Make Me an Idol

Ziggy came into Ellen’s room with two cups of tea balanced on a small lacquer tray. Under her arm was a roll of paper with ragged, yellowed edges. They sat side by side on the bed and Ziggy opened out an old map of Mussoorie. ‘We’ll have to find a new place,’ she said, sipping her tea, looking at Ellen over the rim of her cup. ‘I’ve got two in each bedroom and the box-room as well. Kate’s moved out to the shed.’ She glanced down at the map. ‘What we need is a really big house with lots of servants’ quarters. Our staff could live out, and we could put people in there. Or we might even be able to find an old boarding school. There seem to be plenty of them around here.’ She looked up, waiting for a response.

Ellen didn’t reply, but felt in her pocket and pulled out an envelope. ‘This came today.’

Ziggy opened it and quickly scanned the letter inside. It was handwritten on a large thick sheet of watermarked notepaper. A thoughtful frown grew on her face. ‘Jerry McGee. That name rings a bell. Who is he?’

‘You’ve been in the jungle too long!’ Ellen joked. ‘He was the lead guitarist in The Shout.’

‘He wants to send his son, Jesse,’ mused Ziggy. ‘I wonder how old he is?’

‘Jerry McGee must be well over forty,’ Ellen answered. ‘I guess Jesse could be around twenty. How would he have heard of us, do you think?’

‘Who knows? Maybe Carter told him.You can be sure he’s been in touch with Lucy, keeping tabs on us. Next thing he’ll be asking for commission, for referring clients!’

Ellen smiled briefly, then stood and began pacing around the room. ‘I don’t know, Zig,’ she said finally, nodding towards the map spread open on the bed. ‘It’s already getting so—settled. All these people here. What if we wanted to go away somewhere? Do something else?’

Ziggy stared at her. ‘What else would we do? Go back to the States and spend our time swimming and playing bridge? Going to fashion promos and first nights? Reading the investment pages? We’re too old to work. We’d just be… nothing.’ She leaned forward, her eyes lit with enthusiasm. ‘Here we’re really doing something.’ She paused, looking closely at Ellen’s face. ‘Especially you. You’re saving people. Saving their lives. Doesn’t that mean something to you?’

‘Sure it does,’ said Ellen. ‘It’s just, you know, I don’t want to take on too much. People come here and expect me to help them. They count on me. Sometimes I feel trapped. It frightens me.’

It was true. When she thought about the growing household, and her place at the head of it, she couldn’t work out how it had all come about. She felt torn between the warm realisation that she was needed, admired, and a creeping fear that sooner or later she would be exposed as a fraud—a nobody, pretending to be someone.

‘People have always counted on you,’ Ziggy continued. ‘Carter, the Academy, Karl. It never worried you before.’

‘They just wanted me to dance, or model, or whatever. To do something. These people want me to be something. Someone. It’s not the same. I don’t want to let them down—’

‘Listen to me,’ said Ziggy firmly. ‘People turn up here because they’ve heard something about you. And they stay because they can see that it’s true.’

Ziggy shrugged, grinning. ‘I can’t help that! And I disagree with you—it’s not that different from what you’ve done before. In fact I think it’s all to do with the same thing—you know, that “special quality” that Carter was always going on about. And the critics—what did they call it?’ She put on a false, theatrical voice. ‘A privacy of the soul … Elusive, unknowable, possessing a strange and captivating power. Remember?’

‘No it wasn’t. It isn’t. It’s real. Ask Kate, Ruth—any of them. Trust them, if you can’t trust yourself.’

There was a short, tense silence. Skye’s piano beat a faint ragtime. Ziggy leaned over and put her cup back on the tray. ‘By the way, we need to go down to Mussoorie to open a new bank account.’

‘Yes, but people want to make some kind of contribution. Or their families do. And if we charge something, we can use the money to improve things here instead of paying for everything ourselves. It’s the only way to go.’ She waited for Ellen to nod before continuing. ‘Anyway, they say most treatments work better if they cost people something, in real terms—money, in other words.’

Ziggy stood up, turning slowly around as she stretched long, slender arms towards the ceiling. Ellen’s eyes travelled over her body and face. It was Carter’s ‘outdoor girl’ reclaimed—a vision of blonde-haired, green-eyed health and beauty. It was hard to imagine she had ever been starving to death. Watching her, though, Ellen felt a vague sense of foreboding, as if Ziggy’s growing strength had somehow sapped her own and left her weak and defenceless with no power to choose.

‘I’ll leave the map with you,’ Ziggy called back over her shoulder as she crossed to the door. ‘Have a look at the different areas. I think we should find somewhere with a road, for cars, I mean. Don’t you?’

Ziggy turned back. Their eyes met as they remembered the nuns’ room with its big cold window and how they used to giggle in the darkness, telling stories, sharing fears, until Ziggy decided it was time for them both to stop.

Ellen stood by her window, watching the snow falling; a white pattern sliding endlessly down over a dense, black sky. The house was quiet, the last voices stilled into silence and the last laughter folded away into sleep. Keeping her thick woollen socks on, Ellen climbed into bed and wriggled down, pulling the blankets up around her ears. She closed her eyes and carefully relaxed her body, ignoring the cold that lay like bloodless hands around her head.

A strong wind rose, hurling snow against the glass and howling around the corners of the house. Ellen pulled the covers up higher, muffling her ears against the noise. It rose and fell as the wind tossed and turned, roaring and moaning, then dying away into a breathless lull. Suddenly Ellen threw back the covers and lay still, her ears straining. For a long time she could hear nothing. Then it came again, a small sound cutting through the night. The faint cry of a dog caught out in the storm. Ellen lay rigid, fighting a wave of sudden panic and an impulse to jump up and escape. I hate dogs, she told herself. That’s all. I didn’t like James’s dog …

She found herself drawn to the window and stood there, bathed in the cold that spread in through the glass, while her eyes searched the darkness. Something stirred in the back of her mind, far off and faint, like the first rumbling of a train coming. She continued to stare out the window. It was coming, slowly. Coming nearer, louder, sharper. Drawn on by the snow lying white on the ledge and beating across the black sky in long lines. And the dog crying out of the frozen night. The small desperate cries, faint beneath the howling wind.

Sweat broke out on Ellen’s face. Her heart pounded. Her breath came in ragged gulps as she fought to bring down the cover of safe, white blankness—to get away…

For a moment Ellen hovered, caught at the crossroads, where two journeys met: one, the well-beaten escape route; the other, a thin, sharp line leading into the unknown …

Ellen let her head fall forward, resting against the ice-hard window, closing her eyes. She imagined herself in the quiet of the ashram temple. The words of the yogi falling steadily into the stillness, leading her on …

One is all. This is the knowledge. Concentrate on one single point, the bindu. Begin the journey inward, withdrawing the mind from all that is without.

Transcend the limitations of mind and senses. Find absolute calm. Look, listen to the object of concentration. A word, a colour, a sound.

The sun slanted across the snowy garden, casting a golden light over the ice-coated shrubs. Ellen threw the ball once more and Sammy ran after it, leaving a trail of small, shallow footprints behind him.

‘Fetch it back,’ called Ellen, but Sammy looked at her over his shoulder, wagged his tail and ran off towards the forest with the ball in his mouth.

‘No, Sammy! Come back here!’ Ellen shouted, running after him. ‘Here, boy. Good boy!’

The dog slid under the fence and trotted off between the tall pine trunks. Ellen glanced anxiously down at her school uniform, then plunged after him, pushing through snow-laden bushes.

‘Sammy! Come back!’ she cried, her voice sounding thin and weak against the muffling snow. Then she stopped, realising that he was enjoying the chase. She glanced back towards the house, biting nervously at her lip. Then she forced herself to stand still and whistle, long and calm, again and again.

Finally Sammy returned, with his tail drooping and head hung low. He looked up at her reproachfully as he dropped the ball at her feet. Ellen grabbed his collar and picked him up. ‘Silly dog,’ she said, in a wavering voice. ‘You’ll get us into trouble.’

Hugging him close against her chest, she ran back towards the house. Sammy lifted his cold nose and nudged at her chin. ‘Naughty dog,’ Ellen said, smiling as a hot wet tongue flicked over her cheek. Then a jolt of fear shot through her body. There was a red shape in the driveway. Margaret’s car. She stood frozen for a second, then pelted across the lawn, heading for the front door. ‘Don’t let her see,’ she prayed. ‘Please.’

But Margaret was there, looking down at her from an upstairs window. She looked frightened, like Ellen, but angry as well. Her face was pale and tight with hard, hooded eyes. Ellen stared up at her, holding tightly onto Sammy as he squirmed and whined in her arms. Margaret disappeared. For a moment Ellen looked out towards the road, thinking of running, taking Sammy and getting away. But she was only a child. They’d just bring her back. It would make things worse.

She stood outside the front door, still holding Sammy, but trying to be neat and orderly. Her plaits were pushed behind her shoulders. Her clothes smoothed down. Her feet placed carefully side by side. As the handle turned, she looked up, watching the crack appear and widen. Margaret’s face was stiff and empty. Ellen shrank inside, but stood rock still.

‘Where were you?’ her mother asked mildly. ‘I looked inside and in the garden.’

‘Sammy went into the forest,’ said Ellen, struggling to sound polite and calm. ‘I had to go after him.’

‘I have told you,’ said Margaret, ‘not to leave the house when I am away. Haven’t I?’

‘Yes, Margaret.’ Ellen looked down at her mother’s feet, at the sharp-heeled shoes of ox-blood red. She shivered.

‘You could have fallen somewhere. I wouldn’t have known where to look for you. Ellen, you’re eight years old.’ Margaret’s voice was sad; disappointed again. ‘You have to be taught a lesson. Come inside.’

‘But he—’ Ellen’s voice stuck in her throat ‘—he always stays inside. I’ll put him straight in the laundry.’

Margaret stood over her, filling the doorway. ‘You come in. Leave the dog outside.’

A long arm reached out, taking hold of Sammy’s collar and dragging him free, yelping and struggling, before hurling him to the ground. He landed on his back, short legs waving. Then he rolled round onto his haunches and sat up. His tail wagged, but there was a puzzled expression on his face.

Margaret caught Ellen by the shoulder and pulled her inside, slamming the door behind her. ‘When will you learn to do as I say?’ she asked, her voice rising as anger broke through.

Ellen stared at the closed door. A soft whining began and a light scrabbling of claws against the wood.

‘Please. I’ll do anything. I’ll give up my allowance for a whole year. I’ll clean everything. I’ll never be naughty again. Please …’ Tears rolled down her cheeks. She clutched at the back of Margaret’s jacket as she walked away. ‘He’ll be freezing!’

‘No! No!’ A long scream began inside her, uncoiling like a giant snake, and choking her as it came out. It went on and on, filling the air.

Then Margaret reached back and slapped her hard on the side of her face. ‘Stop it.’

Ellen pressed a hand against her stinging cheek and tried to be calm. Perhaps if she was quiet and good Margaret would change her mind and let him inside. She probably just wanted to give her a scare. ‘I’m very sorry, Margaret,’ she said meekly, and walked slowly upstairs to her room, shutting the door noiselessly behind her.

She crossed to the window. Down on the front step she could see Sammy, still sitting, looking up at the closed door. She raised her hand, ready to knock on the window and call him over. Then she realised it would be better if he gave up waiting to be let in and ran off to find a warm place to hide. Later, when Margaret allowed her, she would go outside and whistle for him to come back.

She sat on the bed and looked down at the floor, studying the soft pink carpet with its pattern of little teddies and rocking horses. She began to count them, following the lines away towards the door and across to the window. She tried to guess how many rows of teddies there were in the whole room. How many rocking horses, with their dumb, smiling mouths …

Time passed and the sun went down, shadows spreading into the room. Outside, Sammy began to bark. Sharp, angry sounds that turned into long, mournful howls. Ellen screwed up her eyes and pressed her hands over her ears, but still the cries came through.

She went back to the window. Snow was falling, slanting in long lines against the gathering dark. The trees of the garden were black, spiky shapes. And there was Sammy, a small smudge against the snow.

‘Go away,’ pleaded Ellen. Run to another house. Get into the woodshed or the bathing hut. But he was waiting for her to come down and let him in. To rub the snow from his back and lift him into his warm, soft basket.

Finally she decided to go downstairs. She found Margaret in the lounge room, sitting under the standard lamp, reading one of her medical journals. A pool of warm light fell over her face. As Ellen came in, she looked up with a mild questioning face, as if nothing was wrong.

‘No, Ellen. The dog will stay outside. Perhaps that way you’ll learn something once and for all.’

Ellen stared at her, bitter anger in her eyes. ‘But you gave him to me. You bought him for my birthday.’

‘I bought him at your birthday,’ Margaret corrected her, ‘to keep you company while I was away, so that you wouldn’t ask to play outside, or visit friends after school. So that I would know exactly where you were. And I could phone you. And you could phone me. If anything went wrong.’ She paused, letting her words sink in. ‘Instead, I find you out in the forest.’ She looked back at her journal. ‘Clearly, the dog was not a good idea.’

‘You’re going to let him freeze.’ Ellen’s voice was soft with horror. ‘You want him to die.’

In the silence, Sammy howled. Margaret raised her eyes slowly. ‘What did you say?’

Ellen stared at her, paralysed with dread, searching for words that might drag her back from the edge …

Sorry. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. Margaret. Mother. I’m sorry. I love you.The words were there, circling in her mind—but this time she could not make them come out.

‘All right,’ Margaret sighed, with a look of resignation as she left the room. She returned with her medical bag already open.

Ellen watched a small glass vial appear, along with a syringe and needle. ‘What is it?’ Fear rose inside her.

‘It’s the only way to calm you down.’ Margaret snapped the top off the vial. She filled the syringe and held it out, poised, ready.

‘No. Please.’ Ellen stood motionless, watching Margaret come towards her. ‘You’re going to kill me, too,’ she said, her voice soft with horror.

‘Don’t be silly.’ Margaret grasped her arm and rubbed it with a swab. Ellen watched as the needle pierced her skin, lifting thin flesh as it angled in.

She listened into the night, to the sad whimpering cries of the dog waiting out in the snow—while the blank clouds gathered over her, taking her away.

Morning came, flooding Ellen’s bedroom with sunshine. The window was a patch of clear bright blue. She dressed carefully in her school uniform, standing by the window, looking down over the empty garden.

She went downstairs and ate her breakfast, steadily chewing and swallowing, trying not to look at Sammy’s bowl lying empty by the back door. Margaret was ready for work, dressed in a red suit with a matching waistcoat. She was silent and distant, hidden behind dark glasses and crimson painted lips.

As they walked out to the car, Ellen stopped for a moment and looked around her. Only bird footprints marked the white lawn. The car had been left out overnight and snow lay thick on the roof and bonnet. Margaret had already scraped the windscreen clear. Ellen stood numbly, waiting for the passenger door to be unlocked. Then she climbed in and sat staring straight ahead as Margaret began to reverse slowly up the driveway. There was a bare patch where the car had stood. In the middle was a little black dog, curled up where it had huddled next to the lingering warmth of the engine.

Ellen jumped out of the car, stumbling to the ground, then staggering onto her feet. She caught an impression of Margaret’s face, lips parting in surprise. Then she was standing over Sammy, looking down at his black fur frosted with ice. She reached down with a trembling hand to touch his head. It was cold.

‘Sammy …’ she whispered. She pulled at his little paws, but they were stiff, frozen. Dead.

She walked back to the car. Carefully, she shook the snow from her shoes and straightened her socks. Then she climbed inside.

‘I’ll pick you up from school,’ Margaret said. ‘Wait for me outside the office.’

Ellen stared into the darkness. The night had quietened; the lost dog moved on, or found a home. The storm was weakening and a faint moon hung high in the frozen sky. But Ellen saw only Margaret’s face, lost for so many years … She studied the slanted green eyes and pale brows. Saw how lipstick ran into the corners of her mouth, and small white hairs grew along her upper lip. The inside of her nose was a deep pink, with tiny broken veins. Her teeth were small and sharp, laid bare to the gums when she smiled.

The close-up face faded and another picture grew to take its place: Margaret stretched out in the sun beside a swimming pool. Behind her the door to the changing shed stood open; it was painted a fresh light green to match the shutters with their little cut-out hearts. Dry towels hung from the hooks inside. Bright swimming costumes trailed over the floor.

Margaret stretched out her long hairless legs and wriggled her toes. The sparkling water threw up white highlights that danced on her tanned skin. ‘I’ll give you another swimming lesson,’ she said, lifting a turbanned head.

Ellen looked at her from the door of the shed, one foot jabbing nervously against the tiled floor. She smiled tentatively, wanting to be held in her mother’s smooth arms and to hear her voice close up. But she knew how Margaret would draw back with distaste if she got scared and swallowed water and started splashing and coughing.

‘Come on.’ Margaret slid into the pool and held up her arms. Ellen let herself fall into them, dropping down into the cold water, breathing the smell of suntan oil, chlorine and hairspray.

Margaret held her up with both arms and told her to do dog paddle, the way she’d been taught. ‘Keep your head up! That’s it. Good girl!’ She held Ellen away from her body. ‘Now, kick your legs.’

Ellen grinned, trying hard and feeling the buoyancy as she moved forward. ‘I’m doing it!’ she called out.

Margaret pulled her arms away, letting Ellen go. The child turned to her in panic, struggling to paddle and kick as she began to sink.

Then her voice was gone, taken over by the close clicking sounds of underwater. Ellen’s cheeks bulged as she tried to hold her breath, waiting for the arms to come back for her. But they didn’t come. She struggled, beating the water with her arms and legs. Then her foot found the bottom and she pushed up, lungs bursting, desperate for air. But something was pressing against her head, holding her down. She reached up, scratching and tearing at long, strong fingers trying to prise them away from her head. But they went on pushing. Down. Down.

Somewhere behind the struggle and the terror was the knowledge that ran like a white hot spike to her core.

Then the hands pulled away. Ellen rolled over, looking up towards the surface, gleaming gold, rippling against the face of the sun. It was beautiful, like heaven, or the face of God.

Ellen stumbled through the dark house to Ziggy’s room. She stood in the doorway, her shoulders heaving as she sobbed silently.

Ziggy stirred and stretched. ‘Hmmmm?’ She opened her eyes and sat up, feeling for the lamp switch. ‘What’s the matter?’

Ellen shook her head and lunged across to the bed. ‘Help me,’ she whispered, and fell into Ziggy’s arms. Her whole body shook as she cried openly.

‘What is it?’ Ziggy demanded urgently. Ellen gave no answer, so Ziggy just held her tight for a few minutes, rocking gently. ‘It’s all right, angel. Let it out. Let it go.’ She slid over to one side of the bed and eased Ellen down next to her. Then she pulled the blankets up over them both and hugged Ellen close, smoothing her hair with long strokes.

Finally Ellen was quiet. They lay side by side on their backs, hair tangled together, blonde and dark, like wisps of the sun and the moon. Ziggy tried the lamp, and found that the power was off. She fumbled with a match and candle, making small, close sounds in the darkness. A light flared.

‘I remember everything,’ Ellen said in a low voice. ‘About Margaret—things she did to me.’ She tried to go on; instead she began to weep quietly, making small whimpering noises.

Ziggy said nothing, but reached over and took hold of her hand. The room was quiet, timeless. The candle flickered, sending shadows skittering over the ceiling.

Ellen shook her head. She wiped her face with her hand and took a deep breath. ‘It’s not just what she did to me. I mean, it was a long time ago. It’s over. Finished. But… now I know. All the time, with Zelda. It was her—Margaret.’ She pulled away from Ziggy and spoke into the stillness of the shadowy room. ‘Zelda was the little girl. And I was the mother. Margaret. It wasn’t me. It came from her.’

Ziggy nodded in the half-light. For a long time she said nothing. ‘But that’s all over with too,’ she said at last, in a steady voice. It’s finished. You have to leave it there where it belongs.’

‘No,’ said Ellen, rolling over onto her elbows and looking down at Ziggy’s face. ‘It’s not finished. There’s still Zelda. If I’d known this before, everything would have been different. I could have changed things. I’m sure I could. I wouldn’t have left.’

‘But you did,’ said Ziggy firmly. ‘You left her behind. It’s done. There’s no looking back.’ She half-sat to face Ellen. ‘Perhaps it’s good that you’ve remembered it all. I’m sure it is. Now you can leave it behind once and for all. Seal it off. It doesn’t exist.’ She grasped Ellen’s shoulder, digging her fingers into the bone, using pain to add weight to her words. ‘That’s the rule. It’s worked for all of us. It’s worked for you before. Hell, it’s your own rule, Ellen!’

‘No, Ellen. It’s not different. Not at all. This is your chance to be strong.’

‘Yes you are.You have to be,’ said Ziggy, her voice softening. ‘We’ll help you.’ She lay back and pulled Ellen’s head down to rest on her flat breast. Her voice rose into the stillness, seductive in its velvet, soothing tone. ‘We’ll help you, Ellen. We’re your family now.’

In the first light of dawn Ellen crept away to her own room. She pushed a heavy chair up against the closed door, wrapped herself in blankets and sat down to write.

Dear James,

This is all true. Believe me, it is. Everything is different now. I have to come back.

After breakfast, Ellen announced that she was going down to the temple ashram. It was the one place where she always went alone. Ziggy searched her face, then nodded and kissed her goodbye. Sensing pain or trouble, the others watched her mutely, unsure how to respond.

Ellen went to the ashram, as she had said she would. But on the way back she left the path that led up to the houses on the hillside and went instead to the hospital.

At the main entrance, the villagers moved aside to let her through. As she passed them, the tang of antiseptic cut through strains of cooking oil, garlic and sweat.

‘Yes, mem-sahib?’ An Indian woman greeted her through a window in a makeshift wall tacked up around a counter in the hallway. ‘What is it that you want?’ As she spoke, she wrestled with a padlock that secured a wooden casing over the dial of a big black telephone.

‘I’d like to see Dr Cunningham,’ said Ellen. ‘Not for a consultation. It’s a personal call. It won’t take long.’

‘Please wait in the parlour.’ The woman waved towards the room across the hall.

In spite of the crowd waiting around the front door, there were only two people in the parlour. They sat in opposite corners, separated by clusters of mismatched dining chairs and low tables. Ellen nodded politely at a well-dressed Asian woman, who she guessed was a visiting boarding school mother. Diagonally opposite, an old Tibetan man kept his head bowed, staring at a magazine held upside down in his big rough hands. Ellen sat in the middle and looked around the room. The walls were covered with health messages and religious texts. Her eye settled on a photograph of the mountains, with a caption printed across the sky:

He giveth snow like wool.

He casteth forth his ice like morsels.

He sendeth out his Word and melteth them.

Psalm 147

It made no sense to her, and yet it was strangely comforting. Melteth. Melteth them. She touched the thick pad of her letter through her cloth shoulder bag and felt a current of warm hope.

‘Mem-sahib?’ The receptionist leaned into the parlour. ‘Come this way, please.’

She led Ellen down long corridors, past patients in green hospital pyjamas. Some loitered, idly watching people pass; others hopped by on crutches, or held onto the walls and shambled painfully along. Ellen kept her eyes away from open doorways, imagining what medieval horrors lay within: people with elephant’s feet; cysts the size of heads or babies; raw, come-as-you-are deformities, untended by plastic surgeons; paw-handed lepers …

‘Wait in here. Doctor Paul will come soon,’ said the woman, and waved her towards a swivel chair set beside a glass-fronted cabinet.

‘Would you like some tea?’ A young Indian man wearing a once-white jacket peered at her over a tray of specimens—tubes of dark blood and yellow urine; clay pots of runny brown stool. On the desk beside him sat a glass lab beaker full of milky tea.

‘Please be comfortable,’ said the technician, and returned to his work. Ellen turned to the cabinet and looked along a line of large preserving jars. Lumps and cysts and long, curled worms floated wanly in their pools of formaldehyde. On the next shelf were pickled foetuses, tiny semi-formed babies, dwarfed by coiled remnants of umbilical cords. She bent to look closely at the perfect miniature hands, the peaceful closed eyes, delicate necks and blooming heads. She saw the networks of blood, a delicate tracery showing through pale translucent skin. One baby was deformed, all its features twisted and blurred. But it still looked almost human, and friendly.

Paul came striding in and stopped short at the sight of her. ‘Ellen!’ he exclaimed. He glanced over her face, taking in her red eyes and skin shadowed with fatigue. ‘What are you doing in here? Are you ill?’ In a moment of silence, memories of their last meeting ran between them.

‘I’m sorry,’ Ellen stood up quickly. ‘They said to wait in here. I … I wanted to see you.’

Paul ran his hands through his hair. ‘Of course. Yes. Have you been waiting long? They didn’t tell me.’

‘No, just a few minutes,’ replied Ellen. ‘I wanted to ask you something. I thought you would know, and… it won’t take a minute.’ She spoke quickly, feeling awkward and tense.

Pulling back the neat white cuff of his coat, Paul glanced at his watch. ‘Look, it’s nearly lunchtime,’ he said. ‘They usually bring me something in my rooms. Just the hospital food, but it’s not too bad. Or at least I’m used to it. Would you like to? I mean ….?’

‘It’d be a pleasure,’ he said, spreading his hands in a gesture that included the room, the work, the hospital. ‘For a change …’

Ellen shrugged. ‘Why not?’ The fledgling warmth stirred again inside her. She relaxed, letting a smile grow on her lips. She wasn’t meant to be here anyway, so there was nothing to stop her from staying for a while. And she wanted, suddenly, to be away from the house, to be carried along another path by events that came from outside. ‘Thanks. I’d like to.’

‘Salim!’ Paul called across to the lab technician. ‘I’m going to have lunch. Could you ask Mandi to send food for two?’

Ellen followed Paul down another corridor. An Indian nurse called out to him and ran up with a clipboard. He scanned a page of notes quickly and scrawled something across the space at the bottom. Here, in his own kingdom, he looked completely at ease, a stethoscope dangling from his neck like a medal of state.

‘Thank you, doctor,’ said the nurse, her eyes flicking over Ellen’s face and body as she took back the clipboard.

‘Here we are.’ Paul took keys from his pocket and opened the door at the end of the corridor. He stood aside to let Ellen pass. ‘Home sweet home.’

He followed Ellen in, going straight across to a washstand to scrub his hands and wrists with soap and water. Ellen looked around the large, light room. It was simply furnished, with a desk, wardrobe, table and chairs. There was a neatly made single bed as well. On the floor beside it lay a thick black Bible, ragged with use. A few framed photographs hung on one wall and books covered another, set out neatly on tiers of planks and bricks. Brightly coloured Indian rugs were scattered over the floor, softening the feel of the room. But still it reminded Ellen of an office, a boarding room, or their own house up on the hill.

‘I used to have another place,’ Paul replied. He poured fresh water and beckoned Ellen to take her turn at the washstand. ‘But now I’m the only doctor, I have to live in.’

‘White men?’ joked Paul. ‘No. Now and then there are. But at the moment I’m the only foreigner.’

There was a light tap on the door and a woman came in, her head bent over a loaded tray. They both watched while she set out bowls of food on the table, adding a jug of water and two brass beakers. She looked up at each of them in turn; a pointed stare, as though they were guilty children.

‘Sure. Yes.’ Ellen folded her hands in her lap and looked down at her plate. There was silence. She waited for a minute or two, then peered carefully up. Paul was already tearing pieces off his chapati.

‘There must have been a revolution in the kitchen,’ he commented, as he passed Ellen a plate and a chapati. ‘They’ve actually sent cutlery. So you can take your pick.’ He ate in the local style, using his hand to dip bits of chapati into a bowl of curry. ‘Monday’s always channa. Split pea. It’s not bad.’

They ate in silence, chewing self-consciously and smiling with the corners of their mouths when their eyes met.

‘How’s it going up there?’ Paul asked. ‘I hear your numbers have swelled again.’

Ellen nodded. ‘Actually we’re thinking of moving to a bigger place. We really need more room.’

Paul nodded, but made no comment. He went on eating. Ellen chased a dribble of gravy down the back of her hand with her tongue.

‘It’s really not much,’ Ellen replied. ‘I’ve just got a letter to send back to Australia. It’s way too long to telex, but it’s very urgent, and important. I wondered if you knew any way for me to get it there? Quickly?’

‘Usually I’d say no,’ said Paul. ‘But I’m going to Delhi on Friday myself. I’ll take it for you if you like. I can probably get it onto a Qantas flight, one way or another.’

‘Oh, that’d be great,’ said Ellen. ‘Thank you.’ She looked down at her finger, scratching at loose paint on the table.

Ellen glanced up at him. He looked so gentle and kind and wise. For a moment she wanted to tell him everything… ‘Yes, I’m fine.’ She pulled out the letter and a bundle of money and laid it on the table. ‘I’d better be going. I hope that’s enough. I’m really grateful.’

‘I’ll guard it with my life.’ Paul said, raising his hand in a mock pledge.

Ellen smiled slowly, surprised again by a feeling of warmth within. It was almost as if the memories that had flowed out in the night had opened up something inside her—a long-sealed well.

‘No. I’m going down to Delhi to set some things up. I finish here in a month. Then I’m moving to Bangladesh, to take over at the hospital my father started.’

‘Bangladesh,’ Ellen repeated the word. ‘Where is that? Far away?’ The thought of Paul leaving roused a bright flash of hope. If he could leave, so could she. She could go back and find Zelda—see her own daughter, meet her face to face.

‘Oh, another country!’ Ellen said without thinking, then flushed with embarrassment.

‘There’s a Doctor Laska taking over here. I’m sure you’ll find him helpful.’

‘Don’t worry about the letter. I’ll see to it. And,’ he smiled kindly, safely, ‘if you ever come east, look me up.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small white card, which he handed to Ellen. ‘That’s where I’ll be.’

Doctor Michael Cunningham MB. BS. (Lond)

D Obst. RCOG

Bagherat Community Hospital

Bagherat

East Pakistan

There was a short silence. Paul smiled wryly. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I had any choice.’

‘It’s not as simple as that. It’s more that I just didn’t ever really consider doing anything else. And now he’s dead it only seems more important.’

‘Yes,’ said Paul, frowning thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I did. But then children do, don’t they? Boys want to be like their fathers. And girls, I suppose, look up to their mothers …’

Ellen stared at him for a moment as images jostled in her mind. Margaret, mother. Zelda, daughter. Herself, in between—both daughter and mother. And strands running between them all—anger and joy, love and fear … A knot of pain tightened in her throat. She forced a smile and searched for something to say. ‘But tell me about where You’re going. Is it a nice place?’

‘It’s low-lying land, prone to flooding—always has been— but the balance was tipped when they cut down the forests upriver in Nepal. Now the rain just runs off the hillsides and swells the rivers, and when they reach the delta they burst their banks. They didn’t like it in Calcutta, being washed out all the time, so they built a big levee, which only made things worse in Bangladesh. The rivers wash over the land, taking the soil away and dumping loads of sand on the farmland. Whole villages get washed out to sea. Huts, animals, crops. People.’ He broke off suddenly. There was a short silence, cut by the sound of a wailing child.

Ellen fixed her eyes on his face, remembering what he told her the morning he came to the house. ‘Your parents,’ she said carefully.

Paul nodded. ‘Bagherat is on higher land, but they were visiting a tribal village. Doing a bit of medicine, a bit of health teaching, and a bit of preaching, I imagine.’ He smiled sadly. ‘You know, the local people used to worship the rivers. Especially the Ganges. She was the holy mother, giver of life. Now she’s turned on them, as far as they can tell. They live in constant fear of her.’

Ellen looked down at the floor. ‘It must be strange for them,’ she said. ‘Trying to work out how that could be.’ Holy mother. Giver of life. Angel of death.

Paul shrugged. ‘You don’t make headway in a place like that. You just play ambulances at the bottom of the cliff. Giving vitamin injections to hungry babies. Doing corneal grafts on people who’ve gone blind because there was no medicine to cure a simple eye infection. That kind of thing. I guess it’s help of a sort.’

Silence grew around them again. Ellen picked up her empty water cup and studied the pattern engraved in the brass. A frown tightened her face as she looked up. ‘Don’t you ever get tired of it all?’ she asked. ‘Helping other people. Trying to fix things you have no control over?’

‘Sure. All the time!’ Paul grinned. ‘But just when I reach the point of wanting to walk away, something always seems to happen. Like this …’ He reached into his pocket and brought out a small cloth purse with a drawstring top. He handed it to Ellen. ‘Pull the shorter strings.’

Ellen did as he said and the purse opened. Inside was a small slip of paper. She took it out and turned it over. It looked like a clipping from a child’s schoolbook. On the printed blue lines were two words roughly handwritten in a foreign script.

‘A woman turned up here this morning,’ Paul explained. ‘I remembered operating on her two or three years ago. Her name’s Paminda. She had a long stay in hospital, and while she was here she became completely fascinated with books, papers, forms—anything with words on it. When she left, she told me she was going to learn to read and write. It’s two days’ walk at least from her village, but she came back here to show me that she’d kept to her word.’ He nodded towards the slip of paper. ‘It’s her name. Written with her own hand.’

‘And before she came to the hospital she’d never thought of going to school?’ Ellen asked.

‘Before she came to hospital,’ replied Paul, ‘she was blind.’ He held out his hand to take back the purse.

‘So you see …’ Paul added nothing more, as if it were clear that in the slip of folded paper and the fine stitched cloth lay the seeds of hope, the means of finding the courage to carry on.

‘I should go,’ said Ellen, standing up. Her eyes fell on the letter, lying on the table. ‘Thanks for your help.’

A look travelled between them, sharp with regret. Time had passed, and they had missed the place where their paths might have met.

‘Well…’ Ellen searched for a final word. ‘Good luck, with everything.’

Chapter 23