‘Madam, we should probably head this way,’ said Mr Vaghela.
She nodded. She had begun to feel anxious.
The man, whose generous pot-belly would have marked him out from the others even without the aid of his smart car, was gesturing at the ship, his indignant speech accompanied by sprays of spittle. Sanjay stood before him in the circle of men, his hands palms down in a conciliatory gesture, trying to interrupt. The object of the man’s ire, Jennifer, was standing in a pose her grandmother remembered from her adolescence, h*ps jutted, arms folded defensively across her chest, head cocked in an insolent manner.
‘You can tell him,’ she interjected periodically, ‘that I wasn’t trying to do anything to his bloody ship. And that there’s no law against looking.’
Sanjay turned to her. ‘That’s the problem, Jen. There is a law against looking. When you’re trespassing on someone else’s property.’
‘It’s a beach,’ she yelled at the man. ‘It’s ten kilometres long. With thousands of bloody people. How is me looking at a few rusting ships going to make the slightest difference to anything?’
‘Jen, please . . .’
Around Sanjay, the men stood watching with unconcealed interest, nudging each other at Jennifer’s jeans and vest-top, some bowed under the weight of the oxygen cylinders they carried on their shoulders. As the old woman approached, several moved back, and she caught the smell of stale sweat, overlaid with incense and something sulphurous. She fought the urge to put a hand over her mouth.
‘He thinks Jennifer is from some environmental group, that she’s here to gather evidence against him,’ Sanjay told her.
‘It’s obvious I’m only looking,’ said Jennifer. ‘I haven’t even got a camera on me,’ she enunciated at the man, who scowled at her.
‘You’re really not helping,’ Sanjay remonstrated.
The old woman tried to assess how much of a threat the man might be. His gestures had become increasingly abrupt and dramatic, his expression florid with rage. She looked at Mr Vaghela, almost as if he were the only adult present.
Perhaps mindful of this, he detached himself from her and moved through the men, his carriage suddenly erect. He went to the shipbreaker and thrust out his hand, so that the man was forced to take it. ‘Sir. I am Mr Ram B. Vaghela,’ he announced.
The two men began to talk rapidly, in Urdu, Mr Vaghela’s voice wheedling and conciliatory one minute, determined and assertive the next.
The conversation was evidently going to take some time. Without Mr Vaghela’s arm, the old woman found she felt wobbly. She glanced to each side of her, searching for somewhere to sit down, then backed a little way from the group, trying not to feel self-conscious – or fearful – of the blatant curiosity of some of the men. She spied a steel drum and walked slowly towards it.
She sat on it for several minutes, watching as Mr Vaghela and Sanjay tried to placate the shipowner, to convince him of the naïvety and commercial innocence of his visitors. Occasionally they waved towards her and she fanned herself under the umbrella, conscious that her presence, an apparently frail old lady, would probably aid their cause. Despite her benign appearance, she was furious. Jennifer had wilfully ignored everyone else’s wishes and, in the process, set back their journey at least an hour. Shipyards were dangerous places, Mr Vaghela had muttered as they crossed the sand, not just for the workers, but for those who were thought to be ‘interfering’. Property had been known to be confiscated, he had said, looking back nervously at the car.
Now she mulled over the fact that she was going to have to walk the same distance back across the hot sand, and that it was entirely possible they would have to pay these people before they could leave, which would eat further into her already depleted budget. ‘Foolish, inconsiderate girl,’ she muttered.
In an attempt at nonchalance, she stood up and began to walk towards the bow of the ship, keen to be away from her irresponsible granddaughter and the blank-eyed men. She raised the umbrella and held it low over her head, kicking up dustclouds of sand as she went towards a shaded area. The ship was half dismantled and ended abruptly, as if some giant hand had cut it in two and removed the back half. She lifted the umbrella high to get a better view. It was hard to see much from so far underneath, but she could just make out a couple of gun turrets that had yet to be removed. She studied them, frowning at their familiarity, at the peeling pale grey paintwork, a soft colour you saw nowhere but on British naval ships. After a minute, she lowered the umbrella, stepped back, and stared up at the broken hull looming above her, stiff neck temporarily forgotten.
She lifted her hand to shield her eyes from the fierce sun until she could see what remained of the name on the side.
And then, as the last of the letters became distinct, the arguing voices receded, and even in the oppressive heat of an Indian afternoon, the old woman beneath the ship felt herself possessed of a sudden and icy cold.
The shipbreaker, Mr Bhattacharya, was unconvinced, yet even in the face of his mounting hostility, the growing restlessness of the crowd and even that they were now a good hour behind schedule, the young people were still bickering. Mr Vaghela wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. Miss Jennifer was kicking sand angrily behind her, her expression one of sulky acquiescence. Mr Sanjay wore the uncomfortably flushed countenance of someone who feels himself to be defending an unwinnable argument. Periodically he would look at Miss Jennifer, then away, as if he, too, were annoyed with her.
‘I don’t need you to have my arguments for me, okay?’
Mr Vaghela tapped her arm. ‘If you will forgive me for saying so, Miss Jennifer, I do not believe your grasp of Urdu leaves you up to the task.’
‘He understands English. I heard him.’
‘What is the girl saying now?’ Mr Bhattacharya, he could tell, was offended by her barely decent mode of dress. Mr Vaghela suspected that while he secretly knew the young people were innocent of his charges, he had worked himself into such a rage that he was determined to continue the argument. Mr Vaghela had met many such men in his life.
‘I don’t like the way he’s talking to me.’
Mr Sanjay moved towards the girl. ‘You don’t even know what he’s saying! You’re making things worse, Jen. Go back to the car and take your gran with you. We’ll sort this out.’
‘Don’t tell me what to do, Jay.’
‘Where is he going? Where are they going?’ Mr Bhattacharya was watching Mr Sanjay with increasing fury.
‘I think it would be better if the girl left your yard, sir. My friend is just persuading her of that.’
‘I don’t need you to—’ Miss Jennifer stopped abruptly.
There was a sudden silence, and Mr Vaghela, who was uncomfortably warm, followed the eyes of the crowd to the shaded area under the hull of the next ship.
‘What is wrong with the old lady?’ said Mr Bhattacharya.
She was sitting slumped forward, her head supported in her hands. Her grey hair looked silver white.
‘Gran?’ The girl sprinted over to her.
As the old woman raised her head, Mr Vaghela exhaled. He was forced to admit he had been alarmed by her stance.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. Yes, dear.’ The words seemed to come out automatically, Mr Vaghela thought. It was as if will hadn’t had anything to do with them.
Forgetting Mr Bhattacharya, he and Mr Sanjay walked over and squatted in front of her.
‘You look rather pale, Mammaji, if I may say so.’ She had one hand on the ship, he noticed, a curious gesture, which she had to bend awkwardly to make.
The shipbreaker was beside them, cleaning his expensive crocodile shoes on the back of his trousers. He muttered to Mr Vaghela. ‘He wants to know if you’d like a drink,’ he told her. ‘He says he has some iced water in his office.’
‘I don’t want her to have a heart-attack in my yard,’ Mr Bhattacharya was saying. ‘Get her some water and then please take her away.’
‘Would you like some iced water?’
She looked as if she was going to sit upright, but instead lifted a hand feebly. ‘That’s very kind, but I’ll just sit for a minute.’
‘Gran? What’s the matter?’ Jennifer had knelt down, hands pressed on her grandmother’s knee. Her eyes were wide with anxiety. The posturing arrogance had evaporated in the heat. Behind them, the younger men were murmuring and jostling, conscious that some unknown drama was being played out before them.
‘Please ask them to go away, Jen,’ the old woman whispered. ‘Really. I’ll be fine if everyone just leaves me alone.’
‘Is it me? I’m really sorry, Gran. I know I’ve been a pain. I just didn’t like the way he was talking to me. It’s because I’m a girl, you know? It gets up my nose.’
‘It’s not you—’
‘I’m sorry. I should have been more thoughtful. Look, we’ll get you back to the car.’
Mr Vaghela was gratified to hear the apology. It was good to know that young people could acknowledge their irresponsible behaviour. She should not have caused the old lady to walk such a distance in this heat, not in a place like this. It indicated a lack of respect.
‘It’s not you, Jennifer.’ The old woman’s voice was strained. ‘It’s the ship,’ she whispered.
Uncomprehending, they followed her gaze, taking in the vast pale grey expanse of metal, the huge, rusting rivets that dotted their way up the side.
The young people stared at each other, then down at the old lady, who seemed, suddenly, impossibly frail.
‘It’s just a ship, Gran,’ said Jennifer.
‘No,’ she said, and Mr Vaghela noted that her face was as bleached as the metal behind it. ‘That’s where you’re quite wrong.’
It was not often, Mr Ram B. Vaghela observed to his wife on his return, that one saw an old lady weeping. Evidently they were much more free with their emotions than he had imagined, these British, not at all the reserved stiff-upper-lips he had anticipated. His wife, rather irritatingly, raised an eyebrow, as if she could no longer be bothered to make an adequate response to his observations. He remembered the old woman’s grief, the way she had had to be helped back to the car, the way she had sat in silence all the way to Mumbai. She was like someone who had witnessed a death.
Yes, he had been rather surprised by the English madam. Not the kind of woman he’d had her down as at all.
He was pretty sure they were not like that in Denmark.
PART ONE
I
Money in rabbits! At recent sales in Sydney best furred full-grown bucks made 19s 11d per pound, the highest price I ever heard of in Australia. The percentage of top pelts would be small, but at about five to the pound just on 4s each is a remarkable return.
‘The Man on the Land’, Bulletin, Australia, 10 July 1946
Australia, 1946
Four weeks to embarkation
Letty McHugh halted the pick-up truck, wiped non-existent soot from under her eyes, and noted that on a woman with ‘handsome features’, as the saleswoman had tactfully defined hers, Cherry Blossom lipstick was never going to alter much. She rubbed briskly at her lips, feeling stupid for having bought it at all. Then, less than a minute later, she reached into her bag and carefully reapplied it, grimacing at her reflection in the rear-view mirror.
She straightened her blouse, picked up the letters she had collected on her weekly visit to the post office and peered out at the blurred landscape through the windscreen. The rain probably wouldn’t let up no matter how long she waited. She pulled a piece of tarpaulin over her head and shoulders and, with a gasp, leapt out of the truck and ran for the house.
‘Margaret? Maggie?’
The screen door slammed behind her, muffling the insistent timpani of the deluge outside, but only her own voice and the sound of her good shoes on the floorboards echoed back at her. Letty checked her handbag, then wiped her feet and walked into the kitchen, calling a couple more times, even though she suspected that no one was in. ‘Maggie? You there?’