Read Online Monsoon Summer by Julia Gregson - Free Book Online

desk,”—she pointed to the one beside him—“has a delightful but rather highly strung mother. She doesn’t approve of her daughter doing this kind of work, so we try not to talk about it in the house. Does that sound very silly to you?”
    â€œNot at all.” He was amazed she would ever imagine he would discuss such things in mixed company. “I shan’t say a word.”
    â€œSo,” she began again delicately, “I’m to start from the assumption you know nothing about midwifery in India.”
    â€œNot a thing,” he replied promptly. “Absolutely nothing. The only thing I know is that the midwives are, in some parts of India, called dais .”
    â€œCorrect.”
    â€œAnd that when a baby was being born in our house, the men kept out of the way.”
    â€œIn some respects it’s a great shame,” she said, her clever eyes on him. “Sad to say, India has a truly lamentable rate of infant mortality—one of the worst in the world. The British should have done far more to tackle it while they were there. They didn’t, and that’s a permanent blot on our record.”
    She briefed him concisely about the hospital in Cochin and their aims to combine the best of West and East in its practices.
    â€œSome of your village midwives have more knowledge in their little fingers than our Western-trained midwives will acquire in a lifetime. They come from centuries and centuries of midwives, who have done thousands and thousands of deliveries. Alienate them and we lose a vast sea of knowledge we can use.
    â€œBut some of these women,”—Daisy pulled a mournful face—“are shockers: they cut umbilical cords with rusty knives, jump on bellies to speed births, drag placentas out. We have to teach themthat small things like basic hygiene and medical kits will make a vast difference. Our aim is to become an extended family in which we all learn. What do you think?” She gazed at him hopefully.
    â€œIt sounds very impressive,” he said politely, when all kinds of alarm bells were clanging in his mind. He’d read the papers about the tidal wave of fury unleashed after the British had left.
    Daisy’s glasses flashed at him as she showed him an account book. “To date we’ve managed to raise the sum of two hundred pounds for teaching equipment and medicine, which we plan to take to India in three months’ time to help maintain the Home. Kit’s been a marvelous support with our begging letters, and with your help we can get the training manuals right. Is there anything else you’d like to know?”
    â€œI don’t think so,” he said. The barn door rattled as the girl walked in. She wore a woolen dress and gum boots and an unflattering head scarf. Her cheeks shone with rain. “God, it’s hideous out there.” She wrestled the door closed against the wind. “Sorry I’m late.” As she swept off her head scarf, her dark hair fell in a cloud around her shoulders. She sat down on a stool near the fire and performed an unintentionally erotic striptease, as one gum boot was inched off with the heel of the other, revealing slim lower legs.
    â€œHave I missed the sales pitch, Daisy?”
    â€œNothing you haven’t heard. How’s your mother’s headache? Did she make breakfast in the end?”
    â€œNot good. I should probably leave early. So, Dr. Thekkeden,” she said, and turned towards him with a professional smile, “how was your night in the Bird Room? Good, I hope.”
    â€œWe’re going to call him Anto,” said Daisy.
    â€œAnto,” she said.
    â€œAnd Kit,” he said shyly.
    â€œIs Anto an unusual name in India?” She unbuttoned her raincoat and set it on a pitchfork near the fire to dry, then tugged at her dress to straighten it.
    â€œNot for a Catholic boy,” he said. “Most of us are called by Christian names. My