Daisy's Long Road Home. Merryn Allingham
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Mrs Harte’s friends, clustered in their small, genteel enclave of Pimlico, had not been the problem. It had been Daisy herself. His proposal had stunned her. It was as though a stranger had asked to be her husband. After the first shock of rejection, he’d felt angry. Gerald Mortimer had died in dreadful circumstances but that had been seven years ago and, long before then, Daisy had come to know him for what he was—an adventurer, a liar, a betrayer. Memories of her dead husband could not be preventing her from saying yes, so what was? It was hard to swallow but he was forced to the simple conclusion that Daisy had no desire to marry. She was determined to stay a single, independent woman. She had no wish to share her life in any meaningful way. It was sufficient for her to see him from time to time, but she wanted no greater commitment. He’d told her plainly what he thought of that arrangement and the next thing he’d known, she’d taken a job fifty miles away and moved there without telling him. He’d lost heart then; it was better to let her slip away. His mother had been consolatory. She had begun to think that Daisy saying no was a good thing. The girl had been harmed by her harsh upbringing and would never settle to married life. After all, she had never known a family had she, so how could she create a successful one of her own?
Grayson hadn’t accepted his mother’s logic, but a part of him acknowledged there was some small truth in what Mrs Harte had said. He’d seen for himself that Daisy had not escaped her life unharmed. She’d fought the fight well and to all intents and purposes, she’d come through, but there remained a large void in her which she’d been unable to fill. And he’d been unable to help her. This was why she was here. This was what she was chasing by coming to India, a chase that, in his view, was doomed to failure and could mean only more heartache. He understood how the gaps in her story tormented her, but he couldn’t for the life of him see how coming here could help fill them. His best hope was what he’d always believed—that coming back to India would help her deal with the very bad memories she still carried.
The next morning she was already eating her chota hazri when Grayson made an appearance. He looked at her and she saw him smile.
‘Lovely dress, Daisy. But much too good for the bazaar. ‘
‘On the contrary. I have to compete with some very beautiful women and some very beautiful saris.’ Her polka dot sundress was young and fresh but against the richness of Indian materials, she knew it would go unnoticed.
‘No competition. You’ll win hands down.’ She felt herself flush beneath his gaze. She would have to be careful. She buried herself in the plate of small, sweet cakes that Ahmed had left to tempt her.
Grayson said no more and made no effort to join her at the table, ignoring the customary small breakfast and downing two cups of coffee while he stood by the window.
‘It’s going to be hotter today, if that’s possible,’ he opined. He was looking out at the garden, which was already shimmering in the heat. ‘We’d better get going unless we want to fry in the jeep.’
There were few other vehicles on the road. Several bullock carts passed them, heading out of town, and for a while they were caught behind a small boy who was driving his flock of goats to the fields. Eventually, he peeled away from the main thoroughfare and, with loud yells and brutal whackings of his stick, herded the beasts down the narrow lane leading to their barren grazing.
Grayson picked up speed again and they were halfway to the centre of town when he said suddenly, ‘Would you like to take a look at the old place?’
He meant the old bungalow, she knew, the one she’d shared with Gerald and his malevolent servant, the one that had stored stolen guns for a group of outlawed fighters and nearly cost her her life. She felt beads of perspiration on her forehead.
‘You don’t have to put yourself through it,’ he said quietly. ‘But I thought it might help.’
Would it help? She didn’t think so, yet she knew she had to see the house again. For years, she’d hoped she could break free of its frightening shadow. Grayson seemed certain that she had, that she’d coped with the past far better than she realised. But she knew differently. She hadn’t coped with it. Not really. Not deep down. She’d muffled it in bandages, layer upon layer of them. And though she’d wanted to come back to India, secretly she’d been sceptical that a return could act as any kind of purification. But here she was, and she owed it to herself to take whatever chance offered to lose the millstone she carried.
‘Yes, let’s take a look,’ she said, as casually as she could.
It was a shock when she saw the place. The garden had always been unkempt, Gerald having little interest and even less money to keep it under control. But now the alfalfa grass had grown almost to the roof line and a weed she couldn’t put a name to had started its inexorable colonisation, gripping the whitewashed walls in iron tentacles. Rajiv’s quarters to the right were almost submerged beneath the wilderness. As she looked across at the rooms he’d inhabited, she could conjure no clear picture, no clear vision of him emerging from his door, sullen-faced, suspicious, hostile. That was good. That particular image was rubbed clean.
‘It looks pretty dilapidated,’ Grayson said.
‘It never looked anything else.’
‘Not quite as bad as this though. In the ten years since you left, I don’t think it’s had a lick of paint. And see, several of the shutters are off their hinges. They won’t afford the house any kind of protection—and there’s a hole appearing in the thatch. Come the monsoon, the rain will pour through that roof and drown the interior. I imagine rot has already set in. A few more years and the house will crumble inwards.’
‘A waste of a bungalow,’ she remarked, though privately thinking that crumbling was exactly what was needed. If the house lay in ruins, she would be happy. It had only ever been the garden that she’d loved and that was beyond saving.
‘It is a waste. It would have made someone a good home. I made a few enquiries.’ That was news to her. So this unscripted visit wasn’t quite so unscripted. ‘The army tried to sell it as soon as they knew the regiment was to disband—they must have acquired the property years ago—and they were willing to sell at a knockdown price. But there were no takers. No one would even move in for free. The locals won’t come near the place.’
‘Because of what happened here?’
‘That hasn’t helped, certainly. The gang has become notorious in the district.’
Anish, too, she imagined. He would be just as notorious. ‘But they’re all in prison.’
‘That makes no difference. India is a land of superstition and superstition ensures that the gang will return to haunt the place. It doesn’t help either that the house was built on an ancestral burial ground. That in itself would be reason enough for the locals to avoid it. Far too many ghosts.’
Ghosts, she thought ironically. The ghosts she was supposed foolishly to have seen when she tried to talk to Gerald of her fears. Those particular spirits had turned out to be entirely flesh and blood, and criminal flesh and blood at that. But she’d had other phantoms to face and they were still with her. She turned away and walked back to the jeep. If she’d hoped the visit might prove an exorcism, it had been unsuccessful.
Grayson dropped her at the edge of the bazaar and then disappeared in a swirl of dust, intent on a mission that would take him deep into the network of narrow alleys and hidden courtyards. For most of that morning, he would be only a few hundred yards from her but she was sure she would see nothing more of him. He would keep a low profile and so must she. She’d had second thoughts about asking questions today. It might be better to postpone them until a second visit and in the meantime, learn or relearn her way around the sprawl of shops and traders.
She spent several delightful hours wandering between brilliantly coloured stalls and, despite her best intentions not to buy until she left for home,