Thursday’s Child

One day Bessie came and told me that a party of Egyptians was expected that evening. They were a rich and influential group of young men, who were touring Britain. It was Sunday and they were stranded in Wetherport until morning. Their guide, a harassed Government official, had telephoned to ask if we could entertain them for the evening, and, since a dance was held every Sunday evening, Dr Gantry had said that we could.

‘They’re Muslims,’ said Bessie in disgust. She was normally extremely tolerant, but for some reason she had taken a dislike to all followers of the Prophet, and it took her all her self-control to be pleasant to them. Like everything else about the staff, this was well known in the club. Probably she did not like them because, on their arrival in Britain, she was often the first Englishwoman – sometimes the first woman outside their family – to whom they had ever addressed themselves; and she suffered from their lack of knowledge of Western conventions.

Anyway, Bessie galvanised the canteen into baking in their honour, rounded up by telephone some girls with whom they could dance and begged me to help in the ballroom as well, although I protested laughingly that I was tired, after tramping round the cathedral with a party of American ladies.

When the Egyptians arrived, I was having a cheerful argument with Dr Wu, who believed ardently in the Chinese Communists’ cause and wished to convert me to his views, so I did not see them enter the room.

A silence stole over the lounge and I turned to see about a dozen exquisitely tailored young men surveying the room languidly, while a very indifferently tailored Englishman with a decidedly hunted look was dithering in front of them.

‘Excuse me,’ I said to Dr Wu, and went to the rescue.

The Englishman clutched my hand, said he was delighted to meet me and introduced me to his charges as Mrs Forbes. All the Egyptians immediately voiced their delight too, so it seemed pointless to explain that I was not Mrs Forbes.

I took their coats from them, found them easy chairs near the fire and asked the steward to find out what they would like to drink. The party was split evenly between whiskies and sodas and cups of tea. Since Bessie had not appeared, I asked Dr Wu, in a whisper, if he would kindly find her for me. Then I sat down amongst the new arrivals and chatted to them about their tour. Their English was a pleasure to hear, every word being clearly enunciated.

Dr Gantry arrived, followed by Bessie, so I moved away from the circle and went to speak to the group of American ladies, who had congregated in one corner. They were curious to know who the new visitors were, and when I told them that they had come to dance, the ladies promptly announced that they wanted to dance too and charged off to the cloakroom to ‘pretty up’, as they called it.

It looked as if the evening would be lively, so I sat down in a corner to rest for a few minutes. I had hardly seated myself when Dr Wu came up and silently handed me a cup of coffee – he must have seen my fatigue and gone specially to the buffet to get it. I was touched.

‘Please don’t mention it,’ he said when I thanked him, ‘it is a pleasure to me.’

I looked at Wu with new interest. Up to then he had just been another Chinese with Communist ideals, but when he expressed his pleasure he became suddenly a real person to me for the first time.

‘You are very kind, Dr Wu,’ I said, as I sipped the coffee appreciatively.

Wu smiled. ‘You are very kind to us,’ he said. ‘Madame Li has told me of your many kindnesses to her and to the other ladies in your charge.’

‘It is nothing,’ I said, the old shyness creeping over me. ‘I just do my work.’

‘You do much more than your work,’ said Wu. ‘We all know that,’ and he waved one hand as if to associate with his remarks the many faces in the background.

This was the first indication I had had that anyone other than the ladies I escorted appreciated the amount of work which I put into the club, and I was pleased. Through Wu’s polite remarks I glimpsed also how much foreigners like himself depended on the club for its friendly atmosphere.

‘I must desert you and go to the dance,’ I said, hastily finishing my coffee. ‘I have promised to help Mrs Forbes.’

Wu rose, bowed and smiled so that his eyes nearly vanished.

‘Alas,’ he said, ‘dancing is beyond me. My stupid feet fail to understand what the music tells them to do.’ His hands fluttered hopelessly.

I laughed.

‘Soon my friend will arrive and we will both come to the ballroom to watch you dance. Mr Stacey says that you dance most excellently.’

‘Mr Stacey is too kind. Do I know your friend?’

‘I think not. May I have the pleasure of introducing him to you later in the evening?’

‘I should be delighted to meet him,’ I said, and went away to dance with the Egyptians.

CHAPTER FIVE

The usual mixed crowd was gyrating slowly round the ballroom floor to the strains of a waltz. The room was already overhot and the Englishman in charge of the radiogram was perspiring. The lights had been lowered for the waltz and the whole room looked dreamy and unreal. I felt very tired.

Bessie ushered in most of the Egyptians – one or two older ones had stayed with their English guide and Dr Gantry in the lounge, preferring the cosy fire and Dr Gantry’s lively conversation to dancing.

I went to Bessie. She was wearing a pink dress and her best hostess manner; and I noted that she had already enchanted a rather portly, but extremely aristocratic-looking, member of the party. She promptly pushed him on to me and we finished the waltz together.

The club had long since found that to encourage new members to dance, it was advisable in the first instance for one of the staff to ask them to dance, after which they usually had enough courage to ask someone else to dance. I therefore went to each Egyptian in turn and took him on to the floor, after which I let him loose amongst the other women present. Most of them danced very well and their conversation was polite.

The lights had again been lowered for a waltz, and I swam out with my fifth Egyptian. This one hugged me tightly to him, and we had hardly circulated once round the room before he asked me to accompany him to Manchester the following day and spend the evening with him.

I regretted that I was not free as I worked at the club. He said calmly that he would arrange it with Dr Gantry, who was a friend of his father’s. He wanted, he said soulfully, to take me to a ball and dance the whole evening with me. Retreating, I said that it was impossible and that I had no suitable clothes.

He said he would buy me all the clothes I could desire.

I was in real difficulty. Dr Gantry had expressly asked that we be careful in handling these young men, whose fathers were either high-ranking Government officials or well-to-do aristocrats. All his life this young man had probably had everything he wanted, and it would not be easy to gainsay him.

The record player seemed to be playing for an interminable time, and the Egyptian’s lips were brushing my ear as he murmured: ‘We are agreed that there are many more beautiful women in England, but you – you are the most seductive woman we have seen.’

I wanted to giggle. Miss Delaney, until lately helper of girls in distress, to be called seductive and to be so tempted! I had to get out of my predicament somehow – and get out of it gracefully. I looked round for a staff member or some English helper to whom I might have introduced my partner and thus created a diversion and made my escape; but almost everyone was dancing and the record-playing Englishman seemed to have vanished.

My partner was saying: ‘You should wear pearls in your ears – you must let me buy you some.’

I resisted a temptation to slap his face. Then over his shoulder I saw Dr Wu enter with a brown-skinned man – presumably the friend he had mentioned earlier. Dr Wu would do very nicely – but by the time we had danced round to the door where he had been standing, he had gone and there was only his friend, leaning against the doorpost and puffing at a pipe. I did not know this man and so continued to dance. The Egyptian had taken my silence for acquiescence and was breathing sweet nothings down my neck. Once more we came near to the door. I looked up and straight into the eyes of the brown-faced stranger. They were the most honest eyes imaginable, and when I looked they had such an unexpectedly gentle expression that I felt I had inadvertently peeped into his private life, and I dropped my own eyes. The music stopped and I guided the Egyptian firmly towards his friends. He was saying: ‘Please say where I shall meet you tomorrow.’

‘I am sorry I cannot come,’ I said, and turned round and fled.

Just at the door I looked back. The Egyptian was fighting his way through the swarm of dancers. Whatever should I do? ‘Come with me,’ said a voice.

I looked up. The stranger was laughing down at me. A thousand times better than twenty Egyptians, I thought. He opened the door opposite the ballroom door. The library, of course. So simple a means of escape – across the floor and down the tiny back staircase to the canteen on the floor below.

‘Thank you very much,’ I said, as we descended the staircase. ‘How did you guess?’

The stranger looked embarrassed and said shyly: ‘I was looking at your face.’ He stood uncertainly before me, pipe in one hand, the other making nervous gestures. I smiled, and he gained enough courage to say: ‘I come here every Saturday and Sunday to see you.’

I was surprised. ‘But I have never seen you before,’ I exclaimed.

‘You have to take care of all the ladies. How is it that you will see me?’

‘But – but …’ Words would not come. The evening was getting to the stage of fantasy, and I was so tired.

‘Is your work ended?’ asked the stranger, seeing my embarrassment and trying to change the subject. He drew out of his pocket an old-fashioned gold watch. ‘The time is ten o’clock.’

‘Oh, yes, Mrs Forbes asked me to stay only until 9.30.’

‘May I obtain for you a cup of tea before you go? We could – we could sit and drink tea safely in this corner, where you cannot be seen from the door by the Muslim.’

My legs were feeling unaccountably wobbly, my head ached and the canteen was quiet, except for two German girls talking with their English escorts. I sat down where he had indicated.

Mrs Barnes, the Canteen Manageress, evidently knew the stranger who liked to look at me every Saturday and Sunday, because she drew from under the counter and gave to him some cheese straws and some chocolate biscuits, which were in short supply at the time. Armed with these and some tea he came and sat down by me. My head was clearing and when I thanked him I took a good look at him. He was dressed in an old tweed jacket and baggy, grey trousers; his white shirt made his skin look very dark but his features were clear cut and delicate; both in expression and outline his face reminded me of a Saint in an old Italian painting; his hands also, as they invited me to eat and drink, used the gestures portrayed in the same paintings.

‘From which country do you come?’ I asked, ‘and may I ask your name?’

‘I am from India and I am called Ajit Singh. You are Miss Margaret Delaney and you live in this city, yes?’

‘Yes,’ I said, and inquired if he was at the University.

‘I am writing my thesis – I spend much time, however, at the Berkeley Street power station – for experience.’

‘Oh,’ I said blankly, wondering what kind of experience a power station offered.

‘Instruments,’ said Ajit, as if divining my thoughts.

The tea was reviving me. My eyes twinkled with the mischief I felt, as I asked suddenly: ‘Why do you come to see me on Saturdays and Sundays?’

‘I have to work very much from Monday to Friday,’ was the calm rejoinder.

I laughed outright: ‘But I have never met you.’

‘There was no one to introduce us.’

‘That does not seem to deter the others.’

‘My father has said that in England an introduction is necessary before a gentleman speaks to a lady. Tonight I see the Egyptian frighten you – and I know Father is right.’

‘The Egyptian was introduced to me – he was not, however, acquainted with our customs. It must have been difficult for him to understand the subtle relationship between men and women in the West.’

‘It was difficult for me – but I have not frightened you, have I?’

‘No,’ I smiled.

He looked as if he was about to say something that was important to him, but changed his mind and said merely: ‘This evening my friend, Dr Wu, had promised to introduce us, but we have managed very well by ourselves, have we not?’ He flashed a little grin at me, as he took out his tobacco pouch and filled his pipe: ‘May I smoke?’ he asked.

This then was Dr Wu’s friend. Presumably they had met at the University.

‘Please do smoke,’ I said. ‘I must go – otherwise I shall miss the last bus home.’

He rose as I did, and opened the door for me.

‘Thank you again for rescuing me,’ I said, pausing by the door.

‘It is nothing,’ he said, his face inexplicably sad.

‘I hope to see you next Saturday,’ I said, desiring to clear the melancholy shadow away.

The sun shone immediately. ‘I wish that I will see you,’ he said, and I went to fetch my coat and hat.

As I hurried through the swing doors on my way out, I met Dr Wu looking harassed.

‘Are you looking for Mr Singh?’ I asked.

‘Yes, Miss Delaney, I am.’

‘You will find him in the canteen,’ I said, and ran down the stairs. As I went through the glass outer door, I turned. Wu was standing at the top of the stairs grinning down at me, as if I were the subject of some private joke.

CHAPTER SIX

My term of duty on the following day did not start until two o’clock, so I missed the fun when Bessie received a telephone call. As a result of the Egyptian invasion, poor Bessie had worked until late on Sunday evening but had returned to work at her usual hour on the Monday morning, in order to act as Chairman at a meeting of an Anglo-Polish organisation. She was at the meeting when the club telephonist called her out of the room and said that someone who would not give his name wished to speak to her urgently.

She lifted the receiver and a reproachful voice immediately upbraided her. Could she not recognise love when she saw it – his heart was broken – one day was all he asked.

‘Who are you and what do you think you are talking about?’ asked an outraged Bessie.

When he gave his name she became more polite – the stony politeness reserved for Muslims.

‘I think a mistake has been made,’ she said guardedly.

‘You are the Mrs Forbes, the beautiful Mrs Forbes with whom I danced last night?’

‘Well, I am Mrs Forbes, but I did not dance with anyone last night – I was too busy.’

‘Yes, I remember – I remember – there were two Mrs Forbes – you are the lady of the blue dress?’

‘No,’ said Bessie. ‘I’m the lady of the pink dress.’ Then she thought of my blue dress. All Bessie’s latent motherly instincts came to the fore. Deliver me to this lunatic? No. She dealt summarily with the Egyptian and returned, full of apologies, to her Committee.

‘Bessie, dear, what did you say to him?’ I asked, after I explained the confusion over the initial introductions the previous evening.

Bessie looked at me sideways. ‘I told him that your reluctance to accompany him was natural, because you had an Italian husband six feet tall and expert with a knife.’

‘Bessie,’ I gasped, ‘you’re a dreadful scallywag.’

‘It was effective,’ said Bessie dryly.

During the afternoon I took two Americans round the docks, after which they were to take dinner with an English family. I left them at their hotel and walked through the crowded streets towards the club, meaning to do a couple of hours of work at my desk before taking dinner in the canteen. One way of avoiding the more crowded pavements was to take a short cut through a store which had its front and back entrances on adjoining streets, and this I did, only to collide with Mother.

‘Hello, dear,’ said Mother, clutching her parcels to her.

‘Hello, Mum. What are you doing here?’

‘Christmas shopping.’

Mother was looking worn, so I asked her to come and have some tea. We turned back into the store, and were fighting our way through the Cosmetics Department, towards the lift which would carry us up to the restaurant, when I suddenly saw a familiar face bent over an array of perfume bottles, while a bored shop assistant stood behind the counter and dealt with other customers between addressing the perfume buyer. I heard her say: ‘Passion of Paris is considered most alluring.’

‘Mr Singh,’ I said.

‘Who?’ asked Mother, peering through her eye veil.

‘Mr Singh. Come and meet him – he is quite amusing.’

Mother loves meeting new people, so we walked across to the perfume counter and I asked if I could help him, and then introduced him to Mother.

‘Please do help me,’ implored Mr Singh. ‘My friends at my digs say that dragons like scent for Christmas – they do not tell me which perfume to buy – it is most confusing.’

‘Dragons?’ I queried.

‘Landladies,’ said Mr Singh unsmilingly.

I heard Mother stifle a laugh behind her parcels, and I hastily straightened my own face and looked gravely through the collection of bottles. I was very conscious of Mr Singh standing by me. He did not look at my face, but he watched my hands as I sought for the best bargain for him. He took out a finely tooled leather pocket book and paid for the present, and then looked hesitatingly at Mother and me.

‘Will you join me to drink tea in the restaurant before continuing your shoppings?’ he asked.

Before I could open my mouth, Mother said that we would be delighted. She had never met an Indian before and was evidently excited at the prospect of examining further the specimen before her. Her neat, grey curls danced as she talked vivaciously to Mr Singh, and it was obvious that she enjoyed the tea party that followed. Mr Singh held open the doors for her and helped her with her parcels, pulled out chairs, and insisted on ordering masses of buttered toast, since the restaurant had sold out of cake. Mother was conquered by him before the meal was ended.

At the end of an hour I remembered guiltily my piled-up desk and said that I must return to work. We collected the parcels and Mr Singh paid the bill.

As we were waiting for the lift to take us down again, Mr Singh asked: ‘We are – that is – the Indian community is giving a Christmas party – I wonder – Mrs Delaney – Miss Delaney – would you like to come?’

This was a rare honour. The small Indian community tended to mix amongst themselves and rarely asked outsiders to their entertainments. In any case, no opportunity to refuse was given me. Mother accepted with alacrity for both of us.

‘We are mostly students,’ said Mr Singh. ‘It will be held in the club canteen.’

The canteen was decorated for the occasion with the Indian national flag and a picture of Gandhiji framed with flowers. It was a good party, although everything went wrong. The lights fused, the hot food, cooked by the students themselves, arrived cold, and the ice cream melted, but nobody was upset. Leisurely our hosts lit matches while the Canteen Manageress mended the fuse, somehow the Indian food tasted good, though strange to Western taste – and Mother felt like an empress.

As the eldest lady there she was specially looked after, and she was enchanted by the respect shown to her. She was soon surrounded by an assortment of men in Indian costumes; and three girls were almost tearing off their saris in an effort to show her how they were put on. As soon as their first shyness had worn off, they all talked at once, and I could hear 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.’