—50—
Within a few weeks, Tanveer was stable enough to leave the hospital. I arranged for a car to drive us to Herewich, a distance of some two hours. He didn’t speak on the journey, only looking out the window with the cat in his lap.
Some part of me wanted to fuss, to make sure he was comfortable, that his legs weren’t too cramped, to offer him water.
I resisted. The summer landscape offered poppies and daisies and Queen Anne’s lace; sheep grazing in green pastures, trees bending down over brooks.
A cow stood nearby a pond, clouds reflecting in the water.
I wondered what passed through his mind, if he would ever begin to talk to me again. Aside from a few directions, and the moments when I washed his hair, he had barely spoken since I’d arrived at the hospital.
At Herewich, I realized the journey into the house would be a challenge. The front entrance was approached by a wide, high rise of steps, and then we would face a long journey to the sitting room. “Pull around to the back,” I said to the driver.
The kitchen was level with the back garden. “This will be better. Will you help me, good man?”
He looked uncomfortable, which bewildered me, but I didn’t have time to sort out judgments or nonsense. “We must get him into the house. I am not strong enough for him to lean on.”
Grimly, Tanveer leaned on him, his arm in a sling useless to hold a cane. I wrapped my arm around his waist. “Use my body to keep the weight off your leg.”
Between the three of us, we navigated into the cold house, through the kitchen and into the sitting room.
Once we had him situated in a comfortable wingback chair, the man brought in our things.
I carried Topaz into the house, where he happily sniffed and explored and peered under stoves. “I can use a good mouser, little one.”
Tanveer sat upright, but his face was gray with effort. “Are you in pain?”
“A little.”
I reached into my deep pockets. “The matron sent morphine with me.”
“No. Thank you.”
“I shall make tea, and then decide how to make you a bed.”
He leaned gingerly back into the chair, closing his eyes. I pushed an ottoman over and lifted his feet onto it.
“Right. I’ll get the fire going. There won’t be any fresh milk.”
“No matter.”
“It won’t take long.”
I hurried out of the room to hide my collapsing resolve.
It had seemed such a good choice to bring him to Herewich, where he could convalesce as long as was required.
I had not taken into account stairs and drafty cold rooms and the fact that I had no nursing ability whatsoever and he still had a long road ahead for recovery.
In the kitchen, I took a full minute to lean on the counter and bend my head in faint despair, feeling all my inadequacies and the stilted nature of our communication.
It was hard to be with this version of Tanveer.
At times, I felt he despised me, or if not me personally, then my world; at others, I glimpsed the extreme sorrow that cloaked him like a shroud.
I wanted to ease his suffering, not add more.
After a moment, I straightened, blew out my fear, and started the fire. In truth, I was all he had here in England. What I could offer was comfort, kindness, and a brisk attendance to his physical needs.
So I put the kettle on, scrounged up sugar and tea, and what was left of a tin of biscuits.
On a shelf in the pantry were three cans of condensed milk, a favorite of my mother’s, and it felt like a minor miracle.
The potatoes still looked solid, and surely someone in town had some eggs.
I should see about purchasing some chickens of my own.
While the water heated, I moved to the sitting room to build a fire in the hearth, pleased with my ability to get it going properly in a matter of minutes.
As it caught, I shook open the drapes to let in the light.
Blue sky peeked through puffy clouds, and a bird whistled on the branch of lilac bush.
Topaz came running to squeak at it. “Mice, little one. Not birds, do you hear me?”
Hands on my hips, I looked around the room to see how to best create a sickroom, or a wellroom or whatever we would call it. I could drag a mattress down from upstairs easily enough, and create a little nook with the chair so he could read by the window and take advantage of the fire.
“Is it always so cold in here?” he asked.
“Afraid so. Centuries of English damp.”
“It’s summer.”
“Imagine what it’s like in the winter.”
He lifted his brows.
When I brought the tea and the slightly stale biscuits, I said, “I’m going to ride my bicycle into town and go to the market.
I’ll bring back a boy to help me move things around so you can be comfortable down here without having to navigate stairs.
” I took a breath and dived into the next question. “Shall I bring you a bedpan?”
He closed his eyes. “Elsie, I don’t—”
“I know. It’s all terribly awkward, and I don’t how to do any of this, either, but this is better than the places they would have sent you, and if I don’t care for you properly, Gurdaya will never speak to me again.”
He gave a slight nod. I helped him with the badly fitted English coat and shoes and left him alone with the bedpan I found in the closet of my father’s bedroom.
We managed.
I rode my bicycle into the village, finding pleasure in the vigorous exercise. At the market, I found oatmeal and tea, cheese and baked beans. There was no bread, but Mr. Herrick promised there would be in a day or two. Local farmers supplied quarts of whole milk.
The bounty was in the produce—a gorgeous cabbage, spring onions, and joy of joy—cherries!
We were lucky enough not to need sugar—I still had a five-pound sack in a glass jar to keep the pests out, left over from before the house had been shut up, long before we knew everything would be rationed.
There had not been a similar boon in flour, unfortunately, but I would make do.
At the post office, I stopped in to send a telegram to Gurdaya. Tanveer Home With Me At Herewich Stop Condition Fair, But Healing Stop Send Spices Lentils Stop Send Lady Elsie Turner, Herewich Manor, Forest Vale England Stop Letter To Follow.
Mr. Herrick’s son, Michael, drove me back in the wagon, and then stayed to help me create a nest for Tanveer in the sitting room.
We dragged a mattress down from the bedroom nearest the stairs, along with sheets and blankets I shook out and aired on the line.
I wondered if he still preferred a flat pillow, and found one I thought he would like.
After Michael left, I helped Tanveer change into striped pajamas that must have belonged to a guest of the house, because neither my brother nor my father were tall, and these fit him well.
We ate a simple supper of potato soup, made with milk and margarine and some of the spring onions floating on top. He tasted it gingerly, and in surprise raised his head. “You cooked this?”
“I learned to cook when I was at Slade. I hadn’t the funds to eat at cafés and the like.”
“It is very nice.”
“Thank you.”
When we finished, it was plain he was entirely exhausted.
“Shall I read to you?”
“Please.”
I picked up the novel I’d borrowed from the library before I left and settled in the chair opposite the pallet nestled against the wall.
He leaned against a pile of pillows, stroking Topaz’s back.
He grew sleepy. “Elsie, will you take off my dastaar? I shall sleep more soundly without it. I cannot do it myself.”
My heart rustled. “Of course.” As matter-of-factly as possible, I knelt beside him, and untied, and unwrapped, folding the fabric as I went. “Do you generally sleep with it or without?”
“At home, always without.”
“It’s been a while, then.”
“So long.”
Down to the thin patka; I removed that, too, and paused. “Hair tied up or let down?”
“Do you have a brush?”
“Of course.” I found my wide pig bristle, and gave it to him, watching as he brushed with vigor and obvious pleasure. He sighed audibly, a sound of relief. “Do you mind doing the rest?”
I smoothed out the side of his head he couldn’t reach, trying to keep myself aloof, above, apart.
But my hands trembled slightly as I tugged out a tangle, smoothed curls into waves.
His eyes were downcast as I worked, his lashes making a line so thick and dark against his cheek that I was reminded of the child who’d wept with me over a tiger, the youth who kissed me in a hay-filled barn, the young man who’d attracted every eye in Hyde Park.
Emotion filled me like a tide, overwhelming and intense, but I said carefully, “Done.” I stood, as if nothing could be more ordinary.
“I would like it back into a topknot, please.”
“Of course.” This took a little more doing. I knelt beside him and brushed the mass into a rope, winding it around and around until I could secure it at the crown of his head. “That should hold.”
“Thank you.” He tested it with his good arm. Then: “Will you sleep down here? Next to me?”
I kept my face natural. “Of course.”
He must have sensed my turmoil, for he said, “No, no. I’ll be all right.”
I knelt, pressed a hand to his shoulder. “I don’t mind.”
At last he met my eyes. For one long moment, we swam together through all the selves we had been, and I reached for him, trying to bring him back, but he looked away. “Thank you.”
I had to finish evening tasks and my own ablutions. By the time I came back down, wearing a voluminous and modest nightgown, he was very sleepy. I turned the lamp off and settled beside him but not so close we touched.
To my surprise, he took my arm and looped it across his belly. “Is this all right?”
“Yes,” I whispered, and pressed my forehead against his shoulder. His belly was warm beneath my forearm, and the precious movements of his breath pressed upward, let go. In the silence, touching him, I closed my eyes, and the long day pulled me into sleep.