Hot Water Man

by Deborah Moggach

  It was Karachi that Grandad had mentioned most often. ‘Happened on my Karachi tour,’ he would say. But Donald was so young then, lying on the hearthrug and counting the tiles on the gas-fire surround. Karachi was the caged pinkish glow in the fire, somewhere far off. What else had Grandad said? It had mostly dissolved. We presume that when we speak we communicate; we have to believe this, otherwise what would we do? Donald could remember some chuckles about this or that, colonel somebody coming a cropper. He could not even distinguish if the setting was army quarters in India or England, where Grandad served for the last few years, they sounded so similar. The same talk, if he could remember any of it, and the same jokes.

  He drove down past the cantonment station, with its tea houses and the squalid hotels where the hippies stayed. This was the sort of place Christine liked, its fruit stalls black with flies. Around it lay the old residential quarter, or what was left of it. This area, with its station, Anglican church and Military Lines, was where the British used to live if they did not live in Clifton, a mile away. One thing he did remember was Granny complaining that the shunting trains used to keep her awake.

  Meadow Road. The name was carved in a corner wall. This sounded familiar but then he had searched along here before. At a junction stood the newer, metal sign: Ajazuddin Road.

  He must have passed it on several occasions; due to the name he had not driven that way. It was another wide street, with old bungalows on either side. Built by the British for themselves, they had now been taken over: the brass plaques said Alliance Française and Dubai Commercial Division. These buildings looked mellow compared to his own raw house in K12. Ahead, the road curved round a corner.

  He slowed down. Now he was here he hardly dared arrive. What would he do: ring the bell and ask to look around? There were no cars about. Chowkidars, seated at the gates, watched him without interest. Little did they know. These large trees were younger then, mere saplings when Grandad had walked this street fifty years ago. Otherwise it must have been the same. Grandad would recognize it now, house for house.

  And so what? Christine would say. She was always there, a hum in his head. Look at what’s happening, not at what happened. He drove round the corner.

  The street stopped abruptly. The houses had been demolished.

  Donald halted the car and gazed through the windscreen. Ahead of him lay bulldozers and rubble. The stench was strong; he wound up the window. A milky creek ran under the road. The whole place was one vast building site. In front of him, a banner drooped from a half-completed block: Ahmed Prestige Apartments. On the ground floor were the empty concrete boxes where the shops would be. Electrical wires hung, knotted, from their ceilings. Coming Soon: Orient Photocopy. Beyond this, stretches of vacant dust, more construction in progress and further still the highway leading to K12 Housing Society. Scaffolding stuck up into the treacherous blue sky.

  Donald sat still, the engine running. He waited for his breathing to settle. Christine had been right, of course; it was foolish to have hoped. Overhead buzzards drifted. In front of him the road was blocked with a row of oil drums.

  He turned the car and drove back slowly. Black birds stood around in the street as if they owned it. He wanted to rev up and run them down. At the junction he turned left and then stopped the car.

  He looked at those carved letters: Meadow Road. He switched off the engine. Meadow Road. Was it just because he had seen it five minutes earlier, and several times before that, or was it an older memory? He gazed at the cracked pavement, trying to concentrate. At this moment it sounded so very familiar.

  Above him a tree had shed black pods. Must be a tamarind. The pods lay scattered; some were squashed. Ahead lay the sleepy afternoon street. Meadow . . . Fields. (A most unmeadowy road.) Something was stirring. He closed his eyes. In the clenched blackness he tried to remember. Deep within his head it was echoing.

  Afternoons in the lounge, stuffy upholstery, stuffy as this car interior, and sunlight outside. Fields . . . Gracie Fields . . . Forces’ Favourites. Forces’ Favourites? He screwed up his face.

  It did not work. He opened his eyes and gazed at the dashboard dials, all at O. He had got nowhere. It was nothing useful. He had just remembered the wireless programmes. It was simply the old breath of his childhood air. Sounds and cooking smells coming from the kitchen.

  He started the car and crawled along, glancing at the gatepost plates. New Zealand High Commission . . . Maj. A. D. Khalid (Retd). Some were almost illegible; they held the mild, impersonal interest of old tombstones. The lettering on number 17 was painted on to a glass panel set into the post; it had partly peeled off. He read: 17A Mrs I. B. Gracie.

  The car jerked to a stop. He had done that. It stalled.

  The gates were open. In fact they looked so broken they probably could not be closed now. Beyond stood a dilapidated house. It was enormous. There was no sign of life.

  Gracie.

  9

  Christine’s chart was Sellotaped to the inside of the wardrobe door. Here it could be met casually. Pencilled asterisks indicated the days of the month when, as it were, it was All Systems Go. Donald had never seen her pencilling these in, though Christine with a thermometer in her mouth was as familiar, in the bathroom each morning, as Christine brushing her teeth. Also uncommented on, and only too familiar, was the Tampax tube in the lavatory bowl each month. It never seemed to flush away first time; it would float in the water, uncurling gently and with regret. She had kept the chart for over six months now. He doubted whether she had told anyone about this. It was his secret with her, though they seldom mentioned it and were as shy about it as newly-weds.

  She had fixed the paper crookedly, with one strip of Sellotape; it flapped when the wardrobe door was opened. The margins were wavy, the writing as usual loopy and careless. It appeared so casual but this fooled neither of them. They must pretend not to adjust their embraces, like a clock, to the ticking of Christine’s internal rhythm. They did, of course. Twice a day Donald opened the wardrobe to get his clothes, once in the morning and once after work when he had showered. As he foraged amongst the hangers, out of the corner of his eye he saw the paper shift. Her womb was part of the business of dressing. Below the hanging space a drawer held his rolled-up socks. He had grown superstitious about which he chose: black today, or the dark ones with the wavy red thread down the side?

  Some time ago, when they had cleared their throats and admitted that there might be a problem, they had both been to the clinic. Medical expertise had informed them that nothing seemed to be the matter with either of them. This had been a relief, of course. It had been preceded by his own sperm-count, itself preceded by a solitary exercise so flushed and stubborn that he had only been able to describe it to Christine in joke form, papering the cubicle with Playboy centrefolds and introducing topless nursing staff. So luridly had he coloured it that later he could almost believe it himself.

  When he arrived home Mohammed had already retired to his quarters. Christine was standing in the kitchen, the Guardian Weekly spread out on the working surface. The ceiling fan spun; the Guardian lifted and rustled like tissue paper. They had been away from England three weeks now; already the news items, though read by them with the quickening pulse of exiles, seemed quaint and distant. Lacking the bearer the kitchen seemed larger; it belonged to them now.

  ‘Hungry?’ He stood behind her, resting his head on her shoulder. She had washed her hair; the frizz, fragrant today, tickled his cheek.

  ‘Too hot.’

  ‘Let’s not bother with lunch,’ he said boldly. A record-breaking heatwave was forecast in Britain, he read.

  He remained behind her, his chin supported. Today had a pencilled cross against it. Did she know he remembered? Mohammed’s grey cloth was folded on the draining board; the cups were stacked. Everything was ready.

  Neither of them moved. Due to her sunburn, he did not rest the full weight on her shoulder. He looked at the photograph of deck chairs in St James’s Par
k. She appeared to be reading too. Donald felt as if he hardly knew her. Tilting his head he could see his watch: 2 o’clock. Mohammed would not come back indoors until five.

  ‘And they call that hot,’ said Christine.

  They stayed rigid. A fly crawled up the window screen. Donald cleared his throat.

  ‘Let’s mosey along,’ he said in poor American, ‘and have ourselves a little siesta.’

  In the bedroom he drew the curtains, yawning loudly. He stretched. Christine yawned too and lay down on the bed. He took off his clothes and closed the door. He walked around the room, delaying things. In the gloom his wife was a pale blur. He heard her yawn again. Perhaps she was actually going to sleep. Five asterisks already; that meant that tomorrow, Sunday, the operative period would be over. He climbed on to the bed.

  ‘Ouch!’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s my sunburn. Sorry.’

  ‘You were mad to go out in the middle of the day. That bazaar place.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘At least you bought a shawl thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘To protect you from the sun.’

  ‘Ah. Yes. That’s right.’

  ‘I’d better not touch you.’

  ‘Oh please do. Just not here, and here.’

  ‘That all right? I’ll be very careful.’

  ‘Mmm. Ouch! It’s a bit tender there.’

  Suddenly he wanted her so much. Now he should not touch her, his blood rose. She was so feminine, shrinking like this. He would take care of her: his hurt, burning girl. He laid his careful hands on her face.

  Afterwards she went to sleep. He leant over and switched on the World Service, softly. She shifted away from him, hunched up. So reckless when awake, during sleep she covered herself with her hands, pressing them against her little pointed breasts. He felt as sad as he usually did; only he had been moved. Radio Newsreel began, with its massed bands. Oompah, it went – the tune was called ‘Imperial Echoes’. Beside him Christine stirred and hunched herself up more tightly. He lay there, damp and wistful.

  Usually he presumed that it was himself who was barren. But sometimes he thought: had she ceased being fertile when she had called herself Chris? Her new opinions had made her criticize him and explain away the mysteries. Nowadays he could not reach her. More deft, her lovemaking, but no longer innocent. When she cried out it was not for him; it was for herself and, it seemed, for womankind.

  Oompah, oompah. Outside in the street a car hooted. When people returned from work they sounded their horn to get the chowkidar to open the gates.

  Christine sat up.

  ‘What’s the time?’

  He told her.

  ‘Must get dressed. I’m taking Mohammed out.’ She climbed off the bed and switched on the light.

  ‘What?’

  ‘And his wife. We’re going to the doctor.’

  ‘Are they ill?’

  ‘We’re going to Dr Farooq to get her fitted up.’

  Christine was rummaging in the wardrobe. She was naked; for the first time he saw her sunburn, a pink square between the shoulder-blades.

  ‘I had a long conversation with him this morning. You see, he’s got four children already. He doesn’t want any more.’ Her voice grew muffled as she rummaged. ‘He seemed never to have heard of birth control. I read somewhere that the doctors give them condoms and they give them to their children for balloons.’ Deep in the wardrobe she mumbled: ‘Seems his problem’s rather the opposite of ours.’ From the back, her pink patch looked inflamed, as if it blushed.

  Donald remained on the bed. Then he thought: and I haven’t even told her about Mrs Gracie.

  10

  The first time that Mohammed, with his baskets, has accompanied memsahib Manley to the bazaar, she opens front door of the car and indicates him to step in. Front door, not back. This has put him in some confusion. This has not, of course, been the custom of memsahib Smythe; this has not been the custom of any memsahib. Mohammed is sorry to see memsahib Smythe quit his country. She is fine lady, always spick and span, he has been proud to accompany her around the Empress Market. The vegetable-wallahs treat her with respect, with her fine outfits and voice that carries far. Mohammed himself, of course, has been treated with a corresponding respect not only by food-wallahs but by the other drivers and bearers of his acquaintance, even those who serve the diplomatic. Memsahib Smythe has the highest standards, turning the mangoes in her hands, rejecting those that are being inferior and demanding the lowest price. If still unsatisfied she moves to adjacent stall. She is seldom unsatisfied however for soon the food-wallahs learn that she only expects the best and accordingly keep for her their choicest fruits. Mohammed has been feeling personally their approbation.

  Memsahib Manley, she is a very different kettle of fishes. For one point, there is her garments. Upon her feet she wears the common chappals, costing only three rupees and worn by the humblest coolie. But it is the upper portions which disturb. Upon them she wears garments suitable for beggarladies or else, more inflaming, more offending, the most figure-hugging jean-slacks through which can be observed the contours of her form. She walks with little shame. If he is not her cook-bearer but lolling at ease against some street corner, he would keep his eyes on the said form, even although her bosom, so visible, is of poor size. As it is he keeps his eyes averted when in bungalow. He has seen others, of course. He is man of the world. There are the hippie persons wandering hither and thither, lowest of the low. There are also the tourist ladies from the Intercontinental Hotel but those persons are guests of his country for only some days, perhaps not respecting Muslim ways but confined to the major thoroughfares and government shops. In addition, for the cost of one half-week’s salary a man of the world can purchase the Penthouse magazine or similar from Mr Khan who is keeping the pan kiosk backside of Reptile Handbag Emporium. But a memsahib is different matter. At large, his standing it is lowered.

  And there is one other point. They are already making two journeys to provision bazaar, once in car and once in taxicab when sahib is in office. But though she asks his advice the first occasion she now prefers to purchase alone and she is topful with delight whatsoever she is buying, never bargaining over the cost – in what respect do the vegetable-wallahs hold him now? She also carries a basket herself while he follows with another: is he not a man with strength in his arms? Is he not paid Rs 275 a month? She walks with lightest heart into the dirty alleys, venturing into places he is shamed that a British memsahib must be seeing, and where the shop-wallahs are knowing no English turn of phrase. This makes him look even smaller bearer. And now she is making the habit of going out alone with her baskets, summoning a rickshaw like a Pakistani clerk’s wife and dispensing with his services.

  It is not as he is expecting. He is thirty years old. First he works for Pakistani lady but he is rising in the world since that time. He is now at sixes and sevens. The very second day, memsahib Manley she is entering his kitchen – not, as is memsahib Smythe’s custom, summoning him to lounge or, if entering kitchen, giving loud warning, such politeness being secondary nature to such a memsahib. Memsahib Manley she is entering kitchen quiet as a mouse, she creeps around residence, her feet nude like beggarwoman, he not knowing where she is next popping up. She points her finger to his uniform. Swiftly he explains small mark on jacket caused by tomatoes ketchup. No it is not that. Complicated talking follows, his English words not so good in speech as in his mind, and her Urdu no good. The final result is she is asking him if he is not more happy wearing no uniform but own personal garments.

  He can make no reply. His cousin Jalauddin, who is dursi to many residences, among them German Consulate, has himself admired the double-stitching and superior cloth. The jacket bears CC of Cameron, formed in green. His own garments? He has one bush-shirt and slacks, and three shalwar-kemise; when wearing them what is to be distinguishing him from the many other men occupied in the most menial manner, or with no occupation at all?
Not to mention bearers of inferior Pakistani households; bearers who cannot cook the potato chips the European style.

  That is another point. Memsahib Smythe is giving him most inestimable training not only in the English customs but also in the English cooking. After six months his Apple Charlotte is more superior, memsahib Smythe say, than even back in Wimbledon, England, where her residence lies. (She kindly sends him snapshot, already, with greetings from little Karen and Jamie, that scallywag.) For the first dinner for Manley-sahibs he is cooking his finest meal, that most beloved of the Smythe-sahibs, the fish and chips followed by the guava mould and custard – for this he has purchased tin of Bird’s Custard coming all the way from Britain, its price being twelve rupees but then quality goods, say memsahib Smythe, they are being the most expensive. But then memsahib Manley she is taking him aside and say him that she is wanting to learn the Pakistani cooking, and is this green chillis more heated than red? He say Smythe-sahibs they are eating curry one time each week. She say she want more. She is eating it much in Britain, she say, and she talks of restaurants and Vindaloos. He is thinking: this is Bengali food, I am not Bengali man, she is thinking that all Pakistanis are the same?

  And there is yet another point. Memsahib Smythe, she is taking pride in his work. She runs the finger along picture top, for her he works his best. He is eager to improve and learn. But memsahib Manley she does no such actions; he escorts her around bungalow and she is not looking but all smiles and everything tickitiboo. Manley-sahib, he is more good in this respect.

  And there is one further point. Manley-sahib, for whom he has plenty more respect, who understands the Pakistani customs, at one time he is ringing little bell during dinner that tells Mohammed the moment for re-entering with dessert. With such a bell Mohammed is at his ease in kitchen, he feels little restraint in smoking his cigarette. He has the freedom. But memsahib Manley, with outrage and mirth, is consigning little bell into the cupboard and now he must wait most anxiously, listening to noise of knives and forks, again at sixes and sevens. Nowadays, it is clear, nothing is comfortable for him, memsahib Manley treating him like brother not cook-bearer. The most pleasant time is now at breakfast, if only Manley-sahib eating and memsahib is still sleeping, when equilibrium is order of day.