Page 10 of The Sapphire Child
Tom arched his aching back and downed a large whisky.
‘You should have let me do some of the driving, darling,’ Esmie said, sinking into a comfortable armchair.
‘You know I make a terrible passenger,’ Tom said with a wry smile. ‘Always wanting to grab the wheel.’ He poured himself another drink and lit a cigarette.
Stella sat by the hearth, drying her dress and sipping tea. Andrew played with Frisky, and as their play grew more boisterous the dog knocked over a side table.
‘Bed, Andy,’ his father said abruptly. ‘You’re making the dog too excitable.’
‘He likes it,’ said Andrew, continuing to tickle the dog and ignore the order.
Tom drained his drink and marched over, grabbing his son’s arm. ‘Now!’
‘Tom, not so roughly,’ Esmie cautioned.
Tom snapped at Andrew, ‘You may not be at school but you’re not on holiday either. Your mother and I will set you lessons and you’ll stick to lights-out at nine. Don’t think you’re going to run wild all summer.’
Stella took hold of a barking Frisky and calmed him down. She saw Andrew flush with humiliation as he slunk from the room.
‘I’m ready for my bed too,’ Stella said, exchanging looks with Esmie. ‘Unless there’s anything I can do?’
‘No, thanks, lassie. You must be exhausted. We’re all exhausted.’ She gave Tom a look. He was already pouring a third whisky.
Whisky was sometimes a precursor to one of Tom’s bouts of melancholia. He was obviously upset by Andrew being forced out of Nicholson’s and it had all happened at the start of the busiest time of year, when the Lomaxes were getting the hotel ready for the hot season.
Settling into her tiny bedroom at the back of the hotel, Stella determined to be optimistic. She would do all she could to help smooth things between Andrew and his parents, as well as carrying out her duties around the hotel.
Stella pulled the cool sheet up to her chin and lay back with a contented sigh. From the open window she could gaze at the stars and hear the call of a jackal in the forest beyond. She was asleep in minutes.
Chapter 5
Sometime in the night, Stella woke to the sound of footsteps in the compound. Sleepily she thought it must be the chowkidar carrying out his nightwatchman duties, but then she smelt the familiar aroma of Tom’s cigarettes. Shining her torch on the bedside clock she saw it was two in the morning. What was he doing up at this hour? Sitting up in her narrow single bed, she peered out of the window.
The moon had dipped, but there was just enough light in the starlit sky to make out the tall dark-headed figure gazing upwards and blowing smoke rings. As if sensing he was being watched, he turned and looked towards the hotel. Stella almost gasped. It was Andrew, not Tom!
But then she couldn’t help being amused; Andrew was experimenting with one of his father’s cigarettes. If Tom caught him, he’d be in even bigger trouble than he already was. But then Tom was probably deep in a whisky-induced sleep. Esmie would be more forgiving of her stepson and chase him back to bed. Should she go out there and do so herself? Was there something else worrying him – as Esmie suspected – apart from the upset over the Gotley boy?
Stella had promised to try and find out, but was this the right moment to question Andrew? She could imagine him teasing her:‘You’re not my ayah, so stop nannying me.’
Not for the first time, Stella began to think about her relationship with the Lomaxes. She was part-employee, part-friend. She’d grown up with Andrew and was probably fonder of him than her own brother, Jimmy. For the past three years, she had come to The Raj-in-the-Hills to help out wherever she was needed. She was allowed in the kitchen by Felix, the flamboyant Goan chef, to make custard tarts and choux buns. She played piano for the guests after dinner or on wet days, and she helped the ayahs entertain the children while their parents went golfing or riding.
She was also a confidante to Esmie. Stella knew that her helping out at the Gulmarg hotel allowed Tom the leeway to either be the hospitable host or to retreat to his painting studio and be alone. Esmie encouraged her husband in his art, telling Stella,‘He’s a fine artist and it’s good for his mental health.’
She was on the point of climbing out of bed to go and join Andrew outside when she saw him lick his finger and thumb and extinguish the cigarette stub. He retreated to the hotel annex, dropping the stub into a plant pot as he went. The moment had gone. She lay awake until it was almost dawn, puzzling over what was causing the boy to be so restless.
The next few days were hectic. Stella spent hours helping Karo, the Pathan sewing woman, make bedroom curtains out of the bolts of cloth from Saddar bazaar. She went over menus and checklists with Esmie and helped Tom paint some old bedside cabinets white. Bijal oversaw a top-to-bottom spring clean of all the rooms, made sure the mali had the gardens looking neat and that the syce had the ponies and mules ready for the guests arriving.
All the while, Andrew was confined to Tom’s office where he sweated over maths problems and science questions that Esmie hadset him. On the fourth day, when Stella took him a glass of milk and a biscuit, he looked up hopefully.
‘Can you help me with this?’
Tom put his head around the door. ‘No, she can’t. Stella is helping Esmie.’
Andrew put his head in his hands. He had blue ink on his fingers from fiddling with his pen. ‘These are too difficult,’ he complained. ‘Can’t I read a book instead?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Tom.
Stella retreated with a smile of sympathy. Outside the door, she said to Tom, ‘Would you like me to take him for a walk? He’d be doing games if he was at school and maybe some exercise might help him concentrate better on his lessons.’
