Thursday’s Child. Helen Forrester
her clear English voice rising above theirs, as she asked questions about their studies, their costumes and their homes.
Mr Singh looked after me and brought his special friends to meet me. He was very nervous and seemed fearful that I would criticise the arrangements for the party.
‘This food is not typical of India. The ladies who cooked it are not used to cooking – in India each family employs a cook.’
I assured him that the food was excellent.
‘We should have put up more decorations – the room looks bare.’
I reassured him on that point too.
Gradually he relaxed and soon he was laughing and joking with the little circle who had gathered round us. I sat quietly and listened, occasionally adding some small remark to the conversation. He was very popular amongst his own people, of that there was no doubt. Occasionally he broke into his own language and after these interludes there was always a roar of laughter.
‘Singh knows more jokes and riddles than anyone here,’ confided a small, handsome woman in an orange sari.
‘He should tell me some in English,’ I said, ‘I’m sure they must be good.’
Singh looked at me, full of contrition. ‘I forgot,’ he said.
‘Afterwards you shall tell them all over again in English,’ I teased.
He salaamed. ‘It will be my pleasure,’ he said.
I could see some of the girls present giving each other knowing looks at this promise of a private conversation; it meant nothing to me at the time, but it meant everything to them, and speculation as to Singh’s intentions ran high.
Mother asked Ajit – for Ajit he had become by the end of the party – to Christmas dinner at our house, and although I was pleased at her offering hospitality to a visitor, I wondered with some trepidation what Father would say about an Indian coming into the house.
Father did not make any special comment. He just looked very shrewdly at the man before him, the same careful look with which I am sure he scrutinises income tax returns, and then made him sit down and drink sherry, while Angela, Mother and I arranged the dinner table.
Although I had lived the whole of my life with my parents, I learned something new about Father that evening. It was apparent that he did not feel at all awkward about his foreign guest; there was none of that strained manner which is often apparent when even the most courteous man of one colour meets a man of another colour. It was as if Father had never heard of a colour bar – and I was proud of him. Strangely, too, I felt proud of Ajit. Father yarned happily about how he had fought with the Japanese in Russia and how well they had endured the cold winter, and Ajit told him how the Madrasi soldiers had successfully fought in a Kashmiri winter. Then they went on to the adaptability of mankind in general, from there to religions, and, by the time the port was served, they were old friends.
Angela sat down at the piano and played carols as we sat round the fire; and I watched the face of this stranger, who had tumbled into the middle of our family. The flickering firelight sometimes silhouetted the almost Greek profile and sometimes lit up the full face, so that its calm gentleness was fully revealed.
Father must have been looking too, as he smoked his after-dinner pipe and plied his guest with tobacco. He asked to which caste he belonged.
‘I am kshatriya – warrior caste,’ answered Ajit. ‘That is the second caste.’
‘A very gentle warrior,’ I thought.
When our guest took his leave and Father was bolting the front door for the night, he said to me as I started to mount the staircase: ‘The first young man I have met for a long time who has both brains and manners. Got any more like him at your club?’ And he grinned a little wickedly.
‘Plenty,’ I said, blowing him a kiss, ‘of all shades.’
Upstairs Angela was hanging up her frock in the big wardrobe in my room. She said, without preamble: ‘He’s rather a pet, isn’t he?’
‘Who?’
‘Ajit Singh.’
I started to pull the hairpins out of my bun. ‘Yes,’ I said almost reluctantly, ‘I suppose he is.’
On the evening of Boxing Day I was on duty at the club to make sure that the few ladies who had no private invitations had something or someone to entertain them. As I went from one easy chair to another in the lounge, I found myself looking for Ajit Singh. The room was lit with coloured lights half hidden in evergreens. A German architect had amused himself by decorating the room and the result was a soft glow with an occasional sparkle of tinsel or silver balls. It would be easy to miss someone in such dim light, and I had just decided that he had not come, when a voice from a particularly dark corner said: ‘Hello.’
I jumped, the cushion I had been shaking up still held in one hand.
‘It is Singh.’
He was sitting cross-legged in a deep settee and was smoking his pipe.
I said: ‘Good evening. How are you?’
‘Very well. Can you sit with me – today everybody is out, and I think your work is not great.’
‘I haven’t much to do.’ I sat down beside him. He continued to smoke, saying nothing and looking reflectively at me.
‘Will you come to the University Ball with me on New Year’s Eve?’ he asked.
Before I could stop myself I had answered in the affirmative, and when I saw his face soften, I was glad I had said yes. I foresaw all kinds of complications arising from that simple ‘yes’, but his pleasure was unbounded and I did not regret it. He thanked me effusively and also added thanks for the previous day’s invitation.
I said we were glad to have him and then asked him about Indian Festivals, which subject kept up the conversation until Dr Wu came in with Madame Li and the conversation became general.
Ajit Singh did not dance well, but the University Ball was fun. I knew several people present and was amused to see their eyebrows shoot up as they noted my Indian escort.
I did not care. I was enjoying being made a fuss of by a man who liked to come and look at me on Saturdays and Sundays.
We were eating ice cream when a very tall Indian, with a very short redhead on his arm, came up to us and roared: ‘Ajit, old chap, introduce me.’
‘Miss Delaney, may I introduce to you Mr Chundabhai Patel-my friend.’
My hand was enveloped in an enormous brown one. Chundabhai was the biggest ugliest Indian I had ever seen, but I could not help liking him. Six feet six inches was topped by a bullet head, blessed with small, twinkling eyes. His hair was cut to within an inch of his head, like a dog’s coat. His suit was of a quality rarely available in England at that time, and his shirt was silk.
He pulled forward his lady friend. Her name was Sheila Ferguson and she was doing chemistry under the same Professor as Chundabhai. Her freckled nose wrinkled and she tossed her red hair, as she described the Professor’s despair over the work of both of them.
When they went away to dance, I asked Ajit who Chundabhai was.
‘He is a Banya, the son of a rich chemical manufacturer. Soon he will go home to Shahpur to work with his father.’
So I heard the name of Shahpur for the first time; but it was just the name of an Indian town, a name more easily pronounceable than many. I asked where it was and whether it was a big city.
‘It is one of the richest of Indian cities. It has many industries – cotton, metalware, chemicals – but it has little water as it lies at the juncture of three deserts.’
‘Is the Government trying to improve the water supply?’
‘Certainly it is. Further north there is a river which is being dammed. From it