Merryn Allingham - Daisy's Long Road Home

He took her by the shoulders and swivelled her around. ‘Who sent this package?’

‘It was from Jocelyn, Jocelyn Forester. Though that’s not her name now, of course.’

‘She’s living in Assam, isn’t she? I think you told me she married a tea planter.’

Daisy’s eyes were stinging with unshed tears but she took a deep breath and said levelly, ‘She did and Assam is miles away from Jasirapur. But she went back there recently. Her parents are leaving after twenty years—imagine—and they’re returning to England. She travelled down to help her mother pack up the bungalow and clear all the unwanted stuff they’ve accumulated. It’s amazing what you hoard over twenty years.’ She felt on firmer ground now.

Grayson frowned. ‘Is Colonel Forester leaving the army then?’

‘Yes. Leaving or maybe retiring early. The Indian Army has been disbanded, I believe.’

‘Well, there’s a new Indian army. But you’re right, the old regiments have been divided up.’

‘Jocelyn said in her letter that as the 7 thCavalry was a mixed regiment, the Hindu soldiers had to join the new Indian army and—’

‘—and their Moslem brothers-in-arms had to leave for Pakistan,’ he finished for her.

‘She said her father was very cut up about it and it made him decide to leave the military altogether.’

‘I heard it was the same for most of the British officers and you can’t blame them. Showing a preference for one faith or the other goes against the IA’s founding principles. It’s a miserable business though. You can divide equipment easily enough, but not people.’

He drifted away towards the window and seemed to be watching the small boy on the pavement opposite trying to launch his new kite on a near windless day. But she knew he wasn’t seeing the child; in thought he was back in India and very soon he would be there in body too.

‘Sorry, daydreaming,’ he said apologetically. ‘You still haven’t told me what was in this mysterious package.’

She joined him by the window and, side by side, they stood looking out on the now empty street. She was back in control of her feelings and able to tell him calmly what she knew.

‘When Jocelyn finished working on the bungalow, the colonel asked her to sort out the regimental stuff. Not the obvious things that were to be shared between the two countries—equipment, furniture, pictures, the mess china—those kinds of things. But the odds and ends that no one knew what to do with. It’s not only bungalows that collect unwanted stuff.’

At the thought of those odds and ends, that unwanted stuff, the tight control she’d forced on herself began to waver and it was a little while before she could go on. ‘Anish’s belongings were there.’ Even now it hurt to mention him.

‘I see.’

She knew that he did. More than anyone, Grayson was aware of how Anish’s death had haunted her over the years.

She struggled to find a lighter note. ‘The adjutant was tired of trying to find someone who would take them, so he was delighted when Jocelyn put in an appearance. Apparently he’d spent a lot of time attempting to trace relatives, only to discover when he found them—I believe the mother’s family live not too distant from Jasirapur—that they wanted nothing to do with it. Anish may have been a hero to his regiment, but he was someone his family wished to forget.’

‘That’s hardly surprising, is it? You told me yourself there was a deep rift between Rana and his uncle.’

‘There was, but it’s still painful to think of.’ The silence stretched between them before she began again. ‘After that, the adjutant looked for someone in the father’s family. But that failed too. The Ranas are somewhere in Rajasthan, but he couldn’t locate them. Captain Laughton sent several messengers around the region, but no one came forward. I don’t believe Anish had any contact with his family, not after his father died.’

‘So Jocelyn sent you his things?’

‘Not things in the plural. Just one thing. The rest were auctioned for regimental funds. She sent me something she thought I might like. She said she knew how close I was to him.’

Her voice had dropped to little more than a whisper. ‘It was a purse, a small pink purse made from the softest leather and fastened with a crimson drawstring. When I unpacked it, it smelt of India. The purse was very pretty,’ she went on quickly, ‘though not terribly practical. But I don’t believe it was ever supposed to be. It must have belonged to Anish’s mother, perhaps the only thing of hers that he kept.’

Grayson looked at her for a moment and then said gently, ‘I can see that Jocelyn’s letter has dredged up bad memories for you.’

She was grateful for his understanding. ‘I’ve pushed them away, you know. The memories. All these years since I left India. Tried not to think what happened there, tried to keep those months separate from the rest of my life. But opening that package brought it rushing back.’

‘It is just a purse,’ he reminded her.

She shook her head. ‘It’s more than a purse, more than a keepsake. It’s a jab in the ribs, a reminder that I always intended to go back. To exorcise the ghosts, wasn’t that what you said?’

They fell silent, remembering the pledge they’d made to each other when their love had been new and intoxicating. ‘But you chose Brighton instead,’ he joked, trying to dispel the tension.

She turned away from the window and switched on the battered standard lamp that hunched in one corner. The small windowpanes let in little light and the day was already waning. Then she looked across at Grayson and spoke the thought that had been gathering in her for weeks. His arrival had only sharpened its edge. She knew she had to get out of this poky cottage, away from her noisy, nosy neighbour, away from Miss Thornberry and her constant carping.

‘I’m thinking of going back to London.’

‘Back to London?’ He sounded bemused but angry too. ‘You’re going back to town the very moment I’m leaving?’

The light was dim but it didn’t stop her seeing the bitterness in to his face.

‘But how convenient for you. I won’t be in London, so you won’t need to find an excuse for not meeting me. Did you plan this stroke of genius while we’ve been talking? I’ve got to hand it to you, Daisy, you can be utterly ruthless when you need to be.’

The injustice stung her. She stood back from him, her small figure stiff with outrage. ‘That’s unfair, dreadfully unfair. If you must know, the idea has been in my mind for weeks. I wasn’t sure whether I should cut my losses and leave, but when I saw you today, I knew I had to.’

‘Why?’ His tone was pugnacious.

‘I don’t know. I came to Brighton for the wrong reasons, I guess. I knew my mother had nursed here and I had some stupid idea that if I followed in her footsteps, worked in a local hospital, lived close to where she’d lived, I would feel her presence. That somehow I’d discover more about her. More about me. But it was a crazy idea and it’s been a wretched failure. I haven’t felt her near me for one minute and I’ve found nothing to remind me of her, nothing to say she was ever even in the town. Except the entry we saw years ago in the Pavilion archives.’

He looked at her measuringly. ‘So Brighton wasn’t about promotion after all?’

‘Only very slightly,’ she confessed. ‘And that hasn’t worked either.’

The bitterness had vanished from his face and, in its place, there was the beginning of warmth. He reached out and took her hand and she felt it lying cold in his palm. ‘You won’t want to hear this, but it seems to me that your drive to uncover a past you can’t know has brought you nothing but upset. I wish you’d get this identity thing out of your hair. It’s messing up your life.’