The Wheel of Surya. Jamila Gavin
shuffling closer on her haunches, and wide-eyed with curiosity.
‘Arjun heard the sahib telling someone. Memsahib was in the mission hospital. First one baby was born, and what a time she had of it, and they thought that was that. But then the nurse said, “Doctor! I think there’s another!” He didn’t believe her, can you imagine? “Don’t be silly,” he says. “There can’t be.”
‘But the memsahib went on pushing, and sure enough, out came another!’ Maliki rolled her eyes with perplexed disbelief at the stupidity of some people.
‘What did the doctor say?’ asked Jhoti.
‘The babies were lying in the womb one exactly behind the other, so when he felt her, he couldn’t tell that there were two! That’s what he said. What an excuse! I ask you!’
‘Were they both boys?’ asked Jhoti.
‘First one a girl, the second a boy,’ answered Maliki.
‘That sounds nice,’ murmured Jhoti. ‘Nice to enlarge your family all at once. What names did she give them?’
‘Oh some strange English names,’ laughed Maliki. ‘Grace – that’s the girl, and Ralph, the boy. I don’t know why those names!’ She shrugged. ‘I expect they will soon go to their church and have a naming ceremony too.’
Marvinder edged closer to the swing. She was only yards away from it now.
Suddenly, a figure came rushing out of the front of the bungalow. Edith Chadwick, all alone, ran across the garden and flung herself on to the swing. She looked sulky and cross. She proceeded to struggle and jerk, angrily tossing out her bare legs in a desperate attempt to get some momentum.
If Marvinder was disappointed at having her plan thwarted, she didn’t give the slightest hint of it. Indeed, she still continued her casual, indifferent progress closer and closer. Finally, when she was near enough to be noticed or ignored at will, she came to rest, squatting down in the shade and twisting the stems of hibiscus flowers into a nosegay. She watched Edith wriggling hopelessly as she tried to get the swing moving. Suddenly, their eyes met. This was the first time they had been close enough to acknowledge each other.
At first, Edith just scowled and continued her struggle and Marvinder edged a few inches closer without getting up. But then Edith caught her eye again. Marvinder tipped her head to one side, and with a questioning look on her face, mimed a push with her hand.
The silent message was received and understood. Edith, unsmiling, gave a curt nod. In a second, Marvinder had leapt to her feet and grasped the seat of the swing from behind. She dragged it back and back and back with all the strength of a mere four-year-old, then let go.
‘More, more!’ ordered Edith as she swooped away.
So Marvinder pushed and pushed till her arms ached. Edith would have let her push forever but, exhausted, Marvinder finally stopped and went back to twisting flowers by the hedge.
‘Are you going?’ asked Edith petulantly.
Marvinder shrugged a ‘maybe’.
‘Would you like a turn?’ asked Edith, instinctively bargaining to keep her new companion.
Marvinder looked at her with a big grin and ran over to the swing. But when Edith pushed her, she pushed with such ferocity that Marvinder began to feel afraid. She could feel the hands thudding into the small of her back. She could hear the hissing of her breath and the enraged grunt which accompanied each push of the swing. She wanted to get off.
‘Stop! I’ve had enough!’ cried Marvinder.
At first, Edith took no notice. She thrust the swing forward as hard as she could, sometimes tugging at the rope to make it twist and spin. Marvinder thought she would be flung off.
‘Stop! Please stop!’ Her voice rose in panic.
As if awoken from a dream, Edith stopped.
Marvinder dragged her feet on the ground to slow herself down, then jumped off. The two girls stared at each other, like strangers, unsure of themselves. Marvinder lowered her gaze. ‘I’m going back to my ma,’ she murmured, and walked away.
‘Goodbye then,’ said Edith coldly. She eased herself back on to the swing, and began her fruitless wriggling as she tried to get it going on her own.
Somewhere across the compound, the dove continued its soulless cooing. ‘Cru croo, cru croo, cru croo.’
One day, Govind returned home unexpectedly. They already knew in the village that he had arrived. Someone had seen him getting off the train, and then another noticed that instead of coming straight home, he had first called in at the Chadwick bungalow. At last, when he did appear at his father’s door, it was, he said, with important news.
Everyone waited till evening, when his older brothers got home from the fields, the buffaloes had been milked and supper eaten.
Then they congregated round his father’s charpoy, which had been pulled out into the courtyard. The old man, Chet Singh, sat in the middle of the bed solemnly sucking on his hookah. Madanjit Kaur took up a position of importance, cross-legged on the top right-hand corner of the bed. Govind was made to sit at the foot, while his brothers and their wives squatted in a semicircle on the ground chewing betel nuts and waiting with curiosity.
Only Jhoti preferred to stand. Rocking Jaspal in her arms, she looked on from outside the circle. Her face had an anxious expression as if she dreaded what she might hear.
Marvinder watched them from the edge of the pond. She had been washing dishes; but although her hand automatically dipped into the little hollowed-out crater of charcoal ash, which she smeared and scoured round the metal plates and pans, her eyes were fixed on Govind’s unsmiling face.
What was he going to tell them?
Feverishly, she scooped up the water, sluicing the dishes clean, anxious to be finished so that she could creep nearer and listen.
‘I am going to England,’ she heard him say.
Marvinder didn’t know where England was, but judging by the consternation his words produced, she knew that it was somewhere extraordinary.
At first there was a babble of excited voices, while everyone talked at once. Jhoti stopped rocking her baby and looked dazed. Marvinder gathered up the clean dishes and carried them to the kitchen, her eyes hardly leaving her father’s face as she went. Then she came back and stood by her mother. ‘Ma!’ she whispered. ‘Where is England?’
‘It’s where the Chadwicks come from,’ Jhoti replied.
‘Mr Chadwick sahib always wanted me to go, you know,’ Govind continued. ‘I didn’t say anything before, because I didn’t want you thinking too much when it all depended on my getting a B. A. in law.’
‘B. A? What is B. A?’ asked one of his brothers.
‘A degree,’ replied Chet Singh, knowledgeably, although he wasn’t quite sure what that was.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ nodded Govind proudly. ‘I now have a B. A. from Punjab University. In fact, I came top in my year.’ He spread out his hands with triumph, but when he saw their blank faces, and knew that his family had no understanding at all of his achievement, he dropped them helplessly to his side.
‘Look! I have something to show you.’ He opened up his worn and battered attaché case, which had lain at his feet, and carefully drew out a large, framed photograph.
Everyone craned forward with fascination. No one in the family had ever been in a photograph before.
‘Govind, is that you, Govind?’ they cried in