4

Carl was back mid morning the next day grinning, although when he noticed Daphne at the painting, he stiffened.

‘I know what you’re thinking.’ Daphne waved her brush about. ‘But I’m going on with it.’ She noted he looked good in white trainers, white trousers and blue and red patterned shirt and should have told him so.

Heading for the fridge he said, ‘Like some phantom from hell.’

Ignoring the cruelty of his remark about her work she kept to her task. ‘Have you contacted Shanta?’

‘I’m waiting for Raj.’ He poured himself a gin and tonic, avoiding Daphne’s glare.

‘Shanta’s son, Raj?’

‘He drives me around when I’m over here. He’ll be here soon.’

‘Wonderful,’ she smiled at him. ‘I’ve not met Raj either, so that will be good. Everything can be arranged now — And there’s our driver for the trip. So that’s who you keep slipping off to see?’ Then she looked excitedly towards the caves where a small queue to get onto the path that led up the valley was forming. Women in red, gold and green saris attended girls in white and pink frocks and boys with bright white shirts, while men chatted in small groups. Regarding the cheerfulness of the families made her reflect on her own. She was particularly keen on Carl’s fifteen year old daughter. ‘I do miss Melody not being here,’ she reflected. ‘It would have been good for her to meet Shanta and see the good work she’s doing at Kali Ko-op. I have high hopes for her — she’s quick, intelligent, good academically—’

‘It’s that age, mum.’ Carl flopped on the sofa. ‘She wanted to spend her fifteenth birthday with her mates. She’s happy with her mum.’

‘I don’t get to see her much. I really would have liked my only granddaughter here with us, she has such energies, and she’s open to new things. She would have liked the caves, I know she would.’

‘I thought you two never really got on.’

‘We’ve had our disagreements, and when she shows attitude and is rude I am going to tell her off — as you should do. And you don’t do it often enough,’ Daphne said. ‘You should never have let her mother go off like that and take her.’

A tall girl with flowing blond hair, she had her father’s lips and mother’s blue eyes and when she made up her face with subtle pastel colours that complimented her features, she looked nineteen. Although Melody could snap sometimes there was a sensitive side to her and she could still a bad atmosphere with enchantment. Daphne felt a sense of connection with her granddaughter that Carl had missed. Melody was interested in art and painted little designs and liked to design clothes.

She would also be someone who could take over the business in time. ‘I do try with Melody’s mum, you know,’ Daphne said.

Carl shrugged. ‘Who knows what a fifteen year old girl wants?’

Daphne turned to her painting and tried to adjust the nose, layering in a touch of Cadmium Yellow and White with a touch of Burnt Sienna. The thick line of paint made the Yakshi’s nose bulge; it was all wrong. ‘I don’t suppose you spent much time dissuading her?’

She took a cloth and folding it round the point of the index finger of her right hand applied it to the over-thick paint on the nose and scooped some away.

‘She’s a teenager who changes her mind like the direction of the wind. Don’t take it personally.’

Daphne regarded the mess of colour on her canvas, resisting for a moment the desire to rip it apart with a pallet knife. Growling, she stormed away from it.

‘You’re impossible, mum.’ He sipped. ‘Twelve hours in Raj’s beaten up old tin can in baking weather.’

Carl was looking out past her, turning over his thumbs, a habit which annoyed Daphne. A person who believed every moment should be deliberate, almost pre-planned, Daphne found his fidgeting a distraction. If it wasn’t his fingers it was the rocking of one leg over another, just like his father.

‘I’ll be fine.’

‘Paint your pictures.’ He gesticulated with his hand, the motion nearly spilling his drink in the other so she picked up his frustration. ‘You can talk to Raj when he gets here.’ Carl downed the dregs. ‘He knows his mum’s movements.’

Daphne let go and turned back to her picture, a rage tossing through her. ‘And now at last I have the time to paint — I can’t do it. I’ve lost the talent.’ She bunched her fists. ‘I can’t paint anything anymore.’

‘It’ll come back. It always does with you,’ Carl said lightly. ‘This stuff is a little drama you like to play out for my benefit.’

‘It won’t,’ she said, pushing back tears: she was not going to cry in front of Carl. ‘It’s gone. If you don’t fulfil these things when you’re young, you become a shell, an afterthought.’

 

*****

 

Raj was a couple of inches shorter than Carl and half his age; Daphne reckoned he was around twenty. His thick black hair was pushed back on top and finely shaved around the edges and he had thin dark eyebrows, narrow lips and a smile of warmth and authority.

‘Come in Raj,’ Daphne beckoned to the shy young man. ‘Have a drink with us — we have sparkling water, ice —’ She led him into her room.

‘Madam,’ Raj stepped forward with a slight bow of his head and proffered his hand for shaking. ‘Is it your first time in India?’

‘You can call me Daphne. I’m very pleased to meet you, Carl has told me so much about you and your mother. And to answer your question, my husband Ben brought me many years ago as Carl will have told you.’

‘I heard what happened,’ Raj went on. ‘He was a good man. I’m very sorry.’

‘You knew him well?’ Daphne motioned for him to sit and he obeyed. ‘Through your mother?’

‘Without him I would have had no school, I would be nothing. I’m driving now, but taking a degree soon.’

‘Then you can take over from your mother.’

‘We can work together,’ he smiled, ‘to build things bigger, wider—’

‘It’s very exciting. I’m so pleased to meet you. Get him a drink Carl. He might want water—’

‘Not if I know Raj.’ Carl poured Raj a small glass of whisky and another gin for himself.’

Daphne glared at her son. ‘You’re really too bad Carl, encouraging him. He’s a driver remember. I can just imagine you two and Ben—’

Accepting the glass from Carl, Raj let out a short laugh, stopped, and smiled back at Daphne. ‘It wasn’t quite like that — Daphne.’

‘I’m so glad we were able to help from our end,’ Daphne said. ‘And get your mum’s business up and get you an education. Ben was always at the forefront of giving to others.’

‘Mum won’t have anything bad said about my dad, Raj.’ Carl gave him a glance.

‘He was always good to me and he had a big heart. You know that.’

‘Yes, he did have a big heart.’ Carl nodded, sitting on a chair near the sofa.

‘You don’t have to say it with so much — sarcasm and irony.’

‘He did, mum. But you over praise him. He had faults just like everyone else.’

‘He was always kind to me,’ Raj added. ‘Like a father.’

Daphne poured herself a glass of water, ‘I’m talking to someone who knows what he’s talking about. I can see you and I, Raj, are going to get on fine.’ She waved her hand at Carl. ‘You can put the air con on now it’s getting stuffy.’

‘The sun’s getting up high,’ Raj said and seeing Daphne’s painting, he stood and walked over to it. ‘You paint, er, Mrs — Daphne.’

‘You mustn’t look at that.’ Daphne tried to get in between her visitor and the picture on the easel. ‘It’s just a work in progress, you understand. It’s nothing, really.’

Despite her move to block him, he had managed to slip past her.

‘A Yakshi,’ he said.

‘You can tell, you can see it?’ Daphne let out a short gasp.

‘This is a special Yakshi – a Shalabhanjika tree spirit. How did you know?’

‘You can really recognise it?’ Daphne fumbled in her pocket and came out with the trinket she had bought with the little Yakshi dangling from it.

‘Like a ghost,’ Raj laughed. ‘They can haunt you.’

‘Don’t you start,’ Carl said getting the air conditioning going.

Raj smiled at her again. ‘You do not have to worry. But the Yakshi is like a spirit that lives in the mountains and the woods guarding valuable metals and jewels in the earth. Yakshi is female and Yaksha is male. Even in Buddhist times you would see the entrance to a house with a Yakshi on one door post and a Yaksha on the other. They would stop bad spirits from entering and bring prosperity to the owner.’

‘If you believe that stuff,’ Carl laughed.

‘I can’t get it right, though,’ Daphne said, ‘not properly.’

‘Mum thinks she can do it.’ Carl gesticulated with his glass.

Raj looked at her, ‘I’m sure you can.’

‘You’ll be my friend for life, Raj.’ She leaned to him and lightly touched his arm.

‘Perhaps the face,’ Raj went on. ‘A little bit European. If you don’t mind me saying.’

‘I don’t mind you saying at all. You’re so polite.’

‘My mother paints,’ Raj said.

‘Shanta?’ Daphne scowled at her son. ‘Another thing I’ve not been told.’

‘She dabbles, like you, mum. Nothing special.’

‘Thank you for that, darling.’ Daphne fired at Carl, enjoying a moment of revengeful irony.

‘She painted a Yakshi once.’ Raj still observed Daphne’s picture. ‘A big canvas. A commission for a friend.’

‘Then she’s not a mere dabbler like me then.’ Daphne sent another scowl at her son. ‘She can help me.’

‘I’m sure she can,’ Raj said.

Carl sat forward. ‘She’s very busy, Raj, what with your sister. I keep telling her—’

‘Yes now that my sister is ill and Kali Ko-op is — how do you say —rejuvenating — itself.’ Raj carried on studying the Yakshi painting.

‘Rejuvenating?’ Daphne held her gaze on Carl. ‘What do you mean? Why haven’t you told me?’

‘Dad told you all that, didn’t he?’ Carl said.

‘My big sister Rani is sick.’ Raj shrugged. ‘There’s lots of doctors’ bills. My mother has had to sell things off.’

‘She’ll still be able to supply us?’ Daphne turned to Raj.

‘Of course, of course.’

‘It’s nothing, mum,’ Carl said, giving Raj a sideways glance.

‘I don’t want her business ruined if we can help. What exactly is happening?’

Raj turned back to the painting. ‘I’m sure she’ll help you with the painting.’

‘Raj. What’s happening to Kali Ko-op?’

He turned back to her, smiling. ‘The Devadasi women at Kali Ko-op make only purses, boxes, and things out of textiles like cushions and curtains. All the art materials we supply you, the hand made papers, the paints, inks and colours come from other sources my mother set up and runs. She knows suppliers and wholesalers. The little things the Devadasi women of Kali Ko-op make and supply to you is not enough to keep it going. It needs rupees it makes on art materials, fabrics and icons my mother gets from her suppliers, before selling on to Paint Clever.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘It’s nothing, mum—’

‘Raj?’

‘One of the suppliers of your best selling fabrics and icons is no longer selling to small businesses. It’s got big emporiums in India and big retailers in England and America to serve.’

‘Shanta’s very resourceful,’ Carl reassured her. ‘She’ll get new contacts — she knows her way about—’

‘How long can your mother go before she can’t pay the women?’

‘They will have to rest soon,’ Raj said.

‘How long?’

‘Shanta can do it,’ Carl cut in before Raj could answer.

Daphne replied, ‘It sounds like you need money — fast.’

‘I’ve been saying how much they need what dad’s left them.’

‘My mother will sell her big house and get something smaller if she must. She will do anything to keep Kali Ko-op going and the women in work.’

Daphne continued to Raj, ‘The women — you call them—’

‘Devadasi,’ Raj supplied the words for her. Daphne noticed Carl exchange a glance at Raj, then Raj said to her, ‘They have other work. Devadasi never starve.’

‘What exactly are they? What do they do?’ Daphne carried on with Raj, noting he looked serious. ‘Why the special title?’

Raj looked at her. ‘Courtesans. They sing and dance,’ Raj said. ‘In the old time they were very well respected and very educated.’

‘Prostitutes, then,’ she said.

Raj intervened. ‘He did everything he could for the co-op and the women.’

‘That’s admirable, Raj — what your mother has done for these women and how Ben has helped her in that.’

‘My mother,’ Raj said quietly, ‘can come and tell you about it. And help you paint your picture. Everything will be fine.’

‘I will be very pleased to meet her.’

‘She has a degree, madam,’ Raj’s nod appeared more like a bow to her. ‘She works very hard for everyone.’

‘This afternoon then Raj, can you bring her here? I’m lunching in the hotel restaurant now. You two will join me?’

‘Later maybe, mum.’ Carl sipped his drink and looked over at Raj as she gathered her bag and left.