Monsoon Summer by Julia Gregson Page A

with all those blasted nosy parkers listening in.”
    She was almost levitating with rage as she took off her apron, put on her coat and a head scarf, and we walked out together into a raw autumn morning to have it out with each other.
    â€œOh, don’t you bloody well come,” she said when the poor old Labrador tried to squeeze through the door with us. There was a yelp as she slammed the door shut and caught his front paw.
    * * *
    We took the track that led through the avenue of elms and into Shakenoak Wood. Autumn leaves lay in brilliant soggy piles under our feet, and when two fallow deer did grand jetés across our path and disappeared into the woods, neither of us remarked on them.
    At the end of the track, I undid the hunter’s gate, and when we stepped into the wood, I was close enough to hear her breathing, which was hoarse and labored.
    â€œI am going to marry him,” I said. “Try not to mind too much.”
    â€œWell, I do mind,” she said. Her eyes were very black, her skin very pale. “Because if you marry him, you will be dead to me.” Those were her exact words.
    â€œAre you serious? Is it so bad to marry the man you love?” I said.
    â€œOh, love,” she said, as if it were some dog mess she’d stepped in. “It will be an absolute disaster. You know nothing about it.”
    My mother always refused to wear galoshes or Wellingtons, saying they made her feel “elephanty,” and now, walking blindly ahead of me, she stepped into a puddle, splashing her good shoes and stockings with mud.
    â€œDon’t touch me.” She flinched as I tried to lead her to drier land. “I’m so ashamed of what you’ve done.” A tear rolled down her face.
    â€œMummy,” I said, as she dashed it away with the corner of herhead scarf. I felt cold and determined to keep myself separate from her in a way I’d never felt before. “There’s something else I must ask you because I keep thinking people know something about me that I don’t know.”
    â€œPeople will say what they want to say.” She spat; her complexion had gone the sort of khaki-green color it went when she was really upset. “They’re spiteful.”
    â€œBut what is it they’re not saying?” I was the tearful one now.
    She shook her head violently. “About what?”
    â€œYou? My father? Why is it always so bloody mysterious?”
    â€œWhy do you go on like this, on and on and on at me.” She made a stabbing gesture with her hand as if I were eviscerating her.
    â€œBecause I’m leaving and I have to know.”
    â€œYou won’t like it.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œBecause it’s not nice.”
    A mizzling rain started to fall as we stepped into a deeper part of the wood. I stared at the silk head scarf my mother had retied under her chin. It was a hideous but posh thing, patterned with brown and gold horseshoes and very distinctive. I was almost certain it had once belonged to Laura McCrum, the wife of a businessman she’d worked for near Bromley. These items had a worrying way of turning up in her wardrobe after we’d left, a small gesture of revenge maybe, but it shamed me on her behalf.
    â€œLet me tell you one or two things about India,” she said. “It’s the most complicated, class-bound country on earth. Any European putting one toe in the country and thinking they can understand it is a complete clot.”
    â€œI know that,” I said. “I’ve talked to Daisy about it.”
    She poufed at this nonsense, and when I protested I was one-quarter Indian myself anyway, she snapped, “Why do you bang on about that? Your skin is so pale you could pass for English anywhere.” Her face was all squeezed under the head scarf, her teethbared, and then another thought brought dismay. “Do you go on about it to Tudor? Because if you—”
    â€œI