CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

‘MR JOHN!’

Only as he pushed open the door to the stairs did he realise the girl was sitting in the lobby. She was struggling to her feet.

‘You have read it all?’

‘I thought you’d gone to work,’ he says.

‘I lost my job when I was in hospital, Mr John. You have read the messages? I was waiting for you.’

‘Some,’ he says. ‘I’m going to my mother’s now.’

The girl’s eyes open wide. The head wobbles slightly. ‘Why? Why are you doing that?’

‘Is that Mr James?’

From a dark corridor behind him, the older of the hotel’s receptionists appeared. The owner quite probably. ‘Excuse me, Mr James.’

John turned. Fingering a necklace, the woman squeezed behind the desk and opened the big register. ‘You are being with us a week now, sir, I think. We ask payment by the week. How long are you planning to stay now?’

‘I don’t know.’ John hesitated. ‘A couple more days?’

The woman showed him a bill with 6,800 scribbled at the bottom. Rupees. John can’t calculate how much that is. His mind is not functioning. ‘There is also the breakfast,’ she says. ‘We have to insist on payment at the end of each week, sir. You understand.’ Beside her a phone began to ring. She picked it up. ‘Govind Hotel. Good afternoon.’

The Sikh girl has limped up behind John and touches his elbow. ‘Why are you going to your mother?’

‘I’ll pay this evening,’ John tells the receptionist as she puts a hand over the receiver. It has crossed his mind he must take cash out before giving them his credit card. He mustn’t be left without cash.

Jasmeet seems on the edge of hysteria. ‘You can’t go out in that dust. Haven’t you seen the storm, Mr John? You can’t.’

‘I have to see my mother.’

As he walked towards the door, she hobbled after him. ‘Mr John, don’t you like me?’ The stairwell is stifling. ‘Do stop, please! For the sake of your father!’

John turned and drew a deep breath. Jasmeet is standing a flight of steps above.

‘It’s not a question of liking,’ he said.

Seeing him undecided, she turned on a truly radiant smile and was hopping down towards him like a wounded bird, one hand pressed against the wall to keep her balance. There is no handrail. ‘You talk just like Albert,’ she said brightly, hopping and swaying. ‘You have the same voice.’

When she was beside him she stood and smiled; her teeth were brilliant; then reached out and straightened his tee-shirt. It had got hitched up on one side. Her wrists were slim in the glitter of a dozen coloured bracelets. Her fingers rested a moment on his chest.

‘I want to go to England. I have a passport and a visa. I have all my money. Let me travel with you.’

John turned away again and began to hurry down the stairs, but at once he slowed and let her catch up. ‘How come you had my father’s computer?’ he asked abruptly. Then it occurred to him he hadn’t even looked to see if there was any work in progress on the thing.

‘You have not read the last message?’ She held his arm to steady herself. ‘He told me to take it. He told me where he would leave it. He was dying. He didn’t want other people to see.’

‘So why did you bring it to me?’

She hesitated. ‘I need help, Mr John. Albert was always saying he would help me if I decided to leave. You are his son. I thought you would help.’

John shook his head. The girl is a distraction. The whole of India has been a terrible distraction from the work he should be doing. He must have it out with his mother and get back to London and to work.

Again John started down the stairs. She was hurrying after him. There are four stale, stifling floors, the stairway turning and turning past old brown doors, their feet clattering in the heat. At the bottom, at the end of a long corridor, a man in uniform was leaning against the wall. Seeing them hurry to the door, he said something to the girl in Hindi and she replied with a note of exasperation.

‘He says it is a bad storm.’

John pulled open the big door. As he stepped out into a gale of dust, he realised he had left his mobile in the room. He’ll miss Elaine’s messages. It doesn’t matter. Elaine too is a distraction. Only essentials matter. Only the coming collision. Behind him Jasmeet grabbed his shirt. ‘Mr John! Wait!’

In the street the dust came thickly in sharp dry gusts, then swirled and sifted like dark snow. He walked fast. There were moments when everything was brown and impenetrable, then the road reappeared with moving shadows of cycles and cars and rickshaws. John had almost reached the taxi stand when he remembered he needed cash. He needs a cash dispenser. He turned a corner and walked. Where did he get money last time? There was the usual cacophony of horns. A cow had sheltered behind a parked truck. Jasmeet was still limping behind, covering her face with her scarf. John can’t decide what to do about her. He cannot decide. Then a gust brought so much grit he found his mouth full of it and turned for shelter to a doorway. The wind was furious. He was grinding sand between his teeth. Jasmeet came, bent double, loose clothes flapping.

‘Come in here,’ she said. ‘Come in here, Mr John.’

It is some kind of eating place. A ceiling fan turned. There was a small old wooden counter and high shelves with tins and jars behind greasy glass: on every surface there are adverts that seem to have come out of the fifties for cigarettes and soft drinks. The tables were wooden and an elderly man was sitting reading a book.

‘Let’s stay here,’ Jasmeet said.

Trying to wipe the dust from his lips, John sat down. There was a crustiness round his nostrils and in the corners of his eyes. All in a minute’s walking. Beyond the tables, the floor rose a couple of steps and there were men sitting on the ground eating from the same large dish, talking quietly.

Jasmeet shook the dust from her scarf. The room was hot. The old wooden chairs are rickety. ‘It’s an Iranian place,’ she says in a low voice. ‘They will have nice cakes.’

John’s frustration is mounting. What on earth am I doing here? He wants resolution. Automatically, his hand moves for his phone and finds once again it isn’t there.

‘How can I help? Please?’ The old man scraped his chair and looked up over spectacles from his book. As he spoke, a dark shape whisked across the floor. It shot from beneath the counter and disappeared under shelves in the far corner.

‘We would like tea and cakes,’ Jasmeet says.

‘I have no money,’ John protests. He would rather have a Coke. He hasn’t had a Coke for weeks.

‘I can pay,’ Jasmeet smiles. ‘Don’t worry!’

Now the girl seems prim and pleased with herself. These shifts from anxiety to confidence are confusing John. Did the others see the rat or not? It was definitely a rat. He tries to focus on the girl as she folds her scarf around her hair again. They both have sand on their lips, round their nostrils.

‘Have you really left home?’ he asks.

The waiter, or perhaps proprietor, was getting to his feet. One of the men at the far end of the room came down towards the door, said a few words, looked out at the storm, grimaced and went back.

‘Yes. I told you.’

‘When?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘So where are you going to sleep?’

‘Last night I slept in the lobby of your hotel. I arrived very late.’

‘But why did you leave?’

‘You have read the messages. You will understand.’

John found it hard to match the girl in front of him with the writer of the emails. Jasmeet is looking at him eagerly, her mouth nervously alive, eyes bright.

‘I want to choose my life,’ she says. ‘You must understand that.’

‘You could go to Sudeep.’

She sat up dramatically. ‘Sudeep tried to kill me after what happened with Albert!’

‘He knows? Sudeep?’

‘Everybody knows! They were all jealous.’ Jasmeet giggles. ‘I could marry you, Mr John, and stay in London!’ She hesitates. ‘If I close my eyes when you speak it could be Albert.’

‘But Sudeep came to the funeral. He said nice things about my father.’

‘Sudeep said it was me killed him. It was my fault. I had destroyed a very great man. He loved Albert. He called me a bitch.’

John can’t think what to say. When the proprietor sets a tray on the table he feels ill. His bowels. Suddenly, he needs to go to the bathroom. The man smiled at Jasmeet who smiled prettily back and began to pour the tea into cracked cups from an elaborate china pot.

The girl drank and nibbled a rather dry cake, looking at him. Again she lowered her face to the food rather than bringing it up to her mouth. She dipped the cake in her tea and sucked it. She looks squirrelish. And she has an odd way of swaying slightly while she sits, as if moving to music that he can’t hear.

John needs the bathroom.

‘Albert was in love with me,’ Jasmeet eventually said. She still has food in her mouth. ‘But he kept saying it was a catastrophe. He kept drinking so much whisky. There was a big fight with me and Sudeep. He said he would kill me. The play was ruined. Everything cancelled. Maybe it is my fault. While my father was in London we went to the Neemrana. Albert took me. It was very exciting. Neemrana is a palace fort, on the road to Jaipur. I told you. There are pretty green birds and a swimming pool. The food is really too nice. And beautiful rooms with beautiful old furniture. Very old. Albert was so happy, he ate a lot, but also he kept saying it was a catastrophe. He kept drinking. He was ill.’

The girl sighed deeply. ‘I wanted Albert to take me to England. Nobody has ever been so nice to me. His voice was exactly like yours, Mr John. It was very beautiful to be with him. He talked about all the places we were going to go, then he said it was a catastrophe. It was a word he used so much.’

She paused.

‘Albert said he was sure we were going away, to live away together. He was happy. He was writing a letter to tell you about us. That we were going away. Then he could never finish this letter. He told me perhaps the letter was not for you. I was upset. He kept writing other things too. There was an old desk in our room. Albert couldn’t sleep. He was having strange dreams. He kept waking up. He was happy, he said, but he couldn’t sleep because of his dreams. He was trying to write them down.’

She stopped and reached a hand across the table. ‘Are you listening, Mr John?’

John looked up. The girl had a crumb at the corner of her lips. He was clenching his bowels.

‘So what else did you do? At this fortress place?’

‘There is a swimming pool there. We went for walks. Nearby there is an old step well. You know? It is very famous. It is like a big building upside down going down deep into the ground.’

John didn’t understand, but he was struck by the mistiness in her eyes. You couldn’t disbelieve her.

‘We walked down down down every flight of steps, it is a very deep well, holding hands. There are nine floors going down into the ground. Have you ever seen one? It is like a temple upside down. Very very ancient. You climb down. Nine floors. But at the bottom there is no water now. It’s an ancient well. Albert said it was like paradise.’ She hesitated, remembering. ‘He liked to hold my hand. He said he liked it very much.’

‘And?’ John was suffering. He needed bananas again. Not cake.

‘He liked to see me dance. I danced for him at the bottom of all the steps. By the well. There was no one. He said even if there was no water my body was liquid. Liquid like a snake.’ She laughed. ‘It was beautiful to feel him watching. He said beautiful things. He said he could hear the water in my dancing. It was like a dream.’

John really didn’t want to hear this. His father should have known better. ‘Wasn’t he ill? He must have been quite ill in November.’

She was picking up crumbs. ‘Not so much. Not so ill. He just had some pains.’

‘But, if …’

‘Albert was very happy and very …’ She sighed. ‘Maybe he thought of your mother. He had a sad destiny, I think. I don’t know how to say it.’

‘So why did you say you were responsible for his death?’

Jasmeet’s eyes clouded. ‘I left him, Mr John. I thought: this man cannot decide, he will never decide, he cannot even finish a letter. Soon my father will return from London. There will be hell to pay. One day there was a Sikh driver who was returning to Delhi and I asked him to take me back. I was avoiding the catastrophe.

‘Then after I came home and my father returned and Avinash was coming to eat with us, everything was horrible. It was horrible. They were telling me I must marry. I started to wish I had stayed with Albert. I thought, maybe after I had been away from him for so long, he would decide. He would understand now what he was losing. He had started to send me emails again. I thought it was a sign. He said he loved me. But you have read that on the computer.

‘So one day I decided to go to him and surprise him. I just wanted to see him too much. I couldn’t resist. I took the bus to the university. It was raining hard and I was in so much of a hurry to get off and run for some cover I didn’t see the motorbike. You know. Zoom. Bang. Then I was waking up in the hospital and I couldn’t see anyone for days. Now I will never dance again.’

Jasmeet paused and bit her lip. Speaking in a lower voice, she said, ‘I think Albert died of love for me.’

Only the acute discomfort in his midriff prevented John from bursting out laughing. ‘People don’t die of love, Jasmeet,’ he said. It’s the first time he has used her name. The absurdity of it cheered him up. ‘Particularly not a bumbling intellectual like my dad!’

The girl’s face darkened.

John leaned across the table through his pain. ‘You know Dad wrote that love was just a loaded word in a communication game. He didn’t believe in it.’

Jasmeet turned her chair away and sat very still. Then she looked at him over her shoulder. ‘Albert said I had changed everything in his life. He told me he would die of love. He wrote it in his last message. You will see it on the computer.’

‘More like he thought he would die of shame if my mother found out,’ John said brutally. He got to his feet. ‘I need the bathroom.’

Pushing aside the chair, John found it hard to stand up straight. The girl was upset. As he turned to ask the proprietor where the bathroom was, she just repeated: ‘Albert promised he would help me.’

‘I’m afraid there is no light in the toilet, sir,’ the proprietor said. His English was surprisingly superior. ‘I wouldn’t advise that you use it, sir. We have a little problem with the light.’

‘I really need to go,’ John said.

The man put his book down and smiled. ‘Well, at your own risk, sir. I’m afraid it is not a very gentlemanly bathroom and we have no light. I am waiting for the electrician to come and repair it. It is very old wiring, you know, in this part of Delhi.’

John’s stomach was groaning. It was a matter of seconds, he thought, and at the same moment he realised what a farce this was: his father’s ideas, this scene in the café. It was complete farce. And I left a serious job for this! Instead of working out how to trick a ribosome into sterility he himself had been tricked into a situation that was quite grotesque, and certainly sterile. His gut was screaming.

‘It is up the steps on the right,’ the proprietor said, still with a note of warning.

Forcing his bowels to hold fast, John walked stiffly to the back of the room. Up the two steps beyond the restaurant area everything was filthy and much hotter. The four men sitting on the floor appeared to be workers of some kind, unshaven, loosely turbaned. Perhaps they too had come in from the storm. They had finished eating and were talking quietly, drinking from bottles of orange soda. Beyond them the space split into dark corridors.

‘The toilet?’ John muttered, embarrassed.

‘Toilet?’ The men started to talk to each other in Hindi.

‘Not toilet,’ one of them shakes his head. He nods towards the blackness to John’s right. ‘Not use toilet.’ He pouts and makes discouraging signs with his arm. One of the other men is laughing.

‘There is a toilet, isn’t there?’

The man’s head wobbles apologetically as if to say, there is, but then again there isn’t. John can’t hold on. He heads to his right where the man pointed and after a few yards of deep shadow finds a door.

‘Sir!’

John turns. With absurdly grim faces all four men are shaking their heads.

The door is greasy, of black splintered wood with a hook latch that drops into a ring. John has no choice but to lift it and wrench the door open. As he does so he releases the most fetid stink imaginable. It seems impossible he didn’t notice it the moment he entered the café.

His bowels won’t hold. They had accepted to wait on the understanding that it was a matter of minutes, then of seconds. They have convinced themselves release is imminent. As he opens the door he feels a rush of pressure beyond resistance. The men behind are laughing. The smell is coming from pitch blackness. There is not the faintest glimmer. Automatically, his hand reaches to the wall for a switch and amazingly finds it at once. But clicking brings no change. What if the blackness is simply a hole? Some kind of pit? It might be vast or tiny. He will fall into filth. Talk about catastrophe. But he has to shit now! There’s no going back. He takes one step, gets behind the door and pulls it to. If there’s a latch this side he doesn’t bother with it.

There’s no time. The stench is overwhelming. Likewise the heat. There’s a scuttling noise. His right hand feels at knee level for a seat. There’s nothing. Don’t breathe. Now he’s leaning with his forehead pressed against the door. Otherwise he might lose all sense of orientation. He unbuckles his jeans, thrusts them down, crouches, craps violently, liquidly, Christ, hoping he has got his arse beyond his jeans, beyond his feet. He gasps for breath. There’s more. He’s crouching, one hand on the door, shivering, bowels burning, cold sweat starting out on his neck and temples.

And there’s no paper. John feels so angry. Why was he tricked into coming here? First the storm, then this awful place. Perhaps there is a hose and tap somewhere, or a bucket. He can wash. But how, when he can’t see? He can’t just pull up his jeans. He’s filthy.

The smell makes him want to vomit. Again he’s aware of a scuttling sound. If I fainted, I could be devoured by rats. He’s panicking. It’s a nightmare. This is something to wake up from. Blessed or cursed with dreams of water. Hand in hand down to a dry well. I could die here! John says through clenched teeth. He wants to scream. There had been shit floating in the water with his father’s coffin. He remembers the scene vividly now. The coffin was bumping about in water and shit. In a place like this, then. He crouches in the pitch dark, waiting to wake up, waiting for it all to dissolve. At least his bowels are relaxing.

Then he has the solution. Yes. I’m not stupid. Not for nothing the PhD. Now. He stands, slips one foot out of a sandal, balances precariously on the other leg – hard in complete darkness – slips jeans and underpants off the leg, then the jeans back on, then the sandal. There’s something slimy on the sandal. He’s breathing deeply now, however horrible the air. Now there’s definitely the sound of a creature. It doesn’t matter. This is the only solution. He repeats the rigmarole with the other leg. Jeans leg and underpants off, jeans back on. Symmetry. Balance! God knows what his jeans may have picked up touching the floor but now he has his underpants free and clean in his hand. Where’s the sandal gone? For a moment his toe touches the damp floor. Please, the sandal! There. He can wipe himself with his underpants.

John works out that if he folds them carefully, he can have three attempts. He’s regained some composure. He works quickly but carefully, trying not to touch the shit. Never again. When he’s done as much as he can, he tosses the pants away into the blackness – God knows what’s there, he hates India – and pulls up his jeans. As he does so, something runs over his foot, over the top of his sandalled foot, which automatically kicks out, stubbing his toe into the door. Oh Christ! There so much pain in the body just waiting to be unleashed. He almost falls, clutching at the door, picking up a splinter on the old wood. Definitely a splinter. But he’s done it now. He’s done it, he’s okay, and he’s going to his mother’s and then straight back to England. Straight back.

A moment later, when John emerges from the door and confronts the four men, he has a determined smile on his face, albeit grim. The men smile back. The proprietor looks up with curiosity from his book. Jasmeet asks: ‘Are you all right, Mr John? You are pale.’

‘We need a taxi,’ John says.