Vertigo

by Ashok Banker

  ‘Oh,Auntie, don’t be a bore.’

  ‘Last and final time I tell you. No boys.’

  Meera puffs her cheeks and blows out a sigh. Jay, his way blocked, smiles politely and shifts from foot to foot. To his surprise and discomfort, the landlady comes up to him and shakes a withered finger at his face. ‘You don’t feel shameless like this? Corrupting morals of young girls?You don’t have sisters of your own? How you feel if other men come to her house and stay all night? Laughing and talking and music so loud all night. I can’t sleep. I worry for her reputation. You go from here. Go! ’ And, incredibly, she actually gives Jay a weak but angry shove. Meera pulls him away, down the last three steps, out of the building. Behind him, the landlady yells something incoherent in Sindhi. A door slams.

  Driving, Meera glances at him. ‘I’m really sorry about that scene.

  She’s such an old witch.’

  ‘It’s okay.’ For some strange reason, he is shaking.

  Meera stops the car, dances around to the curb, goes into Kook’s.

  A tape’s playing on the car stereo: Jim Morrison crooning Indian summer. The music fills him, lifts him, floats him outside himself: OBE.

  When she comes back with a polythene bag full of brown-paper packets of food, smiles warrnly at him, hair falling loosely across half her face, giving her a soft feminine delicateness that makes his heart ache, he says, ‘If you don’t mind my asking...’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘...how much do you make?’

  She inserts the key in the ignition with a remarkably erotic movement. ‘Ten.’The engine kicks.

  He can’t believe he’s heard right. ‘Huh?’

  Shifting gears smoothly, pulling away, honking a middle-of-the-road family out of the way: ‘Ten grand.’

  ‘Gross?’

  She glances at him again, sharply. ‘Net.’

  ‘Ten thousand take-home? Wow!’

  ‘Come on, Jay. It’s market rate.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ He watches her drive. She grips the wheel with both hands only when turning; the rest of the time, she leans an elbow on the window and just uses the tips of three fingers to turn the wheel. ‘Look, any company would pay the same for an MBA with four years’ experience. You’ve got to make sure you get paid the market rate, otherwise you’re being used.’ She waves that line away.

  ‘What the hell, you’re being used anyway. You might as well get paid well for it. Creed of the eighties.’

  ‘Four years? I’ve got three and a half years’ experience. But when I asked Chris for a raise, he said no.’

  ‘Jay, I told you before and I’m saying it again. You should leave DM.’

  ‘I’m trying to.’

  ‘Where have you tried?’

  He tells her. She nods. They turn off past St. Andrew’s Church, around the graveyard, on to the road to Land’s End.

  ‘And you didn’t get in anywhere?’

  ‘Two places said they’ll let me know, but it’s been two weeks and there’s no news yet.’

  She nods again, chewing her lower lip, thinking. The roar of the sea comes up on his right, takes him by surprise.White flecks of surf wink on and off against the black expanse. He rolls the window down further, likes the breeze ruffling his sweat-dampened hair.

  ‘How much do you get, Jay?’

  ‘You won’t believe it.’

  ‘Six? Seven?’

  He laughs. ‘Not even four gross. Two-five take-home.’

  She stops the car. He thinks it’s because she’s so shocked, but she only wants cigarettes. He watches the wind plaster her white shirt against her thrusting breasts, the erect nipples clearly visible, her hips swaying in the skintight jeans, the crack of her behind, the stitching gripping her sex like a possessive lover. She turns and walks back to the car. The car light flashes on and off, illuminating a wind-puffed gap between shirt and chest, revealing one mango-curved breast. Blink.

  She drives on.

  Hotel Searock International looms over them, the ring of lights around its revolving rooftop restaurant a halo above Meera’s head—

  as seen from Jay’s point of view. Then she tosses her mane, exuding a cloud of smoke, and the illusion fades. Stars gleam sullenly, Venus burning dully through a triple layer of gauze: pollution. A one-third moon sways precariously over a giant septic tank; can even sharks survive in those poisoned waters? Occasionally, laughter drifts up from the craggy rocks unclothed by the receding tide; couples huddle in crevices, making out. Jay wonders if this place is entirely safe; he remembers reading about the case of the brother and sister who were assaulted by a gang of four; the brother held back and forced to watch his sister gang-raped and mauled savagely. He starts to ask Meera, but she speaks first.

  ‘Get out.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Quit.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m trying to.’

  ‘Do it, don’t try.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Try banking.’

  ‘Banking?’

  She hands him a can of Heineken, takes a can of Coke for herself, opens the can, drinks some of the Coke, spikes the rest with a big wallop of rum, stirs it with a stiff forefinger, drinks. ‘Mmm.’ She smiles at him, happy. Clunks cans with him. ‘Chin-chin.’

  ‘Uh...chin-chin.’

  ‘All the multinational banks are looking for good people. They pay well. Very well. Better than advertising. Although you can rise much faster in advertising, and if you like it, there’s no biz like it. But I think you’d do well in banking. I have a few friends. I can put in a word. The rest is up to you. Game?’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  No, I’m just kidding.Actually, I think you should stay on at DM for another thirty years and become an Official Expert on Ass-Licking.’

  He blushes.

  ‘Fuck you,’ she says.

  ‘I know I take too much shit—’

  ‘Jay, you take truckloads, and still keep grinning like you’re the happiest mushroom in the world.’

  ‘What can I do, Meera? I need thisjob. I need the money. As it is, I can barely manage on this much, if Chris sacks me, I’ll be royally screwed.What do I do?’

  ‘Stand up to him. Stop taking shit.’

  ‘It’s easy for you to say, you’re different. He thinks you’re god. But when I asked him for a raise, he practically threatened to sack me.’

  Meera drinks quietly for a while, the wind playing gently with her hair, Jay struggles relentlessly against the urge to grab her, press his body against hers, impale her on the bonnet of the Volkswagen, her shapely back curving like a bow beneath his male arrow. He guzzles beer with sexual ferocity, crumples the can, tosses it out among the rocks and coupling couples: a faint glimmer of white when it splashes into a rock pool. ‘And now I need eighteen thousand bucks by Saturday or Tuli’s going to sack me too.’

  She turns sharply at the mention of Tuli, looks away. He reaches over the bonnet, snags the pack of Marlboro between forefinger and second finger. ‘If you don’t mind.’

  ‘I didn’t know you smoked.’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘When you’re tense?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He lights up and drags in a lungful. Burn, body, burn. More Heineken.

  Hot smoke, cold beer: heaven. Already, the stars are brighter, moon larger, Meera more irresistible. He’s not much of a drinker; as his mother always says: I’ve done enough drinking for both of us, Jay, you don’t start. But I have anyway, Mama, so sorry but I had to.

  ‘Tuli’s your...’

  ‘Fiancee.’

  ‘Fiancee. Yes. You mentioned her earlier.’

  ‘This morning.’

  ‘She’s very possessive about you?’

  ‘Isn’t everybody? About the one they love?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  More silence. More beer. Another Marlboro. More stars.

  ‘Jay?

  ‘Yeah?’

&nb
sp; ‘Why do you need eighteen thousand by Saturday?’ He looks at her; she’s watching him, brow puckered in a little frown, arms crossed, one hand poised casually with a glowing cigarette.

  He grins, shrugs.‘What the fuck does it matter?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘What difference does it make?’

  ‘Maybe I can help you. Are you and Tuli in some kind of... trouble?’

  He smiles, moved by her concern. Looks down at his waist; he has an erection. He crosses his legs in a scissors stance, leans closer to the car, ‘I’m staying with my mother. She’s an alcoholic. She’s impossible to live with. She tried to kill my grandmother once, got put into jail.

  She hates Tuli’s guts. If Tuli and I get married, there’s no way we can live with her. We went looking for rental flats last Saturday. At Lokhandwala, Andheri.We found a good place. I still don’t know how the fuck I’m going to manage the damn rent. Fifteen hundred a month. I don’t have that much left for myself after I give my mother her money for the month. Anyway. Point is ,Tuli was determined to take the flat, she took five thousand from her mother’s savings—

  without asking her—and she gave that to the broker and landlord on Saturday to finalize the deal. I have to come up with the remaining Rs 17,500 by this Saturday or Tuli will forfeit that five.’

  He holds up a finger before she can speak, takes a quick swig of beer and continues: ‘And even if the money for the deposit were to fall from the sky right this minute, I’d still have to pay backTuli’s five grand.Which means I actually have to manage about twenty-three thousand! I don’t have fucking twenty-three rupees in my pocket right now!’

  She’s silent for a long while. He finishes the beer and sends it the way of the others, then fishes around in the cardboard box on the front seat for another, takes a Coke by mistake. ‘Oops.’ But there’s no more Heineken. He stares at the boxful of Cokes in frustration.

  ‘Have a rum and Coke.’ He looks at the barely half-empty bottle of Old Monk.

  ‘Sure.’ He imitates her drink-mixing technique. The plain Coke tastes too sweet and gassy after the Heineken, but with the rum it has a nip that compensates; after a moment, he feels the heat squirrel down his throat.

  ‘I’ll give you the money,’ she says at last.

  He laughs, ‘No way.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Come on, Meera!’

  ‘Why not?You need it. I have it. You pay me back when you can.

  Right now, I don’t have enough to get my watch back from the watchmaker. With another fifteen hundred rent a month, I’ll probably have to stop eating.’ His voice slurs a little on’stop’ . He feels a hot spot growing between his fingers, is surprised to see a Marlboro burned down to the filter. When did he light that? He’s sure he hasn’t taken a puff from it. He burns another one from Meera, his head accidently brushing against her left breast. Instead of moving away, she puts her arm around his head and hugs it, both her breasts cradling his liquor-inflamed cheeks. ‘Let me help you, Jay.’ Her voice is soft and caressable like her breasts; he longs to touch them. He takes the cigarette and moves back to his side of the bonnet. She stays suspended over the car for a moment longer.

  ‘It’s no good,’ he says to her, shaking his head vigorously, again and again, until his neck hurts; the night spins. He grips the top of the car, cold metal wet with night-dew; rubs his mouth, his hand smells of iron and tobacco. ‘She wants too much. I can’t give her what she wants. It’s no good. I’m going to lose her. I’m going to...’ He bursts into tears, face contorting, twin trails burning down his cheeks.

  Then she’s holding him, taking his weight, opening the car door, sitting down, putting his head on her lap.Women are supposed to be the weaker sex: For all those millions ofyears, they’ve been bench-pressing the weight of their mates. They must have built up some sort of emotional muscles.

  ‘No more, please, no more.’ His voice cracks; hugging her, knees buckling, kneeling down on the gravel, face buried in her lap. She presses him to her warmth, soothes him.

  Sometime during the night, he awakes to find himself on the back seat of the Beetle, curled within the curve of her body, embryonic.

  The rear windshield and windows are frosted with dew. Gulls cry faintly in the stillness. The sea roars and hisses. He is afflicted with an enormous erection; a piss-on. He extricates himself from her arms, gets out. The night is cold. His right leg is numb; when a crawling-ants feeling returns, he limps over to a rock and urinates against it. His eyes are gritty; the left eye sticks shut. The pungent aroma of his discharged urine rises like steam. Even after relieving himself, the erection remains, difficult for him to stuffback into his jeans. He returns to the car and stands beside it, looking at her sleep.

  A row of taxis stretch along the road opposite Searock, drivers asleep.

  Meera: lying back on the seat, her arms raised above her head, the top two buttons of her shirt undone, one breast exposed—rising and falling with her breathing. He swells with desire for her. His head throbs, throat aches. He climbs in, the little car swaying a little under his weight. His thigh brushes against her. She stirs, her nipples stiffen with the cold wind. He stares at her: available, willing. He imagines Tuli lying here instead; unzipping her jeans, rolling down her panties, stroking her hot wet vagina; freeing his swollen cock, parting her thighs, inserting himself, thrusting, spilling, orgasming. He swallows, reaches slowly for her breast. An inch from her nipple, he stops. He gets out of the car, shuts the door softly, gets into the front seat. He searches for sleep, fighting the erection, compelling it to dissolve. A little before dawn, he falls asleep uneasily, the steering wheel over his head.

  chapter fifteen

  Dawn. Gulls criss-cross the sky, streaked with purple and blue, still clothed in a cottony sheet of clouds. Fog rolls over the sea, hanging over the surf. Searock looms. A few early morning joggers trudge wearily, fat hips swaying.

  Jay’s eyes are swollen, red; hair and clothes crushed, dishevelled.

  Meera’s cheeks are sunken, eyes smudged with sleep; but she is still a vision. Her shirt clings firmly to her breasts, nipples thrusting against the soft cotton fabric. A mongrel slinks around an overflowing garbage dump; a cat on a broken stone wall, washing herself, stops to watch them pass. They walk another hundred metres without speaking.

  Meera stops suddenly.

  ‘What are we doing?’

  Jay frowns at her. Even the soft early morning light hurts his eyes.

  ‘We were going for a cup of tea,’ she says. ‘But there aren’t any restaurants this way.’

  He looks around.

  ‘And we’ve passed that place. Look.’

  He looks. The cafe by the sea, favourite assignation point for young lovers at sunset, is a good way behind them; its shutters down.

  She takes his arm. ‘ Come on.’ She leads him back the way they ’ve come, towards Searock and the car. Even from here he can see it: a bright canary-yellow spot against the blurry backdrop of the grey stony sea-face. This section of the road has been dug up and re-tarred recently. Gravel crunches beneath their shoes; Meera’s Nike Keds and Jay’s scruffy patent leather shoes.

  Meera grips Jay’s arm tightly one last time as they turn into the hotel foyer, then releases him. He experiences the strange residual sensation of a recently removed blood-pressure cuff. He looks down at himself, wondering whether he looks decent enough to be admitted.

  Probably the greatest fear he has about five-star hotels is that he might be asked to leave. He has never admitted this to anyone.

  ‘Two coffees,’ Meera tells the waiter in the Oceanic. They are the only people in the place … no, there’s someone over there, at the far end, a man in a dark-blue suit and tomato-red tie; an American. Jay watches the thick dark coffee rise in his large cup, forgets to nod and gets too much; then he puts too much milk to dilute it, filling the cup to the brim. It spills when he tries to raise it to his lips, scorches.

  Meera looks at the menu. His
mother never allows him to drink coffee or tea at home, only milk. He tries to dab at the spilled coffee with a paper napkin, only makes it messier.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ she says gently, ‘They’ll take care of it. Like some breakfast?’

  He props up the immense menu on his stomach, avoiding the spilled coffee. The laminated white art card reflects the light with dazzling intensity, tightening the pinpoints of tension behind his eyes.

  ‘I don’t know. Anything you like.’

  ‘I’m having waffles with maple syrup. Like to try that?’

  ‘That’s a kind of cake?’

  No. Waffles are made of flour, eggs and butter. They look like crisp wafers. You pour maple syrup-sweet, sugar-based syrup-over them. Like to try some?’

  The thought of consuming something so sweet and syrupy at this hour turns his stomach.

  The waiter waits patiently while Jay tries to select something edible from the too-vast list. Confused, he settles on a burger and milkshake. The waiter sops up the coffee, changes the place mat, takes away his cup. He sits back on the chair, looks around again. A stand by the door displays newspapers. He wishes he could ask for the Asian Wall Street Journal which he can see, but thinks it would be impolite to Meera. She rifles through her purse, extracts a small black telephone diary, flips through it, checks her watch, puts the diary back. ‘Just remind me. I have to call Foss’s PA at 8.’

  ‘What’s the time exactly?’ He has glanced at his bare wrist a dozen times since awakening, constantly irritated at his inability to remember that there’s no watch on it.

  ‘Six-forty.’

  ‘Shit.’ Wierdly, only now, hearing the time spoken aloud, does it come home to him that he has spent the entire night out. Remembers his mother—feels a twinge of pity for her, waiting on the sofa, watching the front door, getting drunker, hysterical, possibly waking up the neighbours, harassing them, creating a scene. Guilt too. The ever-present guilt he has never been free of since the day his grandmother put her large wet hands on his shoulders—she’d just washed the dishes—and said in her gravelly voice, ‘You’ve got to face up to your responsibility. She’s your mother, whatever else she may be. You’re a man now.’ A man, hah! A son, okay. A human, perhaps. An executive, certainly. But a man!