all draped up as though I’m going to a wedding when Daisy’s only got a short frock on,’ Sangita argued.

Daisy threw her arms round Sangita when she arrived. ‘I didn’t think you’d come. I thought they wouldn’t let you because they’d think I was a bad influence.’

‘Why would they think that?’

‘My father said that the people here feel very shocked at the way we modern young people dress. He tried to get me to wear a longer skirt and to cover my arms when you and your father came the last time, but I wouldn’t do it and he couldn’t make me. I think you look super, by the way.’

This time Daisy wore a sleeveless muslin frock that hung straight from her shoulders to half way down her thighs. In strongly resembled, to Sangita’s eyes, a rickshaw wallah’s genji apart from the fact that it ended in a transparent fringe, and was caught by a sash at the hips. Today Daisy wore no hat and Sangita did not need to keep her head covered either for there were no one around to whom she must show respect.

Daisy won easily. ‘I don’t know how you managed at all with that sari on,’ she said as they came, panting, off the court. ‘You would have beaten me if you’d been wearing trousers.’

They were sitting under the fan on the veranda drinking nimbu pani.

‘Come. I’ll teach you how to do the chachacha,’ said Daisy. ‘Pull up your sari and I’ll show you.’

Giggling at the thought of her husband’s warnings, Sangita hitched her sari to her knees while Daisy wound up the gramophone and put a record on. ‘Come on, like this. Keep your knees together and swing your legs out to the side.’ Round the veranda went the two of them, till at last their legs became tangled and they fell in a giggling heap on the floor.

Sangita discovered that there was only three weeks between their birthdays. They were both sixteen.

‘I can’t believe you’ve got a baby already,’ said Daisy. ‘I don’t plan to even get married for years. I want to have lots of fun first. I must have still been at school when you got married.’

Sangita said nothing.

In the weeks that followed, Sangita and Daisy were often in each other’s houses, playing tennis, dancing to the cranky old gramophone, or when the weather was too hot for such things, lying limp and luscious on the veranda under the noisy fan.

Daisy taught Sangita the latest popular songs from England and together they would sing ‘Joshua, gosh you are, better than lemon squash, you are,’ or ‘Let him go and let him tarry, let him sink or let him swim. He doesn’t care for me and I don’t care for him.’ ‘This is my favourite,’ cried Daisy. ‘He flew through the air with the greatest of ease, that daring young man on the flying trapeze.’

‘They’re all about men,’ said Sangita.

‘So they are,’ said Daisy. ‘I hadn’t realised.’

She read Sangita bits out of the romantic books she had had sent out from England and the two of them would giggle and sigh as they imagined passionate kisses and men’s hands fondling women’s breasts.

Sangita had never before heard of such things even talked about, although Daisy assured her that English girls kissed boys all the time, even when they were not engaged to be married to them. ‘You should have seen what fun we had on the ship. I danced with a different boy every night and kissed nearly every one.’

‘Didn’t your father mind?’

‘He didn’t know.’ She said suddenly, ‘Let’s swop clothes. I want to see what you would look like if you were an English girl.’

Sangita felt a shiver of panic as she slipped into Daisy’s tiny frock. Never in her life, not even in bed, had she worn something that showed so much leg. Then Sangita showed Daisy how to tie a sari and the two of them examined their reflections in the full length mirror and could not stop laughing.

‘You are absolutely beautiful,’ said Sangita.

Daisy said, ‘The boy’s on the ship would have gone wild with excitement if they saw you like this. You’d have been the prettiest girl on board.’

Sangita felt her face flush scarlet and seizing Daisy’s dressing gown, swiftly wrapped herself in it and refused to emerge till Daisy returned her clothes.

‘Never tell my husband that I put your dress on,’ she whispered as she prepared to go home.

‘Why don’t you ever bring Anwar with you when you come to visit me?’ Daisy asked.

‘My husband won’t let me.’

‘Why on earth?’ cried Daisy. ‘Surely the Raja can’t think I would be able to corrupt a baby.’

Sangita explained that her husband, who was thirty years older than her, had been married before but Preeti died while giving birth to the little boy who died too. ‘Because of that, Anwar is very precious to my husband. He thinks I am irresponsible and says he is taking no risks with this son.’

‘I don’t know why you let him bully you,’ said Daisy.

‘All the way through my pregnancy my husband went on worrying in case the baby was a girl. Also there is a birth defect in his family. Boy babies are usually born with a small red mark on their upper lip. My husband was very pleased that Anwar did not have it.’

‘I can’t see what’s so awful about a little mark,’ said Daisy.

‘My husband says that a lot of the men in his family were born with the mark, and they all turned out to be drunkards.’

‘How amazing,’ said Daisy.

Sangita wished that her husband did not adore Anwar so, for she hardly ever got a chance to have her baby to herself.

The Raja would sit by his son’s cot for hours, pretending to read, but really taking frequent surreptitious peeps at the baby, as though to reassure himself that the child was real. When he worked in his office he would instruct the ayah to bring the cot and set it by his desk. Even when he went for walks round the gardens in the cool of the morning, he would often order the ayah to walk alongside carrying the child.

It was only in the afternoons, when the Raja took his lie-back, that Sangita truly felt that Anwar was hers.

When Daisy came to the Bidwar palace to visit, the two girls tickled, played with him and gave him sweeties till sugar juices ran down his chin, and his face became sticky.

The Raja told Sangita, after Daisy had gone, ‘My son might have become sick because of your feckless behaviour. This is exactly why I do not trust you with my son.’

When Daisy told Sangita that she was returning to England, to go to university, Sangita felt desolate.

‘Cheer up,’ laughed Daisy, ‘I’m not going forever. I’ll be back for the summer holidays.’

‘I bet you meet some young man, fall in love, never want to come back here again.’

Daisy looked haughty. ‘I have no intention of falling in love with anyone, ever. I am going to be my own woman. I shall have a career, look after myself and when I have money, spend it all on me. And fun.’

‘What about babies? Wouldn’t you like babies?’

‘I adore Anwar, as you know, but I just don’t seem to have the mothering instinct.’

‘It might come later,’ suggested Sangita.

‘Never,’ said Daisy.

After she had gone Sangita counted the days till her friend would return.

Although the Raja was doing his nightly best to produce another son, Sangita did not get pregnant.

‘It is this moping around, wishing for the tennis games and such childish pursuits that is preventing it,’ he said at last. ‘We will go up to the mountain palace and perhaps the mountain air will improve your health and aid conception. Hopefully this time you will not be so nauseous.’ The year before, when she was pregnant with Anwar, she had been sick about twenty times on the steep and winding journey to the Parwal palace.

The Raja was right. Sangita’s spirits did start reviving on the journey into the Parwal hills, and the aching longing for Daisy began to diminish a little. This time she did not suffer from nausea and, because the Raja sat in front with the driver, instructing, directing and reprimanding, Sangita, in the back, was able to cuddle her baby.

As she nibbled her lips gently over Anwar’s fluffy head or stroked the luscious smoothness of his pristine feet, the Raja would be telling the driver, ‘Don’t drive so fast, you fool,’ or ‘Are you blind or something? Do you not see that buffalo?’ Gently Sangita would press her child’s cheek to her own, while the Raja shouted, ‘Why are you crawling like a snail? Do you think this is a European funeral?’ All his concentration was on the faults of the driver so she could enjoy her baby as much as she liked.

And even when they arrived at the hill palace at last, Sangita still was allowed to keep Anwar in her arms, for the Raja, who was an amateur geologist, said that as soon as he had had a shower, he would go up the mountain to collect crystals before the last of the light had gone.

When he had left, she asked one of the palace servants to bring her a chair, and with her baby across her lap, sat watching the sun dip quickly in a blaze of scarlet and purple. The baby fell asleep and the light of the setting sun illuminated his face, so that he glowed like a little god.

‘I am in love,’ she thought, watching the tiny breaths quivering his baby nostrils and his petal shaped mouth wrinkle as it dreamt of suckling ‘These feelings, the shining warmth inside my heart and the stealthy tickling that is wandering through my body must be what women feel when they fall in love with a man. This must be the thing they wrote about in those books Daisy read to me.’ And she thought again of the wild kisses, the uncontrollable longings, the life without meaning when the loved one is lost.

‘If I lost my baby,’ thought Sangita. ‘My life would lose all meaning too.’

There came a series of shrieks, piercing, high and human sounding, from the high jungle and the baby woke with a jerk and started crying.

Sangita, holding Anwar to her heart, peered into the distance. But the sun had set behind the mountains and the jungle had become clapped into darkness.

The screams stopped very suddenly, as though chopped off. As though a throat had been bitten.

Shakily, hugging the baby, Sangita ran though the palace till she found her husband who had just returned from a mountain side search.

‘It is only the call of some wild animal,’ he told her sternly. ‘You are unused to the ways of the country otherwise you would not be so agitated and your nervousness is transmitting itself to my son. Give him to me that I may soothe him.’

Reluctantly she passed the baby over and promised herself that in future she would not let the Raja see if she was startled.

Chapter 2

During that hill holiday Sangita felt, for the first time since Anwar was born, like a proper mother. Sometimes the Raja even seemed like a real husband.

He would come back from his scrambles over the hills showing her stones, telling her, ‘It is said that all good fortune will come to the person who wears this stone on the index finger of the right hand.’ Or ‘It is said that the woman who places this crystal inside her blouse will bear only male children and never be burdened with females ones.’ Then, reminded, would bend over his beloved son, would touch the baby’s upper lip and say, ‘I thank God yet again for my unmarked son.’

‘This time next year, perhaps, Anwar will be old enough to come with me when I go hunting for minerals,’ he said. ‘The people here have told me of a fabulous blue stone with a throbbing scarlet heart. It is probably just a fanciful fable invented by these ignorant peasants, but, who knows, there may just be some truth in it. My son and I will hunt for it together.’

‘He will not even be two by then,’ cried Sangita. ‘You can’t take a two year old child up that steep mountain.’

‘Well, the year after, then’ said the Raja. ‘Or perhaps I will be able to engage a responsible person to carry him, so that he can accompany me even before he is able to walk.’

‘It is dangerous up there,’ said Sangita, tightening her grip on the child, as though otherwise he might be torn from her arms. ‘Everyone keeps telling me that there are wild animals like the one I heard screaming the other evening. Also Ayah said that there are bandits there.’

‘No, I suppose you are right,’ the Raja said, resignedly. ‘I will wait till he is older.’

The Raja said, ‘When my son is grown up, I will send him to London, so that he may be trained as a professional geologist. Then he and I will climb these hills together, looking for minerals. The day may even come when my own boy can teach me.’

Sangita sighed.

People from the village started coming to the palace bringing stones for the Raja.

‘The women here say the stone with the red heart is called the Ama,’ he told Sangita.

She felt a touch of warmth because her husband was talking to her as though she existed.

Daisy did not come back for that summer vacation. She wrote to say how sorry she was, how much she missed Sangita and how she hoped to get there for Christmas, but in the end she didn’t manage Christmas either. It was a year before Daisy and Sangita met again. Anwar was nearly two.

Daisy stared at him, amazed. ‘Is this really that same little baby? I just can’t believe it. He’s gorgeous.’ She paused, looked a little embarrassed, then said, ‘By the way, I’m engaged to be married.’

Sangita burst out laughing. ‘What made you change your mind?’

Daisy went red. ‘Love,’ she muttered. Then, grabbing Sangita by the wrist, ‘His name is George, he’s a friend of my brother, Paul, and they are both coming to stay next month. I want you to be the first person in Bidwar to meet George. I know you’ll love him. I’m going to throw a party to welcome him and you’ve got to come.’

Sangita felt flustered. ‘My husband might not let me,’ she said.

‘Oh, don’t be so silly. You are a grownup woman. Even though he is old enough to be, he is not your father. You just tell him you are coming. How can he stop you?’

Sangita sighed. ‘He can,’ she said.

‘I’ll get my father to talk to your husband. You’ve got to come. I’ll make sure your father loses his land if he doesn’t let you. And you’ve got to dance. I want everyone to know how good you are.’

‘I have been practising the chachacha for when you get back,’ laughed Sangita. ‘I’m pretty good.’

‘The chachacha is out of fashion. Now it’s the Beguine.’

‘Then you’ll have to teach me that,’ said Sangita.

That had been two years ago. How much sorrow that had come since. But now she was back again, and her little boy was with her.

‘Shall I show you how to dance, Anwar?’ she asked her little boy, now. ‘Come, take my hands. Put your feet like this.’

But the child pulled himself away. ‘Papa says that only prostitutes dance.’

‘Not in England. In England everybody dances. One day your Papa says you will go there. Then you will see. So you’d better start learning now, so that by the time you are old enough you are really good at it. Now this is how you do the Beguine.’

The child was nervous. ‘Suppose Papa sees us, will he be angry, Mama?’

‘No, no, he’s gone out. Come on, darling.’ Sangita and her little boy were laughing and leaping round the veranda, when Sangita heard that shrieking sound again, the sound that had woken the baby Anwar when he had been sleeping on her lap two years ago.

‘What’s that horrid noise, Mama?’ asked the older Anwar, and he gave a little shudder.

‘Your Papa says it is only a wild animal,’ Sangita told him. But all the same, because the sound was so tragic and desolate and seemed to go on and on, she put her hands to her ears.

After a few moments the little boy reached up and pulled her fingers away, saying, ‘It has stopped now, Mama. You needn’t be afraid anymore.’

Because of the two years of longing, because of the fear that she might never see him again, because now everything was alright, because the gesture was so sincere and sweet, because the dreadful screaming from above had shocked her so, Sangita suddenly started crying. She could not stop. Hot tears rushed from her eyes and down her face.

Then she had to force herself to smile because the little boy was staring at her with such dismay.

‘I am crying with happiness, because I am back with you,’ she told him, her voice still choking as she tried to get it under control. ‘Sometimes grownup people cry because they are so happy.’

Anwar looked relieved and smiled as well. ‘The wild animal is right up there, high high, high, so it can’t get you. Papa told me he often heard it when he was a little boy and came here with his father.’

‘The animal must be very old if it is still screaming after all those years,’ said Sangita.

Daisy came to collect her in the Collector’s official car, the day of the dance. ‘I want you to get there before any of the other guests so that you are the very first person who meets George. Apart from my father, of course.’

All the way from the palace to the Collector’s house, Daisy could not stop talking. ‘He’s even more handsome than I remembered. And taller. Oh, I can’t wait for the moment when you see him. I know you will love him the moment you set eyes on him and I know he will love you too.’

Sangita tried to seem as thrilled as her friend, but had to fight back the feeling that things would never be the same between her and Daisy again, now that Daisy had got a fiancé, but she only said, ‘I’m longing to meet him. He must be a wonderful person for you to love him so.’

At the Collector’s residence, two young men were playing croquet on the lawn. They both looked up as the car arrived, then began laughing and waving.

Sangita knew in an instant which one was George, because he was the one that did not look like Daisy.

Paul came upon her so suddenly, was so golden, tall and happy and looked so much like her friend, that before she could stop herself, Sangita let out an audible gasp.

Paul leant through the car window and grasped Sangita’s hand, crying, ‘We meet at last. I have heard so much about you.’ Even his quick, joyful movements were like Daisy’s. Still holding her hand, he said, ‘You are even prettier than Daisy described. Come on. Get out. There’s cold lemonade waiting for you and I bet you need it after that hot journey.’

‘You’ve got to dance with me all evening,’ said Paul, as, still holding Sangita’s hand, he led her towards the residency. ‘You must promise not to dance with a single other man. For this one evening you must be mine alone.’ She knew she ought to pull her hand away, but did nothing.

‘Don’t listen to my brother,’ cried Daisy, following them, arm in arm with George. ‘Paul fancies himself as God’s gift to women and has no scruples as far as girls are concerned.’

Sangita felt afraid and wished she had not come.

A burning flush spread through her body when Daisy called out teasingly, ‘Now, Paul, remember that that’s a married woman you’ve got there. Don’t let that go from your mind.’

Paul laughed, throwing back his head. ‘I completely forgot,’ he said but still did not leave go of Sangita’s hand.

‘She’s got a baby, too, Paul. You are holding the hand of the Ranee of Bidwar, who is also the mother of the future Raja, so have some respect, please, brother dear.’ Brother and sister burst out laughing and Daisy said, ‘Don’t be hoodwinked by my brother, Sangita. He is really awful. I expect there are a dozen women left behind in England who are blubbing now. Fools who believed his smooth talk and flowery promises.’ Turning to Paul, she wagged a joking finger at him and said, ‘But you can’t behave like this in India, Paul. Things are different here. Indian fathers are not tolerant like English ones.’ Then, suddenly remembering, ‘But, Sangita, you haven’t met George yet. George, my best friend in the world, Sangita. Sangita, my most beloved person in the world, George.’

George shook hands solemnly.

The Collector had said it was silly to try to have a ball in Bidwar. ‘Who will we ask? The Indian girls here will certainly not be allowed to take part and there is only one British family for a hundred miles.’

It was this young couple, the Collector from the next district and his new wife, who made up what was supposed to be the fourth couple. The Collector had also invited a middle-aged lady, a member of the British archaeology society.

So when Sangita said, suddenly, that after all she would not be going to dance and that she wanted to return home at once, Daisy was dismayed.

‘You said you were my friend and now you are ruining everything. Tell me what the problem is.’

But Sangita was unable to explain.

In the end, stifling her anxiety, she reluctantly agreed to stay on and just as reluctantly tried not to enjoy the evening.

The Collector and the middle-aged lady soon abandoned dancing and went out onto the veranda to drink brandy soda and discuss an interesting local building that needed rescuing.

The six remaining dancers wiggled and galloped round a ball room designed for a hundred.

‘You are really good, Sangita,’ said Paul later, when, rather breathlessly, they sat to eat.

The Collector had decided that, in spite of them being so few, the evening required a formal dinner.

Sangita had sat at this table only once before though she had visited with her