Lal and Lila sit. Lal blinks, a little bewildered by this deluge of words. Mumbai postmen are used to fast talkers, but this man is a human flash flood.
“Here, let me give you my card,” says Mr. Dustup.
Lal, in turn, notes down for him the telephone number of the hotel. “It’s the hotel next to the tea and spices shop,” he explains.
“What do you know?” says Mr. Dustup. “I’m in that same blinking hotel, Up in Arms or whatever it is. Well, well, well, always a pleasure to meet fans of our incomparable Dolly.” He lowers his voice. “Mind you, she’s a little temperamental. These stars. But I’ll find her, I tell you, now that I have come so far. All the blasted way from Bombay.” He tells them about his hair-raising trip. “But what to do? I have no car, so I have to trust myself to that same maniac driver. He’ll be here very soon. Wish me luck, my friends.”
And they do, they do.
Chapter Forty
Blooming Spirits
AS MR. MANI LISTENS to all this travel talk in his bakery, which is fragrant with fresh curry puffs and good chocolate, his heart is unexpectedly touched. He serves his customers their curry puffs. “Potatoes, onion, turmeric with a hint of chocolate, in a perfectly golden pastry crust,” he says.
Blissful silence follows, interrupted only by murmurs of pure joy.
Many people come through Dreamycakes Bakery, and over the years Mr. Mani has stopped paying atten tion to them. They are just customers. They give him money. He gives them cakes and pastries and various other delicious offerings. A word or two, a smile, and they are gone. But these are fine people, Mr. Mani can see. He hopes he is lucky enough to see them again and again and again. They are the kind of people he would like to count among his friends.
He hopes that Dolly Singh is happy to see Mr. Dustup. He would never say this to these kind souls, but the last time he saw that Dolly Singh person, she was a little—well, skittish. That is the word. Only a skittish person would have dashed a plate of curry puffs and chocolate cake so callously to the ground.
Lal brings out his wallet. Mr. Dustup says, “No, no, my treat!”
Lal and Lila express their gratitude.
“Think nothing of it,” says Soli Dustup. “My pleasure purely. No blinking need for thanks at all.”
They say good-bye to Mr. Mani.
“Come back,” Mr. Mani tells them. “Come back for a fresh batch of curry puffs (potatoes, onion, turmeric with a hint of chocolate, in a perfectly golden pastry crust) or a slice of superfine chocolate cake anytime you are in the area.”
He beams, quite dizzy from so much excitement. He wonders if someday he can expand his little Dreamycakes Bakery into a bigger bakery. He could get himself a van like that white Qualis he has seen parked at the medical clinic. He could race up and down the mountain roads, delivering his fine baked goods to happy customers. Why not?
It has been a long time since Mr. Mani dreamed in this way. He finds himself whistling smartly as he straightens his curtains. He looks out of the window and beams at the sight of this nice young couple, so well starched, walking off along Blue Mountain Road. And there now is the distinguished Mr. Dustup, a fillum studio bigwig, no less. Oh, it’s enough to set anyone dreaming.
Dreaming makes Mr. Mani’s spirits bloom like the purply blue kurinji flower.
Chapter Forty-one
Giving an Inch
PRIYA DROPS LETTERS one at a time into the red mailbox that stands outside the front door of the post office. It may look like an oversize fire hydrant, but it is a perfectly acceptable place to drop off your mail. The letters make a satisfying little thump when they land inside.
“Hey,” says Priya. “Look.”
“What?” says Dini. From habit she wonders if Dolly, perhaps, has come to the post office to mail a letter.
Priya points.
There is a peacock on the top step! Dini has only ever seen a peacock in a zoo before. All the other times she’s been to India, she’s visited cities where peacocks do not exactly roam around the streets. But here is one now, sitting on the step and shaking out its long, long tail.
Priya makes the exact noise that the peacock is making with its tail, a sound between the rustle of paper and the patter of rain on hard, dry ground. The peacock turns its head and looks at them. It utters a startled squawk. Priya squawks back at it. Dini tries too, but she starts laughing.
The peacock turns its head to look at them out of its other eye. It blinks, and Dini sees that its eyelids are white. Who ever knew a peacock’s eyelids could be white? Blink-blink goes the white-eyelidded peacock. It obviously decides Dini and Priya are harmless, because it goes back to rustling its tail.
Dini tries to make that shivery paper-and-rain noise, and it does not come out sounding anything like that peacock’s tail. It sounds only like a person making funny noises. Priya laughs, and Dini laughs too. One laugh leads to another, and soon they are both laughing very hard.
Is it the sound of peacock tail rustling that brings a man with very round glasses on his nose out of the post office? Or is it the sound of two girls laughing?
It is neither, it seems. The man pins a notice to the door of the post office. JOB! JOB! JOB! says the notice. APPLY WITHIN.
“Hello,” says Dini.
“Hello,” says the man. “Are you by some chance interested in working at the post office?” He peers at them through his round glasses and shakes his head in disappointment. “No, I suppose not. You’re a bit on the young side.”
“You need a postman?” Priya asks.
“Postal carrier, I like to call them these days,” says the man with round glasses. “We must consider women also for this very important job. I had a most reliable carrier, but alas . . . Well, that’s neither here nor there.”
The peacock spreads its tail out as if it agrees completely. With an enormous shuffling and shivering of feathers, it sweeps it up into a big, round fan. The man with the glasses looks as if he is about to offer the postal carrier job to the peacock, but then he says to Dini and Priya, “If you know anyone who may want this job, please to let that person know. I’m the postmaster here, and I’m anxious to hire the right applicant, very soon.”
Perhaps the peacock is disappointed, because it promptly walks away. It waddles across the road and disappears into some bushes. Its long and sweeping tail disappears after it. Soon all that is left is a faint, faint rustle, barely a whisper on the wind.
The postmaster disappears too, into the post office. Dini and Priya start to walk down the hill toward the shops on Blue Mountain Road.
Dini says, “I’ve never seen a peacock so close up.”
“Me neither,” Priya agrees. “And I’m Not going to make that Noise again because my Stomach still hurts from all that Laughing.”
“Priya,” says Dini. “I’m glad we can be friends.”
“Me too,” Priya says. “You know, I didn’t really want to come Here because I had friends in Bombay and I didn’t want to leave them.”
“Me too,” Dini cries. “I didn’t want to leave my friend Maddie. But I did want to try and find . . . you know. . . .”
“You can say her Name,” Priya says. “Dolly, you Mean.”
Dini nods.
“He’s ready to Talk to her,” Priya says. “My parents Telephoned. I heard him telling Mummy that. She’s his Big Sister, my mum. But it’s Her. Dolly. She won’t Give an Inch.”
It is a comforting thought that Chickoo Uncle has a Big Sister to give him good advice. Dini has sometimes wished she had one, but no one asks kids for their preferences in such matters. “Not an Inch?” she says.
Priya nods. They both agree that’s bad. “To patch up a Disagreement,” Priya points out, “both Parties have to Give an Inch.”
“At least,” Dini agrees, waving at some kids who ride by, trilling their bicycle bells. “I wish I had my bike here,” she says.
“There’s a Bicycle Shop near the garage where you can Rent them,” Priya says. “You shoul
d get one. We could Ride Bikes Together.” Dini thinks that is a Brilliant Idea.
Before taking the bus back to Sunny Villa Estates, they stop at Dreamycakes for a rose petal milk shake. “With or without chocolate?” says Mr. Mani.
“With,” Dini says at the same time that Priya says, “Without.”
“Righto,” says Mr. Mani.
“Want to come for a Test-Drive tomorrow?” Priya asks Dini. “Veeran is going to put a New Battery in Chickoo Uncle’s car. We’re hoping That will Fix the Noise.”
“Sure, I’ll come,” Dini says. She feels for Chickoo Uncle. She does. A broken heart and a noise in your car is a bit much.
“Wait just a minute, sir,” Mr. Mani says, speaking to a portly man, quite out of breath, who has just come in.
Mr. Mani brings Dini and Priya their rose petal milk shakes, with chocolate and without. “There you are, young ladies,” he says. “Enjoy.”
“Are you okay?” Dini says to the new customer, who is now wiping his brow as though he has a fever.
He nods, breathing heavily.
His face is a little too purple, Dini thinks. Looks unhealthy. Someone should take this man to Mom’s clinic for a quick check.
Chapter Forty-two
The Sound of an Aching Heart
THE REST OF THE DAY passes quickly, as happy days will. The next day too looks as if it is getting ready for happiness. Purply flowers are blooming along the side of the road. The sky is a superfine china blue, the leaves on the tea bushes sport a cheerful gloss. Anyone would think that this day is a dream come true.
Only one thing spoils it. The new battery that Veeran brought to Mr. Chickoo Dev’s house and installed just this morning has not laid that terrible rattle to rest. All the way from Sunny Villa Estates and up the length of Blue Mountain Road on this test-drive with Chickoo Uncle at the wheel, the ugly rattle makes it impossible for anyone in the car to hear the birds singing, the cows mooing, or even the purry little engine of the just-out-of-warranty yellow electric car.
Clinkety-plinkety, goes the noise.
“What a racket,” Chickoo Uncle says between clenched teeth. “It’s going to drive me out of my mind.”
Clunkety-blunkety-dunkety, goes the noise. Chickoo Uncle’s shoulders droop. “I don’t understand you,” he says miserably, and it is evident that he is speaking to the car. “Veeran is a good mechanic—certified and all. He’s torn out your engine and put it back again—fuses, motor, motor controller, and now batteries. Why, why, why?”
The car only rattles in reply.
“It’s not singing anymore, is it?” Dini says.
“No,” says Chickoo Dev. “It stopped singing a few days ago. Now it only rattles.”
Dini can see right away that Mr. Chickoo Dev is not normally a tooth-clenching, shoulder-drooping kind of guy, but she can also see that he really loves this car. It is hard when you love two things equally well and you have to choose between them. Chickoo Uncle is so sad that Dini begins to wilt in sympathy.
Around them traffic thickens as they get to the busy part of Blue Mountain Road. Suddenly someone standing next to a white van waves at them. Chickoo Uncle brakes and eases to a stop on the side of the road.
“Hello, Mr. Chickoo Dev, Miss Nandini, Miss Priya,” says a familiar voice.
It is Veeran. His mustache has gained extra-fine points on the ends. Veeran has news. “A big film studio executive,” he says, “has come to Swapnagiri to meet Miss Dolly. I’m taking him there right now.”
Chickoo Uncle dabs at his forehead with a big white handkerchief, even though it’s nice and cool. Dini sees that he is flustered at hearing Dolly’s name. That is what love can do. He parks the electric car and gets out. Dini and Priya follow.
“Why, that’s Soli Dustup,” says Chickoo Uncle in a small voice.
“You know him?” says Dini. “He’s in all the Filmi Kumpnee articles. He’s the guy who owns Starlite Studios.”
“He is a nervous type,” Veeran warns. “All the way here on the mountain road yesterday he kept telling me to slow down.”
“Array!” shouts Mr. Soli Dustup, who has only just spotted them and is making his way over. “Is it really you, Chickoo my friend?” He shakes Chickoo Uncle’s hand so hard that Dini is afraid he will shake him right off his feet. “You have lost weight,” he cries. “Your face looks wan and drawn. What a terrible blinking thing is heartache.”
Chickoo Uncle teeters on his feet.
“Our Dolly,” says Mr. Dustup, “has made life difficult for me, too, my friend.”
Chickoo Uncle totters visibly.
“If I rang her blinking mobile once,” says Mr. Dustup, looking as if his feet are starting to hurt again, “I rang it a hundred times. Ring-ring-ring, no answer. Ring-ring-ring, no answer. Has she fallen off a blinking cliff, I asked myself, has she disappeared into some picturesque waterfall or what?”
“Mo-bile?” Dini whispers to Priya.
“I think you call it a cell phone,” she whispers back.
Dini clears her throat just as Mr. Dustup is saying for the third time, “Ring-ring-ring—”
“So,” Dini says, trying to wiggle her way to the point, “are you going to see Dolly now?”
“Yes,” says Soli Dustup, surprised at the interruption. “I would have gone earlier, but I was too exhausted, so I checked into a hotel room, some place called Up in Arms or something. Terribly hard beds, I tell you. Then I had to think, you see, to plan my strategy. But yes, I’m going to see her now.”
“Can we come too?” says Priya. Good timing, before Mr. Dustup goes totally off script with those beds.
Dini sees that Chickoo Uncle is visibly distressed and is waving his hands at Priya but seems quite unable to speak.
“‘We must turn the world right side up again,’” says Dini. She says it in her best dramatic voice because it is a fine line from MJTJ, a line Dolly uses to great effect when the police inspector is trying to figure out who she is and how he should deal with her.
Now it is Mr. Dustup who teeters and totters. “You know that movie,” he whispers.
“Mr. Soli Dustup,” Dini tells him, “I love that movie. I know every single line in it.”
Mr. Dustup takes Dini’s hands in both of his. He says, “Miss . . . I don’t know your name, but let me tell you—you’re a true fan, and what is more, you’re a gift to a tired old filmi person like myself.”
He staggers a little.
“Are you okay?” Dini asks.
“It’s my feet,” Mr. Dustup says weakly. “They are killing me. Too much walking. Too much. I should buy some more chocolate. I bought some of that super fine chocolate fudge yesterday, but alas, I ate it all.”
Priya makes a sound like a flute playing.
“A very fine musical phrase that was,” says Mr. Dustup appreciatively. “We should talk. There is possibly some scope for your talents in the sound-effects department.”
Priya stays on task. Dini sees that she is that kind of person. Priya says, “Chickoo Uncle, you need to buy some chocolate.”
“Oh,” says Chickoo Uncle, dazed. “Oh yes.”
Dini holds the door open, and they all go into the bakery. Mr. Mani is beside himself with delight at this influx of customers.
“My feet are happy, I tell you,” says Soli Dustup to anyone who wants to listen, “just at the thought of riding in a car.”
“What kind shall I buy?” says Priya’s uncle, staring in bewilderment at the delectable array before him.
“I’d suggest the dark chocolate,” says Mr. Mani.
“Righto,” says Chickoo Uncle. Dini can see that Chickoo Uncle is doing a wise thing by putting himself into Mr. Mani’s good hands.
“Maybe with rose petals?” says Mr. Mani.
Soli Dustup winces.
Chapter Forty-three
Shower of Silver
SOON TWO CARS make their way along Blue Mountain Road, past the shops and houses, past hillsides covered with dreamy blue flowers, and
into the grounds of a place Dini has been before.
“Blue Mountain School?” Dini says. “Dolly’s here? She’s been here all along?”
Chickoo Dev nods his head. “The principal is a friend of hers,” he says.
Of course! That explains the glimpse that Dini got of Dolly in the school movie. It explains the swishy way the principal got past Dini’s question. A world-class subject changer, that principal, and now Dini can see why.
Dini wants to tell Chickoo Uncle that if he’d only told her this in the first place, it could have sped things up a bit. But then she thinks, That is just the way it is with plots. Tell too much too soon and it’s all over. There’s no story left. Besides, while coping with heartbreak, a person cannot hit the pause button to go off and tell other people small details like this. That kind of thing just ruins the fillum.
But here they are pulling up to the guesthouse on the school grounds, and Dini takes a deep breath. “It’s now or never,” she says, using one of Dad’s nifty phrases.
Veeran says he’ll wait outside with the cars. There is still some dialogue to be finalized, some plot turns to navigate. He is a true fan, and true fans get things like this.
Dini goes up to the door. This is it. Her Dolly moment. All right, so take one didn’t work quite as planned, but that is why there is take two. She knocks on that door.
Dolly flings the door open and gasps. Even gasping she looks fabulous. Small, but fabulous.
Dolly lifts a hand questioningly. A ring flies off her finger and lands on the ground.
“it’s you,” Dolly says, and she’s looking past Dini at Chickoo Uncle. No capital letters at all in that greeting. “why have you brought all these people here when you know i just want to be left alone.” That is not even a question, it is more of a complaint.
Dini picks up the fallen ring and hands it back humbly. This time they do not bump heads, which is a big improvement. “I’m sorry,” Dini says. “If we’re bothering you uselessly, we’ll go away, but just give us ten minutes. Will you?”
The Grand Plan To Fix Everything Page 12