Motherland (35 page)

When the time for the ceremony arrives, Larry shepherds his flock of cameramen. They grumble openly about being made to go on the high platform, but once up there they realise the advantage of the viewpoint. Larry takes up a place on the platform also. The hall below fills with Indian princes arrayed in jewelled robes, and English gentlemen in tailcoats, and politicians of the Hindu nationalist Congress party proudly wearing homespun kurtas, in the tradition of Gandhi. Two red and gold thrones stand beneath the scarlet-draped canopy, illuminated by concealed lights.

‘It’s like a bloody movie set!’ exclaims an American newsreel cameraman.

The ceremony begins with a startlingly loud fanfare from trumpeters placed in the roof. Then the ADCs in their dress uniforms come stalking slowly down the centre aisle, between the crush of dignitaries. After them, side by side, come Lord and Lady Mountbatten, both in white. Mountbatten wears a mass of medals and decorations, a ceremonial sword at his side. Lady Mountbatten wears an ivory brocade dress of inspired simplicity, and long white gloves above the elbow, and a dark blue sash. The cameramen go crazy, popping their flashbulbs at the grandeur of the moment. Larry, looking on, is more struck by how plainly Lady Mountbatten presents herself. No tiara, no necklace, just the grave dignity of her slender figure.

The Lord Chief Justice of India, Sir Patrick Spens, administers the oath of office. The new viceroy then makes a short address. Up on the platform Larry is unable to hear his words;
and he sees from their postures that the politicians below are straining to hear. Later, when the short ceremony is over, Alan thrusts a number of stencilled copies into Larry’s hands, saying, ‘Make sure they all get this. No one heard a bloody word.’

It turns out Mountbatten has asked India to help him in the difficult task ahead. This seems natural enough to Larry, but from the reaction of the press it’s unprecedented. Eric Britter of
The Times
says it’s as good as admitting the British have made mistakes in India, and if so, it’ll win Mountbatten a lot of friends.

Rupert Blundell and Larry escape the marbled halls of Viceroy’s House that afternoon, and Larry gets his first taste of the real India. They drive into old Delhi, which is now under curfew following the riot. There are no signs of the recent violence. The alleyways and bazaars are bursting with life and noise and colour. Everywhere Larry looks he sees, with his painter’s eye, thrilling and jarring juxtapositions of scarlets and ambers and deep greens. The air smells rich with perfume and tobacco, dung and sweat. On foot now, moving through the bazaar, the crowd surges past them on either side, parting before them without touching them. Larry remembers Lady Mountbatten saying, ‘I feel like a corpse.’ It seems to him then that his people, the British, are dead, and only the Indian people are alive.

‘What are we doing here?’ he says to Rupert. ‘I mean here, ruling India.’

‘Not for much longer,’ says Rupert.

‘This isn’t our country. This is another world.’

‘Does it frighten you?’

‘Frighten me?’ Larry hasn’t thought of it this way, but now that Rupert says it he realises it’s true. ‘Yes, in a way.’

‘We English set such a high value on moderation. It strikes me that India is not moderate.’

An ox-cart passes, its driver shouting at the crowds in his way. Several voices shout back, hands raised in the air. The cart is piled high with manure and clouded with flies. There are children everywhere, their big solemn eyes tracking the Englishmen as they go by.

‘The sooner we get out the better,’ says Larry.

‘If only it were as simple as that,’ says Rupert. ‘I’m part of the policy planning group. Our options are very limited. You could say the pot is boiling, and we’re the lid.’

*

Over the next week the leaders of India take their turns in talks with Mountbatten. Larry, officially appointed assistant press attaché, is initiated into the complexities of the independence process. Syed Tarkhan shows him on the map of India how the Muslims are concentrated in what is called the ‘ears of the elephant’, Punjab in the north-west and Bengal in the northeast.

‘This will be Pakistan,’ he says. ‘Jinnah will accept nothing less. There must be partition. We Muslims cannot live in a Hindu-controlled nation.’

‘But you’ve lived in a British-controlled nation.’

‘That is different.’

The difficulty with partition is that the ‘ears’ are not exclusively Muslim, and the rest of the elephant far from exclusively Hindu. What is to happen to the many who will find themselves in a fearful minority? Syed Tarkhan shakes his head over this.

‘Nothing good,’ he says.

‘What does Gandhi say?’ Larry asks.

‘Ah, Gandhi. He of course wants a united India.’

‘I’ve always had the idea that Gandhi is one of the few men alive who truly believes in the power of goodness.’

‘The power of goodness?’ says Tarkhan, raising his eyebrows. ‘The mahatma is a very holy man. But whether goodness will prove to be powerful enough in the end, who is to say?’

Larry gets his own chance to see the mahatma when he makes a call at last on the new viceroy. A large gathering of newspapermen assembles to report on the meeting. Larry is on duty with Alan to attempt to control the story.

‘You have to remember,’ Alan tells Larry, ‘that although Gandhi is the father of the nation and so forth, he’s a Hindu, not a Muslim. So Jinnah and his lot are naturally suspicious of us getting too close to him.’

The press gather in the Mughal Gardens outside Mountbatten’s study, where the meeting takes place. While they wait the
Times
man tells Larry, ‘This little old fellow’s the only one that can stop the violence. They listen to him.’

When at last the French windows open, and Gandhi comes out with Mountbatten to face the photographers, Larry is unexpectedly moved by the sight. Gandhi is so small and frail, with his bare legs and bald brown head and white khaddar robe and little round glasses. It seems inconceivable that such a tiny figure can have held the mighty British Empire to ransom, without the backing of an army, without the threat of violence, solely through the moral force of his character.

It’s plain that he doesn’t enjoy being photographed, but he puts up with it with smiling good grace. Lady Mountbatten joins them, and more photographs are taken. Then as they turn to go
back into the house, Gandhi rests one hand on Lady Mountbatten’s shoulder for support. Max Desfor, the AP man, still has his camera out, and at once he takes a shot.

‘That’s the one,’ he says.

After Gandhi has departed, Mountbatten calls Alan and Larry into the staff meeting to discuss the communiqué that is to be issued to the press. This turns out to be far from straightforward. Gandhi has proposed a radical solution to avoid partition, with all of the bloodshed that it’s feared will follow.

‘He proposes,’ says Mountbatten, reading from the notes he dictated after the meeting, ‘that the Congress cabinet be dismissed, and Jinnah invited to form an all-Muslim administration.’

This causes consternation in the room.

‘Out of the question,’ says Miéville. ‘Nehru won’t stand for it.’

‘His reasoning is,’ says Mountbatten, ‘that with a Muslim leadership of a united India, the Muslims need not fear Hindu persecution. The alternative, he believes, that is to say, partition, will lead to a bloodbath.’

‘He’s senile,’ says George Abell.

‘It’s a trick,’ says Syed Tarkhan. ‘It’s a trap to catch Jinnah out.’

‘Oh, I think he’s sincere,’ says Mountbatten. ‘But I’m not sure he’s realistic.’

‘He tried this on Wavell before,’ says Miéville. ‘He tried it on Willingdon. It’s the only shot he’s got in his locker. Claim the moral high ground through self-sacrifice. That sort of stunt works on us British because we know we don’t belong here. But just you try it on the Hindus.’

A communiqué of sorts is fudged for the press that leaves all options open. Mountbatten sighs and rubs his forehead.

‘I’m beginning to think this is one of those cock-ups where there just isn’t a way out,’ he says.

After dinner Larry finds himself beside Lady Mountbatten. She has been friendly to him ever since the episode of the dog mess.

‘What do you make of Gandhi?’ Larry asks her.

‘I worship at his feet,’ says Lady Mountbatten. ‘The man is a saint. But the one who’s going to save India is Nehru.’

Larry writes a letter to Kitty and Ed, wanting the chance to get his unruly crowd of new experiences into some sort of order.

The letter is addressed to Edenfield Place, but by the time it arrives Kitty and Pamela are back at River Farm. Louisa walks over to bring Kitty the letter and they read it together, sitting in the April sunshine on the seat in the yard.

‘Heavens!’ says Louisa. ‘What dramas!’

Kitty realises with a shock that the news of Larry’s parting from Nell pleases her more than it should.

‘I wasn’t ever sure that girl was right for him,’ she says.

‘Of course she wasn’t,’ says Louisa. ‘Larry’s far too good for her.’

‘Doesn’t it seem odd to think of him all the way over there and us still here?’

Still here. Kitty doesn’t say so, but nothing has got any easier. The long hard winter is over, and her life is back in its usual pattern. Her days pass making modest meals, tidying up the old house so that Mrs Willis can clean it, repairing Pamela’s torn clothing, helping out at the village church, driving into the shops in Lewes, listening to the wireless, reading to Pamela, reading to herself. There always seems to be just a little more to do than
there’s time to do it, and yet she has the feeling that she does nothing at all. She envies Larry his Indian adventure.

Louisa has her own reasons for being dissatisfied with her life. She’s been trying for a long time now to get pregnant.

‘Did I tell you,’ she says, ‘I’m going to see a quack? Mummy’s persuaded me to go. George has to see him too.’

‘Well, I suppose there’s no harm,’ says Kitty.

‘I expect he’ll tell me to eat raw eggs and lay off the booze or something. Just so long as he doesn’t tell me to rest. Nothing gets me quite so worked up as being told to rest.’

‘Maybe you should go up to town for a few weeks,’ says Kitty.

‘I don’t see how that would get me a baby,’ says Louisa. ‘Unless, of course …’ She gives Kitty a wicked look, like the old Louisa. ‘Remember the girls who used to stand outside the barracks at night shouting “Para Eleven”?’

‘Oh, God!’ says Kitty, giggling. ‘I do miss the war.’

‘All we wanted at the time was for it to be over.’

Kitty sighs as she remembers.

‘All I wanted was my own house, and my own husband, and my own little baby. I used to daydream about making curtains, and baking bread, and waking up in a sunny bedroom in my very own little home.’

‘I don’t see why it all had to be so little,’ says Louisa.

‘I think I was playing at dolls’ houses,’ says Kitty. ‘Now it’s real, and I’m turning into my mother.’

She doesn’t tell Louisa the worst of it, which is that sometimes she sits in a chair for an hour or more, seized by a strange heavy torpor, doing nothing. She feels tired all the time these days. Her mind goes blank, and she can’t think what she’s meant to be doing. Then Pamela will appear, demanding to be fed or
entertained, and so she’ll stir herself; but even as she boils an egg, and toasts a slice of bread, she has this numb feeling that it’s all pointless and going nowhere.

She can’t share this with Louisa because Louisa believes having a baby will solve all her problems. She can’t tell her that there are times when Pamela makes her want to scream. Of course she adores her daughter and would die for her if need be, but what’s proving harder is the enterprise of living for her. It turns out a child is not enough. But not enough for what?

She wishes Larry were here. She could talk to Larry about all this. That’s what’s so good about people with faith, even if you don’t share their faith. They know what you mean when you talk about meaning. They understand that there has to be some sort of greater purpose. She’s never forgotten how he said to her, the very first time they met, ‘Don’t you want to do something noble and fine with your life?’

Sometimes, sitting doing nothing in the kitchen chair, Kitty thinks ahead to the time when Pamela will be grown-up, and will no longer need her. She asks herself, What will I do then?

I’ll have Ed, of course.

Then her mind slides away from these thoughts, not liking where they lead her, and her head fills with grey vapour like a cloud.

Hugo comes, more than is justified by the demands of the business. He sits with her, and plays with Pammy, and acts the part of the dear old family friend, except for the looks he gives her. She reprimands him, always in light, easy terms, as if he’s an over-eager child.

‘That’s enough, Hugo. Stop it.’

Then when she’s expecting him one day and he doesn’t come,
she finds she misses his attentions. That frightens her.