The Kashmir Shawl. Rosie Thomas

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СКАЧАТЬ days later Dr Tsering paid Nerys another visit, this time at the mission, and declared that she was fit to travel.

      In surprise she protested, ‘But I’m not planning to travel anywhere.’

      Myrtle’s company had restored her spirits. They had enjoyed their hours of what Archie McMinn called pincushion time, although the only actual sewing they did was to make simple costumes for a playlet acted by the children. Mostly they had played games with the smallest infants, and walked in the bazaar, and exchanged details of their contrasting histories. Nerys had talked about Wales, and startled herself by describing the low grey crags and mist-filled valleys with a longing she didn’t even know she had been feeling.

      In turn Myrtle explained that she was the daughter of an Indian Civil Service official, and her childhood had been parcelled out between relatives in England and annual visits to India. ‘I didn’t see much of my ma and pa,’ she said succinctly.

      Archie was a railway engineer, and in a few days’ time his annual long leave would be over. Myrtle and he were going back to Srinagar, and Nerys already knew how much she would miss her new friend.

      Archie had been busy every day, paying off his hunting servants and pony men, making arrangements for the heads he had bagged, engaging more men for the return journey to Kashmir, and visiting the commissioner and the other Leh notables. But one morning, looking grave after returning from the Residency, he strolled from the mission veranda into the room where Evan’s predecessor’s old wireless stood. ‘It would be useful to get the BBC news,’ he murmured.

      ‘That wireless has never worked, I’m afraid,’ Evan explained stiffly. ‘Not in our time.’

      Archie nodded, and unscrewed the back to investigate the innards. Within an hour he had established that there was nothing wrong except that the massive battery was flat. The Residency had a wireless and so did the Gomperts, so the most important news from the outside world reached them quite quickly, but for everything else the Watkinses had to wait for newspapers and letters to make their way overland. Evan agreed that it would be most useful if the mission’s wireless could be coaxed back into service. That same day, four coolies and a bullock cart ferried the weighty lead-acid battery down to the Indus, where it was hooked up to the water-powered generator. The next day, accompanied by a parade of dancing children, it made the reverse journey.

      With the children still looking on, Archie went to work with pliers and a screwdriver. After a few minutes a sudden torrent of static burst out of the fretwork front panel. The startled audience screeched and fell over each other to get away from it. He twisted the knobs and the static dissolved into a babble of voices, and then the jaunty cadence of an English folk song. The children’s eyes widened with amazement.

      Archie brushed his palms together. ‘There we are.’

      That evening after Diskit had cleared the dinner plates, they pulled their chairs close to the dusted and polished set and listened to the news.

      German troops had reached Leningrad, and the city would soon be surrounded. The European war was creeping closer. Even Leh no longer felt removed from the threat.

      Evan slid a bookmark between the pages of his Bible before he closed it. ‘Nerys, I think it would be a good idea if you were to go with Mr and Mrs McMinn to Srinagar. Mr McMinn has kindly offered to escort you.’

      Nerys let her knitting drop. Myrtle’s eyes met hers, and she read surprise in them. This was an idea the two men had hatched, without reference to their wives. Dr Tsering was evidently in on the plot too. To contain her anger she made herself count five stitches in her work, then asked composedly, ‘Why would I do that?’

      ‘You might enjoy a short holiday, and it would consolidate your strength before the winter.’

      ‘And what about you?’

      He paused, then said, ‘We have spoken about this, my dear. I am going out of Leh to visit a few of the villages, and the more far-flung settlements. I must take the Lord to the people, not sit here expecting the people to come to the Lord.’

      Out of the corner of her eye Nerys saw Archie McMinn stretch out his long legs. She resumed her steady knitting. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘we shouldn’t bore our guests with this debate. We can talk about it later.’

      Myrtle said gently, ‘I would love to have your company, Nerys. If it’s helpful for you to know that.’

      But later, once Evan had brought the shaft of cold air into their bed, enquired if Nerys was ready and blown out the candle, he merely said, ‘Goodnight, my dear.’

      She turned her head on the pillow and glared at his dark shape. ‘Is that all?’

      He drew away from her, by no more than half an inch, but she felt it. That small movement told her everything. Evan no longer saw her as his companion and supporter but as yet another source of anxiety. He would feel easier without her, and he would be freer to carry the mission work out of Leh. He didn’t want to abandon her altogether, though. To send her off to Srinagar with the McMinns must seem the perfect solution. She could follow his thinking exactly, and all she could really object to was his suggestion that what she needed in order to recover from the loss of their baby was a lakeside holiday without him.

      ‘All?’

      ‘I don’t want to go to Srinagar. Thank you for thinking of it, but I don’t want to go anywhere if it means leaving you behind.’

      ‘Separation is one of the penalties of the work I do, Nerys.’

      He was like a wall, she thought. A blank wall that shut out the view, and endlessly denied that there was anything to be seen.

      She tried another tack. ‘What about my schoolchildren?’

      ‘I expect they will enjoy a holiday too.’ He sighed with the beginnings of exasperation. ‘I don’t know why you are objecting to the idea. I thought you would be pleased. You like Mrs McMinn, don’t you?’

      ‘Yes, very much.’

      ‘Then go and stay with her, enjoy a rest, recuperate. I will cover the ground between here and Kargil more slowly, and investigate the work that might be done in future, if we ever have more people. Then I will come down to Srinagar to meet you, and we shall travel back to Leh together.’

      ‘All this, before the snow comes?’

      ‘It is only the beginning of September, but if the weather happens to be against us the Lord will direct our actions.’

      ‘Do you really want me to go?’

      The mattress rustled as he minutely shifted his weight. ‘I think it would be a good idea.’

      ‘Very well,’ Nerys said, in a cold voice that she didn’t want to acknowledge as her own.

      Three days later, her bag stood in the mission courtyard beside the McMinns’ luggage, waiting to be loaded on to the first relay of ponies. Nerys handed out apples and dried apricots to the scrum of Leh children, not just her pupils, who were staring through the gate at all the activity. Diskit’s three grimy offspring were among them, and Diskit herself stood on the house steps in tears. She wasn’t wearing her headcloth. Nerys put down the fruit basket and went to her. ‘Don’t cry. I’ll be back in two months’ time. Sahib will bring me home.’

      Diskit СКАЧАТЬ