Free Golden Afternoon by M. M. Kaye

aggressively new red and white sandstone of which they were built had not even begun to weather, and at first sight the red lower third of the two huge Secretariat buildings that faced each other from opposite sides of the wide, rising slope of what was then known as the Kingsway (and is now known as the Rajpath, which means the same thing) was, to my mind, distressingly reminiscent of a tiled splashback in a bathroom, while the top section glared as blindingly white as though coated with fresh whitewash. I thought the whole thing was hideous, and a poor exchange for the leafy gardens and beautiful, mellowed buildings of Shah Jehan’s Old Delhi.
    We spent our first week in New Delhi in one of the houses designed by Sir Herbert Baker for the use of senior officials of the Government of India, and which had the appearance of being mass-produced. Each one stood on its own ample square of stony earth that would one day — nature and the monsoons permitting — be a green and shady garden; and each one faced in a slightly different direction to give an illusion of individuality. All these buildings were whitewashed, and the architect had striven to give them a slightly Eastern look by the addition of an ornate brickwork lattice here and there in place of a window. This may have helped to keep the rooms cooler during the hot weather, but certainly made them very stuffy during the winter and early spring, and earned them the tide of ‘Baker’s Ovens’.
    Our particular oven was shared by two senior bachelor friends of my parents, who had invited them to stay until Tacklow had made arrangements to house his family for the season, and they insisted that Bets and I, whom they had known practically from our cradle days, should stay with them until our ‘camp’ had been set up. For Tacklow, finding it difficult to get rooms in New Delhi (and impossible to rent even the smallest bungalow there), had arranged with the Committee of the GymkhanaClub to house all four of us in the tented camp that was in the process of being set up in the grounds behind the club-house, for the use of members with families, who would sleep under canvas and have their meals in the Club’s dining-room. This scheme enthralled Bets and me, for we had many old friends — Buckie * among them — who not only used to spend their cold weathers in a luxurious tented camp on the far side of Old Delhi, originally set up for VI Ps attending the great Durbar of 1911, but continued to do so.
    Tents had always held an enormous fascination for us, particularly the semi-permanent variety, for India really went to town on those. They had wooden floors, raised high enough to keep them clear of flooding during the months of the monsoon or the short-lived winter rains, on which carpets or
durries
were laid. The canvas walls were double, with enough space between them to keep the interior of the tent cool in summer and warm in winter, while the furniture was much the same as you would expect to find in a house, and leading off each bedroom tent was a small India-style bathroom.
    The tents were part of the dear, remembered days of our childhood, and when we moved into them it was with delight. The Club itself was at that time only standing in for the real Club, which was still unfinished; and when, in the following year, it was finally completed, the temporary one was bought by His Highness the Maharajah of Kashmir and renamed Kashmir House, while the new one became known as the ‘IDG’ — the Imperial Delhi Gymkhana Club.
    We had barely got settled in our tents before we acquired the usual cat who, like all Kaye cats, was immediately named ‘Chips’. I have no idea how we managed to collect it, and can only suppose that it had attached itself to Tacklow, who attracted cats like jam at a picnic attracts wasps. All I remember about this one is that he was a ginger kitten, presumably a stray and, at the time we acquired him,