‘You give us one drink or not?’
‘Only if you strip.’
‘Don’t talk naughty. Or I show you the door.’ There were four glasses on the small round dining table, now the party table groaning with food and drink. Bish opened a half bottle of vodka we had bought and poured some in each glass.
‘Not for me, Bish.’
‘Don’t be a prick.’
‘Give me some lemonade instead.’
‘Yes, don’t give him vodka if he not like. Let him haav littole sweet sherry. No, Raavi? Yes. A littole. Christmas coming. Time to have fun,’ Ingrid said, fixing me with smiling eyes.
‘Yes. Besides, you’ve got to learn,’ Bish said.
‘No, thank you.’ I was quite firm about it. I knew I was spoiling the party, but there was nothing I could do about it.
‘Trouble with us Indians is we don’t know how to mix in society,’ growled Bish, quite annoyed. I wished he had said that in Punjabi - it was public humiliation. Still I said no.
‘Reason why we remain backward. Besides, it is bad manners to behave like this. You are not among Punjabi idiots.’
‘Raavi, don’t drink if you not like,’ Ingrid said again. She filled me a glass from an open bottle of sherry and focused those eyes of hers on mine as she held out the glass to me. I was part hypnotised, part up in flames. How could I say no? At the same time, how could I explain that I had made a promise to the person I loved and cared for more than anyone in this world?
‘That’s right. You drink if you like. If not, not.’
‘Very tempting. But.’ I held up my hand.
‘RKM, go to hell,’ growled Bish again. I was being awkward. I was letting him down. I was doing far worse, I was letting India down. ‘Think what Gandhi did. Or Nehru. When they were studying law in London.’
I thought of what Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru had done and dashed my promise with my mother. We clinked glasses. Soon, it began to feel jolly good. Then it began to feel ting-a-lingy good for four old friends. Then Ingrid came and sat in my lap.
‘You like?’
‘Delicious. I’m drunk.’
‘You joke. Drink this,’ Ingrid said, putting her glass to my lips. She poured it down my throat like they used to do with medicine when I was eight. ‘There! You like?’
‘He does. Can’t you tell?’ Bish said a tiny bit sharply. I had this uneasy feeling he was jealous. He needn’t have been. For all I had in my head or heart for Ingrid at that moment were the purest of thoughts and feelings, all my other thoughts and feelings being reserved for her friend who sat on Bish’s lap. But what was she doing there? And what for that matter was Ingrid doing on mine? I looked at my friend. He grinned. His hands were inside Brigit’s jumper and she was wrapped around his neck. ‘Everything goes,’ he said in Punjabi. Without my permission my thoughts and feelings did the quickest about-turn in the history of human emotions.
‘Have fun. On me,’ Bish added grandly, as if he were paying for an expensive meal in the Savoy Grill.
‘Shut up, Beesh. We are not talking to you,’ Ingrid said and took my mouth in hers and completely and utterly erased me from the face of this English earth. I had never kissed a girl before. I did not know that having a beautiful girl in your arms, holding her breasts inside what she wore and sucking her lips could catapult you straight to the realm of gold, one delightfully different from Keats’. But my friend, trust him, soon brought me back to earth.
‘I say,’ Bish said, pointing to the salads and pies on the party table. ‘I fancy something hotty, hotty like my beef curry. Bij-ji?’ Brigit rose from his lap and picked up her coat. My friend looked for his. He put a bottle of wine in a carrier bag, an arm around Brigit and led her out.
‘They not come back,’ Ingrid said. ‘Now we do what we want.’
‘I know nothing, Ingi.’
‘You learn. I think you make good pupil.’
THE SWAMIS OF PIMLICO
I felt like a king-emperor when I woke up next morning, this, despite the fact that I had a king-size headache. But there was no sign of she who was responsible for how I felt. Only a one-line note.
Goodbye. I. XX
Goodbye was heavily underlined, making it final. It hurt as much as my head. Still I walked tall out of her bedsit, feeling sure she didn’t mean it – not with those two crosses!
A cold wind was getting up, embracing my burning face, carrying me on its wings. On my way to the station I saw a great church. Though neither a Christian nor even religious, I decided to go in. Suddenly, I felt like making an apology - to God up in the sky above the world and through Him to my mother over the curvature of the globe on the other side of it. In the course of the same twelve hours I had broken all the promises I had so solemnly made to her. I had eaten the flesh of the cow, and liked it. I had drowned myself in alcohol, and loved it. I had slept with a white woman, and woken up a king! The liking and the loving made me a criminal in my own eyes. I simply had to apologise.
But as I mounted the steps leading up to the House of God, I felt a right prick and a hypocrite to boot. I felt worried, too - how was I going to phrase my apology?
Sorry, Sir. Couldn’t resist. You got to forgive. To err is human, to forgive divine.
A volley of laughter from the open church door hit me - God laughing at me. I wished I owned a third foot – for I wanted to impart a king-size kick to my backside. I was still walking tall, however, as I arrived at Gloucester Road station, wondering what there was about making love to a woman which doubled your height overnight.
Reaching home, I slept another two hours. It helped the headache. Then I lay a long while in the common bath, thinking, thinking, thinking of her body. I could not believe it. I could not believe it had happened, that I had actually made love to a real woman, that my honourable member had been inside her parliament. Twice. I could not believe that that was it, that I would never enter her again, nor even see her.
I had a bath but I did not wash myself. I wanted to keep her fragrance. Later at work, I fingered my foreskin from time to time and sniffed. The smell was strong and sweet. It caused a sweeter stirring in my groin. I spent the lunch-hour in a state of semi-erection and semi-consciousness. Without my knowing it, I was washing the dishes so devoutly, it made Ranji shake his head.
‘Magic never have a dishwasher proper. But Posh Balls, you are the best without doubting a shadow. Wah rey wah!’
Jagan came down for some reason and watched me as if I was Henry Moore creating Mother and Child. Immediately after him came Prohit. Then came the boss himself - tipped off by them? He stationed himself right behind me. I could feel his breath on the nape of my neck.
‘Queen not giving it free to me.’
‘What, sir?’
‘Issoap, you fool. Costing money. Want to know how much?’
Without realising it I was squandering quantities of the washing-up liquid on each item I washed as opposed to a few squirts of it for a whole lot of them in the sink as per orders.
‘Sorry, sir.’’
‘Upisstair,’ my boss ordered and I shuddered - the sack? But I didn’t believe it - not for a bit of washing-up bloody liquid, for heaven’s sake. Upstairs, it was sheer relief when he handed me a cardboard box in which Lowenbrau lager came. It was full of Indian sweets and other goodies just arrived from Southall, which was where all our supplies came from.
‘Take to my house. Mrs Isswamy expecting.’
The Swamis lived only a few streets away, in Pimlico, in a dull grey-brick house. It was identical to the other houses in the street. When I rang the bell, the door opened but only a few cautious inches. A shiny brass chain held it.
‘Who is it?’ said an English voice. It was a child’s voice. Then a little round Indian face peered at me through the opening. The eyes were also round, but large.
It was Miss Swami. She let me in when I told her who I was. Miss Swami was tiny, pocketsize. She was probably sixteen, but looked twelve. She was dressed up for something.
A party, I thought, and wondered why she wasn’t at school - it was a Monday. She wore a colourful Indian skirt and had ghungroo bells at her ankles. The white choli blouse was a tight fit, crushing her rising breasts. Her face was made up like a doll’s and the eyes liberally blackened with mascara, exaggerating their roundness. She looked me up and down.
‘What is your name?’
I could tell by her speech that she was UK-born. I told her my name. Without taking her eyes off me, she toyed with her ponytail and moved her head about. I felt uneasy and thought it absurd I should do so in the presence of a mere child. I decided to take things into my own hands.
‘My birthday today,’ she said.
‘Many happy returns.’
‘I am having a party.’
‘How very appropriate.’
‘You talk funny.’
‘Oh!’ What on earth did she mean?
‘Do you like parties?’
Was I going to be invited? I knew it was out of the question - her father was my boss. Still I said, ‘Yes.’
‘But I am not inviting boys.’
‘Oh!’
‘But when my friend Sarita has a party she invites boys.’
‘Why don’t you?’
‘Mum says because we are Indian. But so is Sarita.’
‘Who is it, girl?’ came a shout from upstairs.
‘Someone from the restaurant, Mum. Dad’s sent the stuff,’ Miss Swami shouted back. Then she turned to me.
‘Are you a new “hire and fire” waiter there?’
‘No. A new dishwasher.’
She frowned like her father when he disapproved of something. ‘Dad should make you a waiter.’
‘Man still here?’ shouted Mrs Swami from upstairs.
‘He’s going, Mum,’ Miss Swami shouted back, surprisingly loudly. ‘Bring the box in here.’ She led me to the kitchen and lowered her voice to an unnecessary whisper. ‘Sarita is going out with a Greek boy. Christos. He’s from Rutherford.’
‘Is she? What’s Rutherford?’
‘A boys’ school, silly. Sarita is very pretty. Everybody likes her. Even that Smiffy.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘Miss Smith-th. She’s P.E. She’s ‘orrible. She doesn’t like me. I hate her. I hate sport. Rounders is orright, but I hate hockey. Had to play it even in the snow. Couldn’t see the flippin’ ball and Smiffy screamed, ‘Swami, cow, keep the gate closed!’ when the invisible ball shot through me legs. Do you like my choli?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?
‘It is very colourful. Delectable.’
‘Whaa?’
‘It is very nice.’
‘You talk so funny.’ Miss Swami laughed. She laughed and laughed but I could not understand what was so funny about what I had said.
‘Veena!’ Mrs Swami bellowed from upstairs.
Miss Swami stopped.
‘Coming, Mum! Mum’s in the bath. Do you want to see my new record player? Takes ten records at a time. Dad got it for my birthday. It is very expensive. But Dad gives me anything I want. He is very rich.’
‘And generous. He has a heart made of gold.’
‘He worked very hard for it, he says. I go to Sarah Siddons in Paddington. Rotten school. Girls beat me up three times because I’m Indian. Black girls. They did, you know. Bitches.’
‘VEENA.’
I was afraid Mrs Swami would be angry to see me, a dishwasher in her husband’s restaurant, talking to her daughter on equal terms. So I hurried out of the kitchen to get going.
‘School finishes at quarter to four. Come there tomorrow.’
‘VEENA!!!’
‘Tomorrow quarter to four. Get off at Edgware Road on the Circle Line and ask anyone there. Run now. Run.’
The Swami house having become too hot for me - the mother screaming upstairs and the daughter proposing a dangerous clandestine liaison downstairs - I ran and immediately felt better outside. Above me, that English miracle again - a red blood-orange sun, an orb of lovely incandescence up in the leafless branches of the trees lining the street. It made me think of the weather back home, of the sound and fury of the monsoon cloud, of the ferocious bite of the summer sun even in Simla. That was high drama. This, a cool gentle poem.
I kept on running. It seemed ludicrous since I had done nothing. So why was I panicking? I was quite breathless when I arrived back at the Indian Magic. The boss had a couple of Indian visitors. They were shaking their heads and saying that it was about to snow. Avoiding them, I made my way to the stairs blowing, on my frozen hands. But Mr Swami called me back.
‘Someone chasing you?’
‘Been running to keep warm, sir.’
‘Buy your hands gloves. It’s going to issnow.’
‘How can you tell, sir?’
‘How can I tell? How long have I been in this country?’
Coming from Simla in the Himalayas, I knew all about snow. When it snowed heavily, the mountain city became one massive wedding cake with mutinous lashings of icing sculpted by gods overly fond of confectionery. Sounds became soft, and only silence echoed back from the godly mountains.
I longed for it to snow. My wishes were granted, for it snowed that same afternoon. First lightly, then heavily. Though I knew snow well, I was still fascinated as I always was every winter in Simla. I was enchanted, I wanted to roll in it. Out in the street after work, I saw young kids returning from school do just that. I wished I was a schoolboy again, making snowballs and throwing them at my friends and receiving theirs in my face. Ranji had the same idea when we left the Magic at half three.
‘Happiness is a ball of snow in the face,’ he said and scored a direct hit, blinding me temporarily. I made a quick recovery and the happiness snowballed.
It snowed all evening and night. Snow was still falling when I woke up the next morning. Then the house phone rang. Nobody ever phoned me, but I liked telephones so I picked it up. It was Bish.
‘What’s the score? I want to know the whole scoreboard.’ I told him, then asked: ‘Why won’t she see me again?’
‘Because she doesn’t want to.’
‘But why not?’
‘Because she only wants her freedom.’
‘I didn’t propose to her exactly.’
‘She is of the new type. You’ve got to understand and accept. Understand and accept, RKM.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Don’t fall in love, RKM, or you’ll drown yourself in the Thames. Forget her. The world is full of crumpet. Just have fun.’
‘What about you and Ingi?’
‘We knew what we were doing and we did it with our eyes wide open. Respect a woman’s wishes if you want her respect.’ I shook my head. I couldn’t understand any of it.
‘Swinging Sixties, man. Everything goes. She had fun, you had fun. Accept and forget.’
I still had time to spare before my shift, so when I got off the 2A at Victoria, I bought a paper and went and sat on a bench familiar to my backside to read it.
Till that moment I had not given any thought to Miss Swami’s invitation. For I had decided as soon as it had been extended that I would not go. Now I knew I would. I was fully aware of the consequences if found out by the boss - a servant (which I was) carrying on with an Indian employer’s daughter behind his back! Back home, he would get a knife between the shoulder-blades for it.
After work I took the Circle Line to Edgware Road. From there it was a piece of cake, a mere five-minute walk. The school had just broken up. Hundreds of girls were spilling out of the gate, kicking up the snow and falling and throwing snowballs at each other. They were yelling and having such fun that it seemed it was snowing only for their sake. They all wore the same black school blazer and looked confusingly alike. Looking at them was like beholding a sea of open umbrellas and trying to identify which one was yours.
The girls giggled and screamed as they walked or ran past me, and suddenly I felt foolish for having come. I shouldn’t have done it. I hadn�
��t even wanted to. But the fact was, I was there. The fact also was, she wasn’t. I examined every brown face, and there were quite a few of those. Veena’s wasn’t among them. She should have been waiting for me anxiously - her idea, her invitation. A girl of sixteen in Europe was a fully grown woman, they said. The age of consent began at sixteen.
I stopped two Indian girls, among the last in the horde.
‘Excuse me, do you know Veena Swami?’ I indicated her height.
‘Veena Swami?’ the girls replied, giving me a strange look. ‘She don’t go to Sarah Siddons’ no more,’ said one of them.
‘Where does she go then?’
In answer, the girls simply ran away. I hung my head on my chest and trudged away, saying to myself - not cricket, this. I was not the first man to be stood up. And there was nothing I could do about it. I did what my friend Bish would have done under the circumstances - I accepted it and laughed.
Till that day, I did not know that surprises could come by the truckload. Or shocks. I only had to step into Magic that evening to have it confirmed. The curious look on Mr Swami’s face electrified me. He knew where I had been to, that afternoon.
‘You not washing dishes any more.’ There - the boot! She had told on me – I had suggested meeting her after school. I had said this, I had said that, for which in India a man would be given a new face minus many teeth. But this being England, a civilised country, I was being treated with some human dignity and was about to be told in the polite English way to haul my arse out of that door and get lost. Still I decided to play the innocent.
‘I’ve done nothing, sir. Nothing at all.’
‘What you talking?’
‘I have done absolutely nothing, sir.’
‘What you issaying?’
‘What are you saying, sir?’
‘I am saying no more dishwashing.’
‘What?’ What then was I doing?
‘You are promoted, you fool.’ Had I heard him right? ‘Beg your pardon, sir?’
‘To permanent waiter upisstair. One shilling extra plus tip on top. What more you want?’ My boss beamed a smile which invited me to prostrate myself before him in gratitude.
Indian Magic Page 4