Adam Mars-Jones - Cedilla

‘And izh there anything wrong with my verandah?’ she asked. ‘Izh there any way in which you poshibly don’t like my verandah?’

In fact my only knowledge of verandahs and the torrid goings-on associated with them came from watching The Rains of Ranchipur , starring Richard Burton and Lana Turner ( Theirs was the great sin that even the great rains could not wash away! ), but I kept that to myself. ‘No,’ I said, trying to sound as if I was assessing the verandah by a thousand discriminating criteria, ‘I like it … quite a lot. As verandahs go I would say that the one you’ve got here is … distinguished. Altogether a high-class verandah.’

Privately I wasn’t quite so enthusiastic. The unevenness of the floor bothered me. It had a slight slope, presumably to make it easier for water to drain off when the verandah was washed or the rains came. The wheelchair wanted to veer off towards the shrubbery in the garden, but I kept the brake lightly applied. If the wheelchair did break free, there would at least be a nice cushion of shrubbery waiting to receive me. Mercifully there was no prickly pear cactus or indeed any spiky plant in that particular bed. Jasmine was curling its way up some makeshift trellising, making its contribution to the fragrance of the air.

‘ Eksh ellent!’ said Mrs Osborne. ‘Then it is on my verandah that you shall spend your days here in Tiruvannamalai.’ Without changing her tone of voice she stopped addressing me directly. ‘Arunachala has called, so he has come and is welcome!’

Wasn’t that what I’d been trying to tell her all along? Getting my message across was hard slog, always. Why did it take people so long to cotton on? If I’d known it was always going to be so hard to be recognised as a separate intelligence I wouldn’t have bothered with A-levels. A few exam certificates weren’t going to change things.

Was the verandah solution going to work, though? Just thinking about having a tuppenny (tuppenny bit rhymes with shit ) gave me a twinge of panic. Even if I managed against the odds to sleep on this small verandah, I would never be able to get inside Mrs O’s house, let alone manage the toilet. In tuppenny terms I was OK for now, but I was bound to need one tomorrow morning. Once I had realised that, it seemed simplest to go on a long fast. My lunch of sandwiches and samosas would keep me going without hardship for the rest of the day.

Austerity, fasting, self-deprivation — everything that goes by the name of tapas — is an ancient strand of Hinduism. And on the mundane level, after all: no food, no shit. One of the major reasons we eat is to maintain body temperature, and I wasn’t worried about that. It was almost unbearably hot. I would need to drink a lot to replace the moisture I was losing as sweat, but I could imagine myself becoming holier and holier in this place, without ever troubling this body with solids.

Mrs O’s face still bore traces of that kind and melting look, as though a truce had been signed between her brain and her heart. After a moment she announced that she had something special for me, and she disappeared with Rajah Manikkam somewhere into the garden. Not long after that I heard her calling out ‘John … Oh Joo-o-o-hn!!’ in something close to a motherly croon. ‘Will you please try zhome-how to cover your eyezh? I have a surprizhe to show you!’

Mere moments ago, I had been an impossible object of hospitality. Now it seemed to be my birthday all of a sudden. Still, I was happy to humour her, though properly blocking my vision takes a little arranging. If you simply close your eyes, quite a lot of light still filters through the thin capillaried layer of the lids, so that doesn’t count. When you’re asked to ‘close your eyes’ because someone has a surprise for you, a deeper level of darkness is required. So I closed them, then I put my right hand on top of my walking stick and pushed the stick upwards with my left foot. That’s how I can push the back of my hand over my eyes. I made things go pitch black in my world, my vision blocked by bone of exemplary density, while my ears, which I hadn’t been told to close, told me that there was some rather laborious shuffling and trundling going on. Then Mrs Osborne was asking me to ‘open my izhe’, and so I did.

What I saw before me was perhaps the most beautiful sight I have ever seen (æsthetic impact depending, naturally enough, on emotional context). It was an Edwardian commode, made out of wood, with arms and proper seating and a removable pot. I felt a ripple of joy in my chest and gave thanks in my heart to Arunachala for this gift.

‘We obtained it for Arthur’s use,’ Mrs Osborne explained, ‘since he was unable to manage … certain things … when he became ill. After he shed his body, I decided to keep it in his memory, but perhaps I was following a destined impulse all along. Arthur has no use for this seat now, and I know he’s delighted for it to be used again by one in need. See how well Arunachala is looking after you! I hope you realise how lucky you are.’

How could I not? Lavatories in the Western style might have caught on in Madras, but out here in the country people would never have consented to excreting indoors. Nothing could be more unnatural or oppressive. In this culture a commode made about as much sense as — I don’t know — perhaps a harpsichord gives the right idea.

What I saw when I opened my eyes at Mrs Osborne’s command was indeed a magnificent present. There was just the one commode in all of Tiruvannamalai, and I had exclusive use of it. Mine, all mine! Mrs Osborne had made a journey all the way to Bangalore to get it. I promised myself that I would think tenderly of Arthur Osborne every time I ascended his throne. Forlorn, undignified perch for him, throne of convenience and joy for me.

‘I’m very sorry about your husband,’ I said. ‘He was a great man.’

‘The body, as we know, is no more than an old coat,’ said Mrs Osborne rather crisply. ‘What sort of devotee would I be of Bhagavan if I mourned the shedding of an old coat?’ I loved hearing the word devotee on another person’s lips, since I so much wanted to claim it for myself, but I couldn’t help feeling that there was grief still liquid beneath her no-nonsense manner. Hadn’t she been chiselling a memorial tablet when we arrived, too sunk in thought to respond to our presence?

On the practical level, though, Mrs Osborne seemed more and more pleased with her solution to the problem that had been denounced so recently as imposhible . She oversaw the delivery of a bed-frame to the verandah near where I was installed, directing the gardener’s movements.

‘You know, John,’ she said, ‘there was a Swami once who lived on a verandah. He was known as “Bench Swami” — though it was more of an outshide shofa than an actual bench. He was looked after by the people whose verandah it was, and he wasn’t even invited. They brought him food. He stayed for twenty years. So I think we can manage to look after you, invited guest as you are, for a week or two.’

Black English myrrh

I felt a rush of tiredness and relief, thinking that my visit might be a success after all, and I might even enjoy my time on Mrs Osborne’s verandah. It was possible that my visit was a sort of unlooked-for blessing to her, requiring her to make decisions of an unfamiliar sort and to live in the present rather than the past.

It was time for me to ask Mrs Osborne’s gardener to fetch from the car that savoury contraband, the supply of Marmite. He carried the mighty jar into the house as if he was one of the Kings in a nativity play, bearing black myrrh, salty and very English, mystical tantalising myrrhmite, while his wife looked on uncertainly.