Jane Coverdale - The Jasmine Wife

A division of HarperCollins Publishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Harper Impulse

an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019

Copyright © Jane Coverdale 2019

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019

Jane Coverdale asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008336301

Ebook Edition © June 2019 ISBN: 9780008336295

Version: 2020-07-24

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page The Jasmine Wife JANE COVERDALE A division of HarperCollins Publishers www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright Harper Impulse an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019 Copyright © Jane Coverdale 2019 Cover images © Shutterstock.com Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019 Jane Coverdale asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008336301 Ebook Edition © June 2019 ISBN: 9780008336295 Version: 2020-07-24

Dedication For my family

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

About the Author

About Harper Impulse

About the Publisher

For my family

Sara could hardly believe they were there at last. She had been on deck since dawn, not being able to endure the agony of waiting any longer.

At first she was unmoved by her earliest glimpse of India, except for a deep sense of relief at having survived the journey, and the curious feeling of being inside a picture book.

She stood transfixed, as parched of life as a dried flower pressed between the pages, till, all at once the breeze shifted, and carried towards her the elusive tang of the distant shore.

Her past returned with an almost magical clarity, and memories, long forgotten, crept out of the shadows to taunt and provoke her.

She remembered the sickly-sweet smell of flowers turning brown in the sun, trampled offerings, scattered and rotting on the steps of forbidding temples dedicated to fantastic and unlikely gods. The stench of open drains fused with the heady and seductive scents of sandalwood and patchouli. Patchouli! She mouthed the word almost with reverence as she breathed in a hint of the musky, ancient fragrance. There was no other perfume that spoke the essence of India with as much power. She could almost feel the touch of a thin dry hand, grasping her own, as she followed behind the hurrying figure, tottering along on her little legs, her starched muslin skirts rustling through laneways crowded with stalls and people, her eyes fixed on the bright sari as it swayed ahead of her. Her mouth watered with the memory of forgotten tastes. Mango, thick, creamy yoghurt and freshly ground nutmeg, sweet sticky rice on a banana leaf, a dish made as a special treat by her ayah, Malika.

Sara hadn’t thought about Malika for years; now all at once she was flooded with sensations threatening to unbalance her, and unravel her tightly held self-control.

Malika! Sara strained to remember her face but could recall nothing of her features, only her cool touch, deft and reassuring, her fine wrists and arms encircled with a hundred shivering and tinkling bangles, and when she walked a cloud of patchouli followed in her wake.

Malika! Who had slept at the foot of her bed, and had wailed inconsolably in her grief when she had been taken away, tearing at her thick black hair and rubbing the oil from it onto Sara’s bright curls, as though giving something of herself: a talisman, to protect her.

Sara reached for her handkerchief but could not stop the tears. All those years in England and she hadn’t cried. But the tears came fast now, choking her with deep silent sobs. Soon they subsided into a sniffle and then, with a flush of shame, she remembered where she was. She looked around and was relieved no one had seen her outburst except a dusty seagull with one leg taking a rest on the ship’s rail.

A new smell separated itself from the others, but this time Sara pressed her handkerchief, now a damp and salty rag, to her nose, though it was not possible to stifle the horror. There was the stench of death nearby.

She shaded her eyes against the rising sun and, there on the hills in the distance, she could see the skeletal outline of the Towers of Silence, tall sticks of rotting bamboo where the Parsee dead lay, on beds open to the elements and to the mercy of the scavenging birds. Against the white sky, the ragged shapes of vultures floated on the air current, too lazy and well fed to hunt for live prey.

She closed her eyes, and relived again the peculiar sensation of being inside a child’s skin and chattering to her dolls in the garden of her childhood home in Madras.

Everything there had been cool, lush and fragrant. The only sound birdsong and the soft laughter of the servants as they moved on silent feet over the marble floors of the faded mansion sheltering amongst the trees.