You can explore them, my son, when the trees
Take over again and the thorn-apple grows
In empty windows. There were seven cities before. . . .
Nothing my father said could bring my mother home;
She had gone with another. He took me to the hills
In a small train, the engine having palpitations
As it toiled up the steep slopes peopled
With pines and rhododendrons. Through tunnels
To Simla. Boarding-school. He came to see me
In the holidays. We caught b.u.t.terflies together.
"Next year," he said, "when the War is over,
We"ll go to England." But wars are never over
And I have yet to go to England with my father.
He died that year
And I was dispatched to my mother and stepfather-
A long journey through a dark tunnel.
No one met me at the station. So I wandered
Round Dehra in a tonga, looking for a house
With lichi trees. She"d written to say there were lichis
In the garden.
But in Dehra all the houses had lichi trees,
The tonga-driver charged five rupees
for taking me back to the station.
They were looking for me on the platform:
"We thought the train would be late as usual."
It had arrived on time, upsetting everyone"s schedule.
In my new home I found a new baby in a new pram.
Your little brother, they said; which made me a hundred.
But he too was left behind with the servants
When my mother and Mr H went hunting
Or danced late at the casino, our only wartime night-club.
Tommies and Yanks scuffled drunk and disorderly
In a private war for the favours of stale women.
Lonely in the house with the servants and the child