A Mare Black and Shining (2/2)
The next morning Nicholls wakes with his knee troubling him. The storms are coming closer, then; by mid-day it will be humid enough for his hair to curl. He downs aspirin with a bit of brandy and remains in the house until they’ve taken effect. He’s learnt by experience that there’s little benefit in attempting otherwise.
He decides at the stables to give Lonnie a morning’s rest. Short, hard rides might do a couple of the younger horses good, and both go without any difficulties. Afterwards, he returns to his study and to his half-finished letter, but all his attempts to find words are frustrated. He spends thirty minutes staring at the page, pen poised over the inkwell, before deciding to put it aside for the moment. He has more success at the second part of the underpainting.
By half one the heat has grown intolerable, and James retires to his quarters for the afternoon’s rest. He dozes fitfully under a damp cloth and is roused by the muffled sound of a carriage. Singh, he thinks, hoping to arrive before the heat reached its apex. Now he’ll be negotiating the tonga-wallah’s pay for having to rest the afternoon here and lose the evening’s business.
Some minutes later, the thick silence is again broken, this time by the opening and closing of doors through the house’s interior. Nicholls pulls himself up to the window and peers through the slat. A minute later Singh enter the inner courtyard. He’s looking well: road-wearied, of course, but plainly fit. Though Nicholls would never give them voice, fear always lurks somewhere in his mind when Singh travels: that he’s had lung trouble or run into some misfortune on the road. Those worries have always proven groundless, but James glad nonetheless that he can put them out of mind instead of fighting to stamp them down, at least for the present.
Singh makes short work of undressing and, to the extent that the dust and sweat make short work possible, washing. There’s a particular beauty about the sight of him bathing in the sunlight: in part the play of light on wet skin and water-bright hair, Nicholls thinks, but more than that the vitality that seems to seep back into his limbs with the relief of cool water. Singh’s back and legs straighten, and there’s a renewed vigour even in the motion of his arms as he washes his body. Nicholls is struck, suddenly, by an absurd urge to rush to his side. The small intimacy of a shared bath gives him inordinate comfort, as though the undemanding attention of his fingers to Singh’s body were capable of saying everything Nicholls would like to say to him but hasn’t the words for.
He resists the impulse, naturally, but he still longs to touch Singh even as he watches him tilt his head back to wash his hair, imagines that he can see the pulse even from a distance. He feels a little throb of disappointment when Singh finishes his bath and binds his hair up under a wet cloth, and puts on light pyjamas.
Within a few minutes there’s a very soft knock at the door. “Come in.”
Singh enters. “My carriage woke you?”
“Yes, but it’s quite all right. I’m glad you’re back, Singh.”
“Yes, and I’m glad to have done with travelling.”
“We’ll have to trade all manner of stories once we’re rested up.”
“Indeed,” Singh says, and he smiles as he helps Nicholls back onto the bed. It’s tall for a charpoy but still a bit ungainly to manage when the prosthesis is off.
They both intend to sleep, Nicholls knows. Still, he doesn’t close his eyes at once but allows himself simply to look at Singh’s face at rest. Even such a small thing as this proximity is sharply missed in its absence. He brushes their hands together and rests his face against Singh’s shoulder, smelling neem oil and the faint, musky scent of Singh’s skin. Singh leans into the touch with a contented-sounding sigh. Nicholls presses a kiss to his shoulder, and Singh one to his head. The hazy, undemanding arousal that Nicholls meant to enjoy in rest begins to turn into something more defined. He listens as Singh’s breathing too grows faster rather than slower. “And here I thought we were going to sleep,” he whispers.
“We can sleep later,” Singh says.
They kiss softly and skim their hands over one another’s bodies, each as if trying to confirm that the other is really present. After a few minutes Singh stands and removes his pyjamas, not with the slowness of exhibiting himself, but without any urgency. He settles himself on the charpoy again, and Nicholls again puts his head to Singh’s breast, feeling against his cheek coarse hair and underneath it a beating heart.
Singh works his hands under the top of Nicholls’ pyjamas, and once he’s mapped that terrain with his fingers they pull the shirt over Nicholls’ head. Singh gives a little grunt of appreciation and pinches one of the nipples he’s revealed. Nicholls gasps and thrusts toward him. “Rest later indeed,” he says, laughing at his own eagerness.
They kiss again, more deeply this time, hands on the back of one another’s heads, on each other’s thighs and between them. Nicholls is close to fully erect, and Singh is not far off him. Singh urges Nicholls to lie down and, at a look of assent, rolls him onto his front. “Trying to get me out of my trousers, are you?” Nicholls says, turning his head so that he can see Singh.
Singh grins for a moment before devoting his lips to kissing Nicholls’ neck, his ears, his throat. He runs his hands over Nicholls’ arms and his shoulders, down his back, again and again, until Nicholls scarcely notices that a cylindrical cushion, ostensibly a pillow, is being pushed under his hips. His pyjama trousers are gone almost before he knows it, and then Singh is running his hands from Nicholls’ shoulders to his thighs, always stopping before the top of the knee. Nicholls can bear to have that place touched now, but he doesn’t prefer it.
Singh doesn’t linger on his legs, instead stroking his sides, his lower back, his rump. Soon enough Nicholls feels the cushion being pushed at by his own tumescence, as it would be, he sees, if their positions were reversed. But Singh continues as he has been for a while, then gives Nicholls’ arse a not ungentle smack. By reflex Nicholls parts his thighs somewhat, and Singh rubs a soothing hand over him.
Nicholls reaches for the hand oil he keeps by the window and hands it to Singh, who goes on for a while without using it. He coaxes Nicholl’s thighs apart further and with one hand fondles his balls and prick, the other still fondling his backside. It continues this way until they’re both become sweaty again, and then Singh begins to rub the crevice of his backside. He coats his fingers with the oil and insinuates them between the cheeks, working them apart. Nicholls reaches back to make the task easier, and then Singh’s fingers are circling his arsehole, pressing, pushing in even as his other hand rests on Nicholls’ rump. Nicholls suppresses a whimper and pushes into the touch.
They go on that way for what seems a pleasantly long while before Singh withdraws his fingers and runs a hand over Nicholls’ shoulder. Nicholls rolls onto his back and draws up his good leg. This is both when the loss of the other is bitterest and when it’s easiest not to think of. The arm that Singh uses to support himself obscures that view, and then the sight and feel of above him, on top of him, is the one Nicholls loves best in all the world.
He’s all but beaming, he knows that, and Singh smiles softly and strokes his cheek. For a second Nicholls’ eyes flutter closed, and then he’s being penetrated, slowly, so slowly. He hasn’t let himself become unready during their separation, but six weeks apart will have their effect, and he relishes the dull pain as Singh pushes in.
They’re still for the long moment that Nicholls adjusts to being filled. When he has, he feels a rush of need he’s almost unable to bear. He swallows heavily and nods his assent, and Singh begins to fuck him slowly, shallowly. After a few moments he seems to judge that Nicholls can tolerate more, or else that he can withstand such caution no longer, and begins to thrust in earnest. Nicholls’ eyes fly open and he laughs, begins to stroke himself and then moves on to long, rough jerks. The sight of it has Singh breathing raggedly, moving ever faster. Nicholls feels delightfully like a rag doll being tossed about. He’s close to coming, and he clenches down on Singh as hard as he can. Singh curses and thrusts harder, all but pounding into him. Nicholls jerks himself faster, more roughly, and as Singh comes with a long gasp Nicholls taps at the head of his prick, strokes and pulls again, and then he spills across his chest as Singh collapses upon him.
Nicholls doesn’t know how long they lie there spent and sweaty, the silence filled by the sound of their breathing. In time, though, Singh fetches the basin and cloth that Nicholls, if gifted with foresight, would have put at hand. They clean each other quietly, cautious in touching newly tender flesh, before sleep has downed their eyelids altogether. Nicholls’ head is at Singh’s chest again as he tumbles into a haze of dream and memory.
Ludhiana was full of ghosts for Singh, along with the silent recriminations of the families whose sons had not returned. They went directly to Jind, Nicholls devoting every effort to the mastering of Hindustani. Singh meant to raise purebred horses, and started by acquiring a good first mare and Tamba for a stallion. But in India too influenza had beaten them by many months. Singh lost a handful of in-laws and cousins, and he was lucky.
There had been no bombs in India, no strafing damage or shelling or tanks. But that illusion of peace lay bare what the war had obscured in Europe: an epidemic that cut down the young and the strong, leaving behind infants and the old and sick. Breadwinners and homemakers died in in droves. The people they had supported took work that would kill them, hawked rags and heirlooms that no one could buy, begged in the streets.
It was not only men who suffered. With the wage-earners gone there was no money left for the care of horses. No one travelled, no one hired cabs. Nicholls wished he did not know that the English had sold theirs to knackers and the French had eaten theirs (as ever they had done; how many men and creatures had died for the freedom of a snail-slurping nation of debauchees, frog-eaters, devourers of raw meat?), that the Germans were long since out of horses and pretended that they were not eating dogs.
There was nothing but the sheerest bigotry behind the English saw that Indians venerated their animals while abusing their fellow-men, and certainly ill-treated animals could be found here. Nevertheless, Nicholls found reflexive callousness toward the suffering of creatures to be a European habit. In Jind, even desperate civilians might scrounge an anna to pay those soldiers still available to dispatch their horses, or plead for the favour if no coin could be found. Still more desperate ones abandoned theirs, telling themselves how hardy the horses were, hoping against all probability that they would find a fate better than they now could at home.
So Nicholls first encountered these horses, which were new to him, in a way that was unfamiliar only to Singh: starving in the countryside and dead in the streets. He saw them down to skin and bones and being whipped by people who would never have imagined doing such a thing, whose only hope of subsistence, a subsistence doomed to be cut short, now depended on flogging the last steps of work out of a dying animal.
Nicholls thought he’d grown accustomed to ignoring suffering far worse than what he saw. No: he had grown accustomed to it, and now the custom had grown beyond his strength to maintain. He wanted to be sick the first time he saw a ‘flu-wracked youth beating a gharry horse to move past the just-unharnessed new corpse of its mate, was in fact fighting being sick when Singh said to Vishal, “How much would that horse sell for if it were healthy?”
There ensued a brief exchange in Hindustani, which was still obscure to Nicholls. He could just make sense when Singh concluded, “Bargain him down to that.”
Vishal objected, as near as Nicholls could determine, that the horse wasn’t worth a single rupee. “I don’t care what it is worth,” Singh said, slipping into the formal Punjabi that he and Nicholls used together. “What it should be, and not another paisa.”
In that fashion they came by several horses. Finders’ fees to the peasants yielded more who had been abandoned. The horses died, often. Singh and Nicholls knew they would. The horses were bred for desert life, easy keepers who would be more injured by excess than by deprivation, but there were limits to what any creature could withstand, and many had been pushed beyond them. They might survive for a few days or weeks, or even a couple of months, resting in the irrigated shade, being given whatever fodder they seemed able to manage, receiving any veterinary care that could be improvised. And still, unavoidably, many died.
But some lived, among them Kalonji. Against the memories and deaths and the knowledge of all he could not help, her presence was a balm. For all that Nicholls had ever done or failed to do, for all that he still could not, Lonnie would have him groom her or stroke her, would take food from the palm of his hand.
Nicholls wakes later than he should from the afternoon’s rest. Singh is already awake and dressed and is setting out clothes on a corner of the bed.
Nicholls suppresses a yawn. “Were you going to leave me alone here, Singh?”
“I was going to let you sleep.”
“I’ve slept long enough.” He sits up and reaches for the clothes. “Are we riding, then?”
“Once the stars are out, I think. Right now Sachin will be expecting us at dinner.”
But Singh returns to the charpoy as Nicholls reaches for the hated false leg. “Allow me,” he whispers, cradling Nicholls’ face in his hands. He has done this before, but Nicholls still sometimes fights the threat of tears to come and shame him.
Singh pretends not to notice, though, and attaches the prosthesis with more care than Nicholls ever employs himself. Nicholls stares at Singh’s turban and tries not to look at what his hands are doing. When Singh’s finished, he straightens and kisses Nicholls’ forehead. “All right?” he asks.
“Quite all right, yes,” Nicholls says. He hurries to pull a proper shirt on. “The jodhpurs you’ve got out need mending, could you find me another set?”
Singh does, and they repair to a meal that proves commensurate with heat-induced smallness of appetite. They linger over it, devoting less time to eating than to conversation. News of friends and the like they’ve already exchanged in letters, but some things are best not committed to paper. Some would call them overly cautious, but they would have said the same of others who wound up being prosecuted for the crime of spinning their own cloth. “How is the girls’ school in Ludhiana?” Nicholls asks, meaning the one that’s not run by the Raj.
“Very successful. A new one is going up for next term, and another for girls and boys both.”
“That’s splendid.”
“More or less,” Singh says around a mouthful of dal. “Finding enough teachers who are suitable is difficult.”
“Could you hire any to come in from Lahore or Amritsar?”
“I hope so. I’ve written people there to ask.”
“Miss Winters might have some routes of inquiry in Delhi as well.”
“I had thought of that. Will you write her?”
“Of course.” Nicholls clears his throat. “I had a letter from James Stewart. There’s a section of it that’s really meant for you.” Singh says nothing, only waits for Nicholls to go on. “It’s under the paperweight in my study, if you’d like to read it.”
“Of course.”
Nicholls gives him time to read the letter, waiting until Sachin brings the tea to join him in the study. They sip their tea in silence, Nicholls having no doubt that Singh’s mind is as much occupied as his by what to say to James. When the pot is empty, Singh says, “I might give you an enclosure for your reply.”
“Certainly. I’ve not finished it yet, so if you’d like a bit of time...”
Singh worries his lower lip as he does when he’s considering something. “No, I would rather write it now.”
Nicholls concludes his letter while Singh composes his, then tucks them both into an envelope that he takes special care in addressing. “There, that’s for you and Jamie,” he says, sealing the envelope. They both know that what’s painful to say is agony to repeat.
A moment lapses while they collect their own thoughts, and then Nicholls kisses Singh’s forehead. “Do you still fancy that ride?”
“Very much.”
They make their way to the stables, where Tamba greets Singh with a head-nudge and a bit of prancing. Lonnie, not to be outdone, whinnies enthusiastically. “My fickle mistress,” Nicholls teases her, and he and Singh share a laugh.
They agree on a route while the horses are being saddled, and then they’re out on the road, the stars coming into view above them. Soon the horses are running up a cooling breeze in their wake, and Nicholls lets himself imagine, for a moment, that there’s nothing else in the world.
As for the rest of it... I doubt you’ve said anything that will come as a surprise to Singh. I’m enclosing for him a note that’s between the two of you. For my part, the war has indeed left us all with too much to forgive. We can none of us bestow at once all the pardon that’s needed, but I hope that you will begin with the measure you owe to none but yourself. I would not see you suffer, Jamie. In all of your dealings with me, there is nothing to forgive.
Be well.
Yours,
Jim
Title credit: Patti Smith, "Horses."
Image credits: fiendunderpin, nomnomicons, fiendunderpin (2x), theidolhands, hel_lansky, fiendunderpin, mysteryof, nomnomicons, werechihuahuas, carnivale.