Monsoon Summer by Julia Gregson Page A

being friends again, and kept the doll, seeing loneliness forever after in its glass-button eyes.
    â€œI’m a grown-up now,” I said.
    â€œThat’s exactly the point,” she said. “I want you to find someone nice, to settle down, have babies, a proper home.”
    I had a sinking feeling as she said this that the doll with the glass eyes was back in my arms.
    â€œAnd the thing is,” I replied, “quite soon I want, I have to go back to London and finish the midwifery.” (I had to say the word every now and then as if to inoculate her.) “It won’t take long, I—”
    â€œOh, that.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Please, for God’s sake, don’t talk about that now.”
    A sudden wind rattled the barn doors and swayed the flame in the oil lamp. My mother, who was terrified of ghosts, clutched me in genuine terror.
    â€œIt’s all right.” I put my arms around her. “There’s nothing here.” And then, oh, how quickly her moods could change: she gave me a real hug and I smelled her perfume (Shalimar) and a whiff of cardamom from the curry cooking.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said in a muffled voice. “There are too many people here, and it’s driving me a little doolally. And I can’t stand that old bat either. She never has a nice word to say about anyone.”
    She gave a little croaking laugh, which I could not return, and then looked around the barn with big black-and-white eyes.
    â€œIt’s stopped raining. Let’s go back. I hate it out here.”
    â€œGive me a moment to lock up,” I said, her nails digging into my arm.
    â€œI know you’re a big help to Daisy,” she continued. She glanced again at the midwife training poster. “It’s just such a strange job to choose: I don’t know how you can do it.” She shuddered and clutched me more tightly.
    â€œI know,” I said, feeling fraudulent. I was so scared of it myself.

- CHAPTER 6 -
    H e woke up very early and stood at the window, looking out at misty gray fields, some ghostly cows, a church spire on the horizon. He remade the view into bright blue skies above the silent green backwaters of the Periyar. He would be there soon and needed to compass his mind there and not get lost.
    It was cold in the room. With an overcoat over his pajamas, he sat at a desk in the window, working on the last fifty pages of his PhD thesis on sleeping sickness—“The Care and Treatment of Encephalitis Lethargica”—that had quietly obsessed him for two years. He was paying particular attention to a major outbreak between 1896 and 1906 in Uganda and Congo, where close to a quarter of a million people died and foreign aid had been patchy and poorly coordinated and had led to unedifying squabbling among the richer nations.
    It was a sobering subject to live with day in and day out, and he, desperate to finish now, secretly hoped the work with Miss Barker would not take up too much time, even though it would pay for his rent and food.
    Deep in his studies, he skipped breakfast, until the knock on the door reminded him they were to meet at ten thirty.
    â€œI must apologizein advance”—Daisy bounced beside him as they walked towards the barn—“for making you, temporarily, the lone male in what Shakespeare called a monstrous regiment of women. We didn’t plan it that way at all. In fact, we absolutelywelcome the masculine point of view, but you know Indian doctors who speak Malayalam aren’t thick on the ground around here, and we’re up to our eyebrows at the moment with fund-raising and speeches and so forth and, well, this is it.”
    She unlocked the huge door and together they stared into the cavernous space.
    â€œHQ Moonstone. We’ve cleared a desk for you near the fire; make yourself at home there. There’s rugs in the corner for when we’re really freezing,” she’d