Night Train to Jamalpur(64)

‘I don’t see myself shimmying. I’ve got six inches of metal plate in my leg.’

‘There’s no reason why you couldn’t be a good dancer.’

‘I’m too old.’

Silence for another space.

‘Will you be seeing the R.K. here?’ I demanded.

‘How should I know?’

‘I want you to steer clear of him.’

‘I know you do.’

She appeared quite calm, which made me the opposite.


II

That morning I went for a walk alone, carrying an umbrella with a broken spoke. There was a mass of rolling cloud down in the valley, like a silent, foaming sea. On the Mall, a fellow in the dark recesses of a blacksmith’s forge called out, ‘You will be wanting to see about your umbrella for the monsoon!’ Behind him, another man was hammering away at one of the curved Ghurka swords. But presumably they ran to fixing umbrellas as well. It was hardly the monsoon yet. A light rain fell, but not so as to disrupt the holiday mood of the Europeans who sauntered about the narrow lanes. It was all ‘Compliments to the air!’ and ‘It’s set fair for this afternoon, I believe!’ and ‘Oh, but you must come to ours!’

I walked for a good while about Darjeeling. The fixtures of the municipality were like their British equivalents, but there was something playful about them, as if they were in a children’s story. The town hall tried too hard to look serious; the post boxes were bright red and gold, and the roof of the goods shed, next to the station was, I noticed for the first time, sky blue.

I was standing near the taxi rank of the station when I spied the long, blue car, the Continental. The chauffeur was in the process of taking down the roof canopy, the light rain having now stopped altogether. The chauffeur regained his place at the wheel; the dark-suited, businesslike man sat in the front alongside him. On the back seat sat the R.K., and there was a new man alongside him: Fisher. Here was the connection proven beyond doubt. The car was now moving slowly through the wandering crowds, and when Fisher saw me he spoke to the R.K., who tapped on the shoulder of the businesslike man, who spoke to the driver, who stopped the motor. They were twenty yards off. Every man in the car was looking at me. After a further word between Fisher and the R.K., these two climbed down from either side of the car; they convened at the radiator where, after a further conflab, they began walking towards me.

Fisher was slightly in the lead as they approached. He was better dressed than I had ever seen him, in a good suit of green tweed. He said, ‘Jim,’ and it was the first time he’d called me that, ‘I’d like you to meet a very good friend of mine: His Highness, the Rajkumar of—’

‘Huzoor,’ the R.K. said, cutting him off, and making me a smart bow. He was smaller than I had thought, and slightly older, perhaps in the late twenties. He wore a suit of still better green tweed that Fisher’s. He was holding out his hand. How should I address him? I wasn’t at all sure Fisher had been right in calling him ‘His Highness’: that was perhaps why the R.K. had cut him off.

I settled on: ‘Pleased to meet you, Rajkumar sahib.’

I did not think that Hindus (especially high-born ones) went in for handshaking; they believed the touch of a foreigner might defile them in some way, but this fellow had a good, firm handshake. Then again, he wore a diamond in his right earlobe.

‘I am delighted to meet you, Captain Stringer. I have heard a great deal about you. How are you enjoying it here? I hope you don’t mind the rain too much?’

‘Not too much.’

‘It’s what we’re all here for, I suppose . . . Major Fisher tells me I always spend too much time on the niceties, Captain Stringer, so I will come right out with it: since I’m told you don’t go in for shikar, what do you say to a round of golf?’

‘What, now?’

He didn’t seem to hear that. He was turning towards the businesslike man, who had also stepped out of the car, and was standing, un-introduced, about ten feet behind us in the road.

The R.K. said, ‘Captain Stringer, I am proposing . . . ’ He looked back at the businesslike man again. ‘What’s that thing called? A three-for-all, or something?’

The businesslike man gave the politest of shrugs while remaining ten feet away, so I answered the question: ‘Do you mean a three-ball?’

‘Ah, Captain Stringer. I can tell you are practically a scratch man.’

In fact, I just hacked my way around the railway course at York, usually alone, and gave up when I’d lost all my balls. I said, ‘I can hardly play at all, I’m afraid.’

‘But you should see me,’ the R.K. said. ‘I am always distinctly over par. They all averted their eyes when I teed off at the Tollygunge Club. Apparently my stance alone foretells doom. My secretary informs me that I swing outside the line – which is all very well, but what line?’