‘But here. It’s the perfect place. On your own land, where it slopes you could dig out a lake and maybe others beyond.’
‘You must think I’m made of money? I own this bike, but Eliza, the car is my mother’s. I have this beautiful old place I can barely afford to restore and a fairly generous living allowance, but it would never stretch to funding an irrigation project.’
‘Then raise the money. Where there’s a will …’ She paused for a moment but couldn’t stop herself. ‘Do you even see the poverty of the people?’
‘Of course.’
‘No, Jay. I don’t think so. You see what you want to see, but I’m going to develop yesterday’s photographs and you’re going to look at them with your eyes wide open. You won’t be able to ignore it so easily when you see things in black and white. It’s time to take action. Do something.’
‘You sound like my friend Devdan.’
‘Well, if his aim is to do something about the inequalities here, then I’m with him. You have water here. So start here.’
‘And the cash?’
‘Raise it. I’ll do whatever I can.’
Eliza appreciated that Jay’s palace was a special place of retreat, refreshing to the mind and soul. Despite what she had witnessed, she still felt as if she’d taken a step into something she had lost and it was making her think differently. She couldn’t have said what it was. Belonging, perhaps. Though that seemed a strange thing to say after seeing something that could only make her feel like an outsider.
After breakfasting on some kind of cake with milky curd and honey, she went back to her room, where a set of Indian clothes had been laid out, and at the small washstand she discovered a bowl of tepid water and a jug. She washed her hair to rid herself of the last of the smell, but couldn’t prevent tears forming as she thought of the young woman again. No more hair-washing for her, no children, no life. She left her hair to hang down still wet, dressed, then found Jay sitting in a sparsely furnished but light and airy downstairs room with soft walls that shone like polished eggshells.
He smiled and stood up when he saw her. ‘You have beautiful hair.’
‘Like this?’ She lifted the wet strands.
He laughed. ‘When it’s dry. There are so many different colours in it. Sometimes like gold, sometimes like fire.’
‘So not camel after all.’
‘I was rude. Forgive me.’
He looked into her eyes and just for a moment she felt she could forgive him anything.
‘I thought you were yet another British person come to gape at us quaint natives.’
‘I was never that.’
As they walked they talked. First he took her to the beautiful colonnaded walkway he had once described. It was in fact a loggia or large porch, as he’d said, and led away from the terrace down one side of the garden. The arches were pointed and the spandrels were sculpted with delicately carved flowers and leaves. Some were broken, but the stone was softly golden.
‘We have abundant sandstone, slate, marble and other materials here in Rajputana. The Makrana quarries provided much of the marble for the Taj at Agra. But we also have limestone from Jaisalmer and red stone too, used to build the Red Fort in Delhi. Have you seen it?’
‘Yes, and I’d like to go back to Delhi. As you know, we used to live there. In fact I might have to go at some point to pick up my finished prints.’
‘Well, make sure you stay at the Imperial. All the British do.’
She nodded, and they went through a wide doorway to the most astonishing, double-height room, where the light flowed in from windows she couldn’t even see.
‘They are above the arches,’ he said, seeing her looking.
The way the light lit the top half of the room made it seem as if the sun had been invented for just that purpose, and its height was such that their voices seemed to rise up and become changed.
‘It’s a reception hall, but look at the floor.’
She glanced down and saw that the marble floor was broken and crumbling in places.
He stood still for a moment. ‘Do you want to talk about what happened to your father?’
She closed her eyes for a second or two, and when she opened them he was looking at her with such kindness that she had to blink away the heat at the back of her lids.
