Hot Water Man

  ‘There isn’t one solution. There’s no little button, Duke. It’s not that your computer’s got it wrong, you know. How much nicer to play draughts, black and white, right and wrong . . . Got you.’

  With a clunk she jumped two of his counters, one after the other. That left one of her black ones at risk. He jumped it. She had four of his beside her glass of juice; he only had one of hers.

  She leant forward. The sari slipped off her shoulder; she hitched it back abstractedly as if she were pushing back her hair. Aziz got up, but he was only going to the bar. Duke thought: we discuss this and that, I talk about Minnie, by the end of the evening I will be safe. We can get through it like this. Please God we can.

  ‘Talking of black and white,’ said Shamime, ‘do you dream in colour?’

  Duke stiffened. ‘I don’t remember. Colour, I guess.’ He tried not to think of his recent nights. ‘Sure.’

  She gazed back at him, the diamond glinting in the lamplight. Was that why he had seen blood on Minnie’s face? A jewel of blood.

  ‘And yourself?’ He kept his voice light.

  ‘Of course. They’re terribly vivid. I’m superstitious about omens.’

  There was a silence. He did not ask her what omens she had seen.

  ‘There’s a sweet little man who does my horoscope. I’m quaintly oriental, aren’t I.’

  Her mocking tone had him all confused. He remembered her ducking her head, her hands full of petals. He must talk about Minnie.

  ‘My wife’s gotten interested in comparative religion. She studies a lot.’

  ‘And you don’t.’

  ‘Minnie’s the one for the books. Always has been. And she goes to these evening classes.’

  ‘Got you.’ Two clunks and she was right into his back row of whites, none of which had been moved yet. But he could not jump her counter now, it being safe against the side.

  ‘She didn’t have too much of an education either, but she minded more. We married when she was twenty years old.’ He slid a counter forward.

  ‘Guess what I discovered yesterday. Rather embarrassing really. I was chatting with Christine Manley, and it turns out that my ghastly school stood at the end of her garden. I remember muggins here being rather rude about Mill Hill. All the little semis just the same.’

  ‘Mill Hill, London? She didn’t attend your school?’

  ‘Apparently not. Mine was horribly posh. Fancy that though. Perhaps I knocked a hockey ball into her father’s potting shed. I did once, into somebody’s. One seldom glimpsed the natives.’

  He ached, trying not to picture her at school. He tried to count the squares, one, two, three. He paused and said: ‘We couldn’t afford a lot for the kids, when they were young. Not in those days. When we first married we lived in this two-roomed apartment above a drapery store.’

  ‘Look out, I’ve got a king.’ She leant over and took back her counter from beside his tumbler. ‘I can go all directions now so watch out. I can creep up from behind.’

  ‘She’s a demon,’ called Aziz. ‘You haven’t a chance, old chap.’

  ‘Watch out,’ said Shamime, ‘I’m advancing.’

  Duke moved his counter. She jumped it and put it away on her hoard.

  ‘Guess I’ll give up,’ he said.

  ‘You can’t. Not just when I’m winning.’

  ‘I seem to be kind of rusty.’

  ‘I thought you were a fighter.’

  Not at this sort of game, he wanted to say.

  ‘It’s only a game,’ she said. ‘Aziz lost seven hundred rupees last night, didn’t you Ziz.’

  Deep in his leather armchair Aziz said: ‘Eight hundred and fifty.’

  ‘Father won’t bail you out for ever,’ she said.

  In the photo father was a grey blob. Duke moved his counter. He felt invaded by her; she moved into him like oil. He should be gone soon. He had a call booked for the States.

  She leant forward, the bangles falling to her wrist. ‘You must meet Uncle Bobby, Duke. I love him. I only like older men. I mean, look at Aziz. They’re all so gorgeous but there’s nothing inside. They’ve no experience of life. They’ve never had to weather anything, you see. They’ve never had to fight. I don’t want them like that, brand new and wrapped in cellophane. I want damaged goods.’

  Duke placed his counter with care. But her tone was light.

  Aziz climbed to his feet, looking at his watch. ‘Habib and that lot said they’ll be at the Excelsior by now.’

  Duke scraped back his chair. The table rocked.

  ‘We haven’t finished,’ she said.

  ‘You’ve won. I have to go. You see, I have a call booked for eleven.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said slowly.

  His first lie to her. In fact the call was booked for twelve midnight, but he must leave now. ‘It’s still afternoon in the States.’ Or was it morning? His head was confused. Soon Minnie could tell him which it was.

  Aziz shook hands and left. Duke picked up his keys and the seersucker jacket in which he had expected to meet the Minister. Tall in her sari, the hostess, Shamime stood up to see him out. He prayed for her not to speak.

  In the foyer the bearer waited. Beyond the open door an engine revved up and Aziz drove off. They went outside. The foliage was damp still, and spotlit. The air was heavy with the scent of blossoms and exhaust smoke. Beyond the wall came the drone of the highway. He turned to shake her hand.

  ‘Thank you again for a mighty enjoyable evening.’

  ‘I’ll come to your car.’

  They walked out through the gates. If only she would stay home. He wondered when her parents would be returning. The chowkidar saluted and went back to his quarters behind the shrubs.

  He unlocked the car door. She stood on the other side. He hesitated.

  ‘Can I get in?’ she said.

  He took the keys and went round to her side. The car hood was a large, wide object that had to be negotiated. He unlocked her door, opened it, walked the journey back to his door and let himself in.

  ‘Let’s drive,’ she said.

  ‘I must be getting on home.’

  ‘I need a cigarette.’ She fiddled with the automatic lighter.

  ‘After that I’d better escort you back,’ he said.

  She pressed in the lighter. Her voice was low. ‘Why haven’t you phoned me, Duke? I kept on staying in and making excuses.’

  He stopped breathing. There was silence in the automobile.

  After a moment the lighter popped out. Neither of them moved in the darkness.

  Another moment passed. ‘I didn’t know you’d been doing that,’ he said.

  ‘What do you think, Duke? What have you been thinking?’

  ‘I don’t think. I’ve gotten so confused.’

  Down the highway, far ahead, a neon sign switched on and off. BUBBLE UP. Except it was only half working. UBBL U.

  ‘Duke, don’t you understand?’

  He could not speak. He shook his head.

  ‘You don’t want to understand. Oh Duke, I can see that.’

  UBBL U. Blackness. UBBL U. She leant forward; the silk shifted. She pushed in the lighter.

  ‘What do you want with me?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t want anything with you. I want you. That’s the awful thing.’

  There was another silence. The lighter popped out. Neither of them moved. He could not look at her. He looked at the dumb red letters, off, on.

  ‘I know I shouldn’t talk like this,’ she said softly. ‘You’re too old. You’re far too married.’

  He said at last: ‘I am.’

  ‘Could you light my damned cigarette?’

  This time he pushed in the lighter. They waited. He could hear her breathing. Seconds passed; the lighter popped out. She tried to take it but her hand was shaking. He took it from her and tried to press it against her cigarette but his hand was finding this hard too.

  It was managed. She blew out smoke. ‘Please let’s go. Please.’

&nbsp
; He turned the key. They drove in silence. By the time they arrived at his house she had finished her cigarette. It was nearly eleven o’clock. She did not touch him but followed him upstairs, close behind.

  It was Sunday: Gul’s day off. His bed was in a mess, all disordered in the electric light. He felt ashamed and asked her to wait in the chair while he straightened the sheets but as he bent down she gripped his hand. She was down on the bed with him, pressed against him, kissing him over his cheeks and his eyelids. Her sari was bunched about her waist; his hand kept meeting warm skin. He held her; she felt so slender he must hurt her, the way he was holding her now. He closed his eyes against the glare.

  ‘Have you been thinking of me?’ she whispered into his hair.

  ‘Don’t ask me that, honey.’

  ‘Have you?’

  As he gripped her the table moved. She had kicked it with her foot. The phone tinged.

  ‘What’s the matter? Oh Duke keep me tight. Sweetest, sweetest Duke, my sweet old man, I haven’t lived since that night, I’ve just been waiting. I could hardly bear it that day with that other man too, I had to leave, it killed me that you could sit so calmly and talk about your hotel, Duke I wanted you so much. Last week I kept driving past your office, round and round those shops, I drove past eight times and I could never see you. Duke I thought I’d go mad.’

  He must be going mad. His chest felt it would break.

  ‘Don’t move, Duke. I don’t care about the light. I want to see you this time.’

  But he had only moved over to lift the receiver off the phone.

  19

  The stalls were piled with clothes. Christine tried to squeeze past. They were heaped with pullovers and with creased velvet party dresses, cast-offs from childrens’ cupboards the other side of the globe. It was stiflingly hot; men jostled her. She drew her dupatta across her mouth. She did it like a Pakistani girl now.

  The old clothes bazaar was full of men; the few women wore bourquas. Shamime had told her about this place the first time they met, when Christine was wearing one of her Rags frocks. It wound along an alley near the Bottle Bazaar. She staggered; the crowd closed in behind her. Since Juna Bazaar she had learnt not to panic. Up above hung brassières; they wore the chewed look of countless launderings. Were the women who washed them now dead? They hung like giblets over the men’s heads. According to Shamime the stuff was shipped here in bulk – ships from Japan, the States and no doubt Britain. The clothes were manufacturers’ rejects, garments from jumble sales and from international aid programmes. The alley was piled with debris from the West, such an assortment, who would ever be wanting that emerald-green taffeta gown? Some of the clothes had been darned, long ago. Some pink dungarees hung up there, patched with Beach Boys For Ever. Below the empty legs some men were bargaining, their voices raised over the music which played from a transistor, balanced on a mound of shirts.

  She thought of Roz rummaging here. Roz went to all the London jumble sales – places jammed not with men but with housewives. She was sharp-eyed, grabbing this piece of lace, that satin slip, and stitching them together to make the unique and pricey garments sold at Rags Period Frocks. They were bought by women who double-parked their husbands’ cars outside. Camden Passage itself was hardly wider than this alley. Narrow old city houses just like these. No, not just like these.

  She nudged through the crowd. She was more belligerent nowadays. When men touched her she elbowed them away. She leant across and lifted up a torn, gold-lamé dress. There were some beautiful things here. The older and frailer these clothes were, the more marketable they would be in London, and the less marketable here. In London women were rich enough to be seen in rags.

  She stopped. She had seen what she wanted.

  ‘Kitne?’ She pointed. It was hanging above her.

  Up in the shadows, in the interior of the stall, a turbaned Pathan sat on a pile of clothes. Shamime said Pathans ran this place. He leant slightly forward to look.

  ‘Das rupea,’ he said flatly and leant back. He had a face like a hawk. Instead of mountains, he gazed over hillocks of clothes. His eyes were darkened with kohl. He closed them in a cloud of charas smoke.

  ‘Das?’ She stared. ‘Ten?’

  His friend unhooked the dress. ‘Tip-top for memsahib. Very good dress – look, see.’ He pointed to the label. Men gathered round. The label said St Michael Polyester/Cotton, her size.

  ‘Six rupees,’ she said. Other clothes here were being sold for one rupee and less. She was no fool. She had lived here for two months.

  ‘Das.’

  ‘Mark and Spencer,’ said the friend. ‘All womens they goes crazy with the Mark and Spencer.’

  ‘Seven.’

  ‘Das. Ten. Last price.’

  ‘These is not good.’ The friend shook his head, pointing to her loose kurta. ‘This the best.’ He held up the dress. It was a yellow-checked shirtwaister, the sort of dress she had not worn for years. She must look English, however, for her photograph.

  She sighed loudly. ‘Okay. Ten.’

  The dress was perfect; it even had white piping around the edges of the pockets. She bundled it under her arm. She could not bargain; she still retained the British habit of feeling obliged to someone in a less pleasant position than herself. Last week she had met Shamime buying a length of cloth in Bohri Bazaar. At least, not buying. Pointing to this and that, Shamime waited for the old man to get them out and shake them loose in front of her. She chose one; he cut her the length. Then he named the price and she threw up her hands. Far too much, she cried. He would not bargain and she left the shop. ‘But he’s cut it off,’ said Christine. ‘How can he sell it now?’ ‘Chrissy dear he’ll find some other dum-dum. They’re all crooks.’ Undoubtedly Shamime knew – after all she was Pakistani, so she was mysteriously right. But it also helped one’s conscience, in this disturbing country, to believe the poor were crooks so they need be given nothing. Whatever the logic, however, in that cloth stall even Shamime seemed foreign.

  She rode home in a rickshaw. It was nearly midday. Upstairs Mohammed was squirting the landing curtains with mosquito spray. Like a spy he seemed to linger just where she wanted to go. She closed the bedroom door and switched on the air-conditioner. The dress did not need ironing. An old, unreadable cleaning ticket was still pinned to the hem. She put on the frock and buckled the neat little fabric belt. She opened the wardrobe. Beside the mirror her chart stirred; she must re-Sellotape it.

  She stood back, staring at the mirror. It was a changed woman who stared at itself, clapping a hand to its mouth. Trim, pretty, utterly British. She had a shape – waist, hips. She looked like some of the girls from her class at school – girls she used to see pushing prams along Mill Hill Parade. Her mother would be proud of her now with that Peter Pan collar – white next to the face, as Mummy had repeated, was indeed flattering.

  She put on some sandals and stood up, smoothing down her skirt. Unlike her ethnic muslins it looked as good as new. She had bought some lipstick from the Intercontinental Drug Store. She made up her face. On the floor lay her old clothes, shed skins from which had emerged this Young Conservative. A new recruit, hatched from a slum bazaar. She peered closer in the mirror. The pretty face smiled at itself – faintly freckled, floury with powder, eyebrows raised.

  As she closed the door Mohammed emerged from the guest bedroom. Something, just a flicker, passed across his face. Either admiration or amusement, gone too quick to tell.

  ‘This okay?’ She blushed. She felt awkward, being a woman and drawing attention to the fact when so many identical Mohammeds jostled her in the street and put their hands up the crotch of her jeans.

  He pointed to his head. ‘I think . . . I see Memsahib Smythe.’

  She was thinking how to reply to this when there was the noise of an engine in the drive. She ran downstairs, followed by the bearer. It was Donald.

  ‘Didn’t I say I was coming back for lunch today?’

  He spoke in the stagey way th
ey talked when Mohammed was around. Mohammed must have remembered because the table was laid.

  ‘You’ve done something to yourself,’ said Donald. ‘Good Lord.’

  ‘Wait till I brush my hair.’

  ‘I’m most impressed.’ He paused. ‘Goodness. Yes.’ He gazed again. ‘Good Lord.’

  It was nice to see him alert. He had seemed preoccupied these last few days. It was probably something to do with his work, which he knew she would not understand. Nowadays his job spread into far more of his life than it had done at Crouch End.

  They sat down to eat.

  ‘I’m awfully glad you’re going,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ She stiffened. She had not told him, of course. There was no point, yet. But she had written the time and the place in her diary. Had he looked?

  ‘I’ve been feeling it’s time you got down to something,’ he said.

  She hesitated, and then let out her breath. ‘So have I. That’s why I’ve done it. It’s the only thing I seem qualified for, and I must do something here.’

  ‘It foxed me, that dress, till I remembered it’s Tuesday.’

  She paused, a bean hanging from her fork. ‘What?’

  ‘Tuesday. The day for the fair Brits.’

  ‘Ah. The B.W.A.’

  There was a silence as her mind worked. This was tricky. She had presumed not actually to deceive him. Her absence should not have been missed because he was supposed to be at the office. To put it into words was so much more committing, for herself as well as for him.

  Instead of speaking she grunted. This could be taken as an assent.

  ‘What did your mother say in her letter?’ she asked, a diversionary tactic.

  ‘Let me see. Granny’s had a date for her hip.’

  ‘Marvellous. When?’ All of a sudden she was interested in Gran.

  ‘They’re operating late August.’ He relapsed into silence.

  ‘It wasn’t this place that gave her arthritis was it?’ she asked, keen to continue this.

  ‘Everyone gets it when they’re old. But she suffered, you know, being out here. She didn’t talk about it, not to me. But she suffered, Chrissy. Like not being able to have any more children after my father was born. They should’ve sent her back to England to have the baby.’ He gazed at a radish, cut out with fancy petals. ‘You know, I often think about them. Her and Grandad.’