Rusty Goes to London Read online

  It took me back to a favourite story, H.E. Bates’s Alexander, and some of his Uncle Silas tales. Although I had walked all over London, this was different, and I wished now that I had spent more time in the country and less in the city.

  Vu seemed happy to see me but she was equally happy among her friends—those fresh-faced, healthy-looking English schoolgirls—and obviously enjoyed living on the farm and picking strawberries. I don’t suppose there could have been a better way of earning enough money for college and hostel fees. I walked back to Kintbury alone and reached Charing Cross station late at night. I spent an hour in one of those little news theatres which interspersed newsreels with cartoon shows; supped off station coffee and sandwiches; and then took the last train to Swiss Cottage.

  When she got back to London I asked Vu if she’d marry me. As you know, she didn’t say yes and she didn’t say no. Nor did she ask me if I had any prospects, because it was obvious I had none. But she did say she would think about it and have to talk to her parents about it and they were in Haiphong, in North Vietnam, and she hadn’t heard from them for several months. The war in Vietnam had just started and it was to last a long time.

  I had to be patient, it seemed, very patient. Of course, the fact that she had given the same response to Thanh’s proposal only made matters even more confusing and perplexing. To top it all, Vu herself wasn’t to be found.

  A few days after I heard about Thanh’s death, Vu resurfaced and introduced me to Ulla, a sixteen-year-old Danish girl who had come over to England for a holiday.

  ‘Please look after Ulla for a few days,’ said Vu. ‘She doesn’t know anyone in London.’

  ‘But I want to look after you,’ I protested. Why was she foisting this girl on me? Was it possible that she had conceived of Ulla as a device to get rid of me?

  ‘This is Ulla,’ said Vu, thrusting a blonde child into my arms. ‘Bye and don’t get up to any mischief!’

  Vu disappeared, and I was left alone with Ulla at the entrance to the Charing Cross Underground Station. She grinned at me and I smiled back rather nervously.

  She had blue eyes and a smooth, tanned skin. She was small for a Scandinavian girl, reaching only to my shoulders, and her figure was slim and boyish. She was carrying a small travel bag. It gave me an excuse to do something.

  ‘We’d better leave your bag somewhere,’ I said, taking it from her.

  And after depositing it in the left-luggage office, we were back on the pavement, grinning at each other.

  ‘Well, Ulla,’ I said, ‘how many days do you have in London?’

  ‘Only two. Then I go back to Copenhagen.’

  ‘Good. Well, what would you like to do?’

  ‘Eat. I’m hungry.’

  I wasn’t hungry but there’s nothing like a meal to help two strangers get acquainted. We went to a small and not very expensive Indian restaurant off Fitzroy Square and burnt our tongues on an orange-coloured Hyderabad chicken curry. We had to cool off with a Tamil Koykotay before we could talk.

  ‘What do you do in Copenhagen?’ I asked.

  ‘I go to school. I’m joining the University next year.’

  ‘And your parents?’

  ‘They have a bookshop.’

  ‘Then you must have done a lot of reading.’

  ‘Oh, no, I don’t read much. I can’t sit in one place for long. I like swimming and tennis and going to the theatre.’

  ‘But you have to sit in a theatre.’

  ‘Yes, but that’s different.’

  ‘It’s not sitting that you mind but sitting and reading.’

  ‘Yes, you are right. But most Danish girls like reading—they read more books than English girls.’

  ‘You are probably right,’ I said.

  As I was out of a job just then and had time on my hands, we were able to feed the pigeons in Trafalgar Square and while away the afternoon in a coffee bar before going on to a theatre. Ulla was wearing tight jeans and an abbreviated duffle coat and as she had brought little else with her, she wore this outfit to the theatre. It created quite a stir in the foyer but Ulla was completely unconscious of the stares she received. She enjoyed the play, laughed loudly in all the wrong places, and clapped her hands when no one else did.

  The lunch and the theatre had lightened my wallet and dinner consisted of baked beans on toast in a small snack bar. After picking up Ulla’s bag, I offered to take her back to Vu’s place.

  ‘Why there?’ she said. ‘Vu must have gone to bed.’

  ‘Yes, but aren’t you staying with her?’

  ‘Oh, no. She did not ask me.’

  ‘Then where are you staying? Where have you kept the rest of your things?’

  ‘Nowhere. This is all I brought with me,’ she said, indicating the travel bag.

  ‘Well, you can’t sleep on a park bench,’ I said. ‘Shall I get you a room in a hotel?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I have only the money to return to Copenhagen.’ She looked crestfallen for a few moments. Then she brightened and slipped her arm through mine. ‘I know, I’ll stay with you. Do you mind?’

  ‘No, but my landlady—’ I began, then stopped. It would have been a lie. My landlady, a generous, broad-minded soul, would not have minded in the least.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I don’t mind.’

  When we reached my room in Swiss Cottage Ulla threw off her coat and opened the window wide. It was a warm summer’s night and the scent of honeysuckle came through the open window. She kicked her shoes off and walked about the room barefoot. Her toenails were painted a bright pink.

  She slipped into bed and said, ‘Aren’t you coming?’

  I crept in beside her and lay very still while she chattered on about the play and the friends she had made in the country. I switched off the bed-lamp and she fell silent. Then she said, ‘Well, I’m sleepy. Goodnight!’ And turning over, she immediately fell asleep.

  I lay awake beside her for some time, after which sleep overcame me and I woke up only when the sun streamed in through the window. Ulla woke fresh and frolicsome. I busied myself with the breakfast. Ulla ate three eggs and a lot of bacon and drank two cups of coffee. I couldn’t help admiring her appetite.

  ‘And what shall we do today?’ she asked, her blue eyes shining. They were the bright blue eyes of a Siamese kitten.

  ‘I have to go to the library,’ I said.

  ‘Can’t you go tomorrow—after I have left?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘I like.’

  And she gave me a swift, unsettling kiss.

  We climbed Primrose Hill and watched boys flying kites. We lay in the sun and chewed blades of grass and then we visited the zoo where Ulla fed the monkeys. She consumed innumerable ices. We lunched at a small Greek restaurant and I forgot to phone Vu and in the evening we walked all the way home through scruffy Camden Town, drank beer, ate a fine, greasy dinner of fish and chips and went to bed early—Ulla had to catch the boat-train the next morning.

  ‘It has been a good day,’ she said.

  ‘I’d like to do it again tomorrow.’

  ‘But I must go tomorrow.’

  ‘But you must go.’

  She turned her head on the pillow and looked deep into my eyes, as though she were searching for something. I don’t know if she found what she was looking for but she smi led and kissed me softly on the lips.

  ‘Thanks for everything,’ she said.

  ‘Goodnight, Ulla.’

  The next morning the station and the train were crowded and we held hands and grinned at each other.

  ‘Give my love to Vu,’ she said.

  ‘I will.’

  We made no promises—of writing, or of meeting again. Somehow our relationship seemed complete and whole and I passed the day in a glow of happiness. I felt as if Ulla was still with me and it was only at night, when I put my hand out for hers, and did not find it, that I knew she had gone.

  But I kept the window open all through the summer and the scen
t of the honeysuckle was with me every night.

  Vu had also vanished from the scene. After a few months I heard from her. She sent a postcard from Paris saying she was staying with her sister for a time and they would be returning to Vietnam together to see their parents.

  I kept that postcard for a long time. The stamp bore a picture of Joan of Arc looking like Michele Morgan in one of her early films.

  The day I received it I took a day off from the office and went to a pub and drank several large brandies. They didn’t do me any good, so I switched to Jamaica rum and all that it did was make me think of Vu and, of course, I never saw her again.

  Return to Dehra

  AFTER THE INSULARITY of Jersey, London had been liberating. Theatres, cinemas, bookshops, museums, libraries helped further my self-education. Not once did I give serious thought to joining a college and picking up a degree. In any case, I did not have the funds, and there was no one to sponsor me. Instead, I had to join the vast legion of the world’s workers. But Kensington Gardens, Regent’s Park, Hampstead Heath and Primrose Hill gave me the green and open spaces that I needed in order to survive. In many respects London was a green city. My forays into the East End were really in search of literary landmarks.

  And yet something was missing from my life. Vu-Phuong had come and gone like the breath of wind after which she had been named. And there was no one to take her place.

  The affection, the camaraderie, the easy-going pleasures of my Dehra friendships; the colour and atmosphere of India; the feeling of belonging—these things I missed …

  Even though I had grown up with a love for the English language and its literature, even though my forefathers were British, Britain was not really my place. I did not belong to the bright lights of Piccadilly and Leicester Square, or, for that matter, to the apple orchards of Kent or the strawberry fields of Berkshire. I belonged, very firmly, to peepal trees and mango groves; to sleepy little towns all over India; to hot sunshine, muddy canals, the pungent scent of marigolds; the hills of home; spicy odours, wet earth after summer rain, neem pods bursting; laughing brown faces; and the intimacy of human contact.

  Human contact! That was what I missed most. It was not to be found in the office where I worked, or in my landlady’s house, or in any of the learned societies which I had joined, or even in the pubs into which I sometimes wandered … The freedom to touch someone without being misunderstood. To take someone by the hand as a mark of affection rather than desire. Or even to know desire. And fulfilment. To be among strangers without feeling like an outsider. For in India there are no strangers …

  I had been away for over four years but the bonds were as strong as ever, the longing to return had never left me.

  How I expected to make a living in India when I returned was something of a mystery to me. You did not just walk into the nearest employment exchange to find a job waiting for you. I had no qualifications. All I could do was write and I was still a novice at that. If I set myself up as a freelance writer and bombarded every magazine in the country, I could probably eke out a livelihood. At that time there were only some half a dozen English language magazines in India and almost no book publishers (except for a handful of educational presses left over from British days). The possibilities were definitely limited; but this did not deter me. I had confidence in myself (too much, perhaps) and plenty of guts (my motto being ‘Never despair. But if you do, work on in despair’). And, of course, all the optimism of youth.

  As Donna Stephen and Antony Dahl kept telling me they would publish my novel one day (I had finally put my foot, or rather, my pen, down and refused to do any more work on it), I wheedled a fifty-pound advance out from them, this being the standard advance against royalties at the time. Out of this princely sum I bought a ticket for Bombay on the S.S. Batory, a Polish passenger liner which had seen better days. There was a fee for a story I’d sold to the BBC and some money saved from my Photax salary; and with these amounts I bought a decent-looking suitcase and a few presents to take home.

  I did not say goodbye to many people—just my office colleagues who confessed that they would miss my imitations of Sir Harry Lauder; and my landlady, to whom I gave my Eartha Kitt records—and walked up the gangway of the Batory on a chilly day early in October.

  Soon we were in the warmer waters of the Mediterranean and a few days later in the even warmer Red Sea. It grew gloriously hot. But the Batory was a strange ship, said to be jinxed. A few months earlier, most of its Polish crew had sought political asylum in Britain. And now, as we passed through the Suez Canal, a crew member jumped overboard and was never seen again. Hopefully he’d swum ashore.

  Then, when we were in the Arabian Sea, we had to get out of our bunks in the middle of the night for the ship’s alarm bells were ringing and we thought the Batory was sinking. As there had been no lifeboat drill and no one had any idea of how a lifebelt should be worn, there was a certain amount of panic. Cries of ‘Abandon ship!’ mingled with shouts of ‘Man overboard!’ and ‘Women and children first!’—although there were no signs of women and children being given that privilege. Finally it transpired that a passenger, tipsy on too much Polish vodka, had indeed fallen overboard. A lifeboat was lowered and the ship drifted around for some time; but whether or not the passenger was rescued, we were not told. Nor did I discover his (or her) identity. Whatever tragedy had occurred had been swallowed up in the immensity of the darkness and the sea.

  The saga of the Batory was far from over.

  No sooner had the ship docked at Bombay’s Ballard Pier than a fire broke out in the hold. Most of the passengers lost their heavy luggage. Fortunately, my suitcase and typewriter were both with me and these I clung to all the way to the Victoria Terminus and all the way to Dehra Dun. I knew it would be some time before I could afford more clothes or another typewriter.

  When the train drew into Dehra I found Devinder waiting to greet me. (Somi and Ranbir were now both in Calcutta.)

  Devinder had come on his cycle.

  I got up on the crossbar of Devinder’s bike and he took me to his place (he was staying in the outhouse of a tea planter) in style, through the familiar streets of the town that had so shaped my life.

  The Odeon was showing an old Bogart film; the small roadside cafés were open; the bougainvillaea were a mass of colour; the mango blossoms smelt sweet; Devinder chattered away; and the girls looked prettier than ever.

  And I was twenty-four that year.

  The Garlands on His Brow

  Fame has but a fleeting hold

  on the reins in our fast-paced society;

  so many of yesterday’s

  heroes crumble.

  SHORTLY AFTER MY return from London, I was walking down the main road of my old home town of Dehra, gazing at the shops and passers-by to see what changes, if any, had taken place during my absence. I had been away three years. I had returned with some mediocre qualifications to flaunt in the faces of my envious friends. (I did not tell them of the loneliness of those years in exile; it would not have impressed them.) I was nearing the clock tower when I met a beggar coming from the opposite direction. In one respect, Dehra had not changed. The beggars were as numerous as ever, though I had to admit they looked healthier.

  This beggar had a straggling beard, a hunch, a cavernous chest, and unsteady legs on which a number of purple sores were festering. His shoulders looked as though they had once been powerful, and his hands thrusting a begging bowl at me, were still strong.

  He did not seem sufficiently decrepit to deserve of my charity, and I was turning away when I thought I discerned a gleam of recognition in his eyes. There was something slightly familiar about the man; perhaps he was a beggar who remembered me from earlier years. He was even attempting a smile, showing me a few broken yellow fangs; and to get away from him, I produced a coin, dropped it in his bowl, and hurried away.

  I had gone about a hundred yards when, with a rush of memory, I knew the identity of the beggar. He was a hero o
f my adolescence, Hassan, the most magnificent wrestler in the entire district. My friend Hathi used to train under Hassan’s guidance and whenever I went to meet Hathi, Hassan would give me a resounding thump on my shoulders and advice me to get into shape.

  I turned back (and away from my memories) and retraced my steps, half hoping I wouldn’t be able to catch up with the man, and he had indeed got lost in the bazaar crowd. Well, I would doubtless be confronted by him again in a day or two … Leaving the road, I went into the municipal gardens and stretching myself out on the fresh green February grass, allowed my memory to journey back to the days when I was a teenager, full of health and optimism, when my wonder at the great game of living had yet to give way to disillusionment at its shabbiness.

  I would sometimes make my way to the akhara at the corner of the gardens to watch the wrestling pit. My chin cupped in my hands, I would lean against a railing and gaze in awe at the wrestlers’ rippling muscles, applauding with the other watchers whenever one of them made a particularly clever move or pinned an opponent down on his back.

  Amongst these wrestlers the most impressive and engaging young man was Hassan, the son of a kite-maker. He had a magnificent build, with great wide shoulders and powerful legs, and what he lacked in skill he made up for in sheer animal strength and vigour. The idol of all boys, he was followed about by large numbers of us, and I was a particular favourite of his. He would offer to lift me on to his shoulders and carry me across the akhara to introduce me to his friends and fellow wrestlers. But I was content to be the friend of another wrestler, and that too someone who was about the same age as I was. And that wrestler was Hathi.

  From being Dehra’s champion, Hassan soon became the outstanding representative of his art in the entire district. His technique improved, he began using his brain in addition to his brawn, and it was said by everyone that he had the making of a national champion.