Renee went off to find Nico to buy him the kite from the stand as she’d promised. Marjorie turned to join the rest of the party gathering along long tables. The tables were set to the side of the shady lawn and linens covered their length. Marjorie wondered who’d done the planning for the party, it must have been Mrs. Parker. They all called her Mrs. Parker, she was the matron of the group. She’d been in India since the beginning.
“Marjorie, you look so lovely.” One of the wives, one she liked very much and knew very little, gave her a little hug.
“And you too, Camilla, everyone looks like a breath of English air, no?” She laughed and was happy to be with the group.
“Come one, let’s go sit with the girls. It looks like we’re not needed in the set-up. Sometimes I feel so useless here.” Her friend guided her to the other women, from a distance, a palette of summery pastels.
“And did you hear about the train wreck? It was on the main line. Someone made a mistake and the trains ran straight into each other. They are still trying to untangle the cars and …” A murmur went around the circle of friends, each one knowing that they or surely their husbands traveled that main line too often. Images of twisted metal filled Marjorie and she couldn’t stop the sound.
“But we must talk of other things. We must.” And the group laughed. Someone began to talk about the garden club, a diversion that Marjorie had never joined. It seemed silly, she had no intention of staying long enough to have a real garden. She wasn’t much interested in flowers, enough to spend hours each week with women who did. They now talked of their successes with orchids, but all Marjorie could think of was the train. Taking the first class car wouldn’t keep them from crashing, two first class cars could tangle and mangle just as easily as the impossibly stuffed ones behind. Women and children and men and she couldn’t get the image from her mind.
“Penny for your thoughts. I go away for a few minutes and come back and you look as white as the tablecloths,” Renee said.
“Oh, sorry. Nothing. They were talking about the train.”
“You heard how it started, the crash. The gear on the switch locked up and no one could stop the oncoming train in time, so they…”
“They crashed into each other.”