Tulku

18

THEODORE WAITED IN the small room to which he had been shown by a servant wearing a black jacket and striped trousers – the butler, he guessed. The room smelt strongly of many things, especially damp dogs. A row of waterproofs and great-coats hung along one wall. The two chairs were upholstered in shiny red leather, padded with horse hair, and crackled angrily when one sat down, as if they were not used to such treatment. The pictures on the walls were of men in tall hats galloping on stretched-out horses under a moonlit sky. Outside the single sash window a pale sun shone, but the morning’s rain still dripped from trees onto the gravel of the driveway where Theodore’s cab waited. The cab-horse had a vague look of Albert about it.

Sooner than Theodore had expected the butler returned.

‘This way, if you please, sir,’ he said.

His manner had changed. When Theodore had been trying to persuade him to take the note to his master at once, instead of leaving it to lie with the letters on the sideboard in the hall, he had been very stiff and in his cold way hostile. Now, though still stiff, he was respectful and even faintly inquisitive. Theodore followed him across the hall, with its polished floor and Persian rugs and cases of porcelain and trophies of animal heads along the walls, then down a short corridor to a door which the butler opened and held for him.

‘The young gentleman, sir,’ he intoned.

‘Ah. Come in,’ said a man’s voice, light, musical, tense.

This room was quite large. Tobacco smoke mingled with the powdery scent of chrysanthemums which, with a number of plants Theodore had never seen, stood in large pots around the floor. Two large windows with heavy stone mullions looked out over a valley towards bare hills. The sweep of wood Mrs Jones had told him about – ‘just right for his lilies’ – curled down the slope to the left, dark cones of pine spiring among the last tattered golds of autumn. Theodore knew that the house was less than ten years old, but it felt as though it had stood here for a long time and housed many generations of rich men. He could only guess that most of the objects in the room were expensive, just as most of the plants in the pots were exotic and rare, but that was not the reason why they were there. They were there because they suited the taste of the man they belonged to, and so the room felt as though it had taken shape round a single personality. In the hearth a couple of logs smoked in thin blue streams on a pile of white ash, and over the fireplace was a portrait of a woman, painted in profile to show the richness of her red-gold hair and the almost bird-like fineness of her profile. The picture fitted the room too.

Not much to look at, Mrs Jones had said, a little bloke, trim, something about him made him look like he’s just been polished, even in the middle of a jungle . . .

Nothing about the description was wrong, but there was something else which Theodore felt he should have been prepared for, but wasn’t – a vitality, a quickness of glance, a sense of hard intelligence poised cat-like behind the façade of this small neat man in his quiet tweeds.

‘I’m Monty German,’ the man said. ‘I believe you are Theodore Tewker. How do you do?’

‘Pleased to meet you, sir.’

‘How is she? When did you see her? Does she need help?’

‘She was fine four months ago, sir.’

‘That sounds a bit final. Are you sure she’s all right? You’re telling the truth? She’s not dead?’

‘No sir. She’s become a Buddhist . . .’

‘Daisy! What else? There’s something else.’

‘Yes sir. I said she was fine when I saw her, but she’s going to have a baby . . .’

Mr German’s face went white. He had been standing in front of the hearth, but now he took a quick step towards Theodore and stopped.

‘When?’ he whispered.

‘In about six weeks, I guess.’

‘Has she good doctors?’

‘No, sir. She says she doesn’t need them. She’s in a monastery in Tibet, and a monk called the Lama Amchi has been teaching her how to control her bodily functions. She told me to tell you that she’ll have the baby as easy as rain in April. She told me to use those words. I think she’s right, sir.’

‘Are you a Buddhist too, Mr Tewker?’

‘No, sir. I’m a member of the Congregation of Christ Jesus.’

‘You’d better sit down and tell me a bit more. I must say I don’t understand much of what you’re talking about – in fact I can’t make head or tail of it. I wasn’t certain at first, but I’ve decided that you haven’t come to try and get money out of me.’

‘No, sir. Mrs Jones made the Lamas give me enough money – I sailed first class from India, and I have enough to pay my passage to the States, and then some.’

‘All right, but if you need any more . . . sit in that chair.’

Unlike the chairs in the room where Theodore had first waited, these had been designed to make the sitter comfortable, and felt as though they had often done so; but Theodore perched on the edge of his, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, concentrating on telling his story as exactly and unemotionally as possible. As he spoke the sense grew in him that by telling the story to the one man who was entitled to hear it all he was somehow disposing of it, detaching it from his life and setting himself free. Mrs Jones had asked him to lay a ghost for her, but he found he was also doing something of the sort for himself. Though he would always remember these last months, henceforth they would no longer haunt him.

Mr German didn’t interrupt. At one point he rose and tugged at a wide embroidered ribbon which hung down the wall by the fire, and a little later the butler came in carrying a silver tray with two glasses, a green bottle and a silver jug. He opened the bottle with a pop and poured a glass of pale foaming liquid, which he handed to Mr German; then he fetched a low table to beside Theodore’s chair and poured him a tall glass of orange. Theodore, who had stopped talking at a nod from Mr German as soon as the butler had entered, sipped his drink while he made up the fire and as soon as the door closed resumed his story.

It was all there, waiting to be uncoiled like a hawser running smoothly off a deck – the burning of the Settlement, Mrs Jones riding Sir Nigel down the rain-soaked track to stare at the broken bridge, the rout of her treacherous porters, Mrs Jones riding between the smoking huts, the journey’s start, P’iu-Chun’s house, the ambush in the woods, the night at the rock pillar, the idyll in the valley of lilies, the flight to the bridge, the Lama Amchi, and all the slow accumulating change in her, right down to Theodore’s last talk with her in her mountain cave. The only things he left out of the story were his own doubts and fears and miseries. Otherwise he put it all in. Things which he would have been embarrassed or ashamed to say to anyone else seemed necessary and therefore easy.

When he’d finished he looked up. Mr German was lying stretched out in his chair with his glass beside him, barely touched. There was a long silence.

‘This fellow Lung?’ said Mr German. ‘He’s all right?’

‘I liked him, sir.’

‘So did Daisy, evidently, and that’s recommendation enough for me. But that’s not what I meant. Does he need any help?’

‘He was still very weak when we got to Darjeeling, sir, but we met up there with Professor Lockwood and his wife . . .’

‘Yes, of course. Daisy told you to call on them?’

‘Yes, sir. They said they would look after Lung.’

‘I’ll cable Lockwood. My bank’s got a branch in Poona. I’ll cable them too. I could get him a job with our people in Hong Kong . . . but I should think the first thing he’ll do is try to get back, wouldn’t you?’

‘To Dong Pe? Yes, sir. But they won’t let him into Tibet.’

‘Well, we’ll do the best we can for him, one way or another. What about you?’

‘I’m going home, sir. I have my passage booked from Liverpool on Thursday.’

‘Sure that’s what you want? We can cancel the passage. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like.’

‘Thank you, sir, but I’d better be getting back to Bluff City. I must tell the Congregation what happened to Father and the Settlement.’

‘Yes, of course. And then?’

‘I will finish my schooling and wait God’s will.’

‘You won’t go back to China?’

‘If He guides me . . . but . . .’

‘Yes. After what you’ve seen and felt it must be difficult to be so certain about things.’

That was true, but it was only partly true. If the foundations which Father had given him had been shaken, Theodore had discovered other foundations beneath, broader and more enduring. The thought of Father nudged his mind.

‘I guess I’d like to go back to China, sir. I want to see if I can rebuild that bridge.’

‘Good idea . . . And you won’t forget me, will you, wherever you find yourself. I might be some use some day. The business I work for has a lot of connections in most parts of the world. And if ever you need money for what you’re doing . . .’

‘Thank you, sir. I’ll remember.’

‘I hope you do.’

There was another pause before Theodore felt in his jacket pocket and pulled out a long, thin envelope from which he took a sheet of fibrous Tibetan paper, folded in three. It was a picture of Mrs Jones he had drawn one afternoon, quite early in their time at Dong Pe, while she was working in her little garden. Because of the steepness of the ground she and Theodore had terraced the patch with rough stone walls, so that it was possible to stand at one level and work, barely stooping, at the next level up. Mrs Jones was in just such a pose, wearing her riding-cloak and travelling hat. Her face was hidden, but of the dozen or so pictures Theodore had made of her this was the only one he liked. He had brought it, but had not decided till this moment whether to show it to Mr German.

Mr German leaned across and took the paper, unfolding it with precise small fingers. He stared at the drawing for some time.

‘Yours?’ he said at last.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I would know her on the dark side of the moon,’ said Mr German quietly.

‘You may keep it if you want, sir.’

Mr German’s glance didn’t falter, but Theodore was aware of the portrait above the fireplace, a presence in the room.

‘No,’ said Mr German. ‘No. But seeing her digging away like that reminds me – we’d better take care of this lily you’ve brought me. I wonder whether it’s still all right. Where is it?’

‘In a box in the cab, sir.’

‘Cab? Of course. We’ll have to see your cabbie’s looked after – we’ll be some time yet.’

* * *

They were standing on the rain-glistening gravel by the front door – Theodore holding the precious box while Mr German explained to the cabdriver how to find refreshment for himself and his horse – when a boy on a bicycle came swirling down the slope and stopped in a scatter of small stones by putting both heels to the ground and letting them slither. It was the first bicycle Theodore had seen close to. The boy was about nine, dressed in a stiff tweed jacket with sharp-stitched pockets, and knickerbockers of the same material.

‘Hello, Dave,’ said Mr German.

‘Hello, Uncle. What’ve you got there? Early Christmas present?’

‘All the way from Tibet. This is Theodore Tewker – my nephew David. Mr Tewker brought me the present.’

‘How do you do?’ said the boy. ‘Is he telling the truth? Miss Tancred says nobody is allowed to go to Tibet.’

‘I went there by accident,’ said Theodore.

The boy looked at him doubtfully, not sure whether he was being teased. He was slight and small-boned like Mr German, but with long-lashed large eyes under heavy black brows. The eyes were much greyer than Mrs Jones’s.

‘Since you are so conveniently mounted,’ said Mr German, ‘you might perhaps be kind enough to ride your machine down to the Heather Garden and find Mr Bancroft. Ask him to meet me in the greenhouses.’

‘Yip-yip-yip-yip,’ shrilled the boy, and sped away, still yipping. Mr German turned and led the way through an arch into a walled garden. Two men in sacking aprons were digging a trench round a small tree in the central lawn, and Mr German strolled across to watch them.

‘She’ll move all right, sir,’ said the man at the bottom of the trench, rubbing his hand along the inner wall and caressing a few brown root-fibres. ‘No more’n a few roots come out this far – she’s a slow starter, ain’t she? Six years she been here.’

‘Don’t be too sure, Tom,’ said Mr German. ‘I’ve never moved one before but I have a fancy she’ll sulk. Sure you can handle a ball that big?’

The three men discussed the problem of lifting the tree out complete with the earth it had grown in while Theodore waited dreamily in the soft and sighing air. At last Mr German turned away.

‘One of my mistakes,’ he said. ‘Putting a eucryphia in a place like that – too tame, too tame.’

‘She said you had chosen the place for your eucryphia.’

‘Ah, that one’s all right,’ said Mr German with a sudden astonishing smile. ‘I wish you’d been here two months ago to see it. Gardeners always say that, don’t they? Best thing in the garden. Daisy and I walked all round here one sopping morning, talking about that sort of thing. I still thought she was going to share it with me then . . . ah, here’s Mr Bancroft.’

They had come out on the far side of the walled garden into an area of sheds and glass-houses. A stout little man was waiting there. He was dressed in black trousers and a black waistcoat, a blue striped shirt and white collar, with a black tie. He wore a curious black bowler hat, which he doffed to Mr German. His hand when Theodore shook it was as rough as sandstone.

‘Mr Tewker’s brought us a lily, Mr Bancroft,’ said Mr German.

Mr Bancroft grunted unexcitedly, as though he had heard better news in his time.

‘I think it’s the first one to be collected,’ said Mr German. There was an odd note in his voice, both anxious and humorous, as though he thought it desperately important to please this sombre gnome, and at the same time was amused by his own need to do so. He succeeded, to the extent that a gleam came into the gnome’s bloodshot eye.

‘Ah,’ said Mr Bancroft. ‘Let’s have a squint at ‘un, then. Travelled a good bit, I’ll be bound.’

He took the box from Theodore and led the way into the nearest glass-house. Moving very deliberately he opened the lid, drew out the inner package and with a thin-bladed ancient pen-knife slit the sacking away. Theodore began to feel nervous, remembering all his care on the journey, his reading and re-reading Mrs Jones’s instructions, his dreams while he lay in the near-delirium of fever in Calcutta, waiting for the boat to sail, and kept imagining monstrous rats attacking the frail bulb.

‘I’d have brought you seed,’ he said. ‘Only it wasn’t ripe when the bandits attacked us.’

Mr Bancroft answered with his normal dull grunt; bandits were no excuse for failing to bring ripe seed. The glass-house was warm and still, smelling of rich earth and the remains of grapes. Along the ranked shelving azaleas were coming into flower, and lower down innumerable small pots each bore a white label and a wisp of green growth.

‘This is Mr Bancroft’s workshop,’ said Mr German in a stagey whisper. ‘I’ll show you the ones with all the flowers in later.’

‘Ah,’ said Mr Bancroft, probing at last into the packing of moss around the bulb. The backs of his hands were covered with coarse black hair. His fingers moved like creatures of the soil, tender and firm, nudging their way through the loose stuff to ease the bulb free. He brought it out and held it up, pressing with short, broad thumbs against its unfolded scales.

‘Dried out a morsel, her has,’ he said. ‘More’n a morsel. Ah. But there’s life there still. Yes, Mr Monty, we’ll get a bloom out of her yet. Yes, there’s life there still.’

Dazed with the mild warmth and the sense of ending, Theodore watched Mr Bancroft’s fingers fondle the crabbed root. The universe seemed to hum around this centre. The panes of the walls and roof were the facets of an inward-watching eye, focused not on any of the three humans but on the lily-bulb. Yes, perhaps there was life there, a soul there, a soul being watched at the very start of its almost endless journey up the river, its struggle through life after life, against the rushing current of created things, until it reached the source of its being, which would also be its ending.

Now Mr Bancroft was bending to scoop dark fine earth out of a bin into a red clay pot. Carefully he settled the bulb into the earth, spreading its frail remaining roots around it, and then began to dribble more earth down the gap between the bulb and the wall of the pot. While he worked he murmured.

‘Ah, yes, my beauty,’ said Mr Bancroft. ‘Yes, yes. There’s life there, aren’t there?’

THE END