‘Want to learn how to fly it? It’s a perfect day for it, with just this light wind.’
‘Let me watch you first.’
‘Why not help me launch it? We actually fly kites all year round, but mainly from early December up to the festival of Sankrat, when you not only display your fabulous kite and your flying skill, but also use your line to strangle a competitor’s line so his kite crashes and yours stays up.’
‘I’m not going to compete with you, I hope.’
He laughed. ‘Well, certainly not at flying a kite.’
She watched as he held the ball of string and asked her to hold the kite. He unwound about sixty feet of string and then waited, as if paying attention to the wind direction. Then he asked her to walk sixty feet away, far enough so that the string stretched between them, and told her to stand with her back to the wind and the kite facing her.
‘Now just let it go,’ he said.
She did so and watched as it tilted and then soared.
‘When wind travels over the surface of the kite, it divides into two streams of air. One flows over the kite while the second stream goes beneath. That’s basically what gets it up.’
He unwound more string to allow the kite to go higher. She watched it whirling and swooping as if it was actually a living thing, its ribbons trailing and carving patterns through the air.
‘Come and hold it,’ he called.
She went to him as he passed the ball of string. She hadn’t expected to feel such a strong vibration and almost let go in surprise. So he stood behind her and put his arms around her, then covered her hands with his own so that they were both holding the kite in the air together. With Jay so close and feeling the vibration in his hands, and in her own too, her mouth dried and she found it hard to swallow. She gazed out at the green speckled landscape and the sandy area beyond, where tiny smallholdings and villages were now mere dots. She spotted a thin ribbon of blue. Maybe it was the same river the puppet had been laid to rest in. And while she was seeing all this she was really only aware of her heart thumping. Time didn’t just stand still, it seemed suspended and shivering as if waiting for one of them to move.
There was a sudden gust of wind and he pulled the kite closer, then let it out again. She stood still with his arms around her, feeling breathless.
‘I’ll take over now,’ he said.
She moved away.
‘Thank you.’
‘I wanted to do something to make you feel better.’
‘It worked.’
‘Look, I may be away for a while now. I need to chase up contacts, maybe even in England, see if I can attract sponsorship or backers for my irrigation. Will you be all right?’
‘Yes, of course. And I always have my friend Dottie.’
It was with Jayant Singh in her mind that Eliza set out for the Residency, Clifford Salter’s grand town house, accompanied by one liveried guard and a rickshaw driver, who would show her the way and wait to accompany her back. She would deliver her contact prints and plates and also ask him about helping Jay to access permissions and loans for the water project.
The room she was shown into looked as if it belonged in an English country house, with just the faintest touch of the oriental. She seated herself, back to the window, and carefully put down her envelope of prints and her package of plates.
When Clifford entered the room, dressed in a pale linen suit and shirt and tie, she rose from her seat and stretched out a hand. He ignored the hand and came across to kiss her on the cheek. His eyes shone with pleasure and she could see how genuinely delighted he was to see her.
‘How lovely. I’ll order tea.’
Then, drawing up a chair, he seated himself opposite her and shook a small bell. He ran a finger inside his collar. ‘So? Spill the beans.’
She smiled. ‘Not much to spill. I’ve been able to take rather more informal pictures lately.’
‘Capital. We want the true flavour of Rajputana, not just the stiff set photographs these so-called royals are so fond of. Now tell me, does Jayant Singh have many visitors?’
‘I really have no idea.’
‘But you must have seen something? Maybe somebody who appears a little out of place. Maybe rather rough. You never know who is influencing these people.’
‘He has a friend called Devdan who does seem a bit different, but that’s all I know.’
