‘What about?’
‘In the morning to ask if Jane came to the party yesterday and I said I did not know. And just now for your address. But I not give. He is dangerous man. Be careful, Mr Raavi. I can’t tell you what to do. But you know what you haav to do.’
‘What, Mrs Ferreiro?’
‘I think you know what.’
I did not know what to do. But suddenly I felt I did. I was passing by an Army Surplus sort of shop somewhere. Among items on display in its window was Army gear and gadgets – Army knives, khukris and starting pistols etc. A voice in me stated a need for one of those nasty things. The very thought of having something sharp in my pocket would give me a sense of security. But another voice spoke up, saying: you’d never be able to pull it on anyone. You are not that type.
Inside the shop, there was a whole lot more of such weaponry, and I wondered who it was all for – for the gentle English folk I loved and admired so much? There were no other customers and none came while I was there, and I concluded gratefully that the rest of the world obviously felt safer than me.
In the end, I found I could not buy a knife or a fake gun. I walked out of the shop as I had walked into it – unarmed – feeling sure I had done the right thing and feeling equally sure I had not.
Now I knew really what I had to do – dress smartly and present myself most respectfully. He could not but understand. He was an Englishman, not a narrow-minded Indian father. And having realised how sincere I was and how well-meaning, he was bound to be sympathetic, maybe even like me a little. And why not? For even though I was afraid of him, I still held him in high esteem. He was her father.
I knew how I looked as I took the 28 bus to Kilburn – as I did when I stood outside Hampstead tube one afternoon waiting for Jane to see white peacocks – the envy of all men of my age.
‘Mr Muir, I presume?’
‘Have we met before? Is it about a car?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Cor blimey. You are not…’ The shock!
‘Yes, I am, sir. Raavi Mehra.’
‘What a nerve.’
‘With due respect, sir, I understand you wanted to see me.’
‘What a bloody nerve!’ Mr Muir was lost for words. A little younger than my father, he was tall and handsome, with something cruel about those thin lips, a sort of ruthless streak.
‘I realise I have caused some unhappiness in the family. I am deeply sorry.’
‘Have you come to apologise?’
‘I’ve have come hoping I may have your permission to talk to you, Mr Muir.’
‘I have no wish to talk to you. I just want you to lay off my daughter. Or you’ll be forcing my hand. Do you hear me?’
‘I do, sir. Now please hear me out.’
‘I’m not interested in what you have to say. Just clear off.’
‘Jane and I love each other, sir.’
‘Do not utter her name with your foul Indian mouth.’ Mr Muir’s expression changed. He had thought of something. His mouth became distorted. Opening a briefcase, he pulled out a handgun and placed it casually on his table.
‘My mouth is not foul, sir. It is as clean as any English person’s.’ In spite of the gun, I felt strangely composed – I was in the presence of an Englishman! Surely he could tell how sincere I was.
But Mr Muir was not listening.
‘You have come between me and my family. You better get out of here before I do something I may regret later.’
‘At home I was taught every Englishman is a gentleman.’
‘Have you come to tell me I am not one? What audacity. I can’t believe my ears.’ There was a moment of silence. Mr Muir was taking a decision. ‘I can’t believe all this is being said to my face. I am going to teach you a lesson.’ His face twisted again. ‘Move!’ He picked up the revolver and pointed it at me. ‘Move, move.’ I obeyed. Next moment, we were in the street, a deserted little mews lined with scruffy garages. ‘In there.’ He jabbed a thumb at a large empty garage next to his office. Sweat now broke out all over me. Make a run for it, I told myself. Go for the gun. Kick it out of his as hand. Bish would have done. Do something, damn you.
There was a sheet-metal door at the back of the garage. It opened to another smaller garage without a window.
‘Inside. Face the wall.’ I neither made a run for it, nor kicked the gun out of his hand. I was paralysed. Suddenly, it was all over. Jane’s father shut the two heavy doors on me. I was entombed.
In the pitch dark, I felt my way to the door and managed to locate the light switch. I saw an uprooted car seat in a corner, sat down in it and waited for my jailer to return when he felt his lesson had been learned. I remained in the Black Hole of Kilburn for twelve hours. It was not until six the next morning When the doors were opened.
‘Get out. You can go to the police and do whatever you like.’ He knew I would never do that. ‘But stop bothering my daughter.’
‘I do not bother her, sir. Jane loves me.’
‘You have been warned.’
I lived in a permanent state of shock. What had happened was beyond belief. I didn’t tell anyone – I couldn’t. Mr Muir had made his point in no uncertain terms. I had completely failed to make mine.
Jane was coming on Friday night on her last visit before her Finals and a two-week College trip to France. Did her father know she was coming? I felt grateful to Mrs Ferreiro. Jane hadn’t phoned me for three days running, and whenever I tried her, she was out. This was odd. My baby phoned me at least once every day. Had her father told her of my visit? Told her of my imprisonment? If he had, then, knowing her father, she would not come on Friday – for my sake. Where did that leave us; me? I would know on Friday. I thought of Kilburn and shivered.
Friday took its time coming. I had never felt as I did now, forlorn. There had been times in the past when we hadn’t met for up to a whole week. What was so different with an extra two? But there was a difference. It left me aching.
Jane arrived on time as always. She wore a black PVC outfit which made her look a ton of TNT. One look and I knew – she was her bubbly self, my champagne ki bottle. I concluded that her father couldn’t have told her because it might have backfired on him. I knew I had to stay cool. I asked how things were at home.
‘Fine. Why do you ask? What’s the matter with you? You don’t look yourself.’
‘How’s your mum?’
‘She is all right.’
‘And your dad?’
‘Perfectly all right. Why do you ask?’
‘Just like that. In a civilised society a lover has the right to enquire after the welfare of his beloved’s parents.’
‘Don’t give me your smartarse crap. Something is wrong, I know.’
‘You told me that your Dad thought you had been eating curry. I wondered if he’s said anything since?’
‘No, not a word. You look worried. What’s the matter?’
‘The matter is – you are going away.’
‘Oh, Raavi, baby.’ Jane started crying and kissing me, Taking my breath away. There were two of us. We wanted to become one.
‘If you like, I won’t go to France.’
‘Silly billy girl. Of course you will go. What an idea.’
I steered our conversation away and told her how she looked: ‘Like Goddess Lakshmi, the Beautiful One.’
‘There’s a full moon tonight,’ she said with a mischievous smile.
‘I know.’
‘I hope it won’t cloud over and the moon behaves itself.’
It did not cloud over, and the moon behaved itself. My goddess too. She stood still when she had to and sat in lotus-position without complaining. ‘I’m becoming good at it. Aren’t I,’ she said.
‘My perfick goddess.’ And she was mine.
‘I want to worship you too. But I don’t know any mumbo jumbo. I’ll worship you my way, after we are married. When are we going to get married?’
‘When you get back from France. Obviously.’
Gosh. Three weeks without her. How would I survive? I tried not to think about it. I failed. If I felt like that while she was still with me, how would I feel when she was gone?
We went to sleep only when the birds began to sing. She rubbed her cheeks against my prickly ones in need of a shave, saying ‘Hedgehog.’ As dawn breathed its freshness on us, I thought of Kilburn and I shivered again.
It was the briefest eye-contact. But it alerted me. Those two men were not the type you saw in bookshops. They were the sort seen standing on scaffolds at building sites. They came to Biography, directly opposite me in Fiction. Builders in Biography? Then they went away and I forgot about them. I bought a book for Jane, a book which had been banned till a few years ago and one which she was dying to read but hadn’t, Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I hadn’t read it either. So when I came out of the shop, I began reading snippets from Lady C while walking. The street was deserted – a few pedestrians and hardly any cars. As I crossed the road, a white car came out of nowhere and shot inches past me. It hadn’t tried to run me over or anything like that, but there was plenty of room for it to mind its own business. I noted that it was a Vauxhall and its two occupants, the erudite builders so fond of Biography. Ten minutes later, while I did a spot of shopping in Sainsbury’s, there they were again, with empty baskets, picking up things and putting them back again. Then they went past me, almost tripping me inadvertently. To the state of shock that I lived in now was added a striking note of fear.
So far, I had not told anyone of my night out in my future father-in-law’s garage (in India, a prison is called ‘fatherin- law’s house’). Even now I couldn’t bring myself to do so – to tell my friends that my future f-in-l was trying to scare me off through hired hands. But I was scared. I nearly told Jane when we spoke on the phone that evening, her second last on English soil. But I couldn’t. She would have flown off the handle, rushed home and God alone knew what could have followed. I very nearly telephoned my friends at the Sub. Later that night, Bish rang up to invite me to a ‘Sunday hotty hotty’ and I almost spilled the beans.
‘What’s wrong, RKM?’ he asked, and when I said that nothing was, he went on: ‘I can smell something, and you know how well I smell.’
‘What can you smell?’
‘A rat. Or something like that. But you are not opening the mouth. Maybe you will do so tomorrow.’
I laughed it off and went home to bed, to be woken up by the phone minutes later. A metallic voice came on. ‘We could have done you in this morning.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Never mind who.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Leave the girl alone. Don’t see her again when she returns to London.’
‘But we are getting married.’
‘You are getting MARRIED!’
‘Well, then, RKM? Are you opening the mouth?’ Bish said. I did. But I didn’t tell him about my imprisonment.
‘And you told them you are getting married?’
‘I told them the truth.’
‘That’s what I like about you.’ Bish shook his head in a compound mixture of disbelief and pity. ‘Now they’ll go all out for your balls. So you’ve really had it. Why did you tell them about marriage?’
I had no answer – I was getting married, not committing a bloody crime. Anyway, I didn’t have the time to think.
‘You are going,’ Bish said, picking up his raincoat.
‘Going where, Bish?’
‘You are going to the police. And I am taking you.’ The police were the last people I wanted to go to. I had no proof of any sort. Absolutely none. Anyway, what would Jane say when she learned that I was trying to have her father put inside, whether she liked him or not was another matter? She might not even believe me. After all, blood is thicker than water.
‘You damn fool Raavi, you are coming with me. If not, I am going on my own. You don’t know me.’ But I did know Bish, and knew he meant what he said. But how could I explain to him that I could not go to the police?
‘Threatening people is a serious criminal offence. And one more thing. You better quit that love-nest of yours.’
‘I won’t be hounded out of my flat like that, Bish.’
‘You are not going back there. You are shacking up here tonight. Sleep on the mattress, or go to your friends’. No, I will take you there myself. They should know about it.’ Leaving his hotty hotty, Bish took me to the Sub in a cab.
When Tariq heard my story, he went and knocked on every door in the house. Within minutes his room was full of shocked faces.
‘English women. Trouble from start to finish. Not worth it. Forget it.’ Tariq voiced the general consensus.
‘But we are going to get married, you idiot.’
‘Marriage?’ cried the room in unanimous disapproval. My friends had abandoned me.
‘Thank you for your support.’ My cheeks throbbing, I stood up. I would handle whatever came, myself.
‘That all you men say to this boy? Shame on you. Collective shame. A heap of it,’ Mrs Melaram said. ‘The girl, though English, is a lovely person. Raavi-ji, get married as soon as she comes back. When done is done, what can the father do? He will have to accept.’
‘They won’t bother you for the moment. Having told you what they wanted to do, they must be thinking they have scared you off. They’ll now wait till she’s back,’ thoughtful Melaram said.
‘But to be on the safe side…’ Tariq and Walia made a plan. Both had their holiday leave pending. They would take time off. I was to let myself be followed around or whatever, and one of them would shadow the men to find out who they were.
‘Raavi, you’ll have to tell Jane what’s what when she gets back. She ought to know what’s going on,’ Mrs Melaram said.
That I could not do. Jane would confront her father like a tempest and then anything could happen. I knew the daughter as I knew the father.
That Jane had gone to another country mattered. It made my days long, the nights longer even though we did not meet all the time. A strange thing happened. Whichever way I looked, I saw her. Every girl of her age and height made me think I was seeing Jane. It was absurd. It was mad. But there you are.
My boss asked me to accompany him to see Mr Issmith about another business brainwave he had. I welcomed the idea. It meant I wouldn’t be alone in the afternoon. ‘I want movement. Forward movement,’ he said. I was his ‘mouth man’ for it.
The bank closed at 3.30. His appointment was for 3.15pm. We could have walked, but Mr Swami hailed a cab, saying, ‘Must arrive in isstyle at the bank. You get better treatment.’
We arrived within minutes, but Mr Smith saw us straight away. He looked to be his usual warm self. He congratulated us on the spectacular success of Number Two and was interested in the boss’s ‘forward movement’. Mr Swami let me do all the talking.
‘Jolly good meeting,’ he said when we came out. Then he asked me walk him home. He wanted to have a nap.
‘Sir?’ I had never know him to have naps.
‘After, I feel fresh like a cucumber. Then,’ We were crossing the main road. A titsy girl in black skintight PVC gear was walking past. The girl was checking me over. Gokul Swami saw her do that. ‘Then.’ He held my gaze so that I wouldn’t look at the girl. Why? I didn’t know – there were so many things I didn’t know about him. Mr Swami could not finish what he was saying, for just then a car raced past, throwing us flat on our faces. Another car screeched to a halt ten feet from us. All this happened in a split second, draping my brain with the blanket of instant blackness. I knew I was still alive, but I knew nothing else.
‘Are you all right?’ voices asked. The driver of the car which had stopped, be
nt over me. There were other faces. I heard voices saying, ‘A lucky escape. Mad driver. Bloody lunatic.’ Then it all came back to me. I was all right. Only my left hand throbbed with pain – it had been hit by the Wing mirror of the speeding car. But my boss?
‘Mr Swami. Mr Swami. Speak to me, sir.’ There was no blood or any other sign of serious injury. But Mr Swami lay unmoving on the side of the busy road. More faces materialised, all wanting to know if he was dead or dying. The road had become a one-lane artery, choking the flow of traffic. Horns blared.
‘Could someone please help me move him to the pavement?’ I asked.
‘Please wait,’ said a woman. ‘Let me examine him. I am a doctor.’
I feared the worst had happened that it was all over for my boss. I felt crushed by a mountain of guilt and wished I was dead too. Then I looked at him and jumped with joy. He was breathing, and breathing normally.
‘There are no fractures as far I can tell.’ We moved Mr Swami to the pavement and he opened his eyes. Then the boss sat up. He looked at me and beamed the famous Swami grin - and was I grateful for it? Oh Boy!
‘I think blind men should not be given driving licences, only white walking sticks. Queen should pass law tomorrow,’ he said, making people laugh and disperse. The lady doctor remained a minute. ‘Perhaps you should take him to the hospital for a check-up.’
‘No need, madam. I walking talking fit fiddle thank you.’ The kind lady left and we moved on. Mr Swami thumped me on the back and laughed. ‘It will take a juggernaut to flatten your Mr Isswami, not a Vauxhall. What?’
‘A Vauxhall? You sure, sir?’ I raised a hand to stop a taxi.
‘Why waste money? Less than half a mile.’
‘Sir, you’ve had a shock.’
‘Let us walk and issave half-crown. Already taken one taxi today.’
‘I’ll pay, sir.’
As I was paying the cabbie, we were seen getting out of the taxi from a first floor window. Telepathy, intuition, sixth sense or plain horse sense, call it what you will, it brought Sweetness running out to meet us. The house was full of ladies and children, who came hurrying in her wake.
Indian Magic Page 21