The snow came early, lying softly over the villas and mansions of Mussoorie and covering the grime of the slums behind the bazaar. Down at the hospital, the missionaries started giving out bags of rice and coarse grey army blankets left over from Earthquake Relief. The news spread quickly and soon the clinic grounds were crowded with ragged beggars, homeless families, and even a few holy men and pilgrims.
On the lawn of the Swami Mem-sahib’s house, Djoti set up a row of 44-gallon fuel drums, with holes spiked around the base to let in air. When the day of the open meal came round, wood boys lit the makeshift stoves so that the guests could gather round them for warmth. If snow was falling, or sleet slashing icy against the sides of the house, the people still came—running out of the shelter of the forest, bent over beneath their blankets, clutching tins and bowls. But they left with the food, going back to eat in their makeshift huts and meagre hideouts.
Often the sun shone, and the women of the house put on layers of Kashmiri wool and walked up to look at the mountains. The forest was cold and gloomy, and they hurried up the pathways between the stranded gates and pillars, panting out long clouds of vapour. But when they reached the open plateau, bright sun burst over them, warming cold red cheeks and noses and tanning their faces a deep golden brown.
The chill banished the haze, turning the abyss into a gentle green valley, and unveiling the secrets of the distant horizon. Through the clear air, they could see rugged mountain ranges of bare brown rock with dark scatterings of forest. And beyond, the sparkling vista of the boundless Himalaya. It lay like a vision spread before them—crystal-white peaks and crags, shadowed with purple, set beneath an azure sky. They visited a lookout platform, where they took turns to peer through an ancient telescope. An old man lived in a tiny shack beside it, taking money from tourists during the day and guarding the place by night. He welcomed them solemnly each time they came, and stood beside them as they each gazed into the distance.
‘God,’ he would say, pointing towards the mountains. ‘Home of God.’
The cold air was champagne in their lungs, stirring up laughter and giving rise to plans for snowmen and handfuls of ice down the fronts of jumpers. Long high screams cut the air as snow met pale winter skin, then melted, trickling down between warm breasts.
These days spent on the plateau fuelled their hunger so that as the sun sank towards early evening they ran, sliding and falling, down the track to the house. There, they gathered in Prianka’s kitchen to eat warm chapatis, and the hot rice pudding that Djoti claimed was the all-time favourite of every real Englishman.
They soon finished the books that belonged to the house, but Ellen discovered an old library down at the Mall, near the Savoy. They had to line up, solemnly presenting passports and giving signatures and money before a purse-lipped Indian woman bestowed on them their Borrowers’ Identity Cards. She warned them that books would be examined on return and checked for damage.
Under her roving eye, Ellen, Ziggy and Skye moved quietly between the glass-fronted cases of old leatherbound books, careful not to disturb the dusty ghosts of the wing-backed reading chairs or the neat lines of ageing English journals set out on the polished tables.
In the evenings they sat in the lounge under the eye of the smiling Queen, laughing over titles like Every Inch a Briton or Dear Land, Dear England. Then there was Men and Ghosts and a thick, dense tome called The Origin of the Idea of God. They talked and read, and Skye played aimless streams of languid jazz, while the fire burned high in the grate. They felt easy and careless, cut off from the trials of the outside world. Ahead lay the next open meal, the next few chores, the next trip down to the bazaar, the next mountain walk. Further ahead lay the spring and then the summer—time stretching into the future in a smooth unbroken line.
In the early mornings a different mood prevailed. The three gathered in the sunroom, sitting cross-legged in a circle, as if preparing to eat—but they were silent and tense, facing the colours of dawn with inward-looking eyes.
Ellen was the leader. They waited for her to begin, to ask the questions that would lead them back …
The daily ritual had begun with Skye. It had been Ellen’s attempt to help her find a way to forget, to escape from her past. Ziggy had wanted to take part as well and it had soon become something that involved all three.
‘Who do you see?’ Ellen would ask, to begin.
‘I’m with Nicky,’ Skye’s voice was tinged with surprise. ‘We’re arguing. It’s about something he did and blamed on me.’
‘Where are you?’
‘In the garden of our summer house, up in the hills. It’s spring. There are flowers everywhere; blossom on the trees; plastic cups left out on the lawn. Red and yellow …’
Next there was Skye’s father, sitting on the couch, watching himself making statements on television. Then her friend Caroline in the school dormitory, undressing beside her thin, hard bed.
Ziggy saw Lucy piling her arms with shopping. Ellen remembered Carter eating bean sprouts from a jar while talking on two telephones.
When each of them had spoken they sat in silence, the wind tossing in the treetops. Then, carefully, they took the pictures apart and cut out all the people. Gardens stayed. Televisions talked on. Food, shopping, cars, beaches, airports—they all remained. But they were emptied. The people all gone. Uprooted, unravelled, torn out.
Then life moved calmly on. The wind blew through the grass where they had stood. On vacant sofas, squashed cushions became smooth and plump again. Boxes of shoes and bags of new clothes grew dusty in the corners of rooms. The air was clean and voiceless.
That piece of the past was gone—or, at least, pushed further away.
At the end of each meeting, breakfast was set out ready in the dining room. They came to it with calm faces and steady eyes, feeling stronger, safer. Another sandbag stacked up against the swamping tides of the past.
It wasn’t easy. Lovers, parents, brothers, sisters—Zelda—came back, and back again. Sometimes it was almost impossible to wipe them away. But the three women, seated together, fought their way on. Fear, pain, sadness, hope, love, strength—everything inside them—was distilled into a single strain of pure, iron will.
And gradually, as the winter wore on, the meetings grew shorter and shorter. Then they ended.
‘Who do you see?’
‘No-one. No-one at all.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Nowhere. I’ve gone away. Finished.’
Now nothing could touch them. They rested easy in the sweet balm of forgetting. Walking light and easy, with the winds of time blowing free and empty behind them.
One warm morning they all sat out on the verandah drinking tea from clay cups. A hint of spring showed in swelling buds on the bare trees and thin spikes of green piercing the blank earth.
A flash of bright red moved between the trees near the head of the track.
‘Someone’s coming,’ said Skye, looking quickly around at Ellen.
A turbanned figure, leaning forward against the weight of a bulging backpack, appeared at the edge of the lawn. Fine, fair features suggested it was a woman and, in spite of the turban, a foreigner. Ellen, Ziggy and Skye stared silently at her over their cups.
‘Hi,’ the woman said as she came up to the fountain. Her greeting was bright and friendly, but it seemed to use up all the vitality she could spare. She kept her face down as she laboured up the steps and unloaded her pack. Then she sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, and closed her eyes.
Ellen glanced questioningly around, but the others shrugged. Neither knew her.
‘Excuse me, are you looking for someone?’ Ellen asked as she went to stand beside the stranger.
There was a short silence before the woman spoke.
‘I’ve come up from Rishikesh. I was staying at an ashram but I got thrown out. I heard there was a place here.’ She spoke in a flat voice, like someone reading lines for the first time. ‘My name’s Kate.’
Ellen frowned at her, uncertainly. She glanced up at Skye. ‘Ah—better ask for some more tea. Look, Kate, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but this is just a private home …’
Kate looked up, her eyes rimmed with red beneath puffy lids. One iris was blue-green and the other brown—like a fairy’s cat. Lost.
‘I want to see the swami, the one in charge,’ the woman murmured.
Skye giggled.
‘There’s no swami,’ said Ellen bluntly. ‘It’s not an ashram or hostel or anything like that.’
‘I have to stay here,’ Kate insisted.
‘There are some cheap hotels down in Mussoorie,’ Ellen said. ‘There’ll be rooms.’
‘I haven’t got any money,’ Kate said quietly.
Ellen smiled, relieved. ‘No problem. You can have some money. We’ll give you some. Stay for some tea, then I’ll get a boy to take you down.’
In reply, Kate slid slowly sideways onto the wooden floorboards and curled up like a foetus.
‘Don’t send me away. Please.’ She flung out her arm, pleading. It lay over the floor, a pale line tracked with needle marks.
Ellen stared down at it, a sick feeling rising inside her. She got up and walked to the far end of the verandah.
Ziggy and Skye followed her. They stood together, looking back to where the woman lay curled up alone on the floor.
‘She’s a junkie,’ whispered Ziggy. ‘You can tell a mile off.’
‘What does she think this is?’ hissed Skye. ‘The Red Cross? A damn dosshouse?’
Ellen glanced at her, surprised at her vehemence. It didn’t seem so long ago that Skye had been weak and helpless herself.
‘She looks ill,’ said Ziggy.
‘We could send her down to the hospital,’ suggested Ellen. ‘That doctor—Paul Cunningham—he could do something with her.’ She shook her head, smiling thinly. ‘But then, I don’t think he’d be terrifically impressed if we did that.’
Ziggy looked up thoughtfully. ‘I think she should stay,’ she said firmly. ‘We’ve got room. We’ve got time.’ She turned to Ellen. ‘You might be able to help her. Like you did with us.’
Skye snorted. ‘You can’t help junkies. She’ll be shooting up in the bathroom. And stealing things.’
‘She looks pretty bad,’ said Ellen doubtfully. ‘We don’t even know who she is.’
‘Who cares?’ argued Ziggy. ‘We’ll hire someone to follow her around, like they did at Marsha Kendall.’
‘You’re kidding!’ Ellen protested.
‘No, you’re right,’ answered Ziggy, undeterred. ‘We’ll try something else, something completely new.’
‘No way. Forget it,’ said Ellen, watching Ziggy’s face. ‘I’ll get Djoti to sort it out. She’s not staying. It was enough putting up with you two being ill. I’m not going through it again.’
‘But look at us!’ Ziggy exclaimed. ‘Look how well it’s turned out!’
They eyed each other, sharing a sudden sense of closeness. They were happy. They had found out all about each other and then forgotten it together. Now they were like a new kind of family. Separate and free, yet close and happy.
The curled body on the floor coughed, disturbing them.
‘I’ll get Djoti,’ said Ellen. ‘He can deal with her.’
But when Djoti was summoned he was shocked. ‘She is American!’ he said.
‘No she’s not. She sounds English. Or she’s Irish or something.’
‘She is a foreign lady.’ Djoti was firm. ‘If you make me take her away, I can only report with her to the police.’
‘You can’t do that,’ said Ellen quickly.
‘Then,’ Djoti shrugged, ‘what can be done?’
Finally, it was decided that Skye would move in to share Ziggy’s room and Kate would stay. Now that there was a stranger in the house, Ziggy thought it would be wise to pack away all the ornaments, memorabilia and other moveable treasures that cluttered the rooms. While Kate was asleep and Ellen and Skye were out walking, she spent an afternoon piling everything into tea chests and trunks and supervising Djoti’s boys while they stowed them away in the attic.
When Ellen and Skye returned, they were shocked at the transformation. Skye demanded that the vases be brought back out and complained that it no longer looked like a home. But as they wandered through the bare, purged rooms, they found a new sense of ease. It was as though the pervading presence of the family from Delhi—with all its entanglements and inevitable sorrows and joys—had forced them to remain as visitors, lodgers, passers through. Now, at last, the place was theirs.
They took turns to nurse Kate through the long days and nights of withdrawal, wiping away sweat, pouring water between clenched teeth and holding her tight as she jerked with pain and floundered on the edges of a dark, engulfing terror.
When the worst was over, Ellen sat with Kate in the mornings while she brought out her past, piece by piece, following Ellen’s voice, answering her questions. She named people, places, things that had happened. Then stripped it all bare and carefully sealed it away.
Slowly she grew strong again, and a new light burned clear in her eyes.
‘You see?’ Ziggy said. ‘I was right. I knew you could help her.’ She and Ellen were standing on the verandah, watching Kate weeding the vegetable garden.
‘The things you do and say—they really work,’ Ziggy continued. ‘That’s three of us now.’ She screwed up her eyes thoughtfully.
Ellen was silent. Part of her warmed to Ziggy’s praise, but behind it she sensed something growing. A plan, or a path. And whatever it was, she suspected it would soon be set firm. Then, slowly but surely, it would become the only way ahead—Ziggy’s way. Ellen frowned and pushed the thought aside. That was how it had been in the old days, she told herself, but things were different now. She turned to Ziggy and offered a grateful smile.
One cool, misty evening, just a few weeks later, Ellen saw Kate sitting under a tree at the edge of the garden. A sense of stillness clothed her body; an aura of calm undisturbed by the slow, smooth movements of her arms and the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed deeply. Her face was a tranquil mask. Ellen watched her from a distance. Minutes wore into an hour, with no sign of their passing, as if time were nothing more than a flicker in the flame of a candle.
‘It was yoga,’ Kate explained later on, when Ellen asked her what she had been doing. ‘I did classes when I was at the ashram. It takes some practice, but after a while you can kind of slow down your mind.’ She grinned wryly. ‘Otherwise, I just think and think at a hundred miles an hour! All the time—unless I’m stoned.’
‘Can you show me? Us?’ asked Ellen.
Kate frowned doubtfully. ‘Well … I dunno. I’m really a beginner. I hardly know anything. And it’s not the kind of thing I’m good at. You know, being in front of people.’
‘It doesn’t matter. You can just show us what you know,’ insisted Ellen. She looked into Kate’s eyes as she spoke. Was it Carter who said that when you want to persuade someone, you copy the inflection of their own voice? And you smile, of course, drawing them towards you.
‘Well, if I did,’ said Kate tentatively, ‘it might be easier if we were inside, somewhere …’
Ziggy helped them empty the last remaining pieces of furniture from the sitting room. They kept only a few cushions dotted along the edges of the Persian rugs, and they tied back the heavy drapes to leave clear the view to the distant mountains.
The following evening Kate sat in front of the bank of windows, facing the women who were spaced out around the room. Skye was in the far corner, gazing sullenly into the distance, reminding everyone that she had not chosen to take part.
Kate was shy and tense. She gave vague instructions and made stilted movements. But even so, some small sense of an underlying harmony came through. It was something to do with finding stillness through movement. And it was linked with the power of silence.
Ellen took hold of each morsel, savouring the alien tastes. Effort without strain and punishment. Success without measure or audience. She pushed for more, but Kate was like a tourist with a half-memorised phrase book. The real language, the life and soul of it, lay way beyond her grasp.
At the next open meal, Ellen asked Djoti to bring her the young monk from the ashram.
‘I would like to study yoga,’ she said, through Djoti.
‘Of course,’ the monk replied. ‘You may study with our own yogi, who is a master of knowledge.’ He spread his hands apart. ‘Day and night you may study with him—because you are held up by the people. You are already a teacher. It is right for you to follow the path of enlightenment.’ As he spoke his eyes followed Kate, who was moving along the food line with a bucket of rice, looking ahead to Skye for guidance. The newcomer to the house was still thin from months of poor food and a bout of hepatitis. But her eyes were bright and her cheeks touched with the rosy promise of health.
On the way back from one of her visits to the temple ashram, Ellen was walking, mechanically dodging her way through the market crowds, when she found herself face to face with the doctor from the hospital.
‘Oh, hi,’ said Paul.
They both moved back to a more formal distance.
‘How are you?’ Ellen asked. He looked well, no longer tired, and there was a cheerful smile on his face.
‘Fine. And you?’
‘Fine.’
‘It’s been ages.’
‘Sure has.’
They both nodded, then looked around them, as if to fill the silence with the things they could see.
After a moment, Paul spoke again. ‘I came across your neigh-bour, Mrs Stratheden, the other day, down at the bank. I asked if she knew how you were getting on. She said you’d turned the place into a hippy commune.’ He laughed and shook his head. ‘I can tell you, she wasn’t too pleased.’
‘It’s not a commune!’ Ellen protested. ‘One more person has moved in with us. That’s all.’
‘You don’t want to worry about it,’ Paul said. He signalled that they should walk on together. ‘Edith wouldn’t be happy unless you were British, old, and served cucumber sandwiches at teatime.’ He looked sideways at Ellen, his eyes taking in her profile. ‘But perhaps you do?’
Ellen grinned. ‘No, that’s not Prianka’s style.’
‘Well anyway,’ said Paul, ‘whatever you’re doing up there, it seems to work. I’ve seen your friends at the bazaar. You wouldn’t recognise them.’
‘No,’ said Ellen, ‘it’s turned out well.’
They walked side by side, taking slow, even steps, their strides well matched. A donkey cart passed, filling the narrow roadway and pushing them closer together. Amid the smell of dust and dung, Ellen caught the sharp tang of disinfectant. It came to her like a distant warning, whispered from far away.
‘So what next?’ Paul asked. ‘What’re your plans?’
Ellen shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, thinking immediately of Ziggy. ‘I guess we’ll just stay on and see.’
‘Well, then perhaps our paths will cross again,’ Paul said. He paused, running his finger around his collar and squinting up at the cloudless sky. ‘I get a day off occasionally. Perhaps we could—’ he broke off, and smiled a little awkwardly. ‘Well, we could have lunch. There are some terrible cafes to choose from.’
‘Sure. That would be nice.’ Ellen nodded and smiled. She remembered how she and Ziggy used to make promises, so freely, to the men they met on their stolen nights off from the Academy. Agreeing to dances, parties, dinners, cruises— knowing all the while that rehearsals and classes and sheer exhaustion would be more likely to fill their time.
Here and now, it was different. In a way, Ellen could choose to do whatever she liked. On the other hand, she knew, there was no place in the life they had made together for visiting friends, or having lunch with a doctor met by chance in the bazaar. New friends made new memories; they began new volumes of hope and pain. And these were the very strands of life that they had all worked so hard to break; the bonds they had severed, so that they could begin to live again.
When they reached the path that led to the hospital, Paul turned to look at Ellen. She kept her face carefully blank, aloof. She sensed him reading her eyes, puzzled by her sudden remoteness. Perhaps he had offended her. A shadow of doubt narrowed his gaze. ‘Well, goodbye then,’ he said, and turned to go.
Ellen walked on alone, guessing that he would not, now, come up to the house to see her. Nor would he send a message with Djoti. He would leave her alone. Behind a dull feeling of loss, she felt a sense of relief, knowing that she could return to the house, to Ziggy and the others, with a clear, quiet mind and an empty heart.
By the following winter, there were five people in the house. Ruth had turned up one cold afternoon, following a rumour of a Western woman guru. She claimed to be on a spiritual quest, though she seemed more like an ordinary tourist. She was full of life and laughter and Ziggy and Skye persuaded Ellen to let her stay for a while.
She livened up the long evenings by the fireside with her stories of life on a sheep station in outback Australia. Her schooling had been done by correspondence, in odd moments between droving and shearing, and she knew even less about the world than Ellen and Ziggy (whose dance classes had left little room for science, geography, history or current affairs). But Ruth just laughed at her ignorance, her mistakes, her own jokes, and carried everyone along with her.
Ellen would listen quietly, taking in the soft Australian drawl and casual manner that brought back the abandoned spirits of Lizzie, Doctor Ben and other islanders. Sooner or later she would find herself picturing Zelda. Two years on, she must be taller, stronger, with more words, new ideas, plans and interests … With Ruth’s easy voice bubbling on and on it was hard and painful to force memory into blankness. But Ellen made herself stay and listen, refusing to allow defeat. It was like holding your hand in the flame. Eventually, the nerves would wear out into numbness.
When it was agreed that Ruth could stay, Ziggy suggested that she and Ellen take her aside and tell her the rules of the house—no letters, no photographs, no foreign clothes. And no talking about home or anything to do with the past, except in the special times with Ellen. There were obligations as well—chores, serving at the open meals, attending yoga classes.
As she listened, Ruth’s eyes grew bright with intrigue. ‘I knew it wasn’t just any kind of house,’ she said.
‘Every family has its rules,’ said Ellen. ‘It’s nothing more than that.’
Ziggy made no comment.
Ruth looked at Ellen with serious eyes and an embarrassed smile. ‘You’ll laugh, I know, but the other day I remembered who you reminded me of. My little sister used to have all these teenage dolls. Sindy, Barbie. There was a Twiggy doll, too. Mum used to order them from Melbourne. Then my aunt sent one over from the States. It was a ballerina doll, and she came with all the different outfits. I don’t remember the name she had. But, Ruth laughed, mocking herself, ‘you remind me of that doll. It’s bizarre, I know, but you really do.’
Ziggy gave her a small, cool smile. ‘Remember,’ she said, ‘we don’t talk about the things we’ve left behind. Sisters, dolls … who cares?’