the morning.’
‘Nooo,’ Karen wailed. ‘Don’t do that. You mustn’t. I’ve heard it’s a terrible ride.’
‘Well, it’ll be an adventure.’
Karen put her arm through Mair’s. ‘I’ve got a much better idea. Stay one more day, and come to Kashmir with us. We’ve booked a car. There’s room if you don’t mind sitting in the back with Lo and me.’
Mair hesitated. ‘What about Bruno?’
Karen twitched her elegant shoulders. ‘He’ll be fine with it. He likes meeting new people just as much as I do.’
Mair’s first impression of Bruno Becker had suggested otherwise, but she didn’t say as much. ‘Well … it’s tempting. I’m not so sure about the bus, if I’m honest.’
‘Hey, then it’s a deal. We’ll pick you up at your hotel, day after tomorrow. It’ll be early, I’m warning you. Bruno’s a complete fanatic about that sort of thing.’
It seemed that the arrangement was made.
Karen danced along the edge of the dirt road, waiting for a truck to grind by. ‘How was your week, by the way?’
Mair began, ‘It was interesting. I found out some history …’
But Karen was already crossing through the cloud of exhaust fumes. She waved back at Mair. ‘Great. See you tomorrow.’ An auto-rickshaw driver had spotted her and swerved to a halt. Karen leapt aboard without negotiating the fare. Mair continued in the opposite direction towards the twinkling lights of the bazaar.
With a day to spare, she went back to the Internet café. In an email to Hattie she described the discovery of the chapel and the ruined mission building, but only in the lightest way. Even to Hattie, she wasn’t willing to admit quite how intriguing the story of the shawl had become to her. She clicked send, while the power held.
Then she checked her inbox. The messages scrolled in, arriving at a pace slower than that of a limping man carrying a cleft stick. She saw one from Dylan and opened it with delight. Her brother wasn’t a regular correspondent, but his occasional emails gave her more pleasure than anyone else’s.
This time there was only one disappointingly short paragraph, but it promised that she would be interested in the attachment.
Dylan had taken away their father’s small collection of photographs, stored over the years in a couple of old shoeboxes in Huw’s chaotic study. He had said vaguely to his sisters that he would go through them when he had an hour to spare, and would scan the good ones into an iPhoto album for them both. It was the kind of assignment he excelled at. Eirlys had replied that she was grateful for the offer, because she’d never have time to do it herself. Dylan had smiled covertly at Mair, and she had been struck then by his increasing resemblance to their father. How unwittingly you stepped into your parent’s skin, she thought. Probably by now she was more like her mother than she would ever know.
Smiling, Mair set about opening Dylan’s jpeg attachment. At first the system refused to co-operate, but she kept trying until she succeeded.
She stared. The photograph was an old black-and-white snapshot, faded and creased. Three women were grouped against a background of water partially covered with lily-pads. The upper left-hand corner of the view was cut off by a diagonal of carved woodwork, so it looked as though the three had been caught on a balcony overlooking a lake. The woman in the middle was posing with her chin up, darting a look of frank amusement straight into the camera’s eye. Her wide mouth had full lips that looked black, but must actually have been painted with dark red lipstick. Her wavy dark hair was swept up at the sides and her striking appearance was emphasised by the wide lapels and exaggerated shoulders of her chic jacket. There was a deep shadow in the V of her neckline.
The woman on her left was much more girlish in appearance. She was in three-quarters profile, smiling with her eyes turned to her companions, and she had curled pale hair and a swanlike neck.
The third woman had been captured in a burst of delighted laughter. Her head was thrown back and she looked so alive and full of merriment that it was several seconds before Mair recognised her. It was her grandmother.
Gazing with increasing fascination into the joyful faces, Mair speculated on what Grandpa Evan could have said from behind the lens to make his wife beam with such clear happiness.
Or – perhaps the photographer hadn’t been Evan Watkins at all.
Whereabouts was that stretch of dappled water? It didn’t look like Leh, that was certain.
Then an idea came to her. There were lakes in Srinagar. Mair referred back to Dylan’s message. He had written,
This was loose inside an album of Grandpa’s India photographs, mostly very boring. Chapel people standing on steps, looking solemn, etc. So it caught my eye straight away. Who can Grandma’s happy friends be?
The longer she looked at it, the more enigmatic and intriguing the photograph became. The three young women seemed so absorbed in their friendship, as well as in the immediate comedy of the moment. Their faces shone with so much life, it was hard to believe that the picture had been taken almost seventy years ago.
Mair badly wanted to find out more about them. The possibility that the picture might have been taken in Srinagar only intensified her desire to get there.
The Chinese woman who ran the Internet shop frowned at her. Over each work station was a laminated sign that read, ‘No uploding No downloding’.
Mair pointed from the picture on her screen to the antique printer perched on a bench near the door, and made an imploring gesture to connect them. It wasn’t until she took out her wallet and started peeling off notes that any response came. After that there was an interval of button pressing and cable checking and muttering, and finally a five-by-four print emerged from the slot. It was murkier than the original, and the small size reduced the sheer joyous impact, but it was good enough.
Mair carried it back to the hotel and put it safely in the envelope that also contained the lock of dark brown hair.
The Beckers and their driver in the standard-issue white Toyota four-wheel drive drew up in front of Mair’s hotel at six thirty the following morning. Karen waved from the back of the car. ‘All set?’ she called. ‘This is going to be fun.’
Lotus was strapped into a child’s booster seat. The local driver, clearly already infatuated with the little girl, flashed gold teeth across the seat divide and patted her cheek. Bruno Becker stepped out of the front passenger seat. He looked at Mair with a glimmer of a smile that made him seem slightly more approachable.
‘This is very kind of you both,’ she said.
‘I’m glad you’re joining us. Is this everything?’ He indicated her holdall. Mair nodded. She carried her rucksack slung over her shoulder, with the shawl, the lock of hair and the photograph secure inside it.
‘You travel light. Karen could take a lesson from you.’ He swung the holdall into the luggage compartment of the Toyota on top of a sizeable pile of baggage.
‘Hey, it’s mostly Lotus’s stuff.’ Karen laughed. ‘Come on, jump in.’
Mair took her place next to Lotus. The child’s
