Hot Water Man

by Deborah Moggach

  ‘There isn’t a Tesco.’

  ‘You can get lost when you’re right back home.’

  ‘Are you going back to Karachi? I want to get back quickly.’

  Get back before he wakes up. Who was that Sultan Rahim? She made him a saint for her own gratification. She made him mysterious, for her own foreign frisson. Who was he? A genial businessman, a generous-hearted host who bought her a drink and lay down for a sleep. A family man no doubt, a diligent Muslim.

  And how she had used him. She had confused and inflamed him; oh pray to God he would think it was a dream. She had raped him. As the British had once invaded this country, so she had invaded him. She herself, of all people, was the worst colonialist of all. She had used him for the colour of his skin.

  ‘There’s a bus. There’s always a bus. You wait, and there’s a bus.’

  He spoke like Sultan: you want a shrine? You wait, you’ll find a shrine. Wherever you are looking, that will be the holy place.

  She rose awkwardly and went down to the water. She squatted in the liquid. It seeped up over her sandals. She splashed the water on her face. It was as warm as soup. Perhaps this was the hot water she had heard about. She would believe it was; it was the faith that counted. Words rolled around her head – racism, sexism, tinny catch-phrases she had mouthed without feeling. She had been so strident and innocent.

  Even after the wash she felt sticky. They walked up the slope, through the bushes. Sultan’s car had gone, but there were tyremarks in the sand.

  Families were standing around waiting for the bus. It was true: when you wanted a bus, so you saw other people waiting for one too. You would not have noticed them otherwise. They were poor people, women carrying tiffin tins wrapped in cloth and children carrying babies. They seemed to have sprung from nowhere; when she had visited the shrine it had been so empty.

  She did not look at them. She had misused them all.

  24

  For a week Donald had kept the piece of paper in his wallet. Saleem Beg, Near Petrol Pump, Commercial West Colony. He knew the place; it was the other side of the city, a run-down business suburb between the industrial sector and the beach road slums. He had driven through it several times on his way to the Cameron factories beyond.

  He had to go in working hours, of course; the tailor would not be there when the shops were closed. Twice this week he had tried to drive there. The first time he had been stopped by a frantic phone call from Mrs Gracie. The permission would be coming through at the end of the week; could he get up a petition at the Sind Club? Highly embarrassed, he had gone there for lunch. They would think he was mad – a crackpot Englishman instead of the sober Sales Manager and fellow sport he had been trying to appear. It was tricky, to campaign against a minister when not only did Cameron’s need the man’s support but when most of those who propped up the bar were the same minister’s friends and relatives. Out of loyalty to Mrs Gracie however he had cleared his throat and approached some of them. It fell flat. None of them had heard of the Donkey Sanctuary. Worse than this, few of them seemed to have even heard of Mrs Gracie. Since her day a new generation, and a new race, had arrived at the Sind Club. Then he had been obliged to break the news to her, blaming himself and his lack of contacts and charisma to divert her attention from the painful fact that she herself, as well as her cause, was in truth extinct.

  The next day he had left work early and driven to Commercial West. He had been stopped, however, by a cordon of police. There was another riot in the area. Afterwards he had read about it in the paper – just a small paragraph on the back page. Discontent was growing. What had originally started as a protest against the rising price of ghee was being fuelled by the few members of the opposition not in prison. The shaky presidency was shakier than ever; the Prime Minister’s bungalow in Clifton was now permanently guarded by a reinforcement of troops. There were rumours of corruption in high places and a ministerial re-shuffle; no doubt the risky members of the government would be replaced by those who toed the party line.

  Today he was going there. At five o’clock he was concluding a talk with Shamime about the paints brochure. He rose to leave.

  ‘One small thing, Shamime. I was supposed to meet Duke Hanson for a drink at the Intercon, and I can’t put it off because his line’s been engaged. Could you possibly have another bash when I’ve gone?’

  ‘Me?’ she said sharply.

  ‘I’m awfully sorry. It’s just, with Mary being off sick . . .’ Meaning: I hope you don’t think I’m treating you like my secretary.

  ‘No, no, of course, that’s fine.’ She looked composed again. She was a tricky girl, with her moods. He wanted to say: sorry, my mind’s a bit confused today. You see, I’m off to find my uncle. But then again it was not much to ask. After all she was a friend of Duke’s. Only yesterday she had lunched with him; he himself had seen her climbing out of Duke’s car when he was parking his own.

  He put her out of his mind. He was outdoors now in the suffocating heat of the car park, tipping the old man who polished his windscreen. He had always preferred this man to the small canny boys who ran this way and that with their cleaning rags, calling him sahib and giggling, making him feel foolish and younger than they.

  The old man bowed without a smile. Donald unlocked the door and waited while the man fumblingly opened it for him. Nowadays he looked at the man differently. Somewhere in this city a member of his own family was surviving on small coins such as these. Each time he realized this his stomach shifted.

  He drove through the traffic. Billboards advertised airlines and insurance schemes. Below them people squatted in their pavement camps. A barber cut someone’s hair; bundles slept on rope beds. Christine complained of being watched but she could retreat. It was only the humble who, year in and year out, had to suffer in public the indignity of their private lives. He himself had taken snapshots of the more picturesque amongst them.

  Lodged in his heart, he had a snapshot of his half-uncle. There was the petrol pump, exhaust fumes and a stall. They usually sat at junctions, for maximum trade. The setting was as primitive as these: just a tailor’s space on the pavement, a heap of clothes and customers being measured as people jostled past. His uncle must be the lowliest of the low, a half-caste with no place even in the humblest society, his mother dishonoured and dead. Spawned from two races you belonged to neither. At least he had an occupation, albeit that of street tailor. Like the discarded wrappings that littered the road, the man was the debris from his own father’s career.

  How could he make amends? He was driving down the highway now, tense and tacky. He still had not decided. It would be cowardly not to identify himself. But even if he made himself understood, which seemed unlikely, the man would probably think that the most tasteless joke was being made at his expense. They had their pride; however poor, one could retain a measure of that. In Donald’s wallet lay 2,000 rupees, about £80, the sum of his savings so far. Though little enough for himself – for the first time in his life he could actually afford this – it was large enough to set up the man in a better place. By Mr Beg’s own pitiful standards this would be a fortune. Or they could perhaps work out some kind of provident fund, or subsidy. Better late than never.

  He drove into the commercial colony, today cleared of the riot troops. Passing through on previous occasions he had noticed a small petrol station; he did not remember a tailor nearby, but then he would not have noticed one anyway. He parked a block away from the petrol pumps; he did not care to draw up there in his polished vehicle like a sahib.

  He remained in the car. Now he had arrived he wanted to turn around and drive home. Nobody would know. He half-wished Christine were beside him telling him what to do. It was only through his reluctance to tell her that he had realized the rift that had grown between them. He sat fiddling with his car keys and trying to ignore the glances of passers-by; few Europeans came to this place. Outside stood some grubby stalls dealing in spare parts – in one lay a heap of carburet
tors, in the next a pile of exhaust pipes. The keys dug into his hand. He could not believe the words he repeated to himself: I am making a family visit.

  Outside it was dusty. Men walked with cloths pulled across their mouths. Squatting amongst their rusting machinery the shopkeepers looked at him. Someone familiar to these shops had a paler skin. Perhaps he had Donald’s own blue eyes. How did Christine describe his grandfather? That blue gaze, as if he had nothing to hide. One of the few remarks she had made about him without irony. Until recently he had never really inspected the people who walked in the street. There were so many of them, you did not have the energy to distinguish one from the other. They were the masses; his old books called them the natives. You stopped your car to let them stream across the road. Mr Beg – Uncle Beg – might have children, of course. These would be near to his own age. One of those young men with his mouth covered, or those shrouded females shuffling past, might be another member of his own family.

  His stomach clenched. He unstuck himself from the car seat and climbed out. He walked around the corner, past what they called a hotel – in fact, just a tea stall. Men sat at the tables. He searched their faces. No doubt his uncle was known here; he must have sat on one of those wooden benches for years, even decades, pouring his tea into the saucer before he drank it, as they all did.

  At the road junction ahead stood the Burma Shell sign and the two pumps. A rickshaw waited there, being filled. There was no sign of a tailor this side; the only other possible place for him would be around the comer in the next street.

  Donald lingered for some moments. What he must do was place one foot in front of the other, walk past the pumps and turn left. That pavement was more solid than it seemed. He told himself: you can simply walk past him. He need never know. You are just a foreigner passing by on business of your own; he will hardly expect you to stop.

  He felt his jacket pocket; the wallet bulged there. He made his way around the pumps, and turned the corner.

  This place was busier than the street of Spare Parts; its pavement was crowded. He stood still, searching. Some men squatted in front of the shops; their cloths were spread with soap, plastic combs and Johnson’s Baby Oil. Another man sat beside his boxful of pan leaves and cigarettes. Somebody tapped his shoulder. Donald swung round.

  ‘Very nice hairs clip, sahib.’

  He stared into the man’s face. After a moment he managed to shake his head.

  He could see no one resembling a tailor, or even selling cloth. It took some time to search, with all those men in twos and threes, holding hands and blocking the view. The nearby factories had closed for the day but the shops were still open; everybody seemed to be in the streets. And there were no tailors, as far as he could see, on the other side of the road either. How near, exactly, was Near Petrol Pump? The man must be within sight.

  Rickshaws and taxis were parked along the street, jammed at all angles. Alongside him a lorry pushed past a donkey cart, blaring its horn. The donkey staggered and regained its balance; both drivers shouted. Donald turned his attention to the buildings.

  He moved nearer. It was a large new emporium with a window stretching the length of three shopfronts; luminous pink stickers were pasted up saying Fully Air-Conditioned. The sun glared on the glass; Donald moved, and saw inside the shop tiers of folded cloth. At the back, beyond the shelves, some steps led up to a platform with a cash booth and, on either side, men bent over sewing machines.

  He stood still. Of course, the man must have meant a tailor’s shop near the petrol pump. There must be thirty men up there on the platform, hard at work. In their midst was the glassed-in booth where the proprietor sat in state. They were bent so low that Donald could not see their faces. Mostly they looked old, but then the poor aged quickly here. Some had grey hair; some had dyed their hair orange with henna. He did not know what to do.

  ‘Yes sahib – you are pleased to enter?’

  Donald jerked round. The door was being held open. An assistant waited.

  Donald backed away, trying to smile normally. He shook his head, backing further. He bumped into somebody.

  ‘Sorry.’ He must stand at a distance and try to collect his thoughts. If this was the place – and there was nowhere else – then it needed some adjusting to. He had not expected such a large flourishing business, a factory really. He must face one of the assistants, or else that man in the booth. He was enormously fat; he sat above his toilers, his head and shoulders lit by the fluorescent light. He looked like a besuited Buddha up here; a plump god of commerce. Should he, Donald, go in and ask him for a Mr Beg? He hesitated. Perhaps there was more than one Mr Beg in there; it was a common name.

  He had not expected this meeting to be conducted under so many eyes. This would be even more difficult than he had imagined. Somehow he must get Mr Beg out of there. Perhaps he should take him back to his car. He must go in. He glanced up. The plastic sign said TIPTOP TAILORING.

  He felt dizzy. It was unreal. He was not here; he was standing outside Selfridges in an oddly stuffy winter. It was hot for Christmas, out here on the pavement. Behind the window sat the puppets, worked by electric, their little machines clacking up and down though he could not hear a sound.

  Again the door opened.

  ‘I’m looking for a Mr Beg,’ said Donald.

  Without hesitation the assistant said: ‘Please to come this way.’

  Donald followed him up the stairs. He could still turn back and run. One more step and he was at the top. His heart thumped in his ears. This close, some of them looked younger. He searched the older faces, with their greased, red hair scraped back over their skulls. Few looked at him; they continued their work, their heads bent. They seemed so aged and shrunken. Which one would raise his face?

  The assistant was tapping on the door of the booth. He opened it.

  ‘Mr Beg, there is somebody to see you.’

  The man rose to his feet and held out a pale, soft hand.

  25

  ‘I’m afraid he’s rather pissed,’ said Donald.

  ‘So are you.’

  ‘At least I got back to home sweet home.’

  He leant against her, partly to steady himself. They stood looking at the car; in the passenger seat Duke lay slumped. In the dark garden that frog went scrape, scrape.

  ‘Where did you meet?’ she asked.

  ‘At the Intercon Bar. I was supposed to meet him earlier and I turned up just in case. He couldn’t have got the message.’

  ‘Was he as bad as this?’

  ‘We both got worse. He kept on mumbling about his wife, as if he was trying to speak to her on the phone and he couldn’t get through. It was exciting driving back. He kept falling on me round the corners.’

  ‘Did you keep mumbling about me?’

  ‘I needn’t, need I. You’re here.’

  ‘You’re not allowed to be so prosaic when you’re drunk.’

  They gazed at Duke, illuminated by the porch light.

  ‘It’s so unlike him,’ said Donald. ‘I always thought he could take his drink. He seemed so impervious.’

  Duke’s head was propped against the window. His big face was crumpled like a baby’s; a snail’s trail of saliva glinted down his chin.

  ‘Perhaps he’s been terribly lonely,’ said Donald.

  ‘Perhaps he’s been having an affair.’

  ‘What, Duke? Not him.’

  ‘Does seem rather hard to imagine. We can’t lift him can we?’

  ‘He’s like an ox.’

  Christine fetched some cushions from the house and wedged them around Duke’s head. She closed the car door.

  Leaving Duke, they went indoors. ‘One step here,’ she instructed, ‘easy does it.’ He protested. She liked him best when he was drunk; he improved with loosening up. Unlike many men he never became belligerent, just emotional.

  In bed he clung to her.

  ‘You’re everything I’ve got, Chrissy.’

  She was so moved, tears pricked her e
yes. She had wronged him. Since yesterday she had said nothing, but he must know. With guilt like hers the other person could surely tell. She was an adulteress. Blind in the dark, she felt his face with her fingers.

  ‘Nobody else matters, do they,’ she whispered, making him understand.

  He shook his head, his hair rubbing across her face. His body felt warm and known. ‘Nobody. Here, darling. I want you so much.’ A moment later he said, ‘Safe and sound.’

  She pressed her face against his cheek. He hardly ever talked like this.

  ‘Home safe and sound,’ he murmured again.

  She opened her mouth against his. Was it just the drink?

  Afterwards they lay drenched. On either side the mosquito coils smoked, like twin spirits rising.

  26

  Next morning she came downstairs early. Donald still slept. Down in the living-room she found Duke slumbering on the sofa; a large creased object, like a parcel that had been too long in the post, propped against the cushions from the car.

  ‘Did you do that?’ she asked Mohammed who was entering, sober in his starched white.

  He shook his head, a muscle twitching in his jaw. This meant, she thought, amusement rather than disapproval. She sat down. He put a papaya in front of her. She opened the newspaper.

  Her own face gazed up from the page.

  She slapped the newspaper shut. An inch from her hand, coffee was poured into her cup. Two mats were moved an inch nearer. Upon one was put the coffee pot; upon the other the milk jug. He had finished.

  A pause. ‘Papaya is okay?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ She picked up the piece of lime and tried to squeeze it on to the fruit. It slipped out of her hand.

  ‘Fine,’ she said, picking it up.

  ‘Madam is liking toast?’

  ‘Yes,’ she lied. She waited. Then his plimsolls squeaked as he went into the kitchen.