He had asked me to prop him up on the pillows – ‘No, no! She can do it’ he irritably told the black nurse, who had just taken his temperature and blood pressure and was about to start on the pillows. ‘Let my daughter do it. She’s strong. She’s got plenty of time and you’ve made it clear that you’ve far too much on your hands already.’ With a sigh and a frown, the nurse left the room. ‘She’s always in a hurry, that one. All the nurses here are in a hurry. All of them seem to be either black or Australians. I prefer the Australians. I hate it when that woman touches me. I can smell her when she’s close. Why do they all have that peculiar smell?’ I was appalled. But, as others so often reminded me and as I so often reminded myself, one had to make allowances for a man of eighty-four. He belonged to a different era, almost to a different species, at once more jovial and more brutal than ours. He had also worked for most of his life as jute-merchant in Bombay, with large domestic and office staffs of Indians, whom he had treated as serfs.
What do You think about The Sunlight On The Garden?
