‘I work for the Swami’s foundation, the Native Indian Agricultural Mission, on one of their farms near Tiruvallur. Doing anything – driving, messenger-boy, vet’s assistant, whatever’s needed. But mostly I seem to have become the district tractor-mechanic.’
‘But isn’t that sort of set-up just another way of being a big land-owner?’ Patti objected warmly.
‘Hardly! Everything we run is run on a co-operative basis. Each village is its own board of directors, and everything above a bare living for the central staff is ploughed back into the business.’ But he was not particularly disposed to talk about it; he was on leave, and she already knew everything she needed to know about him.
‘Do you think all that’s really going to
‘It already has. Since we set up this particular grouping we’ve nearly doubled our rice yield annually – partly by increasing acreage, and partly with better double-cropping. Did you know that Tamil Nadu is going to be a surplus state any minute now? Not just through us, of course, we’re a very minor force, but we do work in with the government’s intensive district programme, and that’s far from minor.’
She looked reluctantly impressed, and at once sadly incredulous and warily hopeful. ‘I suppose your people farm back home? I didn’t have anything as practical as that in my background. My dad’s a retired army officer. I was born into the establishment.’
‘So was I,’ said Dominic with a fleeting grin, ‘only a different branch. Mine’s a policeman. Well, no uniform now, actually, he’s deputy head of the county C. I. D. I haven’t got anything more practical to offer than an arts degree, either, and that doesn’t dig any wells here. Or at home, for that matter. Everybody thinks it entitles him to be a teller, when we’ve already got too many tellers and not enough doers. So I thought I’d come over here and see how the doers live.’
‘Awful waste of a degree, though,’ protested Patti, rather surprisingly reverting to type.
‘Not a bit! It won’t rot.’
She considered him thoughtfully for a moment, background, parentage, eccentricities and all, and looked more than half convinced. ‘Well, maybe you’ve found something that’ll stand by you,’ she said handsomely. ‘I wasn’t that lucky. I never felt I was doing anything much, or getting anywhere. It seemed as if you’d have to smash the whole thing and start afresh before you’d see any results.’
‘And what will you do now?’ asked Larry, watching her soberly over the bowl of fruit. “When your paid leave’s over, I mean? Go home?’
‘I suppose so. I’ve got some of my A levels to repeat if I want to teach seriously, but I haven’t made up my mind yet. Yes, I guess I shall go home. Maybe try somewhere else. There’s supposed to be a second country somewhere for everybody, so they say. Maybe the stars have to be right. How about you?’
‘Me? Oh, I suppose I came here looking for the pure wisdom, like you. Though I ought to have known better. I’m an anthropologist by inclination, but a civil engineer by profession. I’ve been working on the plans for a small irrigation project up in Gujarat, but it looks as if various committees are now going to sit on the idea for years, and if they don’t squash it altogether they’ll probably alter it around until it’s useless. I thought I might as well have a look around the country while they’re considering the matter, so I bought the Land-Rover in Bombay, and set off more or less at random southwards. And Lakshman here comes along to take care of me.’
Lakshman gazed back at him serenely and amiably, but did not return his smile. Indian people, except those of the hills, do not find it necessary to smile whenever they catch your eye, but will gaze back at you directly with faces unyieldingly grave and thoughtful. In the hills they smile because they obviously enjoy smiling. And Indian people, Dominic thought critically, studying the two golden amber faces beside him, who can be the noisiest people on earth, also know how to be securely silent and to withhold even an eloquent gesture. Priya’s delicate face, silken-skinned and serene, betrayed nothing at all beyond a general, detached benevolence. Suddenly he felt more curiosity about her than about her companion.
‘Now we’ve all declared ourselves, except you, Miss Madhavan.’
‘I am not at all novel or interesting,’ she said in her quiet, lilting voice; and now she did smile, her chiselled lips curving and unfolding as smoothly as rose-petals. ‘I am a nurse at the General Hospital in Madras. I have a large family of brothers and sisters, and my eldest sister happens to be a teacher in Bengal, and a colleague of Patti’s. So now that I have my long leave, and Patti is free to visit the south, I invited her to meet me in Madras and come home with me for a visit. That is all about me.’
It was very far from all about her; there were reserves behind that demure face and those cool, thoughtful, purple-black eyes that would take half a lifetime to explore.
‘So you’ve actually known each other, apart from letters, only a matter of days? We’re all starting more or less equal,’ said Larry. ‘I picked up Dominic in Madras only five days back. We’d corresponded, just fixing things up for the trip, but we’d never seen each other until then.’ He took a banana from Patti’s hospitably offered bowl, a bulbous bow in an incredible colour between peach and orange and old rose. ‘This at least I’ll never forget about India, the fruit. Did you ever see such a shade as that in a banana before?’
‘Never!’ she agreed vehemently. ‘And I’ve seen them all kinds and sizes, from the three-inch curvy ones like a baby’s fingers, to hedge-stakes a foot long and pale, greenish lemon. I saw these when we passed the stall in the bus, and we simply had to walk back and get some.’
‘Where was that?’ Larry asked. ‘I never noticed any stall as we drove up.’
‘It was getting dusk then, and he hadn’t lighted his little lamp, you wouldn’t notice us. But we saw you go by. Two turns down the road – I expect he’s packed up long ago, probably just after we were there, there wouldn’t be much traffic up here after dark. One turn down the road there’s what’s left of a shrine of Siva. It looks pretty old, too, the carving’s nearly worn away, but they still bring oil and marigolds.’
‘No, really? As close as that? I might take a flashlight down and have a look at that presently.’
‘Wouldn’t tomorrow morning do?’
‘Not a hope! We’ve got to be afloat before six, or we shall miss the best of the show. They might not hold the boat for us, either – don’t forget it’s Sunday. The best times, the two periods in the day when the animals come down to water, are from six on in the morning, and about half past three in the afternoon until dusk. And it takes a little while to get out to the best vantage-points – there’s a whole lot of lake up there.’
The Bessancourts were withdrawing, with polite good nights to the Manis. They passed by Larry’s table on their way to the door, and bowed comprehensively to the company, uttering in assured, incongruous duet: ‘
