Page 128 of The Sapphire Child
He felt sad and deeply moved by the tender inscription. How wrong he had been to doubt that Esmie had loved Harold. His mother had implied that Esmie had married the doctor merely as a way of getting to India to be near Tom. But this elegant gravestone suggested otherwise – as did the fact that Esmie and his father had brought him all the way to Taha to visit the burial site when he was a small boy.
Andrew asked, ‘Do you look after the grave, Padre?’
Bannerman shook his head. ‘Malik does. Esmie asked him to do so and Malik would have done anything for the Guthries.’
Andrew nodded. He gazed beyond the cemetery to where the sun was dipping behind the rugged mountains and turning the sky a deep rose pink. Someone went by singing a devotional song in Urdu. Standing in this peaceful place, it was hard to imagine that there was so much conflict going on in the world. For a moment, he closed his eyes, breathed in the soft evening smells and listened to the unseen singer until he’d passed and the song died away.
That’s when it came to him: the memory of standing here holding someone’s hand – most probably his father’s. Andrew breathed deeply, trying to remember more. The sound of hymn-singing; a woman’s sweet voice. He recalled looking up through the bare branches of a tree and marvelling at the clearness of dazzlingly white-capped mountains that looked like they were just beyond the cemetery wall.
‘That way lies Afghanistan, Andy.’His father’s voice. The squeeze of a hand.
Andrew felt overwhelmed by another wave of sadness. It hadn’t been his father’s hand; it had been a woman’s – his Meemee’s. He’d squeezed it back because he’d understood that she was sad and had wanted to comfort her.
Bowing his head, Andrew blinked away the tears that had begun to form and said a silent prayer for the brave doctor – and for Esmie.
He cleared his throat. ‘Thank you for bringing me here, Padre.’
Then, with the old man’s hand resting on Andrew’s shoulder, they retreated down the path together.
Chapter 46
The Raj-in-the-Hills, September 1942
‘Look!’ Esmie exclaimed. ‘She’s trying to crawl.’
At the sound of Esmie’s excited cry, Stella glanced out of the open office window. Belle was lying on her tummy in the playpen, which Tom had placed under the apple tree outside his studio so he could watch her while he painted. The baby was rocking back and forth trying to move. Tom came out to look.
He laughed. ‘She’s like a wee caterpillar, except she’s going backwards!’
Esmie beamed. ‘What a clever girl.’
Stella clenched her hands. It took all her willpower not to rush outside, scoop Belle up in her arms and smother her with congratulatory kisses. Instead she watched while Esmie leaned into the pen and patted the baby’s back.
After a few more attempts at moving on her tummy, Belle gave a whimper of protest. Tom reached in and sat her up. At five months, her little girl was sturdy with chubby legs and could sit for several minutes without toppling over on her side. Belle waved a hand at Tom. He pretended to bite it, making animal noises. She giggled. To Stella it was the sweetest sound in the world; it left her breathless every time Belle laughed.
Over the summer, Stella had watched her daughter grow into a sunny-natured baby with tufts of light brown hair and a heart-shaped face with a delicate chin and large blue eyes above plumpish cheeks. Her skin had a more ivory tinge than Stella’s – the only tell-tale sign of her Anglo-Indian heritage. Guests commented how like the baby was to Esmie, though Stella couldn’t see any similarity.
‘Those beautiful blue eyes!’ MrsPennock, a policeman’s wife, had cried. ‘So like yours, MrsLomax.’
But to Stella, the deep blue irises were the same sapphire blue as Hugh’s. When Belle gazed back at her, Stella would experience a heaviness in her chest of both longing and regret. Each evening she allowed herself a few minutes with her daughter, playing with her before Gabina took her away for a bath. She knew that by the end of the month she would be returning to Rawalpindi and would not see Belle until the following hot season.
The thought of being separated from her was like a physical pain, as if weights had been pressed on her heart. She would miss eight months of Belle’s growing up; she wouldn’t be there for her first birthday in March, and by May her daughter might be walking and saying her first words. Stella knew how thrilled Esmie would be to hear Belle say ‘Ma-ma’ for the first time.
Stella’s eyes smarted. Esmie loved Belle like her own daughter – as Stella had hoped she would – and Stella wondered if sometimes Esmie forgot that she wasn’t the baby’s real mother. It was Tom who often looked guiltily at Stella when she visited the annex and was quick to hand over Belle for a cuddle. But then Tom knew what it was like to lose a baby girl and perhaps he viewed the situation differently. Even though it had been Stella’s choice to give up Belle, both she and Tom had suffered a loss that could not be put into words.
As Stella watched now, Tom lifted Belle from the playpen and raised her up high. Belle shrieked with alarm and laughter. Tomdid it again, pretending to drop her on the way down and then cuddling her to his chest.
‘Tom, don’t!’ Esmie laughed in mock admonition, moving closer.
Tom put his arm about his wife and held them both. He kissed Esmie’s head and then Belle’s.
Blinded by tears, Stella turned away from the window and went back to her paperwork.
One afternoon a few days later, her brother Jimmy rang from The Raj Hotel with a message for Stella. The line was crackly and she had to press the receiver to her ear to hear him.
‘What’s that about MrsShankley?’ she asked anxiously.
Jimmy shouted down the phone, ‘She had a fall a week ago and hasn’t got out of bed since. She’s failing fast...Asking to see you...Might not be long in this...’ His words broke up again. Stella didn’t know if he’d said that the old missionary wouldn’t be long in the hotel, or in the world.
