We became friendly with the woman in the cabin next to ours, who had two sons a little older than me. She didn’t go to the dining room for dinner in the evenings, so she suggested that I might like to go in and play with her and her boys while my parents were away. Harold was usually asleep, because he was only three, but I went next door and played cards or snakes and ladders or soldiers until Mother and Dad came to collect me, to give me my morphine and put me to bed.
The days were spent walking the decks, listening to Dad reading stories, or doing my punching practice. Every night we said the Rosary before Mother and Dad went to dinner and on Sundays we attended mass in the ship’s chapel. Time dragged, and I had too much opportunity to miss Clara and wonder when I would ever see her again, and to worry about this horrible-sounding new school with nasty children who would bully me.
The Ormonde pulled into port several times. In Aden we disembarked and Mother bought some leather handbags from a skinny, jet-black man in a multicoloured cotton shirt on the docks. We sailed up the Suez Canal to Port Said, where all the ex-pats who weren’t planning on going back threw their topees in the water because they wouldn’t need them in the colder climate. Across the Mediterranean we went, stopping in Malta and then Gibraltar, but most of the time the only view was of seemingly endless sea. It was gradually getting colder and knitted sweaters and little woollen coats were produced for Harold and me to wear. I’d never seen such garments before and found the wool itchy against my skin, but I needed them, especially in the chill of the evenings and early mornings.
It was April 1949 when we arrived at Tilbury Dock, Essex. We stood up on deck to watch as the land came into sight. The day was bitterly cold, misty and grey and we could see no trees, no grass, no flowers, just bare concrete. My mother burst into tears.
‘Darling, you told me England was a beautiful country,’ she rebuked Dad. ‘Look at this! It’s drab and grey and you promised it would be green.’
‘England is a safe haven,’ he said. ‘Give it a chance. It’s the best country in the world. You’ll love it when you get used to it.’
‘I never wanted to come here. I told you over and over again. You promised me.’
‘Remember the burning bush,’ Dad said. ‘The voice told you that you would leave India. It’s meant to be.’
That didn’t comfort her, though. If anything, she cried even harder.
Harold and I stood looking from one to the other of our parents, and wondering what we could expect of this new land. A light rain started to fall from the sky—spitty, silly rain, not proper rain like in a monsoon—and we all felt miserable as the ship honked to announce its arrival and edged its way slowly into port.
Chapter Four Earl’s Court Hotel, London
We disembarked into grim, cold, postwar Britain and our bags were loaded into a taxi Dad had booked for us. The trunks were going to follow on later. Mother was still sobbing and Harold and I were sniffling and Dad kept apologising: ‘I’m so sorry. It will all be fine. You’ll see.’
We drove out of the dockyard into the town of Tilbury and I peered through the window at streets lined with rows of houses that all looked the same as each other, and shops with the goods stuck away behind big glass windows instead of out on display on the street. There were more cars and trucks and vans than I’d ever seen in my life, and our taxi had to sit in queues, making me feel hemmed in. I was homesick for the sea of green fields stretching as far as the sky outside our house in Beesakope. I was homesick for the colours of the goods in the bazaar, and for the sad-eyed elephants, and most of all I was homesick for Clara.
‘Why couldn’t Clara come with us?’ I asked for the umpteenth time.
‘Her children are in India. She doesn’t belong here,’ Dad told me.
‘Neither do I,’ I thought, ‘so that’s not a good reason.’
It was a long way from Tilbury to the White House Hotel in London’s Earl’s Court, where Dad had booked us in. Harold was sobbing to himself so I put my arm round him and gave him a cuddle. When Dad said we had arrived in London, I gazed out of the window hoping to see the King and his palace, but all I saw were more buildings, bigger ones now, and nose-to-tail cars everywhere I looked. People crowded the pavements but I couldn’t see their faces because they were holding umbrellas against the drizzle.
‘You’ll love London,’ Dad told Mother. ‘I know it from my student days. We’ll go and see shows in theatres, and explore the museums and galleries. It’s the most cultured city in the world.’
Mother wiped her eyes with a handkerchief and took out a handbag mirror to check her appearance. ‘There was plenty of culture in India,’ she said under her breath.
‘What’s culture?’ I asked, but everyone ignored me.
It was evening when we arrived at our hotel, and there was just time for a quick tea – more flavourless, colourless English food – before bed.
‘You won’t be needing the sleeping medicine any more now,’ Dad said gaily. ‘There’s nowhere you can fall overboard in a hotel!’
He and Mother went down for dinner, after locking us in the room, and I lay in bed hugging my pillow and sobbing for Clara. Harold was crying even harder than me, going red in the face and choking on his tears until eventually I crawled into his bed to comfort him.
Next morning, we ate breakfast with Mother and Dad in the hotel dining room and Mother frowned and tutted as I scooped up scrambled egg between my fingers, the way I always ate back home.
‘She needs a spoon and pusher,’ Dad said with a twinkle in his eye, but Mother didn’t think it was so funny.
‘Hasn’t Clara taught you how to use a knife and fork? You can’t eat like that here.’
I lifted my knife and fork but the egg was slippery and I couldn’t work out how to make it stay on my fork long enough to get it to my mouth. I had woken up with a pounding headache behind my eyes and I felt strange, as though I might be going down with a cold, but I didn’t mention it.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’ Mother raised her eyebrows. ‘We’ll have to teach you table manners.’
‘Eating is an art,’ said Dad, and from then on our mealtimes became an extended lesson in etiquette. Other children might chat to their parents, crack jokes even, but for Harold and me meals were a training ground where we had to learn how to sit up straight, how to hold a knife and fork, peel an orange, take the pips out of grapes and cut a banana into pieces while keeping it in its skin. All this had to be done without causing offence to anyone else at the table.
‘Where are we going today?’ I asked that first morning.
‘Your mother and I are going out sightseeing but you children wouldn’t be interested, so we’ve arranged for a governess called Madame Bobé to look after you. I’m sure you’ll have much more fun with her.’
A governess? Wasn’t that like a teacher? I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of this and I pulled one of my faces, only to be told off by Mother.
Dad took us on the Underground to Madame Bobé’s apartment, and Harold cried all the way, scared of the noisy silver train rattling in and out of tunnels and the doors that slid closed with a clunk. I watched the people, jostling and pushing on the platform, or heads down, poring over their newspapers on the train. They didn’t look at us once. It was as if we were invisible. The noises of the train made my head hurt even more and I clutched my face in my hands.
Madame Bobé’s place was in a basement below ground level, and she ushered us into a room full of toys. I had never seen so many in my life