Read Online Monsoon Summer by Julia Gregson - Free Book Online Page A

family calls me An to,” he said,putting the stress on the first syllable.
    â€œ An to.” Her plump lips cupped the sound.
    He took a deep breath and said, to distance her, “Does that sound more Indian?”
    She gave him a straight, unembarrassed look. “I don’t know, but I shall definitely call you that.”
    â€œWhatever you like.” He gave her a brief smile and opened the files he had brought with him.
    â€œWell, Anto, don’t let me interrupt you,” she said. If she’d registered the slight, she showed no sign of it. “I have a ton of letters to write.”
    They worked in silence until the lunchtime bell came across the yard. The silence was soothing, giving him time to restore himself amongst his books. Being in the company of women was pleasant too, he reflected, after being alone now for months, in libraries or in his digs, often working between damp-smelling sheets in bed to keep warm. This was the reason for the unusual slightly electric glow he was feeling.
    Towards lunchtime, she stood up. “I’ve replied to most of the letters in the yes tin, Daisy,” she said. “There’s a very angry nurse in the other pile. I’ll sort her out after lunch, if that’s all right.” Her blue Fair Isle sweater rose as she yawned—a slim waist, a glimpse of liberty bodice. “I’m starving,” she said. She turned to him. “How about you?”

- CHAPTER 7 -
    I n early March, I got a letter from Saint Andrew’s saying my course had to be postponed until the next academic year. The roof of the nurses’ home had been deemed unsafe, and with much of London still in ruins, it was impossible to find builders to fix it before the new term began.
    When I read this to my mother, she said, “So, together again like old times.” She dabbed her eyes and gave me her loving look, and from long habit I smiled back and returned her quick hug. But my feelings were complicated, and since our row, I had become more and more secretive with her.
    The truth was that as much as I loved the peace of Wickam Farm, without the Moonstone work and the challenge of helping Daisy, I would have been climbing walls by now, and there was something else far more troubling to me, which was the Indian doctor.
    For the first few weeks, he’d expressed a preference, in the politest way possible, for working on his own in the Bird Room during the mornings and skipping breakfast. I was never sure whether this was due to my mother’s chilly treatment of him or his way of avoiding Tudor and Ci Ci at breakfast, but it had definitely helped with my mother’s worries about having this potentially wild beast housed under the same roof as her daughter.
    Daisy tried to talk him out of it, saying, rather shamefacedly, they could only afford now to light two fires: one in the dining room, the other the ancient solid fuel range in the barn. But he’d insisted, untilin February during one particularly bitter week, the rotten wood surrounding his window had fallen away with a chunk of Virginia creeper, and he’d been forced to move back into the barn.
    For the first few days, we sat several feet from each other at the old school desks that had been brought down from the nursery. I was making sketches and notes from Comyns Berkeley’s Pictorial Midwifery and sending out letters. His glossy head was bent over piles of academic textbooks.
    Whenever I sneaked glances at him, I was amazed by his industry and his concentration, because for years I’d heard my mother say that Indians were lazy and stupid and this was why they’d let the British lord it over them. Ci Ci often sang the same song, recalling servants straining soup through their turbans or needing a good boot up the “you know what” to get them going at all.
    I felt a spurt of jealousy too sometimes. Men were lucky that way, I thought, remembering how my mother had dragged