Thursday’s Child. Helen Forrester

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      I worked until midnight, when the club closed. The thought of going home to bed made me feel sleepless, and, as the last bus had just left, I decided that, rather than take a taxi, I would walk home. I walked slowly through the night mist and, when at last I reached our gate, I thought irritably that I would never sleep if I went in, so I walked round the block. The policeman on the beat knew me, and said: ‘Good night, Miss.’

      I returned the salutation. I came again to our gate but continued past it, walking the same route. The constable met me again and asked if I had lost anything.

      Wearily, I said: ‘No, thank you. I am just taking a stroll before going to bed.’

      ‘It’s not too safe round here late at night, Miss.’

      I agreed, and walked back to our gate with him. It appeared that I would have to go to bed, but my nerves were jangled and I felt that to scream would be a great relief.

      At home I made myself some cocoa and at three o’clock I got into bed. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Barney laughing at me, until I could have shrieked at him to go away and never haunt me again.

      I switched on the bedside lamp and took from the side table the studio portrait which he had given me just before leaving on his last journey back to barracks. I sat up in bed and for a long time examined the face portrayed. The lips smiled at me, but when I covered them up and looked at the eyes alone, they were cold and staring.

      At five o’clock I got up. It was Sunday morning, and the church bells soon began to ring for the first service of the day. Mother heard me washing in the bathroom and called to ask if I was poorly. I said I was quite all right and was preparing to go to church. I heard her bed creak as, satisfied, she turned over to sleep again.

      I had no intention of going to church, but it was the simplest explanation to save Mother getting up to see what she could do to help me. Garbed in slacks and woollen sweaters, I went out into the garden. Lighted only by the shaft of light from the front door, it was as bleak and shrivelled as my heart. I went inside, boiled some water and washed up the supper dishes for Mother, after which I laid the table for breakfast.

      I had just refilled the sugar basin when, to my astonishment, the telephone bell rang. I answered it quickly, to avoid its waking the entire household.

      ‘I wish to speak to Miss Delaney,’ said Ajit.

      ‘Speaking,’ I said. ‘Hello.’

      Ajit’s cool tone melted into a warm hello.

      ‘I am reminding you that you must be ready at ten o’clock,’ he said.

      ‘Oh, Lord!’ I ejaculated.

      ‘Is there trouble?’

      ‘No, no,’ I said. I had forgotten that I had promised to walk along the coast with him to a village inn which specialised in bacon and egg teas. He had taken great trouble to pick a Sunday when I would be free and when the tide would be high and at its wintry best. The thought of being bright and entertaining throughout the day was too much for me. I opened my mouth to make an excuse.

      ‘I hope I do not telephone too early. We Indians rise rather early.’

      ‘No, I was already up.’

      ‘Then we will meet at ten o’clock.’

      It seemed unkind to disappoint him, so I said that I would be ready and would bring some sandwiches for lunch.

      The happiness of his response when I said this could hardly be construed as enthusiasm for sandwiches, so I was glad I had not refused to go.

      Ajit had not been at the club the night before. He was working very hard, trying to cram in as much experience and study as he could before going home. He had just finished an arduous round of visits to the factories of electrical instrument makers, and had determined to make this Sunday a holiday.

      He met me at the corner of the road in which my home stood. I was early and shivering in the north wind which whined through the leafless trees. The sun peeped only intermittently through the clouds, and the deserted streets looked dismal. I turned up the collar of my leather windjammer.

      Ajit was apologetic about my having to wait for him. He glanced at my face, which I knew looked drawn in spite of careful make-up.

      ‘Are you well?’ he asked. ‘We need not go if you do not wish it.’

      I assured him, with a brisk smile, that I was quite well. He looked doubting, but the bus came and we boarded it.

      The sea was a heaving mass of grey, except where far out the waves were hitting a sandbank and breaking into white spray. As we started along the top of the sea wall, only the slapping of the water against the base of it and the cries of gulls broke the silence. We walked steadily, the wind behind us, and gradually my body warmed with the exercise and the fresh air cleared my head.

      In the coarse grass covering the sand at the back of the wall, I saw a rabbit peeping up at us and, laughingly, I pointed it out to Ajit.

      He had been looking at me from time to time rather anxiously, but he was apparently satisfied when I laughed, because he laughed too. He told me about the squirrels that lived in the neem trees in the garden of his home in Delhi, and of the lizards that always made a home in the window curtains, no matter how frequently they were shaken out. I shivered at the idea of lizards in the house, but he said they were harmless creatures with yellow bodies and sparkling eyes, and they kept the room free from insects. He told me also about the mongoose that lived in the inner courtyard to guard it from snakes.

      ‘Snakes are sacred, are they not?’

      ‘Village people sometimes worship cobras as a manifestation of God – but it is the cow which is really sacred – she gives us milk, clarified butter and curd, and in return she must be fed and protected and on no account slaughtered.

      ‘It would be merciful to kill some of the cows which are sick and old,’ he added ruefully.

      ‘I read once that one of the Hindu Gods is a destroyer. Is that true?’

      ‘Yes, Shiva destroys – without thought or mercy,’ he said, bitterness in his voice.

      I thought of the famines, the floods, the earthquakes, the riots of India. It was not surprising that they believed in a God who destroyed.

      ‘Well, who creates?’

      ‘Brahma creates. From the holocaust which Shiva makes, he recreates. So life is born anew and nothing is wasted.’

      Nothing is wasted. From the devastation which emotions leave, does Brahma spin again the threads of life? I wondered. It was a new idea to me – a harsh idea – that destruction was a necessary preliminary to the creation of fresh life.

      ‘Do you believe in such Gods?’

      ‘No, these Gods are for simple people. I must seek the truths behind them.’ He glanced at me and saw