This story is the long-delayed result of this odd little snippet first passed around the T Party writers’ group more than a year ago.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/5186722.stm
Memories of Tiffin (992 words)
“Tea,” said Howard. “He always wants tea, and cake. He seems to like tilkut. Have you tried it?”
Joanna nodded. It was a local speciality, but as with most Indian sweets that she tried she found the sesame-and-sugar combination a little sickly for her taste. She took a picture of some passing monks in rich umber, terra-cotta and purple-crimson robes, with enviably serene faces. Tomorrow she really ought to go look at some temples.
“He likes pedas,” Howard went on, “but he won’t touch burfi. I think someone told him they’re given out when girls are born.”
“Well, he’s old fashioned,” said Joanne. “Hardly surprising.” She took a photo of the tomb. The solid grey slab was strewn with crumbs; someone had even left a battered pewter teapot behind. A leaf spiralled silently down and she picked it up, twirling it in her fingers. “Cholera, wasn’t it? That’s so sad.”
“He’s doing all right now, though,” Howard said, with a hazy grin. “The locals don’t mind him, and ever since the story got on the Beeb tourists have been trying to get a glimpse. Some of them bring English biscuits, hoping they’ll, you know, tempt him out.”
“Amazing what ghosts can do for the local economy. Not to mention the rat population, probably. Are you selling more pictures?” Howard had dropped out of their German course in college, to go to art school, then to India. She’d envied him, even then.
“A few. I tell you who hates it though,” Howard said. He nodded towards a skinny figure who was waving his cane in irritated fashion at passing insects – or possibly just at the world.
“Who’s he?”
“Our oldest British resident. Living, anyway. Loathes the whole business.”
“Why?”
“Doesn’t like an English ghost caught up in a local superstition. Oh, watch out, here he comes.”
“Lot of nonsense,” the figure said, shuffling towards them.
He seemed entirely untouched by his surroundings; English from Brylcreme to brogues, with cheeks red as Sunday roasts and an aroma of pipe smoke and gas fires. He was at least eighty, and driven by the sort of intense irritation that explodes in the letters page of local papers. “Howard,” he said, with a brisk nod. He looked at Joanne narrowly, as though he suspected her of being American.
Howard introduced them, casually. Joanna shook the old man’s hand carefully, thinking of arthritis. “So what do you make of it?” he said.
“I think it’s rather, I don’t know, charming. I mean, if you’re going to have a ghost, one that asks for tea and cake has a certain something, don’t you think?”
“Don’t see why they couldn’t have one of their own. Got enough gods and so forth, you’d think they could spare one.”
Joanna, whose knowledge of any Indian religion was a vague fog of reincarnation, naughty temple carvings, and navy-blue demons with lots of teeth, didn’t think it quite worked like that; but she just nodded.
That evening, back in her hotel, she leaned on the balcony and felt depression drop over her shoulders like a winter coat. She was no longer quite sure why she’d come out here. She’d left teaching that summer, sensing she was on the verge of complete disintegration; it was an exhausting enough job even for those who actually liked it. For her, every day had got more and more like wading through cold mud. Howard had been in the back of her mind, an inspiration, someone who had cast off the shackles of everyone’s expectations and gone all out for what he wanted. She’d blown some of her rapidly shrinking savings to come and see him.
And here he was, selling his paintings, and tutoring to fill in the financial gaps. That was no crime, but he was also getting stoned pretty much every night, from what she could make out, and did nothing but reminisce about their college days; old stories and jokes worn thin with retelling. Where was the fulfilled free spirit she had come out looking for?
Joanna didn’t want to be stuck with her thoughts any longer; she decided to walk out to the little graveyard.
At night it still wasn’t scary; just sad. So many of the graves were those of children; looking at them made her want to cry. She walked up to the tomb of the Englishman, ran her fingers over the cool stone slab. “Tea and cake,” she said. “You wouldn’t think anyone would hang around just for that, would you? Why are you hanging around? Were you deprived of cake in life?”
She heard a noise behind her and jerked around, her heart thudding uncomfortably.
It was the other old Englishman. “Shouldn’t be out here, this hour,” he said, “young woman like you. Hunting ghosts.”
“What are you doing here?” She said. That sounded ruder than she meant, but she was too distracted to care.
“Just walking. Don’t sleep much these days.”
“No cake for the ghost then.”
“Certainly not. You going to take your friend home?”
“What, Howard? Well, no. I mean, I just came out to visit.”
“You’re not planning on staying yourself?”
She shook her head.
“Good,” he said. Then shook his head in irritation. “Sorry. Sounded rude. But people come here, and get stuck. I did.”
“You?”
“Yes.” He glared at the tomb. “So did he. No choice, in his case.”
He nodded at her, and stomped slowly off, jabbing his cane into the ground. Joanna sighed, and patted the tomb. On a sudden impulse, she bent down and scooped up a little earth.
She’d take it home with her, and hope no-one at customs thought it was drugs. It might not do anything for the ghost, but it would makeher feel better, to put a little of it in an English garden.
She’d make a garden, somewhere. Sometimes, she thought, home’s not where you need to get away from; it’s just where you start.
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