The Sapphire Child (The Raj Hotel #2) - Janet MacLeod Trotter Page 0,131

Someone had laid out fresh clothes, but Andrew didn’t have the strength to get dressed.

Reaching the veranda, he collapsed into a chair, dizzy with the effort.

‘Morning, Lomax!’

Andrew gasped at the sight of Bannerman emerging out of the shadows, dressed only in a pair of flannel shorts. His limbs were thin and strangely hairless but his body still moved with a sinewy strength.

‘Always start the morning with prayers and exercise,’ he said cheerfully.

‘I didn’t mean to disturb you,’ said Andrew.

‘Not at all. I’m glad to see you up and about. Though you mustn’t overdo it. Lieutenant Grant said you’re to stay here until you’re fully recovered – and that he’s greatly relieved he’s not having to write a letter of condolence to your parents.’

‘Was I really that ill?’ Andrew asked.

‘Death’s door, laddie. But with your Lomax willpower and a wee bit of help from the Almighty, you’ve pulled through. We’ll have chota hazri together on the veranda. That’s if you’re up to eating something?’

‘Thank you. Do you mind if I just stay in pyjamas?’ He still felt weak as a newborn.

‘Don’t mind in the least. I’ll get the bearer to rustle up some tea.’

He disappeared and Andrew sat watching the sun come up over the rocky hills, spilling golden light over the low rooftops of the cantonment and spreading across the garden. Raucous birdsong came from the mulberry tree. The air smelt of dewy earth and the freshness of a new day before the temperature climbed towards suffocating heat. He caught a whiff of dung fires from the compound behind the bungalow and his eyes prickled.

There was something familiar about this place and he felt calmness settle on him for the first time since coming to the frontier. He liked Bannerman and was touched by his enthusiasm to help him.

The retired padre joined him for breakfast but didn’t linger.

‘Got hospital visits to do,’ he explained, ‘and must call on the brigadier about baptising one of his bairns. We’ll have a proper chat this evening. Just tell the bearer if there’s anything you want. Help yourself to any of the books in my study.’

Then with a wave he was striding off down the pathway. Andrew found it hard to believe Bannerman was in his nineties – he had the energy of a much younger man.

After washing in cool water and dressing in the loose shirt and trousers he’d bought in a bazaar in Delhi, Andrew wandered into the padre’s study and then spent the day reading and dozing in the subdued light of the half-shuttered veranda, under the soporific whirring of an electric fan.

That evening, after dinner, Andrew sat with the padre on the veranda. Insects buzzed and hummed beyond the screens. Bannerman nursed a whisky. The talk at dinner had been of the padre’s visits and the general war situation. Andrew felt they had both been skirting around more personal subjects, but he had been put at ease by the old man’s genial manner.

‘I feel as if I’ve been here before,’ Andrew mused.

‘You have,’ said Bannerman. ‘You came here as a small boy with your father and stepmother.’

Andrew’s grip on his chair arm tightened. ‘I do have flashes of memory . . . I think I might remember meeting you, Padre.’

‘I certainly remember you. You can’t have been more than five or so,’ Bannerman recalled. ‘They came to pay their respects to Dr Guthrie – Esmie’s first husband; he’s buried in the cantonment cemetery here. He was a very well-liked and respected doctor in Taha.’

‘Yes, I know who Harold Guthrie is,’ Andrew said. ‘He was a family friend of my mother’s.’

‘That’s true,’ said the padre, ‘but he was also your father’s oldest boyhood friend. They had gone to the same school and served together in Mesopotamia. He was distraught when Harold died.’

‘More so than my stepmother?’ Andrew asked, unable to mask his bitterness.

Bannerman looked surprised. ‘No, not at all. Esmie grieved deeply. She blamed herself for not being here when he died of blood poisoning – thought she might have been able to prevent his death.’

‘So why wasn’t she here?’ Andrew asked. ‘Was she visiting my father, by any chance?’

Bannerman leaned forward, frowning. ‘Why ever would you say that?’

Andrew decided to be frank. ‘I’m sorry, I know you’re a friend of my stepmother’s. But according to my mother, Esmie was always in love with my father and did her best to come between them.’

The old man sat back, his expression difficult to read. He took a sip of whisky and said